All this time he’d thought he understood about love, about loss. How had he been so wrong?
∞∞∞
The drive back to New York was over too quickly, with Callie silently lamenting every mile that brought them closer to the end. There was no traffic, and Noah was still lost in thought, the ghost of his father’s words flickering in his eyes like some kind of mirage. Callie turned up the music on her road trip playlist and watched the exit signs on the highway fly by.
Noah turned his Toyota into the driveway of Callie’s condo and helped her bring her bags in, but he didn’t venture further than a few steps beyond the front door.
“When do you leave?” she asked him. Wolf had caught him as they’d left The Barclay, rattling off instructions, but Callie had already been in the car. She’d watched through the passenger side window as Noah shook Wolf’s hand, a vacant look on his face.
“The day after tomorrow. The senator is going to join Congressman Carmichael for an appearance in New Hampshire. I’ll join the rest of the film crew there.”
Callie stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her forehead on his chest, afraid to meet his eyes. He enveloped her in his sage and leather scent, resting his chin on the top of her head.
“I meant what I said, Calico. Every word.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll call you.” He pressed his lips to her temple.
“I’ll answer,” she promised.
And then he was gone.
Callie went about the business of unpacking, refusing to crumble under the crushing weight of letting him go. As she loaded the laundry into the machine and measured out the soap, she told herself there was no point in wondering if she’d made the right choice. In two days, he’d be in New Hampshire, living his dream, and she would go back to work at the library.
She added the shiny metal plug he’d bought her to the gift bag with her lingerie, the tags still on, and put it carefully at the back of her closet where it couldn’t ambush her with memories of the best week of her life. A girl had to be prepared for that kind of walk down memory lane, defenses in place, so she wouldn’t be tempted to change her mind, to tell him that yes, she wanted to be his girlfriend, distance be damned. As his father had written, this was Noah’s time to fly, and she refused to clip his wings.
It was the book that finally broke her from her trance. From the bottom of her suitcase, the glossy red cover with its gold script stared back at her. She clutched it to her chest and slid to the floor beside her bed, leaning against her bedside table, and cried the kind of wracking sobs that left her throat raw and her cheeks red for hours after the last tear had fallen.
In the middle of the night, Callie sat bolt upright in bed and flipped on the light on her bedside table. She fumbled through the top drawer of the table, tossing aside vibrators and half-used tubes of lip balm until she found a small sheet music manuscript book at the very bottom. With a fervor she hadn’t felt in years, she scribbled out the melody for the final movement of her unfinished sonata.
When she was done, she flipped back to the front of the book, humming through the first two movements, running her fingers over the faded marks and hurried notes in the margins, things she jotted down during those phone calls with Noah all those years ago. Things like, “feel the current” and “explore the edges of emotion” alongside his more technical pointers on rhythm and meter. When she’d dropped music as her second major, she’d never thought to finish the piece, but she also hadn’t been able to part with it. She added new notes as she went, scribbling additional bars of music in the margins and hearing the music in her mind as she did. Images of the last week flitted past her eyes like a movie played on an old projector as she worked.
She’d still need to tweak the modulation in the second movement, and the final cadence was still eluding her, but she knew she’d find it. It was like she’d been hearing these melodies at the back of her mind all her life, low like the distant crash of the waves from their hotel room in Aster Bay, a song so ever-present she’d almost forgotten it was there. But now it was roaring through her, like the music was in her very bloodstream. Ignoring it now would be like trying to silence the ocean.
It wasn’t technically perfect but, for the first time, it captured the feeling she’d been unable to invoke all those years ago—which, she supposed, made sense. After all, she didn’t know what it was to wake up in Noah’s arms until a week ago. She’d had no idea how much more she could love him; not the infatuation she’d mistaken for love as a teenager, but this bone deep realization that her heart would always search for him. How could she put emotion like that on the page when she hadn’t felt it yet, when she hadn’t known how wonderful it would be to have him love her in return? Or how badly she’d wish she didn’t have to let him go?
Chapter 27
Noah sat at the back of yet another hotel ballroom listening to Senator Thorne give the same speech for the ninth time in two days. He scrubbed his hand over his face to cover his yawn and checked his phone for the hundredth time. Not that he expected Callie to have called or texted, but he couldn’t help but hope.
He’d called her twice in the last week, and both calls had been painfully awkward. She’d told him about the Fall Into Reading costume party she was planning at the library and he’d complained about the shitty continental breakfasts put out for the campaign staff and film crew. And after that, there had been nothing left to say that hadn’t already been said as they both avoided yet another rehash of their circumstances. She refused to “be a distraction” and he refused to even entertain the idea that it was over, so they were locked in a stalemate that tore at his heart like a physical ache all the damn time.
When he wasn’t obsessing about Callie, he was replaying his father’s letter over and over.
Do things that scare you.
Never shy away from an adventure.
“I’m trying, Dad,” he mumbled to himself. But he was also a man of his word, someone who prided himself on being dependable, true to his commitments. If he could just get a few minutes with the senator, he knew he could find a way to be both. But he was running out of time.
His phone rang and he startled, the heavy metal version of ABBA’sTake A Chancedrawing glares from across the room. He quickly silenced the phone as a campaign aide shot him a dirty look. Holding up the phone with a grimace, Noah gestured to the doors behind him, practically sprinting for the exit. Outside on the sidewalk, he answered.
“Did you change my ringtone?” he asked.
Liv laughed on the other end of the phone. “That was all Daemon. Pay back, big brother. Are you really just hearing it now? He did that at least a week ago.”
“My phone’s been on vibrate.”
