Chapter Twenty #2
“Are we ready to keep playing or what?” Ryder yelled from the other side of the court, making Micah jump a little.
She’d been so wrapped up in the moment that everything else had fallen away, and she was almost shocked to remember the crowd, the cruise, the entire context for why they were standing there in the first place.
Micah handed John back his shuffleboard cue, then gave Tatiana a little salute she knew would haunt her nightmares later. “Good luck,” she said. “May the best person win and all that. Talk after?”
She aimed that last part at John, hoping it sounded casual enough. But his eyes briefly shadowed, which made her stomach swoop.
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s something I have to talk to you about.”
That didn’t have to be ominous. She was the one who’d brought up having a conversation, after all. And yet she still found herself dreading whatever he was planning to say. Something about his face suggested it wasn’t going to be anything she liked.
“Great,” she said. That fucking word again.
—
ElectricOh! ended up winning the shuffleboard tournament, which became extra thrilling when they got presented with a kitschy trophy and vouchers for the casino.
Steve was excited for the trophy, but he was really excited for the casino vouchers, and he gave Micah a high five so hard it made her hand sting.
“I want to find a poker table,” he said. “Who’s with me? Do they have poker, or is it all just slots?”
“Only one way to find out,” Frankie said, snatching their voucher from Steve’s hand like they didn’t trust him to give it up of his own accord.
“Technically, John and I are the ones who brought the trophy home for ElectricOh!,” Ryder pointed out. “So I think the prizes are supposed to be for us.”
Frankie shot him a withering look. “There are five of them, you cartoon. The intent is very clear.”
“That’s not how it works?” Ryder asked with a look of wide-eyed faux innocence. “That’s how writing credits apparently work.”
Micah knew on some intellectual level that had been a dig meant specifically for her, more commentary on “If Only,” which she and John shared writing credit on because they’d written it together, just the two of them.
But she found she didn’t care about all of Ryder’s little comments.
She was too busy watching John and Tatiana standing off to one side after the photographer and crowds were starting to clear out, still talking and seeming to take their sweet time wrapping it up.
“You go ahead without me,” she said. “I’m pretty tired.”
“So that means we can have your voucher?”
She couldn’t see herself going to the casino on this trip, but something made her reject the idea of being completely left out of the fun. She plucked one of the vouchers from Steve’s hand, giving him a grin before taking one more.
“I’ll claim my prize, thank you,” she said. “And I’ll make sure John gets his.”
“Gets my what?” John said from behind her. She turned, expecting to see Tatiana there, too, but the actress was gone. She wondered if John had any plans to meet up with her later. She knew it was none of her business.
“Your prize for winning shuffleboard,” she said, handing him his voucher. “Who knew you were such a ringer.”
“My competitive spirit ended up coming out,” he said, looking at her.
Why did that single look set her on fire? So did mine , she thought, thinking again of Tatiana. She felt suddenly breathless, and like everyone would be able to tell. “You didn’t want a repeat of the great MTV Guitar Hero fail?”
John’s brows drew together. “That game is nothing like playing actual guitar,” he said. “The timing’s all wrong. They penalize you for hitting the note too early, but in real life you have to—”
Micah had heard this exact rant several times before.
It had been one of her favorites to tease out of John, because she knew he usually hated getting competitive, hated getting that emotionally invested in the outcome of something that really didn’t matter or worse, was out of his control.
But he’d lost a Guitar Hero match that had been filmed for a charity special to some BMX guy, and he was still salty about it. It was adorable.
She put a finger to John’s lips to stop him from talking. Her first thought was how soft his mouth was, how hard it had been on her earlier when she needed it to be. Her second thought was that his eyes were wide now, lips parted in a way that tempted her to slide her finger inside.
Her last thought was Oh fuck, that’s right, I shouldn’t be doing this in front of everyone .
She withdrew her hand with a laugh, hoping to play it off. “We don’t need to hear those excuses again, am I right, Frankie?”
Frankie’s gaze went from Micah to John and back again, and something like a smile started to curl at the corner of their mouth. “Definitely not.”
“Just admit you’re bad at Guitar Hero , bro,” Steve said. “I rock at it. You should see me on those DragonForce songs. The precision . The grace. It’s like watching a ballet.”
He lifted his hands to play an air guitar, banging his head as if to an unheard beat.
“I would’ve kicked that bike guy’s ass,” Ryder said, which was unfortunately also a familiar rant, just not one that Micah found as cute.
At least he hadn’t seemed to clock her sudden touchiness with John, which was a small blessing.
Ryder had always been disproportionately, unattractively competitive, and she knew nothing would bring it out more than seeing her and John together, even though Ryder had zero claim on anything she did anymore.
“As much as I’m loving the opportunity to relive a Guitar Hero competition from over a decade ago,” Frankie said, “are we going to hit up the casino, or what? Some of us want to wake up early enough tomorrow to actually enjoy the beach.”
“Hey, I want to enjoy the beach,” Steve said, like he was somehow affronted by even the implication that he wouldn’t. “But I got a bit of gambling in me first.”
“I’ll get mauled in there,” Ryder said, which was probably true but still managed to emphasize where he felt he ranked in comparison to Steve and Frankie.
Frankie turned from him without justifying that with a response. “Micah already said she’s out,” they said, directing the words to John. “How about you?”
The way his gaze slid to hers made her remember what he’d said earlier. There’s something I have to talk to you about. It had sounded specific. It had sounded bad.
“I’ll probably just turn in,” he said.
“Looks like it’s just me and you, Steve,” Frankie said. “Let’s go do some damage.”
Once the others split off to go their separate ways—Steve and Frankie toward the casino and Ryder toward she-didn’t-care-where—Micah was left with John.
The shuffleboard court had mostly cleared out, but there were still a few people hanging around.
Luckily, there was a roped-off section where they could head back toward their deck without anyone following them, and Micah started walking in that direction, figuring that John would stay a few steps behind until they’d reached somewhere more private.
What she didn’t expect was that the minute they’d rounded the corner, he slid his hand up her wrist, gripping her forearm to pull her into an alcove. And then his hands were on her face, in her hair, and he was kissing her, god, he was fucking kissing her.