Chapter Seventeen
It could stand to be a little colder, in John’s opinion.
He was way too aware of the expanse of smooth skin of Micah’s legs, that grayscale rose tattoo on her thigh so close he could reach out and squeeze it.
The T-shirt she wore covered her as well as any dress, but she didn’t seem to appreciate how loose it was, how it rode up when she slid down in her chair to reveal a sliver of ass cheek peeking out from her boy shorts, how when she’d bent over to grab some silverware he’d gotten a glimpse right down her top.
It hurt him to hear that she felt that way about herself—that she saw herself as some sort of fake superhero. But considering he also had very complicated feelings whenever anyone brought up the band, or his past career, he couldn’t say he didn’t get it.
“I was embarrassed,” he said, “the first time I took the stage post-ElectricOh!. I was temporarily filling in for a local band’s guitarist who’d moved out of state.
I saw the ad on a music store bulletin board and contacted them to arrange a tryout and everything.
And I didn’t want to be a dick about it, like Do you know who I am?
, but it also felt…humbling. Just showing up at some random guy’s house and being like, Hey, I play guitar, I’ll be in your band for a few months until you find someone else . ”
“Like it’s embarrassing if they know who you are,” she said. “And it’s embarrassing if they don’t.”
John ran his hand through his hair. “Exactly. There’s a pause, after I introduce myself, where I can’t decide which outcome will be worse.”
“So why did you do it? It couldn’t have been for the money.”
John laughed, thinking of the fifty-dollar share of the door he was lucky to get for most shows, the free beers he was offered and turned down that were the more common mode of payment.
“Definitely not the money. I just really wanted to play music, and not alone in my room. I wanted to play with other people again.”
“Why not start another band of your own?” Micah asked. “Like Ryder did. Or even advertise yourself as a session or touring musician, like Frankie.”
John had never fully put into words why he hadn’t gone those routes, even to himself. It felt like pushing on something sensitive, like he had a tooth pain he could ignore if he just didn’t press on it.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Didn’t feel right, I guess.”
She shivered, tucking her knees up to her chest and pulling her whole shirt around them.
It struck John as such a middle school move, so reminiscent of the way she used to hug her arms to her chest inside her sweatshirt in science, which always ran about ten degrees colder than any other classroom.
It gave him that ache in his stomach again, when he thought about who they’d been then, how far they’d come since to get here , two people on a cruise ship who hadn’t talked in over a decade. But at least who were talking now.
“You’re cold,” he said. “Let’s head back inside.”
He grabbed his plate and then hers, too, stacking them on top of one another to set them back on the room service tray.
He was planning to turn to her then, to thank her again for dinner but make some comment about how he really should be going (to do what?) or he was tired (he was wide awake).
But she’d already followed him inside, closing the sliding glass door to the balcony behind her, and he saw that his shoes and socks were still out there.
It would’ve taken ten seconds for him to go and retrieve them, but for some reason those ten seconds made him decide to stay.
“I read some of your private messages once,” he said. “When we were in maybe ninth grade? I always felt guilty about it, so I thought I’d tell you while we’re clearing the air.”
Her face brightened, like this was the most delightful bit of news he could’ve possibly told her. “What do you mean, you read my messages?”
He felt the tips of his ears heat. “We were hanging out in your room, and you had to go do some chore your parents were nagging you about…and I went to pause the music we were listening to, and your inbox was up, and…yeah, I skimmed through and then I opened one.”
“Such a little hacker,” she chided. “Anything good?”
It had been the mention of his own name that had gotten him to click on one.
It had turned out to be a fairly innocuous mention—she was telling someone about a group project they’d worked on for school.
And then he’d realized, what exactly had he been hoping she’d been saying?
And how easy would it have been to stumble upon something he wouldn’t have wanted to see, like if she’d been complaining about him or listing his most annoying traits?
“Not really,” he said. “It was mostly about school.”
She sat cross-legged on her bed, looking up at him. “What was the song?”
“?‘Lonely Nights.’?”
“One of my favorites.”
He knew that. It was the reason why he’d paused it, so she wouldn’t miss it when it came on.
The way she was looking at him, it made him wonder if she’d put that together. “I still feel like I’m getting away with something if I listen to that whole album without turning down the chorus of the fourth track.”
It was actually one of the records that John had a hard time going back and listening to now, because it made him too nostalgic and sad. “Your dad hated the cursing.”
“But it was like, how do you think I know exactly when to turn it down and back up? I’m just singing the words in my head.”
“I guess at least he didn’t have to hear them,” John pointed out. “It’s a respect thing. I get it.”
“I used to cheat off you in science,” Micah said. “While we’re clearing the air.”
John blinked. “Oh, I knew that.”
“Stop, you did not.”
“Micah, how do you think you could see my paper so well? I pushed it over toward you and made sure my arm wasn’t covering it. Of course I knew.”
She gave an incredulous little laugh, grasping her knees and rocking forward on the bed. “Oh my god,” she said. “I thought I was being so slick.”
“You knew I would’ve let you if you’d asked, anyway.”
“Yeah, but it’s better if you weren’t in on the plan. That way you couldn’t be held responsible if we got caught.”
“Like they would’ve tortured the information out of me? Come on, give me more credit than that.”
She laughed again, then patted the bed next to her. “You can sit down,” she said.
He hesitated. It wasn’t like there were many seating options in the small cabin.
She had a chair in one corner, too, the same way his room did—and hers was a little bigger, in fact.
But that was where they’d stacked the trays of room service, so it was out of commission.
And then there was a small countertop in another corner with a round stool tucked underneath.
It was clearly where Micah had been doing her hair and makeup, because she had a bunch of products spread out on the counter.
John still could’ve gotten the stool and pulled it out far enough to sit, except now that felt awkward to do once she’d offered the bed.
“You’re looming,” she said. “It’s distracting.”
He took the spot next to her, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. When he glanced over at her, she was looking at his feet, and then her gaze flickered to his before she looked away, her cheeks a little pink.
“Your turn,” she said.
“For what?”
“Clearing the air,” she said. “Airing our grievances. Whatever this is that we’re doing.”
He didn’t even know what to call it. But it felt good to talk to her, so he was willing to keep playing.
“Uh, let’s see…” He racked his brain for something else he could confess. “When I was going through that phase where I thought I’d wear eye makeup onstage, I borrowed your eyeliner pencil a few times.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “ I knew about that ,” she said. “John, you asked me! I’m the one who taught you how to do it!”
He remembered that. Of course he remembered that.
She’d been very patient with him, and very close , her breath warm on his cheek as she carefully applied eyeliner to one of his eyes while he watched, and then handed him the pencil and talked him through the steps to do it himself.
“Yeah, but after,” he said. “Before I’d bought any of my own stuff. ”
She waved that away. “I didn’t care.”
“Those magazines you always read said that was one of the worst things you could do,” John said. “Share eye makeup. It was only a couple times.”
“And the magazines were probably right on that one,” she said.
“Along with the tip to rinse your hair with cold water, which I still do. But they also told you to eat strawberries before a date so your lips would be naturally red and to pop a wintergreen breath mint before a blow job to really blow his mind, so. I didn’t live my life by those magazines. ”
He couldn’t tell if she meant that she’d never tried those techniques, or if she had and they hadn’t worked, but he definitely wasn’t going to ask.
He just wished his body hadn’t had such a stereotypical response to even hearing her say the words blow job , because now he wished he was under the covers instead of on top of them.
“Well, so far I invaded your privacy and could’ve given you an eye infection,” he said. “And you only copied off my tests, which I was one hundred percent letting you do, so I don’t think we’re even.”
“I stuck my tongue in your mouth when you didn’t ask for it,” she said. “I think that might give me an edge.”
John didn’t know what shocked him more. That she’d referred to that kiss at all, or that she’d referred to it like that , which was far from his memory.
“Micah,” he said. “ I kissed you .”
She’d had her own elephant made from a folded towel on her bed, and she picked it up now, turning it over in her hands. “Only technically. I made you do it. And then I came on way too strong, and ruined your first kiss.”