Chapter 19
When I eventually opened my eyes again, it took me a few moments to get my bearings. My head hurt, and the soft light breaking through the curtains didn’t help. I found my finger stick and measured my blood glucose. I needed to eat.
I snuck downstairs and passed Micah draped on the sofa without a shirt on, bathed in the morning light. I wanted to memorize that image, but if I lost consciousness on his floor, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t remember anything.
His kitchen was a barren nightmare. In the fridge, a lone juice box remained beside a couple of slices of leftover pizza. I considered the pizza but went for a glass of milk instead. I rummaged through his pantry until I found a box of Cheerios, a jar of peanut butter, and crackers. I shook my head in disappointment. I went in search of a knife. Another day of peanut butter crackers—at least it would tide me over until we could go out for real food.
Finally, my head cleared, and I felt human again. I meant to sneak upstairs and get another hour of sleep, but Micah’s sleeping form looked like something that should be hanging in the Louvre. I carefully slid my camera out of my bag and sat crisscross on the floor, trying to find the perfect angle.
The shutter whirred open and closed. Micah stirred. I scooted back to get the length of him, with the crimson throw sliding off him and exposing his toes. His arms and chest needed to be chiseled out of marble. Would nobody preserve this work of art but me?
I shot off another picture, and his eyes opened. I couldn’t stop shooting because every movement of his face was more beautiful than the last.
“Hey.” He yawned. “Were you taking pictures?”
“I couldn’t resist. You’re so gorgeous when you sleep.”
He frowned. “Only when I sleep?” He held out his hand to me and drew me close. “Have you been eating peanut butter?” He ran a finger across my chin and popped it into my mouth. I licked off the peanut butter, and he groaned.
Encouraged, I ran my tongue down his finger to his palm. Then I took that hand in mine and continued to graze my lips along his forearm, then his bicep, and finally I licked the nape of his neck. He wrested his hand free from me and wrapped his arm around my back. As he pulled me to him, he sat up, letting the crimson throw finish its descent to the floor. He had nothing on underneath. And boy was he happy to see me.
He hid his mouth behind his fist. “You have that effect on me.”
“Where’s my camera?”
“That kinky, huh?”
“Just feeling selfish keeping all this to myself.” I laid my hands on his abs, and a shiver vibrated along his muscles. “You should be dipped in gold.”
“How about chocolate?”
“Not chocolate. Then I couldn’t do this.” I bent forward and sucked on his nipple. My hand ventured down, and this time, I made his back arch.
“Oh, God.” His voice cracked. “Josie, stop. You’re driving me insane.”
“Stop?” I drew my hand away.
He caught my wrist and kissed my arm, all the way to my shoulder. Then he started working on the buttons of my pajama top. “I need to see you.”
I helped him undress me. Then he touched me with gentle fingertips. Slowly. And every square inch he touched made me yearn for him. And so I touched him in kind. I laid my finger on his lips and let him kiss me. I caressed his forehead and his cheeks. I wrapped my hand around his neck and pulled him to me so I could taste his lips.
But he had other ideas and ducked his head and kissed my neck instead. “You are so delicious. I could spend an eternity learning your body.”
He teased me with ticklish circles along my inner thighs. I would have been happier if he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to his cave to take me from behind at that exact moment. But I wouldn’t beg. Not today. I wanted to leave that honor to him.
I reached down and gently massaged his balls and earned another “Oh, my God.”
He upped the ante, dragging one finger straight up right where I wanted it. At that, I grasped him and ran my thumb along his shaft. We looked into each other’s eyes. I could see he was about to break, but he had to see the same on my face.
At the exact same moment, we both said it. “Please.”
Then “yes.”
His bag lay on a nearby chair. He reached for it and dug around for a packet. Then he took my hand and led me to the chair. He kissed me between my legs. His tongue found my most sensitive spot, and I moaned. He lifted his head, but kept working that pleasure point with his thumb as he entered.
With him on his knees and me in his chair, we fit together perfectly. I draped my arms over his shoulders and bit his neck. The noises coming from him only heightened my ache. I dragged my nails across his back and sucked on his earlobes. And he came with a shudder, panting.
“You drive me wild, Josie. I swear I can last more than five minutes.”
I still felt turned on and sultry, so I may have looked like a drunk person. He licked his lips.
“Can I?” And without waiting for an answer, his finger slid inside as his tongue and lips circled and sucked and darted, excruciating and delicious. The pleasure concentrated to a pinpoint, and then spiraled out in geometric shapes in every direction, both sharp and diffuse. And then I bucked and lurched away, suddenly overwhelmed by the physical contact.
I sat up and slouched into him. He tugged me down into his lap and hugged me tight. I wrapped my arms around him. “It’s never been like this for me. I’ve never been like this. You turned me into a sex toy, Micah.”
“You’re not a sex toy. You are a goddess. Do you think it’s ever been like this for me?”
I’d seen his girlfriends. I’d seen his infinite stash of condoms. I wouldn’t want to see what this apartment would look like under a black light. “I wouldn’t know.”
“It hasn’t. When I’m with you, I want to tease out every second. I don’t want the end to ever get here.”
“Like a never-ending book.”
“Or a song that keeps getting better.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you can’t come to Connecticut? Do some gambling? See a little rock show? Couldn’t you call it an interview?”
“I wish. My boss isn’t interested in rock shows. That’s for another section of the paper.”
“Well, why don’t you work for that section?”
“Too much competition.”
“I could put in a word.” He waggled his eyebrows as if the animals at the zoo could choose their own spectators.
“You are free to try. But I have to go serve out the rest of my punishment today.”
His winced. “Punishment?”
I grabbed his comforter and draped it over us. I’d started to feel a distinct chill. “It’s nothing. Andy wants to teach me a lesson, so he’s sent me off to cover the airports.”
“Why’s he teaching you a lesson?”
“He says I’m too soft. I’m supposed to grow a spine or something.”
Micah ran his hand across my back. “You have a nice spine. Solid.”
The shiver turned into goose bumps, and I’d started to sweat. “Micah?” I tried to stand up, but I staggered. I found the sofa and lay down.
He was up in a second. “Oh, shit. What do I do?”
“Juice.”
He left the room and returned, jabbing the plastic straw at the juice box, swearing the whole time. Purple liquid dripped from the puncture, and the straw had bent so badly there was a hole in it. I sucked it down and relaxed into a pillow. “Meter,” I said.
“Where?” His face was white panic, but I focused and pointed up.
He bounded up the stairs and came back with the meter. I fed the strip in, then pricked my finger and pressed the blood against the strip. It was low. “Can you bring me that pizza in your fridge?”
He ran and got it. I said, “I’m sorry for this,” and ate like a starving wildebeest. Then I curled up, wrapping my arms around myself. It hadn’t even registered I’d done all this butt-ass naked until he placed the comforter over me. But then again, so had he.
“Are you going to be okay? Should I call the doctor?”
“I’ll be fine. It looks scary, but you did everything perfectly. Could you just buy more food?” I offered a weak laugh to help lighten the mood, but it made me feel nauseated, so I closed my eyes and tried to wait out the dizziness and light-headedness and cold, clammy sweats.
Micah sat beside me for ten minutes, holding my hand with a look of serious concern on his face. “I’m going to kill you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but not how you think.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry. My sense of humor is off.”
“Should I stay here with you? What do you need?”
“I’m going to be fine in a few minutes. And then we go on with our day as planned. This is what my life is like. Usually not so dramatic. I’m going to have to figure out what I need to adjust. Maybe I’ll get to eat more now.” I tried to laugh again, and it didn’t make me want to puke, so I sat up and threw my feet on the floor. I took one more reading to make sure and then asked, “Can I use your shower?”
He must have run to the deli while I got ready. When I finished showering, he proudly displayed the various things he’d bought, from an apple to a breakfast sandwich with egg and cheese and bacon.
“I should be going. I’ve got to catch two trains to get to the airport’s air train.”
“No, you don’t. I’ll call my driver. So sit down and eat something.”
I liked bossy Micah. “Show me what you got.”
From everything he brought, I managed to fish out an egg with some cheese still clinging to it, the apple, and a couple of slices of whole grain toast. “How’d you know to get whole grain?”
“Easy. I just asked myself what the worst possible toast would be. Whole wheat.”
I snorted. “Why’d you want to get me the worst toast?”
“I figured it would be the healthiest.”
He stood behind me and combed his fingers through my long hair. “Your hair is the first thing I noticed about you. Silky.”
“What if I cut it all off?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed the top of my head. “It wasn’t the only thing I noticed about you.”
“No? What else?”
“Positively shameless fishing, Wilder.”
I spun around and cocked my head at him. “Waiting.”
He twisted his mouth, and for a second, I thought he was going to tease me. But he touched my cheek and said, “Your skin glows like a golden statue.” He ran his finger down to my mouth. “That first day I saw you, I had to drag my eyes away from your lips so I wouldn’t creep you out with lusty attention. When you smiled, all I could think about was how one day, I’d like to kiss you.”
My cheeks heated with flattered embarrassment. “You’re just saying that so I’ll kiss you now.”
“Maybe.” He smiled his bratty smile. And I let him kiss me anyway. He leaned an inch away. “Did you notice me at all that day?”
Despite his professions of first crush, I hesitated to let him peer into that strange part of my brain where I was still nobody and he was still somebody. Even standing here with his arms around me, I worried he’d be repulsed by what I still saw as early unrequited desire. “I may have thought you were cute.”
“Cute,” he said, like a parent whose child has just told a whopping fib.
His phone vibrated, saving me from a thorough investigation. His driver had arrived, and Micah walked me out so he could give me a kiss and send me on my way with many promises to call and text and see each other when he got back from Connecticut.
Twenty-four hours had never seemed so daunting.
* * *
Time in an airport is like perpetual déjà vu. Different people repeating the exact same tasks for the billionth time. One day here had felt like a reprieve. Three days felt like a prison. I texted Zion, Find out anything you can about people traveling through JFK today. I can’t take this.
But it gave me plenty of time to think about my relationship with Micah. He was right. He was going to kill me. Not from the sex—which incidentally is how I’d choose to go—but from total ignorance. He meant well. I gave him about a week before he hit the wall and couldn’t deal anymore. And then he’d walk away. I hit that wall constantly. But I couldn’t walk away. Maybe I should make it easy on him and just let him go.
On the other hand, he was a flibbertigibbet and went through women faster than I went through glucose meters. He’d probably get bored with me soon anyway.
Bored. I was so bored. I walked through the pre-security area of the terminal, looking for my people. Around eleven, I spotted a cluster of photographers and approached. I asked one, “What’s the scoop?”
“McCauley Leffert is coming home from rehab today.”
The poor kid. Walking into the same fishbowl that had brought him to the breaking point. I considered leaving the feeding frenzy to these other guys. They had huge video cameras and would walk side by side next to the kid, prompting him for any words. McCauley would be smart to say nothing and get out of there. On the other hand, how much worse could I make things for him, and Andy would love to get a shot of the returning washup. People loved stories of celebrities falling from great heights and then climbing up from the depths of their own personal hell. Especially when they were only seventeen. So I stood there and watched the crowd exiting the terminal for any signs of him.
When he came out, I had to shoot around the horde, and in the end, Andy would have to mostly take my word on the pictures being of McCauley. Most of them were of baseball caps and microphones.
That meant I needed to stay and try to catch at least one more celeb. Zion texted to alert me about an actress who hadn’t acted in several years but had recently been in the news for some controversial statements she’d made during an appearance on a reality show featuring “where are they now” celebrities. He sent me a link to the article so I’d have the background.
The other paps had cleared out, so I had a clear shot of her, wearing exaggerated sunglasses and an outrageously wide-brimmed sun hat.
“Miss Walker?” I called, snapping pictures. “Are you here to talk about last night’s show?”
She veered around me, and I followed her. “Were you misquoted? Do you want to tell your side of the story? Is that why you’re in New York?”
She stopped, and I hit record on my camera instantly. “You people. You take moments of people’s lives and twist them and—” she ground her teeth “—reconstitute them into garbage. A whole person’s life is not one statement made in confusion.” Her voice choked. “People make mistakes. Sometimes there’s a context around a mistake that would make anyone do the same thing at the same moment. But you people—” she poked her long fingernail at me “—you sit around waiting to pounce. You wait to ruin a person’s entire life, and for what? Money? Your own twisted curiosity? Why do you do it?”
I realized she was talking to me, not asking a rhetorical question. “It’s my job.”
“You should be ashamed. Get a job waiting tables if this is all you’re good for. You’d at least make someone happy.”
And with that she turned and left. I had the entire video recorded, but now felt sick about transcribing it. Andy would love it. Maybe he’d love it so much he’d give me back my freedom to work the streets again.
I’d had enough, so I packed it in and took the subway home. I tested my blood, got some food, and then crashed on the sofa to close my eyes and get some rest.
Zion woke me in the early evening. “You feeling okay? Did you catch the has-been?”
“I’m okay. Worn out. Would you mind uploading my pictures and video? I forgot to do it.” And truthfully, I didn’t want to listen to that woman’s accusations one more time. I yawned and rolled over on my side, pulling the blanket up over my shoulders.
Zion flipped on the TV and clicked on my camera. “Everything?”
I still hadn’t deleted the pictures of the theater kid from the day before, but I didn’t want to make Zion hunt through and figure out which ones he needed to send. Andy could delete the duplicates. “Yeah. Thanks.”
We watched the evening news, and then Zion said he was going to make Jamaican jerk chicken. “But then I’ve got plans tonight. Are you sure you’re okay? Micah sent me crazy worried texts earlier today.”
“Yeah, I freaked him out pretty bad.”
“I told you you’re pushing things too hard. Stay in tonight and rest. Promise?”
It was an easy promise. I had nowhere else to be, and besides, Micah called before his show and again right after. And we talked for hours. He’d recovered from whatever awkwardness he had on phones. I wanted to know everything about him, and his curiosity about me seemed equally limitless.
When I said, “Can I ask you a question?” he answered, “Ask me anything.” And so I started the process of getting to know Micah Sinclair.
“What was your favorite thing about high school?”
He didn’t hesitate. “The parties. Yours?”
“Cheater. If you can say ‘parties,’ then I get to say ‘summer vacation.’ ”
“Fine. But do I have to lie and say I liked learning about Shakespeare? Because seriously, my fondest memories of high school involve sneaking into my house late at night and not getting caught.”
I pulled my feet under my legs. “Okay, let me ask it a different way. What was your favorite book as a kid?” I kept my voice low like we were sharing secrets.
“Don’t laugh. I wasn’t allowed to read a lot, but I read A Wrinkle in Time until it fell apart. And Narnia. I was allowed to read Narnia. But not Harry Potter.”
I’d never heard of a kid being forbidden to read. “But that came out while we were in high school.”
“And? If I lived under my parents’ roof, I followed their rules. I have seen the movies.”
“Oh, but you have to read Harry Potter. Promise me you’ll download it and start reading it tomorrow.”
He laughed. “Deal. But then you have to promise to marathon some yet undecided sitcom of my choosing.”
“Okay. It’s funny. I wasn’t allowed to watch a lot of TV growing up—mostly PBS or BBC America.” A vision of my dad leading me by the hand into the public library swam in front of my eyes so powerful I had to shake my head to clear it. “But if I could manage to read a book, I was encouraged to try it. Why weren’t you allowed to read?”
“Satan.”
“Satan? What?”
“My parents worried that books might corrupt me. They worried to a lesser extent about music. Obviously, they got their priorities backward.”
“So you’re telling me you’re a devil worshipper?”
Soft laughter. “Don’t tell me you’re not.”
I recalled all the stuff Leonard had said about Micah’s parents’ mission trip, and wondered if I should mention it. I snuggled into my blanket and took a sip from my water bottle, thinking of a better question. “So are you religious?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“How can you maybe be religious?”
“I mean, I don’t really think about it. Sometimes I think it seems ridiculous to believe in God when we’re just this tiny speck in a huge universe. Then I think how could there not be a God. It’s easier not to think about it.”
“So you like to drift through eternity?”
“Yeah. I’m a drifter. What about you?”
“My parents disagreed about religion. Dad’s vaguely Hindu, and Mom’s vaguely Southern Baptist. By the time Dad left, and my mom started going back to church, I’d missed a window. I can kind of see why people believe, but I could never feel it.”
“I can feel it. My mom would say feeling is proof that my soul is searching. But I also sometimes feel like inanimate objects have emotions, you know? Have you ever felt sad to throw away an old pair of shoes that have been nothing but loyal?”
I snorted. “You’re crazy.”
“I mean, feelings can be misleading.”
“Yeah, they can.” I sat up and took a deep breath. “Micah?”
“Uh-huh?” He was quiet, too. He’d told me they’d all gotten rooms at the casino for the night—gaudy, expensive rooms. A room perfect for a one-night stand with a groupie.
“Can I ask you something serious? About us?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you just drifting?”
“With you? No. I’m anchored. Positively moored.”
I smiled to myself. I’d never known anyone to lay it out so openly. It encouraged me to ask a trickier question. “So, would you consider this exclusive?”
“You want to know if I’m flirting with other girls?”
“No. You’re gonna flirt. That’s just you. But I want to know what to expect.”
“What do you want to expect?”
“Micah, you are talking in circles. You can’t answer a question with a question.”
“I can’t? Why not?” He started laughing.
“You are a brat.”
“I’ll tell you what to expect then. Expect me to be home tomorrow around noon. What are we doing?”
I laid my head down and rolled on my side, switching my phone to the other ear. “Going to a flea market.”
“A flea market?”
“With Zion.”
“Sounds fun.”
I lowered my voice, quiet. “Micah. You haven’t answered my question.”
“No? I thought I did.” If I closed my eyes, I could imagine his low whisper coming from beside me.
“I must have missed your answer. Could you say it again?”
“Josie. Unless you tell me to take a hike, or, in some dystopian universe, I tell you we’re through, you’re the only girl for me.”