Luna Pierce Residence
 

edit edit edit edit

Luna contemplated telling Noah she wanted to get back together for over a week, and the thought of him rejecting her was terrifying. She couldn't imagine him wanting her back after she tore apart their family and broke his heart. Why would he? If it hadn't been for Soleil going through the pros and cons with her, Luna would still want to keep her feelings locked inside. Was it what she had wanted? No. But it was easier. It was safer. Her best friend was right, though. Luna needed to fight for Noah if she wanted him, and she did, so that's what she would do.

After dinner, Noah started Harper's bedtime routine while Luna cleared things up in the kitchen. It was easier with him around, and she missed the extra hands. She'd never admit that, though. Luna was stubborn and could be fiercely independent. So she hated it when he tried to give her more money than she had already received from child support. Plus, Luna made a decent amount on her own with her freelance photography work. So she really didn't need his money, but Noah insisted.

Luna kept herself busy for the hour Noah took to get Harper to sleep. It wasn't unusual for it to take that long to get her to go down, especially when she was still reeling from the excitement of having her daddy over for dinner. Just tell him how you feel. He probably misses you just as much as you miss him. Several thoughts were racing through her head, and she tried only to pay attention to the positive ones. But she couldn't help it. She still had doubts that any of this would go in her favor. So when Noah finally reappeared, Luna looked at him, smiling, "How'd she do?"

When he started to gather his things and say his goodbyes, Luna immediately felt her heart sink into her stomach. "Before you go, can we talk?" She questioned and nervously bit at her bottom lip.

Did Noah have every right to hate Luna? Possible. Did he though? Hell no. She was still the love of his life and the woman he wrote songs about. Probably always would be. But she'd gone against their vows and the love songs had been replaced by heartbreak. Wanting to be a part of Harper's life however meant that Luna would also always be a part of his life. It just wasn't in the way that he'd hoped for.

After finding out about Luna's infidelity, Noah went on a bender and got most of the rage out of his system. It was something he hadn't done since before he and Luna had become serious, and once he came down, it just made him miss the life he'd had with her before everything came crashing down. He still loved her and wanted Harper growing up with parents who could provide a positive influence on her even if things didn't work out for them.

Once Harper was asleep and tucked in, Noah prepared himself for goodbyes with Luna before emerging from the hallway. "She did great. She was exhausted, that only made her fight it more." Making his way over to his coat he picked it up and headed toward his shoes at the door, ready to go home and fall into bed. "Thanks again for having me for dinner. It was nice." It was more than nice, it felt like before; it was perfect. "Yeah, I can stay for a bit."

Setting his jack back down on the back of the couch, he sat down on the arm rest and looked over at her. Running one of his hands through his hair, he waited to see what she needed to talk about. It could have something to do with Harper but usually she didn't get this dramatic about telling him those kinds of things. Maybe she was going to inform him again about how he should hate her so it'd be easier for her. He didn't know but there was one way to find out. "What's going on? What did you wanna talk about?"

“Yeah, of course. You're always welcome here.” When Noah agreed to stay and talk, the speech she’d been going over all night dropped right out of her head. His accent got her every time. She watched as he came over and sat on the arm of the couch. There was no need to jump around what she had to say. He was either going to say yes or no. Getting up off the sofa, Luna felt like she needed to be standing for this. She started to pace back and forth while nervously picking at her nails. “Hold on, I’m trying to figure out how to start this,” she said, feeling Noah’s eyes on her.

Luna stopped pacing, “I miss you. I miss us. I miss you being here. I miss being able to watch you with our daughter. I miss your hugs and kisses,” Luna sighed, “And I keep telling myself that you could never want to fix this after everything I did. But then I did this pros and cons list about talking to you, and the only con was that I was the one who fucked up our marriage.” Luna wanted all of this to come out better, but she had all these emotions and thoughts suppressed for months that were oozing out of her, and she couldn’t stop them. “I’m still in love with you.”

“I’m just so sorry I didn’t talk to you about how I felt back then, and I’m sorry for what I did. You were amazing to me, and everything that’s happened to us since is all my fault, but I want to fix us if you’d let me. If not, I get it, and we can go back to co-parenting Harper as if I said nothing.” Luna stood in the living room, watching Noah trying to comprehend everything she had just dropped on him.

Noah's eyes widened for a split second before relaxing as he heard the words start pouring out of her mouth. It honestly felt kinda like a punch to the gut to finally hear all these things now. He hadn't exactly made it easy on her to say this after she'd cheated, with him being MIA and leaving her to take care of Harper, but he'd already made amends for that. Noah was finally feeling as though he was healing his wounds, and this confession only opened them back up. Still, he loved her and nothing was going to change that. There was no going back to being co-parents again after this.

"You done? Get it all out?" he looked over at her and waited for a nod before standing up. "Good." Promptly walking over to her, he placed a hand on her cheek as his other hand landed on her hip and he pulled her in for a passionate kiss. Finally pulling away once he was satisfied, he left his hands on her as he looked into her eyes. "It's been far too long since I've been able to do that. Had to get it out it out of the way. Now, come. Let's talk." Working his hand to the back of her head, he placed a kiss on her forehead before leading her to the couch.

Once they were seated, he took her hands in his and rested them on her knees. "I'm not sayin' this is going to be easy, we have plenty to work on, but, Lulu, I never stopped loving you and I never will. Nothing is going to change that. But, I need us to be a team. I need to know that you're going to be open and honest with me. Even if you change your mind about us, I gotta know. It's going to take time to build that trust back up, but I'm willing to fight for us. Our family."

Luna nervously watched Noah from the middle of the living room and nodded. If this were a movie, this would be the part where a love song would start playing in the background as Noah approached her in slow motion. But this wasn’t a movie, and Noah stood before her in seconds. Surprised, her eyes widened before closing once his lips latched on hers for the first time in God knows how long. Luna was scared to move, fearing if she did, he’d disappear. When she realized this was real and not one of her dreams, her arms finally moved around his waist, and she let herself fall into him. Her stomach fluttered as he deepened the kiss. Noah tasted just as she remembered, and for a moment, everything made sense again.

Unfortunately, her inability to talk freely about her emotions ruined many past relationships. She often fought with herself on whether or not she should express them. It was a constant battle. The sense of dread sat in her stomach, listening to Noah. Luna knew this wasn’t going to happen overnight, and it was going to take a lot of time and hard work to get back to where they had been before her infidelity, but Noah was worth it. She was willing to do anything at this point. “What if we go to marriage counseling, or I see a therapist?” Luna suggested.

She scrunched up her nose at the sound of her nickname. Luna hated it, but it was only his for her, and honestly, she appreciated hearing it now more than ever. Luna lowered her head, “But what if you can't trust me?” She asked, her voice cracking. She was unable to look at him until Luna was sure she wasn't going to start crying. It broke her heart knowing she had broken the trust between them. It wasn’t like Luna had a full-fledged affair. She had a one-night stand while drunk and had a poor lapse in judgment. It, of course, didn’t make it hurt any less for Noah, and Luna knew that. If she could take that night back, she most certainly would. “I've never wanted to be with anyone else as much as I want to be with you, and I’ll do anything to fix us,” she agreed.

Looking down at their hands, still entangled on her knees. Luna loosened her grip and used her thumb and index finger to pull down his H ring, revealing her initials. She rubbed her thumb over the tattoo and sighed. Their relationship may have been public knowledge, but their marriage and the fact they shared a daughter were not. He may not have been selling out arenas, but he had fans, and they could be mean, judgmental, and territorial. She learned firsthand when they were only dating how intense they could be. So when Noah proposed a year into their relationship, they chose not to announce it and got married under the radar within six months. The same went for the birth of their daughter. Their priority was always to protect Harper from the craziness. “I just want you back, Noah.”

"If you want to see a therapist, I'm not going to stop you. Marriage counseling might not be a bad start though. They have experience, they can help." Noah offered. He felt like the only way for therapy to actually work was if the participant actually wanted it. They both wanted to fix their marriage, but ultimately it was up to Luna to decide if she wanted to go to therapy on her own. Whatever she chose though, he was going to support her decision. "We won't know until we try, now will we?" He said in response to her wondering if her could never trust her again.

Noah was a rockstar, not a massively famous one, but the typical lifestyle wasn't for him. He occasionally overindulged in booze and drugs but becoming Harper's father had settled him down some. While on the road, when Luna was in charge of caring for their daughter, he had fun. But never with sex. At least not when he was dating Luna. He'd found himself finally trying it during their separated but quickly found it wasn't for him. In the time, it felt good but waking up next to a stranger didn't sit right with him. There was only one person he wanted to be snuggled up next to when he woke up and she was in this room.

Watching as she revealed his tattoo for her under the ring for Harper, he smiled. All his fans had been led to believe his rings were for his parents while those closest to him knew the true way that he carried them all with him. Rings could be lost but not tattoos, they were more painful to get rid of. Even if he and Luna never got back together, he had no intentions of ever getting rid of her initials. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, everything else, we'll work it out. Okay? But for right now, I just want you to sit back and relax." Noah stopped to pull her hands up in his and place a kiss on her knuckles before letting go and fixing his ring. "I'm going to go grab us some more of that wine, we'll have a glass and figure this out."

Noah couldn't help but already be thinking a few steps ahead, he wondered if he should move back in here or should they move to his new place. This place harbored old memories, which were good for Harper but not necessarily good for them. It's not like Luna had made her mistake here but it had led to arguments happening here and the happy memories from before it happened somehow stung a little when he thought about them. Maybe a new home for Harper with both parents wouldn't be such a bad change; Noah constantly found himself wondering how their actions were going to affect her.

Returning to the living room with the bottle of white wine they'd paired with dinner in one hand and two glasses strategically placed between the fingers of his other hand, he rejoined her on the couch. Filling each glass about half full, he handed one to her before leaning back. "You're worried that I can't trust you again? Tell me, if we do this, are you planning on sleeping with anyone else?"

“I mean, therapy isn’t a bad thing. I’ve been too stubborn, thinking I don’t need it, but maybe I do?” Luna knew why she fought internally with herself, and it was due to how her parents raised her. They were two immigrants from Mexico, and conversations about mental health didn’t happen. It was why she struggled so much with her postpartum depression after the birth of Harper. “We can start with marriage counseling and see how that goes,” Luna agreed.

Luna forced a smile as Noah declared he wasn’t going anywhere. Still, she had an overwhelming feeling that after agreeing to try to fix them, he would realize it was not what he wanted after all, and maybe he preferred the bachelor life instead. She watched as he kissed her knuckles, this time causing a genuine smile to appear. Luna's eyes followed as he moved around the house, reminding her of better times. She looked up at him when he returned, a small smile still visible as Luna took the wine glass from him, “Thank you.”

“No,” Luna answered without hesitation. “I haven't even been with anyone since we separated,” she admitted, hoping that would work in her favor and show Noah that it was never about her wanting to sleep with someone else. “I just don't want you thinking you can't trust me because you can. My intention that night was never to go out and find someone to have sex with,” she sighed, hearing her inner voice telling her to shut up, but Luna continued anyway. “It was your first tour since I had given birth to Harper. I was drunk, I was missing you, I was feeling lonely, and the whole being a mom thing was overwhelming at the time. Harper was barely two,” she took another sip. “He was familiar, and at the moment, it was comforting,” Luna told him. It wasn’t an excuse. It was just what it was for her. “If I could take it back, I would. The only person I ever want to be intimate with again is you.” Luna hadn’t dated much before Noah. She had many one-night stands and friends-with-benefits relationships, but when she met Noah, and he started pursuing her, Luna could feel how genuine and different he was from the others. With him, the world was brighter and happier, and Luna felt complete. She never thought she’d get married or have a family, but here she was, and because of her unresolved issues, Luna almost lost the best thing to ever happen to her.

Now that Luna started to spill her feelings, she didn’t want to stop. It felt somewhat refreshing to get this all out finally. “I wanted you to hate me for selfish reasons,” Luna said, leaning forward and placing her wine glass on the coffee table. She turned her body to face Noah and picked her legs up off the floor. Luna brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, looking at him. “I thought if you hated me, it’d be easier to let you go, but I realized I don’t think I could let you go even if you did hate me.”

Luna wanted to hold his hand again. She missed how it felt, but she chose against initiating anything unless Noah didn’t do it first. Luna didn’t want to get too comfortable and overstep. She was going to take this at any pace Noah wanted to.

"You know me, love, I'm very pro-therapy. I never want you to feel like you're being forced into it though but if you want to, I'm of course going to support you." Noah first saw a therapist when he was younger and one of his best friends took their own life resulting in him falling into depression, then again, he had tried after Luna cheated but that therapist seemed more interested in prescribing him pills more than anything else. Still he was very much in favor or seeking help from professionals when needed. He would have found a new one but he'd gotten to wrapped up with his career and co-parenting that he never got around to it. "I think that's a grand idea. We'll look up some together, tomorrow." Noah was trying to leave hints that he'd like to stay the night, if she'd allow it. When he moved out, this became her place and thus, she called the shots on how long he stayed. Yes, they were in the middle of making up but there was still plenty to work through and he didn't want to push it and have her get scared again either.

It was bittersweet knowing that she hadn't been with anyone during their separation, but it made him feel slightly bad for having his one-night stand. Of all the stuff she said next though, he found himself getting hung up on the 'he was familiar' part. When everything had gone done, he didn't want to know who it had been. He frankly didn't want to hear anything about it. But familiar was someone she knew, someone she trusted, and were they still in her life. He had no way of knowing unless he asked, but he needed some time before he did that so it didn't come out wrong. His wife was feeling vulnerable and open, and it wasn't a side of her that he got to see often so he had to tread lightly. Slowly sipping his wine, he listened as she continued, and he waited for his turn to talk.

"Listen, I wanted to hate you too, for my own selfish reasons but I couldn't and honestly? I doubt I ever will. I could be wrong but I'm pretty positive that you're impossible to hate. It might just be one of your many superpowers." Noah knew it was a bit of a lame joke but he was trying to lighten the mood and it was the best he had in the moment. Taking another sip of wine, he set his glass on the table as well. "Here, give me your feet. I bet you could use a good massage." he offered with a finger wave before he started removing his rings and setting them onto the coffee table next to their wine glasses. Scooting back on the couch so it'd be easier for her to place her legs on his lap, he took one of her feet and went to work, careful to avoid the ticklish spots except for when he wanted to see her smile. "I love you and I believe you, and I'm sure we'll be right back to before in no time. No, we'll be even better than before."

"I hate that I'm even going to ask this but, who was he? You said he was familiar, so... is it someone I've met before?" He couldn't help it, he had to know. He didn't want to accidentally be too nice to the dude who came between them. "I know I said I didn't want to know, but I can't stand the thought of talking to this guy and not knowing he was the one."

His joke caused her to roll her eyes at him and smile, but it faded as she stayed on topic. “But you had every right to hate me. I did something horrible,” Luna sighed. “I don’t know how you can forgive me when I can't even forgive myself,” she added with a frown. Luna had been beating herself up about her infidelity. It hurt knowing she broke the heart of the only man to love her properly. “Other than our daughter, you’re the person I love most, and I hurt you. I hate that I did that to you.”

She didn’t deserve a foot massage, but Luna extended her legs and rested her feet on his lap. She leaned against the back of the sofa, watching him in awe. Luna still didn’t know how she got so lucky. She hit the lottery when it came to her husband. Noah pursued Luna for months before she agreed to their first date. Then he wrote a song for her, and she fell madly head over heels. She didn’t believe she deserved someone as sweet and caring as Noah. She always said it was because he was British. They were a different breed compared to American men. “I love you too,” Luna said with a growing smile, listening to his enthusiasm. Talking to Noah wasn’t as scary as she thought it would be. “Better than before,” she said with a nod, finally feeling optimistic about going forward.

Luna was a bit surprised when Noah started asking questions about Paul considering he wanted nothing to do with it when he first found out about her infidelity. “No, no, no,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve never met him,” Luna softly answered. “He was just someone I would casually date before I met you. I hadn't seen or heard from him in a few years before that night, and we didn't keep in touch after either,” Luna assured her husband. She wanted to ensure Noah knew there was never a chance of a repeat with Paul or anyone. The two happened to be at the same bar that night, and one thing led to another. That was all.

Luna decided to take the plunge and moved forward, her bottom half on his lap and half on the sofa. Her arms hugged his neck loosely as she looked him in the eyes, “For the entirety of our relationship, our marriage, and now our separation, you’ve been the only man I’ve thought about—morning, noon, and night. You are the love of my life. You and Harper are my life. And just like you said, we’re going to be better than ever this time around.”