French Connection (Noah Sebastian x OFC) - Part 34
Synopsis: Noah is back in LA, wallowing in post-tour spleen, and Alice, new in town, is ready to make him forget all about it. It's tempting to let himself be mister nobody for a little while, and ignore the prickly aspects of fame, but is it possible to build a relationship on a lie by omission?
Word count: 3.8k
MASTERLIST
Part 33 <<< >>> Part 35
Everybody knew what was going on in the green room when Noah and Alice seemingly slipped away without a word, and Nick later found the door locked from the inside.
“Oh, c’mon!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. The door rattled under his hammering fist but it didn’t accomplish shit. They would not open. “My jacket is still in there!” he shouted, as if that would make them change their minds.
“Fuck off!” Noah yelled back, leaving no room to the imagination as to what they were doing in there - if the stifled moans weren’t clue enough.
Nick groaned in frustration but turned around, recognizing a losing battle when he faced one. Hopefully, they would take his jacket back to the bus once they were done. At least he would get to shower in peace without a girl present in the bus. It was a tight space and allowed little to no privacy, so intimacy was a luxury.
Inside, Noah held his hand over Alice’s mouth to keep her quiet, his forehead resting against hers as he pounded into her, pinning her to the wall. His other hand was hooked under her thigh, keeping her leg high up to accommodate him, the angle allowing him to reach deeper.
A moan escaped her despite his hand covering her mouth, and Noah saw that she was trying to be still, to be good, but simply couldn’t contain herself when he slammed into her, hips flush with hers. He wanted to be mad, to be stern and reprimand her, but how was he supposed to be upset that he made her feel so good she couldn’t keep quiet. Alice was a trembling mess, almost quaking under him.
Oh, he filled her up so good that all discerning thoughts left her mind - all she could think about was the way he set her nerve endings on fire. She was his to do with as he pleased, surrendering herself entirely.
“Shhh,” Noah shushed her, his breath fanning her lashes, making her eyes flutter close. His hand moved slowly away from her mouth to her throat and he gave a light squeeze, his thumb briefly pressing into her larynx, causing her to whimper. “Be good, there’s people out there.”
The people out there had no doubt about what was going on behind the closed door, but it didn’t mean they had to put on a show. Alice sucked in her cheeks and bit onto them, swallowing thickly.
“I am good,” she argued. “I have been good. Haven’t touched myself once while you were away,” she confessed, trying to lean forward to steal a kiss but Noah didn’t allow her to move, kept her pinned to the wall. “I’ve been so nice and patient,” she cooed, leaning forward but stopped by the throat by Noah’s hand that didn’t relent. “Please…” she begged, rolling her hips slightly when he stopped moving. “Please, fuck me, Noah.”
She didn’t struggle, only looked up at him through her lashes, watching the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the hunger in his eyes. He was still fired up from the show, full of adrenaline and testosterone. He would have pumped himself dry under the shower to get it out of his system if she hadn’t surprised him by coming tonight, because he hadn’t been good at all.
“Oh, really? I touched myself everyday thinking about you,” he confessed back, giving her a sinful kiss without loosening his grip on her. His voice was barely a whisper but it reverberated inside her, bouncing off the walls until she couldn’t think about anything else. “Guess I’m the naughty one then.”
He released her, watching her gasp for air. Noah used his now free hand to lift her up higher so her feet didn’t touch the floor at all anymore, and drove into her again. Alice bit down onto his shoulder to stop herself from screaming out in pleasure.
It rarely became so savage between them, even when they were hungry and needy and rough, there was always an undercurrent of tenderness that made them slow down for a second and take it all in; they took the time to share gentle looks and caresses, whispering sweet nothings in between obscenities to remind each other of what this meant.
Today was an exutory, a release. Noah fucked Alice into the wall with animalistic need, driving into her until he couldn’t go any further, making her pant and cry out and beg. At some point he stopped caring how loud they were, if anyone was still standing outside that door, it was their fault if they heard things they didn’t want to.
Bruises would bloom on the skin of her lower back and under her thighs the next day, but what did she care? What did she care about anything at all when Noah was inside her? She could barely align two coherent thoughts, let alone worry about what people would think or what marks he would leave.
She could feel herself inching towards the edge, shattering under his relentless thrusts, her back flat against the concrete wall, tailbone screaming in pain but she didn’t feel anything other than the tightness in her core and the tingling in her extremities when she finally came. Noah slammed into her one last time and his hand flew to Alice’s mouth just in time for her to bite onto it, groaning instead of crying out his name for all to hear.
Her desire-filled eyes were darted on him the whole time she cummed, watching him come undone as well, his thrusts growing sloppy when he spilled into her with a barely-contained grunt, his forehead resting against the cold wall beside her head.
They stayed in this position, panting loudly, sweaty and happy, catching their breath as they gazed at each other with a smile on their face. They would feel a twinge of shame and guilt later for making their reunion so public and preventing the boys from getting their things back before they locked themselves in.
But they would do it all again without changing a thing.
*
Tour bus bunk beds were barely big enough for one person - especially if that person was as tall as Noah - and certainly hadn’t been designed with two people in mind. This was, however, their sleeping situation for the night and neither of them had anything to complain about.
Had they been given a king sized bed, they still would have slept glued to each other: Alice had rested on Noah’s chest, his arm was looped around her waist and he held her to him like she might disappear if he let go even a little bit.
The boys only lightly bullied them for about two hours when they returned to the bus, Nick’s jacket in hand, holding hands and grinning like only freshly fucked people did. Alice would have dramatically complained about being made fun of after weeks of not seeing them, but that would have been hypocritical - it was well deserved and she accepted the banter with grace.
Also, she was too freshly fucked to really be mad at anything. Noah’s leg pushed against hers under the table while they ate the take out they had ordered, as if not touching was not an option at all. She shot him a sheepish, tight-lipped smile and when Folio caught it, he groaned and said something about young love that neither Noah nor Alice listened to because they had better things to think about.
They fell asleep without any trouble despite the tight quarters. Jolly had declared that they would never be able to sleep like this just ten minutes before Noah began to snore softly. They had both had their fair share of all-nighters in the past few weeks; a restlessness that could only be cured by finally getting to huddle against each other again.
And they needed it, because this was no vacation and week-ends didn’t exist on tour. It might be Saturday the next day, but it was no rest day. Their next show was Sunday evening, but they had a lot of road to cover to reach the next city, and two interviews lined up for well-known magazines.
Noah had asked Matt to cram his schedule full of those during this tour. He didn’t enjoy doing them - it was a lot of saying the same things and answering the same questions over and over again to the point where he wasn’t sure he even made sense anymore. Noah knew he couldn’t avoid them altogether, and he wanted to make sure to get some real time off after the tour, so might as well do it all at once, right?
Right?
It was fucking exhausting, and he would rather spend hours in the gym hitting a bag than doing even half an hour of interview where everything he said was over-analyzed online when it came out. He wasn’t even allowed to look tired or the fans would start speculating about his health and soon rumors of burnout would abound.
He actually hated chatting about his private life with strangers, and he had to be very careful with what he said about their music too, not give away too much, never compare the band to another artist, never be rude even when he was too tired to function. Sleeping with Alice had put a bit of a spring to his step the next day, but he needed more than one good night to catch up on all the sleep he had lost.
He was ever professional and wouldn’t cancel though. He’d do his best and deal with the exhaustion later. One down, one more to go. It was too late for his own liking, but he had said yes and he would go and pretend to not be sleep deprived and try his best not to let it show that he’d rather be with his girlfriend.
“How can I help?” Alice asked him, refusing to sit still and wait this out. “I’ll make sure you have something to eat when you get back, and I can try to get them to squeeze in a hotel stay tomorrow afternoon so you can rest a bit, I-”
“You don’t need to do anything, love,” Noah tried to reassure her, seeing how badly she wanted to alleviate his workload. It was almost time to go out, even though it was already past 9PM. “Will you wait for me to come back before going to bed?” he only asked.
“Of course.”
She smiled then, and pushed his hair out of his face, gently running a thumb over his temple as if to soothe the headache he hadn’t told her he had. But he didn’t need to, because somehow, she always knew when he needed her or what to do. It was her super power, and Noah feared that he abused it a little sometimes. He had to remind himself that some things were worth saying out loud.
“Thank you for being here,” Noah murmured, grabbing both her hands to place a kiss on her knuckles. “I have to go now.”
She watched him go, missing his contact the moment she felt his fingers slip out of hers. He didn’t want to let her see how bone tired he was, despite the tour being a success. He hated admitting that he made mistakes, but fitting in so many side quests to an already packed tight schedule while on tour had been a mistake.
He put on a brave face about it, wanting to make the most of their little time together and not worry her. Jolly had been right to ask her to come - it did wonders to both their moods and the second half of their tour would start on a positive note again.
Alice while away the time in the bus, doing her best to cook something nice on the two-burner stove and teeny tiny counter space. But she was cooking up something other than food as well, and when she set down her knife and stared at Jolly with a glint in her eyes, he put down his guitar and asked her what was on her mind.
*
It had been a hard one; Noah nearly sighed in relief when his host declared that it was over. There was always one point during each tour where someone would bring up the time they had to cancel some shows due to his health. He had pushed too far once, and since then, the world never let him forget.
And God, this was a live-stream too, so there was no editing that shit, he had to get his ducks in a row right off the bat - act detached and just the right amount of apologetic but still confident that he was much better now. He didn’t know about that, but it needed to be said, to alleviate everyone’s fears that it could happen again.
He hated thinking about how many people they had disappointed back then, and felt compelled to apologize again every time it was brought up.
At the end of the interview, as predicted, Noah was ready to collapse into his bed, not even caring if the boys were still up and messing around, he was going to fall asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
Except the bus didn’t pull up to come get him, it was a black sports car, with Alice behind the wheel. She let it roar a little, enjoying the beautiful purr of the expensive car.
“Whose car did you hot wire?” Noah asked, leaning inside the passenger seat window she had opened up for him.
She shrugged, trying to play innocent but unable to hide how much she liked driving this beast. Much to her surprise, Matt already had another rental car lined up for her before she had even asked. One for every city they were going through apparently, and maybe it was also because he knew he would get to drive it for a bit, or maybe it was a little thank you for the help to Alice, despite putting up a fight when she had started to make suggestions for the tour.
“I borrowed it,” was all the answer he got and he was frankly too tired to question her, so he jumped in.
He whistled when he saw the interior. This thing was brand fucking new; smelled like it came straight out of the factory. The white leather was immaculate and even better: Alice looked like she belonged in there, her hand grazing the wheel with quiet reverence and a tad possessive.
“I know, right?” Alice chuckled. “Buckle up. I can’t pass up the opportunity to let this baby roar, and I’m going to enjoy it.”
Needless to say, the drive was rather short. It was well into the night, the roads were almost empty, and Alice was not afraid to get a ticket. They zoomed through the empty streets until they joined the highway, the street lights now in the rearview mirror only as they drove into the night.
It was pitch black outside, until Alice took an exit.
“Where are we going? I thought the bus was going to come,” Noah asked after a while.
It had been at least ten minutes or more since she picked him up, but he had been too busy staring at her, at the way she smiled to herself as she hit the pedal, the confident way she changed gear before speeding up again.
She slowed down a bit when they approached a round-about and turned to him just long enough to shoot him a sheepish smile.
“I told the boys you needed some rest,” she finally said after a beat of silence.
“Wh-”
“Don’t be mad, but you’re hanging on by a thread and you need a real night’s sleep. They didn’t mind at all, and I took care of everything.”
There was a beat of stunned silence. Noah blinked, confused. They had to drive all night to reach the city where they would perform their next show, they didn’t have time to accommodate his sensitive constitution.
“What does that mean?” Noah finally managed to ask.
“We’re sleeping in a real bed that’s not on a bus tonight. And we’re taking the afternoon flight tomorrow instead of driving.”
“But-”
“The schedule is fine,” she cut him off, knowing where his mind went. “You know I wouldn’t mess with a tight schedule if I wasn’t sure it was going to be fine.”
Yes, he knew that. She was perhaps even more type A than he was, and that was saying something. He had never imagined he would like that in a woman - in his woman. He always thought he needed someone who was his opposite.
“We’ll arrive on time, everyone understands that the second leg of this tour is starting to get to the band, and even if they don’t know it, the boys also need the rest.”
“Where are they?” Noah wondered out loud.
“Still on the bus,” Alice replied. “Jolly said that not having to hear you snore all night was a vacation in and of itself,” she added, quoting his friend, but rolling her eyes. Noah didn’t snore - much. “Everybody else hit the road an hour ago, so it’s too late to change plans.”
He didn’t want to argue, he didn’t have the energy, and he wasn’t sure what there was to argue about in any case. He trusted her and her spreadsheet skills, and he realized that he had been out of it for the last few days because of the accumulated exhaustion.
“Thank you,” he eventually heard himself say, feeling a sudden weightlessness in his chest. He was so used to controlling everything and making it all work out, letting someone else take the reins was hard. But it felt good. It made him feel light. He trusted it would all go smoothly because she wouldn’t tolerate anything else. “Thank you,” he repeated, at a loss for any other words.
Alice’s gaze softened and just then, she turned left and onto a parking lot. They stopped in front of a small hotel - it looked cozy and comfortable - the kind of place that served breakfast as well, not the shady motels he had sometimes stayed in in the past.
“You don’t have to thank me, Noah. I’m here for you, even when you think you don’t need me.”
That was just the thing, he thought, he always needed her.
*
Alice had set out the meal she had cooked for him on the small table in their room. It wasn’t much, but it was homemade and with love. Noah stared at it for a while, playing with his food with the tip of his fork for a little while, but barely bringing any of it to his lips.
He felt guilty for not being hungry, but it was just so late and he was so tired.
“I’m sorry, you booked us a room and cooked dinner, and I’m just a mess,” he apologized for the hundredth time tonight.
It was nearing midnight, and his eyelids were heavy.
He heard her drag her chair towards his, felt her hand on his thigh and her head rest on his shoulder.
“You never need to be sorry for being tired, Noah. I will never take it badly if you can’t finish a meal. I enjoy cooking for you, and I will gladly make it again,” she said soothingly. “Maybe some day you’re not at risk of falling asleep on your plate,” she added with a giggle, and Noah’s chest warmed at the sound of it.
“I heard part of your interview,” she confessed, playing around with her food. She arrived early at the location and realized it was streaming live on Instagram while she was mindlessly scrolling to pass the time. “You’re taking a lot of things harder than you should, you know? I mean, I understand that it’s also what makes you so great at what you do: you care so much. But you’re not letting anyone down.”
How would she know? How could she? Again, he didn’t want to argue, so he simply nodded. She dropped her fork, clearly having none of it.
“The Instagram algorithm hasn’t stopped bombarding me with Bad Omens content since you told me who you really were months ago and I- ugh- I try to limit myself in terms of what I watch, because like I told you, I’d rather not get to know you via old videos and posts.” She cleared her throat. “But maybe I still watch a few reels here and there, like a few posts sometimes. Just some quiet cheering on, you know? And I can assure you, cross my heart and hope to die, I have never read a single mean comment about you guys. I can guarantee that your fans would gladly wait and give you a few more months to work on your album than to pressure you into releasing before you’re satisfied. When you’ve had to stop mid-show because your voice gave out, you didn’t disappoint anyone, you tried your best and pushed as far as you could, and then stopped to take care of yourself. Nobody is disappointed in you for taking care of yourself. There is only love.”
He swallowed hard and looked away, not in any state to have this conversation right now. He was still raw from talking about it in public and wasn’t ready for a second round in private. Alice picked up on it and pulled away to give him space.
“Anyway, I know this isn’t the right time, but I needed to say my piece. I don’t expect you to answer or change the way you think or behave just because of what I said. But try to keep it in mind when you’re giving yourself shit.”
He went on to take a shower while she cleared the table, barely registering his movements. He was on auto-pilot. When he came back, Alice was sitting on the bed, waiting for him. The second he was under the cover, he sighed in contentment and he felt her scoot over to him. No matter how exhausted he was, he was never too tired to spoon Alice, who felt so small against him, yet so warm.
“I’m sorry for being no fun today,” he apologized once more, and Alice had to hold back from chiding him again. “I hope you’re not fed up with me yet, because I can’t imagine going through life without you to drill some sense into my thick skull.”
He felt her body shake with suppressed laughter.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Alice said, reaching a hand out to his arm and pressing closer to his chest. “Now get some sleep, rock star. I’ll still be here in the morning.”
A few minutes later, between slumber and wakefulness, Noah mumbled softly against the back of her head.
In the previous biography I made mention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ); in this entry we celebrate the life of one of its original founders, Les Payne. Born in 1941 Alabama, Payne grew up hyper-aware of the immediate and constant threat posed by the Ku Klux Klan and other forms of looming racial violence. To get away from that intimidation, Payne's parents eventually moved the family to Hartford, Connecticut (not that this constituted any real improvement in race relations, to be sure, but at least the threat of immediate violence was somewhat mitigated.). Payne eventually graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1964 and then joined the U.S. Army, where he not only became a Ranger and attained the rank of Captain, but also became a military journalist (er, excuse me, that's Information Officer); at one point even covering Gen. William Westmoreland at the height of the Vietnam war. Journalism remained his passion after returning to civilian life, and in 1969 (on the recommendation of none other than Bill Moyers), joined the staff of Newsday, where --unusual for most journalism careers-- he would remain for the next 39 years.
He became an assistant managing editor in the 1990s, and then deputy managing editor in 2001. Over the course of his career he covered (much like his colleague Earl Caldwell) the immediate aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination and a behind-the-scenes look at the Black Panthers Party. He also shone unwelcome light on redlining, school segregation, migrant prison camps, and the Attica Prison rebellion, and conducted some contentious interviews with figures such as New York Mayor Ed Koch and the Rev. Al Sharpton. He also covered the Soweto uprising in South Africa (for which he received a Pulitzer nomination, though not the actual award); controversially Payne observed of apartheid that "South Africa is learning this from the Americans;" that "you don't have to have signs --drinking fountain signs and such-- to segregate people. I think America is the most successful experiment in the world for apartheid. It's done with subtlety but unerring certainty."
Perhaps one of Payne's most pivotal accomplishments was his work on The Heroin Trail (PDF file), a 1974 project that exposed, in 33 installments, a veritable "farm-to-table" tale. It traced international flow of heroin from the poppy fields of Turkey, all the way to New York City's drug addicts, and all the disquieting steps along the way --while this series would ultimately win Payne a Pulitzer, it certainly didn't come without danger; at one point he and two colleagues were captured in Corsica by one of the world's then-most notorious drug lords, Marcel Francisci.
Payne retired from Newsday in 2006. He had been working on an examination of the life of Malcolm X at the time of his death, in March of 2018. The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, was published posthumously in 2020, with assistance from his daughter Tamara Payne.
