Chapter 24
Two cameramen hung around on the sidewalk outside the huge front window, pacing back and forth like prowling wolves. From where I sat, the entire barista island obscured my view of the door, so Micah could have come in while I was messing with my phone. A terrifying, wonderful thought crossed my mind: He could be sitting at a table on the other side of this very room.
And if he was, he’d probably be pulling up the article and learning how badly he’d been portrayed. As hurt as I was by that story, I could imagine he’d feel even worse—taken completely off guard and betrayed.
I stood and walked along the counter toward the front. I peered around the corner. Sure enough, he’d taken a seat in full view of the two cameramen and held his phone in front of him as he read. I glanced outside surprised those two hadn’t breached the entrance at my appearance. Andy would have expected any of his staff to take a seat at the next table with the video rolling—until the staff kicked us out or called the cops.
Micah lifted his eyes from his phone and saw me. “Josie.” The careful composure he’d held in front of the two inquisitors broke—his tight mouth melted into a frown, and his nostrils flared as he sucked in air. I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or pissed.
He stood and indicated the chair across from him.
“Hello, Micah.” I set my tea on the table and scooted in. The speech I’d memorized on the way over threatened to evaporate the longer I looked at him. And dear Lord, I could smell him. I swallowed hard. “Can I go first?”
He shifted in his seat slightly but didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
I’d intended to question him about all the girls straightaway, but after seeing what that article was doing to him—and all because of me—I knew I couldn’t grill him until I’d set the record straight about why that article had even published. I needed his absolution before I could even consider giving him mine.
“First, that picture of you on your sofa. I swear I didn’t know I’d taken that on my work camera. Zion accidentally sent it in with all my other pictures on Friday.”
His expression remained inscrutable. Did he hate me? I pressed on.
“And I had no idea Andy was writing this article. I did tell him we were dating—he already knew it anyway—and I knew he’d write something about it, but I didn’t know it would be so bad. I promise you, no matter what it looks like, I did not start seeing you with the intention to get some kind of inside story.”
He blinked twice. “Really? This article comes out, and you’re worried that I’m going to be mad at you?”
A weight lifted from my shoulders. “You’re not mad?”
He put his hand out, and I took it. “Josie, it was only a matter of time before the media figured this out. And you had to know when the story broke, it wasn’t going to flatter either of us.”
“Micah, even the reporters from other newspapers assume I infiltrated your family to exploit you from the inside.”
“Eden thought the same thing at first. You might hit a rough patch with her after all this, to be honest. But if you were going to exploit me or my friends, you’d think you’d go for juicy secrets. Why would you start a relationship and then report on that relationship? When you start printing things about my secret basement gym, we’ll have words.” He winked.
“Eden thought I was a spy?” I felt sick. The impending article about her pregnancy would only confirm her suspicions and fuel her hatred of me. For a heartbeat, I considered telling Micah everything, but then I remembered the whole reason Eden wanted to keep the secret was so she could be the first to tell her family. I’d only be making things worse if I blew her moment with her big brother. Plus, I had time to warn her still. Adam would be home soon, and Andy promised me a week.
Micah shrugged, completely oblivious to the land mines I was navigating. “You have to know how much she hates your boss and by extension everyone in your profession. But you must have done something to win her over. She thinks you’re great.”
“Not after this, I’m sure.”
“Josie, you didn’t share anything I wouldn’t have told them myself if they’d only asked me. But obviously, it wasn’t even interesting enough to them as a story on its own. Though I wish it had been.”
“Yeah.”
He retracted his hand and sat up like a schoolboy. “I suppose you have some questions for me.”
I sipped my tea, parsing through the long litany of questions I’d intended to press him with, but sitting here face-to-face with him, everything Zion had said echoed in my mind. I settled on something simple but important. “Did you ever tell any of those girls you were in love with them?”
He leaned toward me, elbows on the table. “No. And I wasn’t.”
“They all sounded like they believed you were. Or at least as though they thought you cared more than you did.”
“They’re romanticizing the past, Jo. They may believe what they’re saying, but none of it is exactly true.”
I pulled the article up on my phone and asked, “Did you abandon Annie in France?”
“No. I abandoned her in Spain.”
I flinched.
He frowned. “Sorry. Bad time to joke.” He shifted and threw a glance at the cameramen outside, but he didn’t seem to register they were there. He could have been watching the waitress pouring coffee a table over.
His eyes never lost that intense faraway look as he thought back. “I met Annie when I toured with Adam’s band. She wanted to ride with us for a few days. I wasn’t seeing anyone else at the time, and I’d grown bored of traveling with those guys, stir-crazy.” He scratched the scruff on his chin. “She was really nice—and there. And I really like sex. Okay?”
I winced even though none of this was new information. I’d always known his reputation, but there’d never been so many faces bringing his cartoon-like promiscuity to life. And Micah didn’t cast his eyes down or blush or show any signs of shame. His eyes locked on mine. “Look, I was twenty-nine, playing huge stadiums for the first time in my life, and I didn’t tell her not to follow us across the South of France to Barcelona. I wasn’t in love with her, and I never promised her anything.”
“So you left her there?”
He sipped his coffee as a couple passed by our table on their way to the door. Then he resumed. “Actually, I asked her to come with us to New York, but she had family in France. She chose to stay behind. We emailed for a little while, but we had nothing at all to talk about. We were never really together. If she says I was using her, I could say the same about her. It might not be a storybook romance to write home about, but she wasn’t upset when it ended.”
I processed that and accepted it. If I was going to judge anyone for a series of meaningless physical relationships, I’d need to sit Zion down and have a talk. I’d never judged anyone else for separating sex from romance, so I needed to grant the same forgiveness to Micah, no matter how it felt. “So what happened with . . . Martina? She said you were together for three months before you told her to stop calling.”
He pressed his lips together. “Yeah. So, not so much.”
“She’s lying?”
He exhaled through his nose, half laugh, half snort. “Martina showed up at some point at a show. She made it clear she was interested in coming to my room. I wasn’t seeing anyone else at that time. And did I mention I really like sex? I’m pretty sure I did.”
I clenched my fists together and relaxed them. “So you started to see her?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No. She started to see me.”
“What?”
“She was always there at all the shows we played. I don’t know how long that went on. She says three months. It could have been. It wasn’t a consecutive three months. It was a night here and there. And after a while, we’d hang out some. We went out to eat or did something in town to blow off steam. But I never saw her between towns.
“And then during a hiatus, I started seeing Lauren—who isn’t interviewed in this article, you’ll notice. Things didn’t work out with Lauren either, but that’s another story. The next time Martina came to a show, I told her I was in a relationship and couldn’t hang out with her.”
“Did she keep trying?”
“I guess. I never thought she was looking for anything more than a hookup. She didn’t even have my phone number or email, so I wouldn’t have told her to stop calling. I might have told her she shouldn’t keep trying to hang out. I don’t mean to freak you out, but there are a lot of women like Martina at shows. They aren’t usually looking for a long-term relationship.”
“And you like sex.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “What about Victoria? She didn’t seem to be in it for the sex.”
He fell back in his chair. “You may not believe me, but I have no idea what Victoria is talking about. Maybe she thought they asked her about someone else. I’ve never had anything with her. Ever. Maybe she wanted to be featured in a story. I swear.” He held my gaze for a beat and said, “You’re going to have to decide if you trust me more than a quote in a tabloid article, Jo.”
A knock on the window caught my attention. A cameraman had pressed his lens up to the glass, pointed right at us. I sorely wanted to give the guy the finger, but all that would accomplish would be getting my picture in the paper looking like a jerk. Nobody would see it from my point of view. They’d never see that guy spying on us. On a sudden impulse, I lifted the strap off the back of my chair and grabbed my camera out. I pointed it right back at the paparazzo in the window and clicked a photo.
Micah laid his hands on the table and stared at his thumbnail as if it held magical properties. “Jo, are you going to want an explanation for all of these? I know it sounds terrible, but for the past couple of years, women have literally thrown themselves at me. I can’t change all of that. But it’s not like we spent a lot of time talking about our futures.”
“So you’re just a man-whore.”
“I’m a man-whore?”
“Yes. You are a man-whore who really likes sex. Did I mishear you?”
He coughed. “With you, I love sex.” He touched my arm, and a chill traveled up my spine. “But Josie, I’m not some kind of sex addict. You don’t have to worry about me here or out on the road. I’ve got some self-control.”
I thought of the first night we spent together, sleeping in my room. “Yeah. I believe that.”
“I want to be with you, only you. You’re special to me.” He reached across the table for my hand. “Josie, I love you.”
The sincerity in his eyes gave me pause. For that moment, I trusted him completely. I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him, too, but then the door swung open, and a man took a seat at a table across from us. He laid his phone in front of him and began flipping through the sugar packets with interest—which was odd because he hadn’t ordered anything to drink.
“I’ve got to get out of this fishbowl, Micah.” I stood to gather my things.
Micah jumped up. “Will you walk with me to my place at least? Can we finish this conversation?”
As we left the coffee shop together, the cameramen divided and conquered. One approached Micah. The other walked beside me. I ignored the guy peppering me with questions and lifted my camera to shoot video of the other guy, clearly harassing Micah all the way up the street.
“How long have you been seeing each other? Did you start dating Jo before you broke up with Isabelle?”
Micah got the easy questions. My inquisitor wanted to know if I was using Micah for sex or if I was using sex to further my career. Watching all this unfold through my lens placed it at a distance, like watching someone else’s life being torn to shreds. I lowered the camera out of curiosity to see this person’s eyes. I wanted to know what it would look like to no longer have a soul.
It was a miscalculation. As soon as he saw my face, his strategy deviated, and he asked, “You’re not stupid enough to have fallen in love with him, are you?”
I’d almost made it to Micah’s townhouse without giving them anything, but the new line of questioning took me by surprise, and the tears burst forth as we neared the steps. Micah led me inside and slammed the door behind us. We hadn’t exchanged a single word in those harrowing five minutes.
He wrapped his arms around me, whispering, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. I broke free and sat on his sofa. Micah ran into the kitchen, and I waited, running my fingers through the soft underside of that damn crimson throw. I pulled it to my face to wipe away tears, but the smell of Micah overpowered me.
He sat beside me with one of those snack boxes, and I stared at it. Without looking up, I said, “Micah, I know you love me.” I lifted my eyes. His blue eyes were so pretty. And his lips—God, his lips. “At least for now.”
His face fell. “You don’t think my feelings for you will last?”
“I know you think they will. And you might be right. If this were any ordinary relationship, we might have a chance to figure that out.”
“What are you saying?”
“I love you, Micah.” My voice had given up trying to sound emotionless. I wiped a tear off my face with the back of my arm. “Believe me when I tell you I want to make this work.”
He smirked in his adorably bratty way. “I knew it.” When I didn’t smile back, he shifted. “But?”
“Micah, for the short time I’ve known you, you’ve done everything right, and if I thought this could last, I’d stay.” I straightened my spine and steeled myself like I used to whenever I had to chase people down with my camera. Steeling myself for the kill. “But I don’t know how to deal with any of this. I can’t tell up from down. I can’t keep going forward like this. I need some time to get my head together. Can you give me some time? Away from all that?” I pointed toward the front where right now, those two men who were just doing their job (God, how many times had I said that?) were waiting to pounce.
He stared at his feet and didn’t speak right away. Finally, he said, “I’ll give you all the time you need, Josie. Whatever you need. I know you’ll eventually come around. When you do, I’ll be waiting.” He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me for a solid minute.
It would have been so easy to fall into him. Pratosh could cook for us, and we’d kiss and kiss and kiss. I wanted it so bad it hurt.
But I needed to take care of myself first. And I was damn good at forgoing temptation.
I grabbed my gear and stood. “I need to go.”
Micah called his service, gave me one last big hug inside, told me again how much he loved me, and then walked me out through the onslaught.
Those two guys were still rolling tape as we death-marched to the waiting car. They started in on Micah first. “What’s going on, Micah? Are you guys still together?”
Despite my best efforts, my lips trembled. I gritted my teeth, but before we’d made it to the car, I lifted my hand involuntarily to wipe a tear off my face. Then the camera was in my face. “Josie, did Micah dump you?”
Micah pressed between me and the camera. “Give her some space, guys. Come on.” He shielded me until he had to open the door. As soon as he moved out of the way for a heartbeat, the camera filled in the empty space.
When the door closed, I heave-sobbed, submitting to the emotions I’d bottled up for the past hour—and the past fifteen years. The driver asked me for the address, and I lifted my head to give it to him. A reporter loomed in the right side of the windshield, camera pressed to the glass, recording my complete breakdown. Micah passed in front of the car and grabbed the guy by the elbow, jerking him away.
As the car drove off, I turned and watched as Micah, red-faced and angry, yelled at the reporters while they stood by recording it all.