Chapter 21 Kaylee
TWENTY-ONE
KAYLEE
Ishould have known it was coming. It was only a matter of time before someone found out, before someone leaked us to the press. I had just hoped it would happen much later, when my relationship with Micah was more solid.
“Those fucking bastards,” Micah bit out.
His hand was shaking as he gripped his phone tight. His knuckles were turning white even as his cheeks flushed red with anger. I took his hand in both of mine and eased his fingers loose.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “It was bound to happen.”
“It’s not okay,” Micah snapped. I knew he wasn’t snapping at me.
He got up from the sofa and began pacing.
“You don’t even have to read the article to know what they’re implying.
The ‘real reason’ behind your success? A ‘romance with a bandmate’?
They might as well outright say you slept your way to the top. ”
Micah was practically shouting now. I stayed sitting on the sofa as he ranted.
“Who the hell would say something like this, anyway?” he continued. “My mom and the band are the only ones that know. The only places we’ve been out together in public are Everly’s store and the studio. We haven’t done any shows since getting together. Our only public appearance was—”
Micah stopped short. A murderous cloud flickered in his eyes.
“That podcast,” he growled. “That producer. It must have been him, that bastard.”
“We don’t know for sure.” I put my phone back in my pocket and leaned back against the sofa cushions. I let my toes tap out a simple rhythm on the floor, a soothing beat. “And even if it was him, what good does it do, getting upset now? Our secret is already out.”
“Why aren’t you upset?” Micah replied, giving me a searching look. “They’re saying awful shit about you.”
“Yes, they are,” I replied archly. “They have before, and they will again. This isn’t exactly a surprise, Micah. I knew it was coming.”
He stared at me, taken aback. “How?”
“Remember when I said I was willing to risk the consequences to be with you?” I spread my hands. “This is one of them. People are going to talk trash. It happens. That’s celebrity culture.”
Micah’s anger seemed to bleed out of him, his cheeks turning back to their regular shade of pink, not a seething red, but it was replaced by a pained furrow of his brow.
“How often does this kind of shit happen?” he asked.
“Maybe once every few months, not that often,” I explained. “It happens to everyone, Micah. The media gets a juicy tidbit and bends the truth to make it fit whatever story they want to sell. The only difference is, they’ve targeted you, so now you’re paying attention.”
“Shit.” His furrowed brow only deepened as a weary expression crossed his face. “I’ve been an oblivious asshole, haven’t I?”
“You’ve always tuned out anything that isn’t about the music,” I said, partly agreeing. “It’s not a bad thing to ignore trash media.”
“But I never realized how it affected anyone else,” he pointed out. “I never realized how it affected you.”
“The first few times it happened, I got really angry,” I admitted. “I even ranted to you about it. Don’t you remember when someone made that website counting down the days until I turned eighteen?”
Micah’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I remember wanting to bury that asshole six feet under.”
“If I got that pissed off at every little thing, I’d be a perpetual ball of righteous fury,” I told him. “The best thing to do it to ignore it. Don’t give it any more attention than it deserves, which is none.”
“I can’t,” Micah began to protest, “I can’t let them just get away with it. I can’t let them get away with attacking your reputation. With attacking you.”
Micah was regressing back into protector mode. We’d already talked about his protective instincts, how he always thought he needed to be the one to look after everyone in the band, especially me.
But we’d also talked about how I didn’t that protection, not anymore.
If this was how Micah reacted to some stupid headline from some trash magazine, I dreaded the thought of him finding out about my mom.
“I don’t want you going after any kind of revenge,” I told him. “I don’t want you stirring up trouble. All I want is to go back to making music and ignoring people whose opinions don’t matter. Can you do that?”
Micah opened his mouth to reply, but paused before taking in a deep breath. A bevy of expressions crossed his face, an internal struggle going on in his head. He let the breath out slowly through his nose. Then he nodded.
“I hate this,” he said, even as agreed.
“I hate it, too,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest in a huff. He had to know that I wasn’t completely unaffected. “This whole thing sucks. But I don’t need you going on a rampage on my behalf. It only makes things worse.”
Micah flopped down on the sofa next to me, put an arm around my shoulder and buried his face in the crook of my neck.
“Maybe not a rampage,” he said, voice muffled by my hair, “but what about a scuffle? A bit of a commotion?” His fingers walked a line up my inner thigh, starting at my knee. “A small ruckus, even?”
I let out a laugh and threw my legs over his lap, squeezing my thighs together to trap his hand and stop the tickling fingers.
“I know you, and I know this band,” I said. “It’ll start with a small ruckus and then escalate to a full blown nuclear war. Especially if Finn joins in,” I added.
Micah’s eyebrow twitched at the thought of our bassist wreaking havoc again.
Finn had caused enough trouble over the years, and now that he was, by his own words, ‘a reformed man,’ the last thing we needed was to give him a reason to backslide.
I was sure his girlfriend Corinna wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Hey,” Micah said softly, the anger in his eyes now depleted. “Enough of my shit. You said you wanted to talk about something?”
Now it was my eyebrow that twitched.
I’d told Anya I would talk to Micah about my relationship worries. He insisted on going slow, physically, but was that because he was still unsure about us?
If he was, then this whole media scandal might have only made things worse.
It was clear he didn’t want to break things off because of it, which was reassuring, but what if something worse had happened?
What would he do if even an even bigger problem appeared before us?
Was our relationship strong enough at this point to withstand it?
But we’d just had a heated conversation, and Micah had been so angry, so upset. He wasn’t angry or upset with me, but a lot of heightened emotions had been thrown around. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to bring it up.
Even I was aware that I was stalling, that I was making excuses. But maybe I didn’t have to ask him in words?
Micah’s hand was still trapped between my thighs. I took it and, with a coy smile, I brought his hand to the zipper on my jean shorts.
“I thought maybe we could talk about that whole, ‘going slow’, thing,” I said, aiming for a sultry tone.
Heat flared up in Micah’s eyes. He ignored the zipper and instead used his index finger to trace circles around my belly button. I squirmed, both from the tickling sensation and from the warmth filling my core. All I needed was the lightest of touches and he had me melting.
“You want to talk about going slow?” Micah asked, his voice teasing. “Or do you mean you want to talk about speeding things up?”
“Yes, exactly that,” I said, nodding my head quickly. “I’m ready for more. I want more.”
I put both my hands on his cheeks and pulled him down to give him two kisses. The first was soft and gentle, but the second was firmer, hungry, with lips, and teeth, and tongue battling for control.
“I want more of you,” I panted into his mouth.
Micah groaned in the back of his throat.
“You’re too fucking tempting,” he murmured.
“Good, my plan is working,” I said triumphantly.
Micah let out a shuddering breath, leaning forward to rest his forehead against mine.
“You drive me crazy, you know that?” he said. “You always have.”
“A good kind of crazy, I hope,” I said with a cheeky smile.
“The best kind,” he said, expression totally serious. “I never want to go without your kind of crazy ever again.”
I inhaled sharply and searched his eyes. Was that the answer I was looking for?
“Your bedroom is still on the second floor, right?” Micah asked.
My heart thumped wildly as the heat within me sparked into a blaze. A sly grin threatened to cross my face.
“Yes, it is,” I said, feigning an innocent look. “Why do you ask?”
I squealed as he hoisted me up from the sofa and over his shoulder.
“Because now it’s my turn to drive you crazy.”