Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“Yeah, okay. There are a ton of systemic issues in the music industry—in any industry—and there’s a lot we can try to do about them.
Ways we can be more thoughtful in how we spend our money, who we give attention to, who we boost up and choose to work with.
But taking on those issues as a personal failure, as somehow a moral one…
I just don’t think it’s helpful. You are not a failure, Micah.
You’re someone who took a few cheap shots, got knocked down, but you’re more than capable of getting back up again.
God knows the world doesn’t need our music, it doesn’t need shit from us.
You want to talk about hubris, who are we even to think that anyone cares?
But I care. And you should care. Not for the record sales or the concert crowds or any of that, but because you love music and there’s such rare, special, precious joy in being able to make it. ”
He was breathing hard now, like that speech had taken something out of him. It had stolen her breath, made it difficult to even speak.
“Damn,” she said finally. “All right.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Believe it or not, one of the biggest complaints I’ve gotten on early dates is that I don’t talk enough. Sorry about that.”
“No, don’t apologize. I’ve been trying to decide whether I would sleep with you at the end of this date and I think I made up my mind sometime around when you started raging against the machine. It was hot.”
“That’s what does it for you, huh?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t the Knock-Offspring,” she said. “That was almost a dealbreaker.”
“I knew I shouldn’t bring it up. Bad Habit.”
She grinned, enjoying the callback to their little game from before, even though she was still full out of any additional song titles to bring up. Turned out, he had been able to outlast her.
He took the strawberry from her hand, popping it in his mouth with a cheeky look that told her he was thinking back to that conversation, too. “So you’re from Ohio?”
“That’s cheating,” she said. “You wouldn’t know to ask me that.”
“You gave yourself away with the accent.”
Her jaw dropped in mock offense. “I do not have an accent.”
“You mostly don’t,” he allowed. “But it comes out every once in a while, on certain words. The way you just said hot . It’s cute.”
“Okay,” Micah said, picking up another strawberry and holding it in front of his mouth, making him lean forward and nip at it in order to get a bite. “You got me. I’m from Ohio.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “What a coincidence,” he said. “Me, too.”
“Do you miss it?”
He took longer to answer that question than she’d expected him to, like he really had to think about it. She’d assumed he’d say no, maybe even Hell no . Between what had happened with the band and what he’d confirmed about his childhood, she couldn’t blame him if most of his memories were bad.
“I miss seasons,” he said. “The dandelions in late spring, the leaves changing color in fall, the snow even though it was a pain in the ass. I miss riding our bikes in the winter and it being too cold to feel our hands, even through the gloves, the way that the smoke from all the chimneys made the air smell like a fireplace.”
The way he’d said our broke their game a little bit, if they hadn’t broken it before.
But Micah wasn’t about to point it out. It was comforting, hearing him talk about their hometown like this.
It made her own nostalgia that she’d been feeling lately sharpen into something real, an emotion she could take out of its box and turn over in her hands.
“I miss the people,” she said. “I haven’t felt very close to my parents, especially my dad, after—” She bit back the rest of her words, less out of concern for any continued pretense that this was just an initial date between two people who didn’t know each other very well, and more because of course this was stuff he already knew too well firsthand, and she didn’t need to get into it now.
“And there’s my sister, too. I just think of how much better our relationship could be if I lived closer and could see them more. ”
She automatically reached to twist the ring on her finger, before remembering that she’d lost it recently.
She’d worn it every day since her sister had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday, and it still felt weird not to have it.
John tracked the movement, smiling a little at her when she glanced up at him.
“How is Hailey?” he asked.
Her sister had always loved John, had monopolized his attention whenever he came over to introduce him to every single one of her stuffed animals like he hadn’t met them the last time he was at their house.
And he would sit there patiently, letting her stack them higher and higher in his lap, asking the occasional question.
What’s this one’s name? Oh, Giraffe-y, that makes sense.
“She’s doing great,” Micah said. “She got her cosmetology degree a few years ago and opened her own salon.”
“God,” John said. “That makes me feel old.”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What does that make me?”
It had been a running joke between them, when they were kids.
They’d been in the same grade, but Micah’s October birthday had made her four months older, and she’d loved to hold it over John’s head for that short time.
It must be for a more mature palate , she’d say when he didn’t automatically rave over the new album she’d put on.
He reached for the last strawberry before she could, holding it up to her mouth in order for her to take a big bite, a line of juice sliding down her chin.
“I’ve always had a thing for older women,” he said.
“Oh, you have, have you?”
He ran the strawberry lightly along her lower lip, his eyes dark as he watched her finally take the rest of it in her mouth. He leaned forward to kiss her, his tongue warm and tasting of strawberries, too, his teeth gentle as he nibbled at the corner of her bottom lip.
“These do make your mouth very red,” he said, sucking a bit of the strawberry juice off her. “And extremely kissable. Your magazines were really onto something with that one.”
—
This time, Micah got all the way dressed afterward, putting her bra and T-shirt back on and giving John back his hoodie since she had her own cardigan.
They started packing up the guitars and the rest of the equipment, seeming to agree without having to say so that they were done rehearsing for the night.
“I think there’s a dance party happening right now,” Micah said. “On the main deck. I kind of wish we were just normal people on a Nightshifters cruise where we could enjoy that kind of thing.”
He slung the case for his electric guitar— her guitar, technically—over his back, picking up the hard case for one of the acoustics after she’d grabbed the other one.
He’d said there were people who’d helped get the rest of the equipment to the stage, and he could call them to get them to stow it back away where it belonged.
He seemed to be thinking about what she’d said, and when she started to walk away, he pulled her back with one finger hooked in the belt loop of her jeans.
“I have an idea,” he said, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Let’s keep this date going.”
They dropped the instruments off in his room, and then John disappeared for a few minutes, coming back with two masks. One was a wolf mask that went over your entire head, while the other was a cat mask that covered the front of your face held up by a rubber band.
“Best I could do,” he said. “But I got these off two Nightshifters fans in exchange for autographing a few things and promising a picture with the band if they found us at prom. Which one do you want?”
Micah selected the wolf, thinking both of covering up her hair but also of that strange, random vision she’d had her first day on the ship, of being able to shapeshift into a wolf and make her way through all the crowds.
Already that seemed like a lifetime ago.
John put his own cat mask on, pulling up his hood over his hair.
“This will never work,” she said.
“Worth a try, though, right? I always hit the clubs on a second date.”
She smiled, although she already had the mask on and so she knew he couldn’t see it. “Not the first? What’s the matter—not confident enough in your moves?”
“My moves are too intimidating for a first date,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you thinking I’m some kind of animal.”
“Well,” she said, pulling at his cat mask to snap it gently back against his cheek. “No, we wouldn’t want that.”
Another thing she wouldn’t have known about John—he actually could dance.
And what’s more, he seemed to really enjoy it.
The minute they got out onto the main deck of the ship, the music throbbing from the DJ up on the stage, he grabbed her hand and led her out into the middle of the dance floor.
They were far from the only people wearing masks or costumes, so it wasn’t nearly as weird as she thought it would be, and it only took a few minutes before she felt herself relax, knowing that no one was paying any special attention to them at all.
John was still holding her hand as he gave her a spin, and then he was dancing closer to her, his hands on her waist, her hips, her ass as he moved her to the beat of the music.
She’d done her fair share of dancing—she’d built a career partially on it—but she felt like she had nothing to do but move with him, letting the bass thump through her entire body, seeming to vibrate especially in her chest, which almost hurt suddenly with the force of it.
She linked her arms around John’s neck, pressing against him even though it slowed them down, made them move as if underwater while the faster electronic music pulsed all around them.
Johnny , she thought. My Johnny. It’s always been you, hasn’t it?
He leaned in, holding his mask a little off his face to give more room to speak. “What?”
She hadn’t realized she’d said that last part aloud.
She shook her head, suddenly grateful for the mask that blocked out her words, hid her face from his view.
She spun in his arms so she was facing away from him now, unabashedly grinding her ass against him until she could feel him getting hard.
His hands on her hips were a little rougher now, a little more insistent— Yes, keep doing that —and she danced like she wasn’t even aware he was there, even though she’d never been aware of anything more in her life.
She split off before they got too hot and bothered, dancing with a group of women who’d been shrieking and scream-talking while they jumped along to the music.
They were clearly having the best time, and Micah had a blast dancing with them, pumping their fists to an anthemic chorus, standing half-crouched in anticipation of an epic breakdown, moving in a burst of energy once that beat dropped.
When she glanced back at John, he was still dancing, rolling his shoulders, swaying his head back and forth until his hood dropped completely off, showing the way his damp curls now stuck to his neck.
But he was watching her, too, and he danced over to her when he saw her attention on him.
“Are you done?” he asked, leaning in so she could hear him, his hand resting lightly on the bare skin at her waist where her T-shirt had ridden up.
She had been done, had started to become conscious of how hot it was inside the mask. But suddenly she didn’t want this to be over.
“Not yet,” she said. “Dance with me.”