Part 33

Liam took a swig, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. 'You know..I hate to say it, but Sara, she's never gonna change, you know. She's just finally stopped pretending'

Noel looked up, the blue glow of the monitors reflecting in his tired eyes. 'Is that what you think she was doing all this time? Pretending?'

'Maybe,' Liam replied sharply and tapped his bottle against Noel's. 'The question isn't how she could do this. The question is what you're going to do about it.'

Noel stared at the gold records on the wall, symbols of success that somehow felt like relics from a past life. He took another swallow, the bitter aftertaste of the beer mingling with the reality settling in his gut. 'I think I've forgotten how to do this, Liam.'

'Then it's a good thing I'm here,' Liam said, his voice soft but steady for the first time that night. 'I think you need to call it.'

Noel stiffened. 'Call what?'

'The end, man. Separation. Divorce,' Liam said, the word landing heavy in the quiet studio. 'You've spent all those years building a life with a wife who just now showed you her real face. It's not something you can unsee. You think you're "sinking," but you're actually just free.'

Noel looked away, his voice cracking. 'twenty-two years, Liam..twenty-two..My kids, the house... it's everything.'

'everything?' Liam leaned in. 'She's already moved on to the next version of herself. Walk away before there's nothing left of you to save'

Liam leaned back, watching his brother retreat into that impossible shell of silence and obligation. 'Forget the house, Noel, you have enough in the bank to buy another 10 mansions. Forget the records, once we get this tour on the road, you'll be able to pave your entire garden with gold records. We're talking about your life here!'

He paused for a couple of seconds before dropping the bomb 'And we're talking about Caro.'

Noel flinched at the name, his grip tightening on the bottle. 'Leave her out of this, will you?. I know what you're hinting at..but..she's... she's a friend. She's my PA, that's all, she's helping me, that's her job'.

'Helping you?' Liam let out a sharp, cynical laugh. 'Oh Noely, Noely, Noely..' Liam sniggered 'You're halfway to the bottom, and she's the only one holding the rope, and she's been doing it for quite some time now..' He stepped closer, invading Noel's space until his older brother had to look him in the eye. 'You think you need to "rescue" her from whatever mess she's in? Truth is, she's the only one rescuing you. She's the only reason you're still standing instead of disappearing into a bottle again or pouring cocaine over your cereal for breakfast like in the good old days'

Noel shook his head, a desperate, tired smile flickering on his lips. 'It's not that simple, Liam. It's complicated.'

'Bollocks, it's the simplest thing in the world,' Liam poked a finger toward Noel's chest, right over his heart. 'You're madly in love with her. You've been in love with her since the first time you laid eyes on her, you just never dared to admit it, Noel.'.

Noel shoved Liam's hand away, the sudden movement sloshing beer over the neck of his bottle.

'Shut up, Liam. Just..shut the hell up,' Noel snapped and rolled his eyes, anything to avoid the laser-focus of his brother's stare. 'You don't know what you're talking about. You've had a few lagers and now you're a bloody poet, are you? You think life is just some three-minute pop song where everyone gets the girl and walks into the sunset.'

'I'm not the one living in a fantasy, Noel,' Liam said, his grin still plastered across his face, annoying the hell out of his brother.

'I said drop it!' Noel hissed, 'She's my staff. I'm fifty-odd years old with a family and a legal nightmare hanging over my head. I'm not "madly in love" with anyone. I'm tired, Liam. I'm just trying to get through the day without the walls falling in.'

'You can lie to me all you want,' Liam said with a shrug. 'But I know what I see, and every time someone even mentions her name, you look like you're about to cry or fly. It's pathetic. But it's the most honest I've seen you in almost twenty years.'

Noel turned back to the monitors, the blue light washing over his face, hiding the fact that his hands were visibly shaking. 'Get out, Liam.'

'Yeah, yeah, I'm going,' Liam muttered, heading for the heavy studio door. He paused at the handle, looking back at the silhouette of his brother. 'But remember what I told you,' Liam said, twisting the handle but not opening the door yet. 'You can push those faders on that desk over there as high as they'll go, but you can't drown out the sound of your own heart. You're only staying here tonight because you're waiting for her to walk back through that door'.

He threw a final, knowing look over his shoulder. 'And we both know that's the only time that you actually feel like you're breathing.'

The heavy studio door clicked shut, leaving Noel in a silence that felt louder than any wall of sound he'd ever produced.

He stared at the monitors, Liam was a prick and a nuisance, but he had a terrifying knack for pointing out the elephant in the room and then handing it a megaphone.

Cry or fly.

Noel's thumb hovered over his phone screen. He pulled up his messages. No text from her..

He started typing: Caro, I've spent the last hour trying to convince myself Liam is full of it, but I can't do it anymore. I'm sitting here in the dark and the only thing I can think about is you.

Noel stared at the text, his heart kicking against his ribs. He cleared the screen and started again, his thumbs moving with a sudden, desperate honesty that bypassed his usual cynical guard.

He started typing: Caro, I'm sorry about tonight, can you come back? I need to tell you face to face that I'm falling for you so hard..I think I've been in love with you for years..

He stopped again and stared at the cursor blinking, mocking him. 'oh for fuck's sakes, what am I doing?' he deleted it all and threw his phone on the mixing table

The sound of the phone clattering against the hard surface of the mixing desk echoed through the empty room. Noel stared at it as if it were a live grenade. The screen went dark, and for a second, he felt a wave of relief, the "professional" lie was safe. The words were gone.

But the silence that followed was suffocating.

He leaned back, dragging his hands over his face. His skin was hot, his pulse still erratic. He could still feel Liam's finger poking his chest, right over the ache he'd been trying to ignore for years.

'Falling for you so hard..'

The phrase looped in his brain like a stuck chorus. It was the most pathetic thing he'd ever almost-written, yet it was the only thing that felt real in a room full of relics and gold records. He was a man who had sold millions of albums by articulating how people felt, yet he couldn't even send a text message to the one person who actually kept him sane.

He looked at the gold records on the wall. Liam was right, his marriage was dead and buried, and here he was hiding in a dark studio because he was too terrified to admit that his world now started and ended with his PA.

Suddenly, the phone vibrated on the table, the buzzing sound startling him so much he nearly knocked over his beer. The screen illuminated the softly lit room.

1 New Message: Caro

His heart did a violent somersault. He didn't want to look. He was certain she had sensed his internal chaos from miles away.

Noel's thumb brushed the screen, the light reflecting in his tired, glassy eyes. Two new messages from her.

Caro: 'Hope you're ok and managed to talk things through with your wife, I'm sorry for always being such a nuisance, thanks for dinner'

Before he could even process her checking in, a second message buzzed, this one crisp and professional.

Caro: 'Just got a call from the promotor. It's a total washout. The entire tour is completely sold out, Noel. Every single date, gone in under fifteen minutes. You and Liam did it. Everyone is ecstatic. You should be too. Congratulations'

Noel stared at the screen, the contrast of the two messages hitting him like a physical weight.

He looked at the mixing desk, the multimillion-pound tour plans, and the gold records. Eighty thousand people a night wanted a piece of him, but the only person who actually cared if he was "holding up and ok" was currently driving through the London snow.

Liam's voice echoed in the silence of the room: "The question is what you're going to do about it."

He didn't care about the sold-out arenas. He didn't care about the revenue. He only cared about the first message.

He started typing, his hands shaking so much he had to steady his wrist against the edge of the desk.

"I don't care about the tour, Caro. I don't even care about the house. I'm sitting here realizing that the only thing I'm actually afraid of losing in this divorce isn't the money or the legacy. It's you."

He paused, the cursor blinking. He was on the edge of the cliff Liam had pushed him toward.

Noel's breath hitched, the cursor mocking his hesitation. He couldn't do it. He couldn't just drop a bomb like that over a text message while she was driving. It felt too small, too desperate for a man who usually had all the words.

He cleared the screen, his vision blurring as he looked at the gold records one last time. He finally typed:

'Forget the tour for a second, Caro. And don't you ever apologize for being a 'nuisance.' You're the only person in this entire industry who actually gives a damn if I'm breathing. I'm not okay, and I didn't talk things through. It's over. Properly this time.'

He paused, his heart hammering against his ribs as the text wooshed its' way over to her.

On the other side of town Caro stared at the screen, her heart performing a slow, painful ache. 'It's over. Properly this time.'

She didn't feel a rush of relief that he had finally ended things with his wicked witch. Instead, she felt a cold, familiar wave of skepticism. She had been the one to book his "apology" dinners for Sara; she had been the one to find the legal specialists when things got rocky before, only for Noel to retreat into silence and "fix" things for the sake of the status quo.

She started typing, her fingers trembling against the glass.

'Noel, don't say things you can't take back in the morning,' she wrote, then deleted it. Too cold.

'Is this the beer talking? Or Liam?' Deleted. Too cynical.

She wanted to believe him, it would be the best thing for him and Sara, but she had spent five years being the "nuisance" in Sara's eyes and the "safety net" in Noel's. She knew that he worshipped the ground Sara walked on, despite everything, they couldn't live with or without each other.

She finally sent a message that felt like a shield:

Caro: 'I think tonight has been too much for everyone. The tour, the drinks, me.. It's a lot of noise, N. You've said this before and gone back and worked things out. So don't take any rash decisions, go to bed. Sleep. We can talk about the tour and... everything else... in the morning when your head is clear.'

In the studio, Noel read the message and felt like he'd been doused in ice water. She didn't believe him. To her, he was just another rockstar having a meltdown in the middle of the night.