Page 37 of Love Out Loud

Chapter 14

Lennon

“I thought I might find you here.” Noah’s muffled voice cuts through my music just before he appears over me. I take my earbuds out and wince as the hard rock I had been ruining my eardrums with becomes a tinny sound I’m sure we can both hear. I tap my phone to turn it off and look up at him under the barbell that’s on the rack above my head.

“Spot me?” I ask. He steps closer to my head and gets into position. I lift the barbell, grunting at the weight I’ve loaded it with. I lower it slowly toward my chest, then exhale in a whoosh as I press it up again. I make it about six reps before I have to rack the weight.

Noah eyes the plates I’ve stacked on either side of the barbell, and I can see him adding them up in his head. “Are you punishing yourself for something specific or just in general?” he asks as I sit up and rest my forearms on my knees.

My chest rises and falls quickly. I pull up the neck of my sleeveless shirt to wipe my face and grab my water bottle, shooting him a sidelong glance. He’s in his normal weekday workwear—a button-up shirt and jeans—so he clearly walked over here during a break in recording. This morning, I set up everything at the studio and then turned it over to Noah’s intern and got out of there as fast as I could. On a big project like this, I should probably be manning the recording booth, but there’s no way I could listen to Lark read the same words she was taunting me with on the beach last night in real time. Noah had agreed to let the intern handle it since I’m doing the final edits, so I ran a few errands to kill some time.

Unfortunately, it didn’t kill nearly enough, and even my deep-breathing exercises didn’t take the edge off. So, I walked to the gym and decided the best way to stop thinking about her flushed cheeks and soft, parted lips as I completely and thoroughly crossed a line last night was to load up as much weight as I could.

I take a quick drink from my water bottle and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “How’s Lark doing?”

I know full well I’m avoiding his question. The truth is, since high school, Lark has always been one of the first people I think about when I wake up, and the last person I think about before falling asleep. When she started dating Richard, I tamped down those feelings. Or at least, I thought I did. Until last night. I am probably punishing myself for how far I let myself go. What was I thinking, whispering about the type of lover I am? And I won’t even let myself pretend I was speaking generally. Her sea-salted ankles were calling to me as I talked about kissing the insides of them all the way up to her inner thighs…

“She’s a fucking natural.” Noah thankfully saves me from that train of thought. His grin is about a mile wide, and he ticks an eyebrow up. “You could come back to listen.”

I shake my head and take another sip of my water. The part of me that knows she’s just playing a character is not strong enough to drown out the part that is aroused by listening to Lark moan out full passages about a man’s cock and what it can do for her. I’m going to have to figure out how to make this editing process as clinical as possible, and fast. Jessica will need a sample of the first few chapters to approve, which means I’ll need to edit them for her this week. But that is a bridge I have not figured out how to cross yet, and I’m not trying to make it worse by hearing any of this before I’ve got my shit together.

Just the thought of having to start edits on this book has my stomach doing flips. I jump up and start unloading my weights from the barbell and organizing them to avoid thinking about it.

“It’d mess her up if I were there,” I say simply.

Noah’s nostrils flare and his beard twitches as if he finds that funny. “Sure.” He sits on the bench I had been occupying. “And it has nothing to do with whatever was going on at lunch the other day, right?”

“I thought it went well, all things considered,” I say, but it sounds weak even to me. I slide two of the plates on the rack and go back for the others.

He barks out an incredulous laugh. “Right. Which is why I had to pretend you had a hangover from some drinks we never had.” He tilts his head. “What’s going on, Lennon? Did you just now realize your best friend who is living with you for the summer is actually a talented, smart, gorgeous woman? I can’t imagine you haven’t noticed before now.” He gives me a pointed look, and I’m reminded of what he said at lunch about watching me stitch myself back up ten years ago.

Am I that easy to read? Does Lark see it written plainly on my face like Noah does? I yank another plate off the barbell with more force than necessary.

I can’t talk about this right now. Voicing any of it will make it real, and it’s not. It can’t be. She’s my best friend and my favorite person in the world. That’s all we’ve ever been, and after twenty-five years, it’s all we can ever be. Full stop.

“Is she ready for me to come get her?” I grind out as I return the last of the weights to the rack. “She hasn’t texted.”

Noah doesn’t razz me for my second change in subject of the conversation. Instead, he looks like he’s hiding something as he stands and straightens his spine. “Uh, no.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. I know before he says anything that this isn’t going to be good. “She’s actually recording a bit with Silas.”

I stretch my arm across my chest so he can’t see my hands shaking. “Why would she be recording with him?”

Noah makes a humming sound in the back of his throat. He winces and scratches the side of his head. “Well, Jessica called this morning talking a mile a minute about duet narration and how hot it is right now—”

“And you thought tossing the new kid a challenge would be fun.” I walk past him to the cables where I fiddle with attachments and weights before starting tricep push-downs.

“That’s just it.” He leans forward, eyes wide. “She’s new, but I think that’s working in her favor. She doesn’t know what to expect from a project like this, so she’s flexible. We got Silas in a booth and let them just start fucking around with some of the dialogue. It’s magic, man.”

Of course it is. Everything Lark does is magical. This was never going to be any different.

I drop the weights and shake out my arms. “So, you’re here to ask me if I’m willing to edit a duet.”

It’s a significantly more difficult project. I have to make sure both voices sound good together, edit out any weird pauses, and sift through more hours of recording because, inevitably, there will be more takes when two people are playing off each other. It’s nothing I haven’t done before, but it’s not insignificant.

Not to mention I’ll need to figure out how to not only listen to Lark’s sensual voice but Silas’s response to it. Just the thought makes my stomach bottom out. I start another set of push-downs, working faster this time.

Noah studies me, his tongue working on the inside of his cheek as he thinks. “We can find someone else if this is going to be an issue,” he says slowly. “But we are willing to pay you double.”

My hands slip and the weights drop with a sharp clang. “Double?” That would certainly go a long way toward alleviating my roommate issues.