A Crazy Kind of Love by Mary Ann Marlowe (18)

Chapter 18

The driver arrived moments after Micah texted for him to pick us up. I couldn’t believe how quickly he had responded. “Does that poor guy just sit in his car constantly waiting for you to call him?”

Micah looked at me confused. “It’s a service. They work in shifts. Haven’t you noticed it’s not always the same guy?”

I hadn’t, and I felt like an unobservant heel, so after we climbed into the car, I changed the subject. “What are we going to do at your apartment that we couldn’t do at mine?”

He slid over and put his arm around me, his hand brushing lightly against the exposed skin on the back of my neck. “You don’t have a guitar.”

I marveled at the power in a single touch. We’d been together only a couple of hours earlier, and already, I longed to be alone with him again, in his bed, slowly undressing him. I shivered at the thought, and he wrapped his arms around me more tightly.

The driver let us out in Park Slope on a tree-lined street with a coffee shop on the corner. We climbed a few steps and entered near the ground floor. It took seeing the stairs inside his front door to realize all three floors of the building were his.

Normally, my next question would be “How can you afford this place?” But then I remembered that there were people at an Iowa community college who knew his name.

Micah moved around picking things up and closing doors. I still hovered in the vestibule. Both of us had transitioned into awkwardness. Somehow Micah put me at ease so much that I went long stretches forgetting about who he was. I knew he’d dated groupies, but it didn’t matter. I knew he was a celebrity, but he didn’t act like it. But at odd times, I felt like the looking glass cracked, and reality would creep in. Right at that moment, I wondered how I’d ended up standing in Micah Sinclair’s Park Slope apartment ready to stay the night.

And then he came back to take my hand and pull me into his living room with its cherrywood floors and high ceiling. All I could think about was biding my time until we could call it bedtime so I could take those stupid shorts off him again.

He led me through the living room on a tour of his apartment, stopping in the kitchen to put my snacks and syringes into the fridge. His fridge was frighteningly empty and dwarfed my small stash of emergency energy. His kitchen opened onto a patio and yard. I didn’t know the true meaning of jealousy until that moment.

“You have a yard.” I opened the door and took a step out into the night air. The brick patio spanned a few feet before ending in a patch of dirt and crabgrass. The plastic table seemed cheap and out of place compared to the interior decorations. A single lounge chair told me that Micah didn’t host many backyard barbecues. The cigarette butts on the ground revealed Micah’s tendency to sit out here. Alone.

“Is this where you were when you called the other day?”

“Yeah. It’s peaceful out here in the evening.”

I jumped when a cat rubbed up against my leg. I knelt down. “Well, hey there.” The cat flopped onto its back, purring, so I rubbed its tummy. “Where did you come from?”

“That’s Oscar.” Micah squatted beside me and scratched Oscar behind the ears. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”

“No. I love cats. Is he yours?”

“Sort of. Felix is around here somewhere. He’s mostly blind, so he gets a bit shy sometimes.”

Micah picked Oscar up and carried him inside. He set him down on the floor and grabbed a bag of cat food from a cabinet. I supposed in an emergency, I could always eat the cat food. Or I could eat the cat.

“Where did you get them?”

“I got Felix while doing a benefit concert for the SPCA last year. With his condition, he couldn’t find a home. But he’s a great cat. And Oscar buddy just showed up here and wouldn’t leave. I let him go out in case he’s got a home nearby, but every time I come home, he’s there.”

“But who takes care of them when you’re not here?”

“Anna.” He put the cat food under the sink. “She’s my housekeeper. She’ll come by when I’m not here and check in on the cats.”

We went upstairs to drop the bag with my clothes in a bedroom. And then I followed him down the narrow steps to his basement. There, he had divided the room into two purposes. On one side, he’d lined his walls with musical equipment. The other side looked like a personal gym. A treadmill faced a flat-screen TV, and a huge weight machine ate up a chunk of real estate.

I raised an eyebrow. “Amplifiers?”

He sat down on a small amplifier, laughing. “It’s plausible. I have nightmares about these things.”

A notebook lay open next to the treadmill, and I thumbed through it. He had a routine, regular in regimen, irregular in execution. “You sure skip a lot of days.”

“I travel a lot.”

He did. I flipped back. Page after page showed blanks. “When do you travel next?”

“Tomorrow.”

My eyes shot up at him. “What?”

He shrugged. “Just going up to Connecticut. You wanna come?”

“You’re asking me to go to Connecticut tomorrow?” I put my hand on my hip. “You know I have a job, right?”

“No worries. I’ll be home Saturday. You’ll barely miss me.”

He pulled up a guitar and started picking at it. I found a stool and leaned against it to watch. His fingers moved smoothly between chords, totally professional. He kept his eyes on me. He wasn’t really playing, just doodling.

I struck a teasing tone. “Are you gonna write me that song now?”

He changed chords and began playing a song that sounded almost familiar. Then he sang. “Josie came up from Georgia. She was looking for a soul to steal.”

I squealed. “No no no!”

He stopped playing. “I’d love to say I wrote you a song in my head over the last hour. Eden could do it, but if I’m going to write you a proper song, I’ll need a little more time. I could play you something else. I won’t put you on the spot for a request.” His smile took the barb out of the jab.

“I want to hear something. I really loved hearing you sing with Eden last week.”

He started into a quiet song. I tried to imagine what it would be like to sit in a club like the one Eden had performed at while he sat onstage playing songs like this. It was so different from the music his band had performed. Would he stage dive at the end?

While he played, a scraggly black-and-white cat peered out from behind the amplifier. Its eyes were milky, and I recalled Micah mentioning that Felix was blind. He’d failed to mention the cat’s ear was half missing. The little guy was so beat up, it appeared to have survived a tragic combine accident. Whatever possessed Micah to take that pathetic thing into his house was beyond me, but it emerged from hiding and began to rub its head against Micah’s ankles while he played, apparently a fan of the music. Or a fan of Micah.

The whole scene was utterly incongruous. At the concert on Tuesday, Micah had been larger than life on a huge stage, commanding adulation from a thousand screaming fans. Here in his small spare basement with a cat making love to his feet, he’d disappeared into himself. But his stillness couldn’t disguise the power he held in his fingertips. He overwhelmed the acoustic guitar. He overwhelmed me.

When he stopped playing, my voice trembled a little as I said, “Wow.”

“Yeah?” He grinned and set the guitar down.

“Yeah. You can write a song about me.” I bit my lip. “If you want.”

He slipped onto the floor with his back against the wall. When I started to sit down in front of him, he reached out his hand and pulled me next to him. I leaned against his shoulder.

He said, “I’ve never written a song about a real girl.”

“You write about blow-up dolls?”

He snorted. “I write about fictional girls. There are a ton of great, sad stories in old country songs. Tragic love songs. That’s my go-to inspiration.”

“I feel like I should be writing all this down.”

His chest rose and fell as he chuckled. “You want to interview me?”

“Is there anything left you haven’t already said?”

“Ouch.” He sat silent for a minute, then said, “There are lots of things I’ve never said. Things I haven’t told the media. Things I’ve never told my mom. Things I’ll never tell my mom.” He grew quiet. “Things I’ve never said to a girl before.”

I shifted so I could meet his eyes. “What have you never said to a girl?”

“You do ask the tough questions.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

His cheek rose as he half smiled. “I have a feeling I might.” He stood and offered me his hand. “But not tonight. Come on.”

I followed him up the narrow stairs and then up to the next floor and into his bedroom. The foreplay had taken a steep nosedive since earlier that evening. He stood in the doorway and asked, “Do you need anything?”

I answered him with a look of confusion. Was I supposed to ask him for the condoms this time?

But he clarified. “Towels? Extra pillows? Toothpaste? More food?”

Realization dawned. “Are you sending me to bed?” Dread curdled my stomach. Had I done something to turn him off? Had I killed his interest in me by giving it all away too fast? Or was he more repulsed by my health issues than he’d let on?

He took a step forward and rubbed my arm. “I know you need to be up early, and I kept you up way too late last night. If I stay in here with you, I’ll never let you get any sleep. I was able to resist you one night, but I can’t get my mind off earlier today. With you—” He heaved in a shuddering breath that echoed my own palpitating desire. “I’d never be able to keep my hands off you. Besides, I don’t think I can fall asleep this early.”

“But I don’t have to go to sleep right away.” I took his hand. “I want you to stay.”

He hesitated. “Zion asked me to make sure you get your rest. He said you’re wearing yourself out.” He looked into my eyes, as serious as a brain surgeon. “I want you to know I can take care of you, too.”

This was maddening. “I don’t need taking care of.” My budding arousal had been cut short from irritation, and I did need to eat something before bed. “Fine. Would you mind getting me a juice box?” My stomach rumbled. “And the peanut butter crackers.” I was decimating the reserves I’d brought, but that was better than crashing in the middle of the night. I’d deal with the ramifications in the morning.

After Micah went downstairs and brought me my late night snack, I climbed in his oh-my-God amazingly comfortable bed, phone in hand, and texted Zion.

He wasted no time replying, Good.

I wished I was kidding. Micah’s king-size bed could have accommodated both of us with room to spare. I never could have predicted I’d end up sleeping in Micah’s bed. But I never would have believed I’d end up there all alone. I recalled Eden’s admonition about how weird Micah would be. She couldn’t have foreseen this.

Honestly, I needed the sleep. I’d been on the go all day with very little sleep from the night before. And then uncut extended bonus sex earlier in the evening. Then cooking. And I drank wine. I slid under the covers and laid my head down, suddenly annoyed by a noticeable lump pressing into my head. I reached under the pillow and encountered a bulky mass. I realized what it was before I’d pulled it out: Clark the deformed gorilla. Micah still kept it after all this time. It was truly the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. But I hugged it tight to my body and drifted off, snug and secure.