“Yeah,” I whispered, knowing it was the truth. “I still want to make sure he’s eating, you know how he gets. Especially when I’m not there. He drowns himself in work.”
“Skyler Bell, this is your moment to shine. He’s a grown-ass man, and if he wanted to see you, he knows it only takes one phone call to me, and I’d have him on the next flight out here. I used to do it for your mom all the time, it was never an issue. Besides”—he smiled—“there was a birthday cake for you on set, and you even got some gifts. It wasn’t that terrible of a day.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, glaring. “Lola gave me the same gift bag that’s in all of our trailers.”
He laughed, “Well, now you have two expensive bags full of shit.”
I chuckled, I couldn’t help it. He always knew how to talk me down. So I simply replied with the truth, “I just miss home.”
He leisurely nodded, taking me in for a second. “This is new, Sky. You never miss home this much. Something you’re not telling me?”
“No,” I lied. He wouldn’t understand. I barely understood my relationship with Noah.
We still talked, texted, and emailed, but with my demanding schedule and his challenging life, our conversations were becoming less and less. Noah wasn’t a huge phone talker to begin with. He was better at email and texting, though for some reason, those felt less personal to me. I could never judge his tone via writing, and never truly knew what he was really feeling. Plus, I had to find the time to write him back which was always a few days later. Neither one of us brought up our last encounter, when I was going to skip town without saying goodbye. I think he was saving it for when we saw each other again.
“We’re friends, Noah. You’re my friend, I’m yours. It needs to stay that way, so please don’t wait for me. You need to go about your normal life while I’m gone. I don’t want to be worrying about you.”
That didn’t stop the words I had said to him that day from replaying often in my mind, mostly when I was alone with my thoughts. Always seeing his face looking back at me with so much pain, it hurt my soul. He didn’t keep me up to date with his life. I couldn’t tell if it was because he thought I was genuinely ashamed of him, or if it was just too painful for him to discuss the traitorous acts and betrayal. Either way it sucked. I hated the distance that seemed to be growing between us. Getting bigger as the days went on.
I missed him.
I missed him more than I could have ever imagined.
“You have ten minutes until you’re needed in makeup again,” Keith prompted, pulling me away from my hounding thoughts. “Feeling better?”
I nodded.
“Good. I’m going to make a few calls. I’ll see you on set.” He stood and left.
The second he closed the door to my trailer, I pulled out my phone wanting, needing to talk to Noah. Longing to hear his voice, knowing it would ease the worry in my mind.
“Shit,” I breathed out. Noticing there were four missed calls from him, he never called back to back like that. The unease in my stomach intensified as I instantly returned his call. It rang four times and went straight to voicemail. I hung up and called three more times, my anxiety radiating with each ring on the other line.
“You reached Noah, you know what to do,” his voicemail beeped.
“Hey, ummm… I just saw that you called a few times earlier, and I’m worried about you. I hope everything is okay. I uh… I had a bad day, and I would love to be able to talk to you for a minute. But uh…”
The demanding knock on my trailer let me know that I had to get going.
“I just uh… I miss you, Noah. Hope we can talk soon.” I hung up, feeling like a piece of shit for not being there for him when he obviously needed me.
Knowing he was going to feel the same when he saw my missed calls and listened to my voicemail, realizing…
I needed him too.
SIXTEEN
NOAH
My instincts and sensory perception kicked into overdrive, switching to high alert as my fist collided with Mateo’s face. His head whooshed back, taking half of his body with him, practically losing his footing. Blood splattered through the air between us, flinging in all directions as he staggered to remain upright.
“That’s right, boy! You show him what you’re fuckin’ made of!” Pops hollered, standing nearby with some brothers beside him.
Mateo snarled, charging me. Ramming his shoulder into my torso and taking me to the ground behind the clubhouse. My back skidded across the rough grass beneath me, rocks cutting into my bare skin.
“Gotcha, motherfucker,” he snarled, thinking he pulled a fucking fast one on me, but there was no element of surprise. I was prepared for his attack and instantly fought back.
Punching.
Kicking.
Blocking.
Using all of my strength to buck him off of me. The end goal was always the same, knock the opponent out before they knocked my lights out. This wasn’t my first fucking rodeo, not by a long shot. I was used to the pain that accompanied the victory. The challenge to succeed, to win at something in my life. Leaving me with all the power, control, and the will to keep going. I lived for moments like these. Even though they were wrong, they still felt so fucking right. At the end of the day it was all I had.
Violence on my mind.
Blood on my hands.
Scars on my body.
“Noah, you fuckin’ prospect! Get your head out of your fucking ass and put him to ground! Now!” Pops seethed, stirring my fury.
This motherfucker should’ve known better, stealing money from the club and thinking he could get away with it. No one ever got away with shit, but the truth was… it didn’t matter. He could be innocent, or he could be guilty, and I still would’ve had to fuck him up. Proving myself to my old man time and time again.
For what?
One fucking thing.
The peace fighting gave me.
It became my source of adrenaline, the air I had to have to keep breathing, my wants and needs. Silencing the memories I didn’t demand, and the future I couldn’t fucking stand. It was a vicious cycle I was wreaking havoc in, savoring every second of it while I could. Because deep down, my worst fear had become my reality—
I was just like my father, and he knew it too. We were one in the same. It’s why he kept using me to fight his battles. He was conscious of the fact I craved it—the blood, the glory, the calm before the storm—and he used it against me and to his advantage.
Right hook.
Left upper cut.
Right hook again.
Mateo and I wrestled around for a few minutes, each of us trying to gain the upper hand on the other. Elbows, fists, and legs flew everywhere, intermingling together as we threw the fuck down. I hit him in the gut, causing him to fall to the side in pain, and used the momentum from my punch to flip him over onto the concrete patio, locking him in with my weight. He immediately guarded his face, but he was fucked… I preferred laying into an opponent’s body. It was easier to take someone down when they couldn’t fucking stand to begin with. I struck him in the ribs, the stomach, getting a few good hits to his chest.
“Prospect, what dafuq is this? You tryin’ to piss me the fuck off?!” Pops raged with the same cold and detached tone.
But my desolate, brazen eyes never wavered far from the man I was fucking up. My chest heaved and my nostrils flared, looking like a rabid fucking dog with a mixture of our blood and sweat slithering down my face and body. Mateo’s battered frame rolled on the ground, recoiling from my brutal and malicious assault. I didn’t stop, I never could. Blinking away the haze, sweat, and blood gushing from the severe gash above my left brow, I went full force into laying him the fuck out.
Pops’ voice started to sound muffled as he repeated, “Do it, boy! Do it now!” and everything around me started to fade away till it disappeared. Exactly the way it always did when I was fighting. It was just Mateo and me, where nothing else mattered but the freedom from bein
g buried alive.
Fight or die…
Fight or die…
Fight or die…
With every ounce of drive I had in me, I gripped onto Mateo’s head, following the evil that lived inside of me.
My father.
And I savagely slammed his head onto the concrete ground.
Crack.
Blood and brains splattered and gushed everywhere.
Lights fucking out.
Game fucking over.
I won.
Making him, Mateo, my first…
Kill.
The rest of the night went by in a blur. I was there, but I wasn’t. My mind was still in kill or be killed mode, and that never happened in the aftermath. Each time I blinked something else was going down in front of me.
Blink.
Pops handing me money.
Blink.
The brothers congratulating me.
Blink.
Women and music everywhere.
Blink.
Drugs and booze in front of my eyes .
Blink.
I snorted another line.
Blink.
Grabbing a bottle of Jack from the bar.
Blink.
I was on my bike.
Blink.
The wind on my bloodied face, the breeze on my raw knuckles, the river right ahead of me.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Now, I was hallucinating because my girl, who still haunted my dreams, was staring right at me. Opening my eyes to yet another one of my worst fears, she was witnessing the man I was destined to be. The one I became. After she left me…
Over two years ago.
SKYLER
Neither one of us said a word, not one damn word for I don’t know how long. I could barely form any thoughts, let alone words. Even with the soft lighting shining from the lamp post near the bridge, I could still see his bloody, bruised face and body. The deep cut above his eye with fresh blood seeping out. The five o’clock shadow taking over his masculine jawline, and the way his wavy, distressed hair moved in the breeze. It was much longer than I remembered, slightly hanging in his face, inhibiting me from seeing his blue-green eyes that I yearned for so much.
My boy was gone, and in his place stood a hardened man on a motorcycle with intricate tattoos on his arms, along his neck, down his legs and I knew more ink had to be covering his chest and back. He was wearing a black leather vest that said Prospect, Devil’s Rejects embroidered on it with several patches stitched all over.
When did he join?
My eyes shifted from one place to another, trying to take it all in. Take him all in. Noah was always tall and bulky for his age, but now he was almost seventeen-years-old and he looked so much older, broader, muscular. His arms and chest were chiseled and defined, exuding dominance. If I thought he towered over me before then, now he would consume me, and I meant that in every sense of the word.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I longingly stared back up at him, needing to look into his eyes. See the boy I missed with all my heart and soul. Instantly noticing his intense stare never lingered from my face, almost like he thought I was just a figment of his imagination.
I wasn’t.
I was there.
Here.
Finally.
With him.
“Noah,” I coaxed in a tortured, thick tone, showing him every emotion inside of me.
With wild, dark, dilated eyes he shook his head. “You ain’t real.”
I winced, frowning. My heart breaking for him, little by little, inch by inch, until my feet started shuffling forward on their own accord toward him.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t flinch.
I don’t even think he was breathing.
Our profound, deep gazes never wavered from each other, our connection pulling me closer to his sadness and despair. Not thinking twice about it, I reached up to caress the uninjured side of his face with the backs of my fingers. Needing him to feel me.
“Skyler,” he murmured so low, replicating the tone in my voice.
I nodded, smiling. Trying to hold back the tears. “Yeah, Rebel. It’s me, I’m here.”
He jerked back with watery eyes, and the next thing I knew, I was gasping. My body colliding with his chest as he pulled me toward him. His arms wrapped around me so tight, so warm, so everything. I swallowed hard, hugging him back just as firm, just as sturdy. Inhaling his scent, feeling his sorrow, battling his demons for him.
Snapping out of whatever was holding him down, he muttered, “I missed you. I missed ya so fuckin’ much,” into the side of my neck.
“Me too, me too,” I repeated with tears slowly falling out of my eyes. “So much.”
“Fuck.” He shook his head, pulling away from me. “I’m gettin’ blood all over you.”
I threw myself on him, bringing his love back toward me. “I don’t care. I don’t care, Noah. Just hold me, please… just for a little while. I just want you to hold me. Don’t let me go. Please… just don’t let me go.”
He didn’t have to be told twice, he held me like his best friend, his only friend. Like I was home, like he was my home. I couldn’t remember the last time someone just held me, just curled me against them. I didn’t realize how much I needed it, needed him, until right then, until that very moment. Where nothing else mattered but his arms around me, where we were in our own little world, just the two of us.
Noah and Skyler.
Rebel and Cutie.
Lost boy and found girl.
Where I wanted to stay, for who knows…
How long this time.
SEVENTEEN
SKYLER
I walked into an old rundown warehouse on Clark Street that had been turned into a boxing gym just after noon. It was a huge, wide-open space with white industrial ceilings and fluorescent lighting buzzing overhead. Though that wasn’t what caught my attention the most. It was the large boxing ring in the middle of the place, reminding me of the movie Rocky. I couldn’t help but look around the vast room as I made my way further in, inhaling the smell of disinfectant and sweat.
My fingers lightly skimmed the rusty, well-used workout equipment that lined the old brick walls, picturing Noah all sweaty, lifting weights. Hoping he wouldn’t catch me thinking about the way his muscles flexed with each rep, before I even saw him that day. I’d been home for over three months, and we’d been spending every single day together, making up for lost time.
I never imagined my movie Chicago would run another two months late, and by the time it finally hit theatres across the world, I was beyond exhausted. I spent weeks catching up on sleep at Keith’s L.A. home, and reading every last review that was published in magazines or on the Internet. Never expecting the amount of success it would bring into my life. I didn’t even have time to dwell on my television show being canceled, because I was thrown into a whirlwind of auditions, interviews, and paparazzi. Directors, producers, screen writers, everyone came out of the woodwork asking me to read their scripts for roles that they always insisted were only made for me.
In the last year alone, I’d been on every magazine cover from Vogue to People to Entertainment Weekly. Jumping headfirst into another movie where I was the lead actress, acting alongside Hollywood’s elite. But thank God that movie didn’t run over the scheduled six months of production. The New Yorker had proclaimed it one of the best movies of the year, stating I was the reason. Declaring me a natural born talent. Claiming I was ahead of my generation.
Keith’s phone never stopped ringing, blowing up with inquiries, interviews, and movie deals, but he was well aware I needed a break. Not worried in the least I’d be forgotten if I came home for a minute, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t either. Of course it lingered in the back of my mind. I’d worked so hard to get where I was in this hardcore industry, and I didn’t want to lose it. Keith reassured me that I wouldn’t, and he scheduled photoshoots, interviews
, and small press stuff that I could do from home instead. Insisting it was the right decision for me.
“Skyler, you’ve been going full force for over two years, you need a break. Go home, spend some time with your dad. I’ve only flown him out here three times since you’ve been gone. Maybe make some friends. Just take a breather, and for fuck’s sake, get some sleep,” Keith suggested, smiling at me with a sincere expression on his face.
“You know I want to go home more than anything, but I don’t want to jeopardize my career. I love what I do, my fans mean everything to me. I just want to perform, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“I know that more than anyone. Please let me take care of you. It’s my job to look after you, Skyler. I don’t want you to burn out. Besides, most of the new scripts coming in are for next year. It’s a good time for you to go home.”
I wanted to argue with him, but I wanted to see Noah more.
Noah Jameson.
My lost boy who never strayed far from my mind. On set, I always pictured it was him I was kissing, touching, being intimate with during those type of scenes. For some reason, it made it easier for me to envision his face, his hands touching me, his lips on mine. Our phone calls became less and less, more voicemails than anything else. Our emails were few and far between, most of them going unanswered. We were both too busy. I was caught up in the limelight, and he was doing God knows what.
My heart was in my throat the entire private flight home, I didn’t even tell Noah I was coming back. Terrified he wouldn’t care, or he wouldn’t believe me. Adding to the countless times I told him I’d be home soon, only to end up disappointing him. I couldn’t wait to get back to him and my dad, finally sleep in my own bed versus the hotels and trailers I’d been living in.
I’d spent the whole day with my dad, catching him up on life. Finding out how he’d been living these last two years without me. He had an arsenal of magazines with my face on them, bragging to everyone I was his daughter. He was so proud of who I’d become.
I’d tried to stay in the moment with him, but my mind still wouldn’t stray far from Noah and wanting, needing to see him. As soon as my dad left for work that night, I’d jumped into my rental car and drove to the river, praying he’d be there. I must have waited for hours, thinking every sound, every car, every light was him. But he never came. Just as I was about to give up and call him, search the streets if I had to, I’d heard a loud rumble of a motorcycle, and I just knew…