Hammers & Heartstrings (The Riley Siblings #3)

3. Noah

Chapter Three

NOAH

I check my phone for the umpteenth time and scowl when it only says 7:41pm.

I’ve been teetering between giddy schoolgirl and nervous disaster all day, and this last hour has been downright brutal.

I changed my clothes about thirty times, showered twice, barely refrained from texting Aggie every five minutes, and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.

At least I’m not drinking.

Between the lack of food and the fact that I haven’t even taken so much as a cough drop in almost four years, I’d be hammered from just one sip.

Something I’m damn proud of by the way.

Except, right now I kind of wish I had some sort of way to take the edge off.

I’m fucking dreading this party.

I don’t want to go, don’t want to hang out with my bandmates of almost seventeen years who are little more than strangers at this point. I don’t want to be around booze and drugs, don’t want to be around the groupies who want a shot at any member of Bleak December purely for bragging rights. I don’t want to kiss the record labels ass or schmooze anyone the way Grady expects me to, and I really don’t want to be around that guy for any period of time at all.

I do want to hang out with Aggie, though.

Especially since it’s been forever since her and I did something just the two of us.

Most of our hanging out over the last four years has included Clover and while I wouldn’t change that for anything, I’ve really missed my kitten.

Agatha Faye Riley has been my best friend since first grade. We’ve been through everything together, literally everything imaginable; some good, a lot bad, and most getting better.

She was my first everything .

First friend when I moved to Georgia after my dad left.

First person to bring me home to her family and welcome me with open arms despite how poor my mom was, despite having to move in with my pop just to make ends meet.

She was my first crush.

First kiss.

She was my first kiss both when we were nine and curious what all the fuss was about, and again when we were seventeen and horny, still virgins and willing to explore the spark that’s always been between us.

First girl I saw naked in the flesh, first girl I’d ever had sex with, first girl I slept with on a regular basis.

Aggie took my virginity and I took hers when we were almost eighteen, the summer between junior and senior year of high school, the summer I convinced my family to follow hers to Florida because I didn’t want to be that far from her.

Neither one of us dated anyone else after that, just snuck around and screwed like the horny teenagers we were, but we never put a label on it. We kept it that way until we graduated, too, but when Aggie decided to move to New Orleans in order to try to apprentice at a tattoo shop out that way, everything changed.

My band had just started to build up steam, had just started to get noticed and when I didn’t go with her like we’d always talked about, I honestly thought I lost my best friend.

I knew she had feelings for me.

I wasn’t blind.

I was her first everything too, but I wasn’t ready to commit to her, to commit to anything other than making my band into something amazing so I could break away from the life of poverty I’d been living. So I could make something of myself and take care of my mom and pop.

We kept in touch, but it wasn’t the same. I could feel Aggie pulling away from me, felt her slipping through my fingers. Then my band blew up, got discovered and signed a three-record deal with an indie label that just so happened to be out of New Orleans. And I jumped at the chance to live close to her again.

But just after we rekindled our friendship, started really talking again and making plans like we used to, my mom got sick.

Aggie was there for me every step of the way, right up until my mom passed and she even stuck around while I mourned myself into a hole so deep I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. And because I was a bona fide rockstar by that time, I did what they do and drowned my sorrow in sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.

I was a full-blown alcoholic and heroin addict by the time I turned twenty-five, couldn’t keep track of all the women I’d slept with, and once again, I almost lost my best friend because of it.

Aggie didn’t walk away from me, though, not completely. She established boundaries and rules, wouldn’t hang out with me if I was fucked up, refused to come around if my band or groupies were at my house. It worked for a bit but then Aggie started seeing this guy seriously, started talking about marriage and shit and I spiraled out of control completely. I disregarded everything she asked of me until I was fucked up every second I was awake, the icing on the cake being when Pop passed when I was twenty-seven.

Shit went to hell after that.

I was in and out of the news, in and out of jail and rehab. I stopped talking to Aggie altogether when she got engaged, then dove headfirst into my addictions.

It wasn’t until I overdosed that I started to think I had a problem and when I did, fuck , everything became crystal clear.

I was in love with my best friend and had proceeded to shit all over her for years, constantly put her in horrible situations and took advantage of how she felt about me, all while ignoring her feelings completely.

I was blind then.

Blind to everything that was right in front of me and while I wanted desperately to make it better, to change it and start the life I’d always wanted with the girl who’s owned my heart since we were six, my addiction had its claws in me so deep that I couldn’t get my act together.

And when I found out everything about Aggie’s fiancé, found out what was going on behind closed doors, I lost my shit completely.

Which was just one of the many horrible things that would happen to my best friend because she didn’t have anyone there to protect her. Shit, that happened to Aggie because I was too selfish and too far gone to protect her the way I always had.

I was the first guy to break her heart and the first guy to fail her, over and over again.

I walked away from her when she offered me forever.

I threw away years of friendship for a career that means nothing without my biggest supporter, without the one person who always pushed me to chase my dreams, the one person who believed in me no matter what by my side.

When I walked into a bathroom at one of the million parties I forced Aggie to go to before she put her foot down and saw Grady with his hands under her shirt, crowding her in the corner while she cried, I kicked his ass then lectured her about being smarter than to let that happen.

When I found out Manny was abusive, that he had been emotionally and mentally tearing her down the entire year after they got engaged and it got to the point where he actually swung on her before she left him, I took it out on her. I blamed Aggie and told her I couldn’t believe she was stupid enough to let that happen to her, too.

I put all the blame on her so I didn’t have to blame myself, because I did.

I still do.

We didn’t talk at all, per Aggie’s request, until almost six years ago.

One night, while I was high as a fucking kite and totally alone at home, Aggie blew my ass up for hours, but I missed every call and text because I damn near killed myself on accident.

Knox and Blake showed up at my front door the next morning, the two of them seeing fucking red and ready to kill me on purpose. And when I found out why, I wished they’d had.

Aggie had gotten jumped and almost raped the night before. She closed the shop on her own and since they’re open until midnight, it was late as fuck and some asshole got her walking out to her car. Thankfully, the owner of the store next to the shop was waiting for a delivery scheduled to come in around one or else there’s no telling what would have happened to my kitten. What would have happened because I didn’t answer her calls.

Did I do the right thing then? Finally see the light and decide to get my shit in order?

Nope.

Instead, I picked a fight with her brothers, the guys I’ve always considered my brothers, and said some horrible things I didn’t mean in the process, then doubled my efforts to send myself to an early grave.

It wasn’t until her dad died a few months later that I went crawling back on my hands and knees to the only woman I’ve ever loved and begged for forgiveness.

And because Aggie is a fucking saint, she gave it to me.

We spent a few days holed up at my house talking through everything that had happened, everything that changed between us, and by the time we were through, I had my best friend back.

Unfortunately, I was still in a band, and still a drug addict.

I hid my use from her every chance I got, made sure I was good if we were supposed to hang out, started shooting up in places that would be hidden while we were together. And because it’s what I do, I managed to fuck things up one more time before I finally stopped.

To summarize a long story that’s a part of a much longer one, I drunk dialed Aggie, blabbered on about my feelings for her, begged for a chance to make something work between us and when she told me it was too late for something like that, saying we shouldn’t even talk about it while I wasn’t sober, I went on the bender to end all benders, made a bad choice and knocked up Clover’s bio-mom.

She was a groupie and fellow drug addict who hung around my bandmates and since I was heartbroken and fucked up, I went to Kyle’s—my lead singer—proceeded to get even more fucked up and wound up using a broken rubber on the first willing participant.

Five and a half months later, the same groupie shows up at my front door pregnant as fuck, demanding child support.

And because I’m an asshole, I called Aggie after barely talking to her for months, freaked out and pleaded with her to help me.

Which she did.

Aggie called my lawyer, filed for the paternity test and dropped my ass off at a ninety-day rehab facility. She’s also the one who got child services involved, helped me make sure I kept my parental rights intact while I went through treatment, made sure home checks were done on Clover’s bio-mom and picked me up to take me to the hospital when my peanut was born because I’d extended my stay in rehab.

When I was out of inpatient, I started outpatient and had supervised visits with Clover, Aggie acting as a mediator of sorts, for the first six months. Then one day we go to our designated meeting area and Clover’s mom was a no show. After trying to get a hold of her for hours, the court sent someone to check on them and fuck, I will never forget that phone call.

Her mom had overdosed two days before we were supposed to meet. Two fucking days . My baby was all alone, soaked and screaming, sick and terrified when they pulled her out of that shithole apartment, and that was enough for me to keep my shit straight.

Basically, since then, it’s been me, Aggie and Clover, and that’s how I want it to be forever.

I’m just worried I’ve done too much damage, hurt my kitten too badly too many times for her to ever truly forgive me, to ever give me a chance to be what she wanted me to be all those years ago.

And now, now she’s moving into my house to take care of my baby, to be here every minute with us the way she was always meant to be.

Asking Aggie to help me with Clover wasn’t just for my peanut, it was for me too because while I know our friendship is better than it’s ever been; I want more.

I’ve wanted more since before I could acknowledge it and now is the time for me to try to make that happen.

I have one chance at this, one chance at the future I can’t picture without Aggie. I want the forever she offered me when we were kids, the one that means she’d be my best friend, my wife, the mother of my children until we’re old and senile. I don’t want that with anyone else and despite how selfish it might seem, it’s exactly why I formed a plan that includes sharing a roof for the foreseeable future.

If Aggie can see first-hand, day in and day out, that I’ve changed, see the man I am now, the one I’m trying desperately to be, she’ll see how much I love her, how much I need her and how Clover feels the same. She’s the other piece of our puzzle and it won’t be complete until Aggie is mine forever.

And that, my friends, is why every song I’ve ever written is about Agatha Faye Riley, our sordid love story that could end in tragedy just as easily as it could end in a happily ever after.

Here’s hoping I don’t puke before I pick her up.