Chapter Twenty-Seven
John could’ve danced with Micah for hours.
He loved watching her move, loved having her body pressed up against his.
Dancing was one of those things that he forgot how much he enjoyed until he was actually doing it, feeling the music pulse through him and letting his body move to it in a way that felt natural and free and like an expression of something he normally kept to himself.
And yet John felt like he’d somehow never danced before a day in his life, not like this.
He could tell when Micah started to flag a little, though, and he put his hand at the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd to see about finding them some water.
When he looked up at the stage, he noticed that the DJ appeared to be one of the members of the Silver Cuties—the bassist, if he was remembering correctly.
And there were a few other band members on the stage, together with some of the Nightshifters cast, including Tatiana.
“Come on,” he said, taking off his mask and letting it dangle from his wrist.
He slid his artist badge out from his back pocket, presenting it to the security standing by the steps to the stage, and then he and Micah were up with the rest of them.
Micah had removed her mask, too, and he had no idea if this meant that their cover was totally blown.
They’d be at least somewhat recognizable now unless they went back to their rooms for a full outfit change, maybe not even then.
At least it had been fun while it lasted.
That also meant that he probably shouldn’t touch Micah anymore, stand too close or in any other way suggest that they might be together. Despite all their talk of dates and rules, he had no idea what he and Micah actually were to each other, especially in a public way.
“John!” Tatiana said, holding her arms open to give him a hug as he approached on the stage. “And Micah! My shuffleboard nemeses.”
“Hey,” Micah said, “ I had nothing to do with that. I promise you if I’d have been playing, ElectricOh! wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“That’s what John kept saying about himself, but then he turned out to be a hustler,” Tatiana said. She reached down to grasp Micah’s injured hand, holding it up to examine the bandaged knuckles. “What happened here?”
Micah grimaced, but John found himself grinning. “Ryder’s face is what happened.”
Tatiana lifted her eyebrows, her mouth forming an almost perfect O. “Good for you,” she said to Micah. “He had it coming.”
Micah snorted at that. “You have no idea.”
There was an open cooler on the stage, stocked with bottled waters that were dripping with condensation from the half-melted ice.
John reached down to grab one for Micah and one for himself, uncapping his and downing three quarters of it before stopping to wipe his mouth.
“Don’t tell Frankie,” he said. “About our continued plastic usage. We’ll make up for it. ”
“I won’t,” she said, her gaze on him until she seemed to realize what she’d said. “I mean, I won’t tell them. Not that I won’t make up for it.”
She was looking at him strangely, and he touched his tongue to the corner of his mouth, trying to figure out if he’d missed a spot. “What is it?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but then he heard her name being called from over his shoulder, and he turned to see one of the members of the Silver Cuties waving her over.
She lifted her hand, acknowledging them without making any move to join them, and he pressed the cold bottom of his water bottle to the bare skin at her hip, smiling at her when she gave a yelp.
“You should talk to them,” he said. “They’re cool.”
If she’d continued to hesitate he would’ve offered to go with her, but something told him that this was better for her to do on her own. It had felt like they were in the middle of a moment, but this entire cruise had been one long string of moments—he had to trust that there would be others.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “But if it gets too industry-talky I’m giving you a sign to come rescue me. I’ll start hoedown dancing in place or something.”
“I think that would effectively rescue yourself,” he said, and then ducked out of the way as she reached up to press her own bottled water to his neck.
He was still laughing a little as she headed toward the Silver Cuties, their arms outstretched in a hug to receive her.
When he turned around, he saw Tatiana watching him the way he’d been watching Micah.
“You still haven’t told her, have you?” she asked.
He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “That obvious?”
“I guess the question is why haven’t you told her?”
He glanced back over at Micah. She was standing with her arms crossed, smiling at whatever the drummer for the Silver Cuties was saying, getting that slight dimple she got in the crease around her mouth when she genuinely found something funny.
The colored lights from the stage made her hair glow a bright red, and for a second he flashed back to that time he’d seen her on her solo tour, out there in her makeup and short lacy dress.
She’d always had the most expressive face, but she was also a performer, and he wouldn’t have known how miserable she was on that tour if she hadn’t told him.
Meanwhile, he’d thought she could see right through him.
She had to know how he felt about her, he’d figured, if not the full dimensions of it then at least its general shape.
When he was first teaching himself guitar, he used to call her up, playing her little chords and riffs over the phone.
Sometimes he’d think there was no way she could make out the tune over such a scratchy connection, the distance he was sitting from the handset on his bed, how quietly he was playing to not disturb his dad.
Sometimes he knew she got distracted, could hear her in the background telling Hailey to cut something out, getting called away by her parents for dinner.
But she’d always bring the music back up again, even if it took her until the next day—humming a bit of melody, asking him questions about what he was working on. She paid attention. And if she paid attention…then he figured she had to know.
Whatever this was with Micah, it felt like it depended on a certain level of float.
It was a ship on rocky seas, it was a cupped handful of water that could drain away as quickly as you scooped it up.
If he tried to name it or define it, if he tried to set any actual rules and not just joke ones, he didn’t know what would happen to it.
And he just had to ask himself if he was okay with that.
“We’re on a date right now,” he said, then flushed when he realized how that must sound, how that must look when he and Micah weren’t even standing in the same vicinity.
The night was cool but the dancing had gotten him warm all over, and he shrugged off his hoodie, feeling suddenly in need of some fresh air on his skin. “It’s…we’re not being public about it.”
“Ah,” Tatiana said. The way she said the word, it was as if she knew that bothered John, which he felt self-conscious about, like he had to rush to explain. The fact that Micah’s entire on-again-off-again relationship with Ryder had also played out in secret wasn’t lost on him.
“There’s a lot of scrutiny,” he said. “You know how it goes.”
“God, do I,” Tatiana said. “I just started dating Library Dead Girl a few months ago. We talked about her coming on this cruise with me and then were just like, no thank you. People would lose their minds.”
It took John a second to catch up. “Wait, the one who was in the season six premiere? Whose friend didn’t show up for the study group and so she walked home alone? Library Dead Girl?”
Tatiana rolled her eyes with a little smile. “Well, obviously Library Dead Girl was how she was credited. I call her Mallory like a normal person. But yeah, that’s the one.”
“People really would lose their minds,” John said. “I’m losing my mind. But that’s awesome. I’m glad you stayed in touch or reconnected or whatever.”
Tatiana glanced over at him. “There’s something special about it, isn’t there? Being with someone who knew you in a different period of your life, who can help you knit together who you were then and who you are now.”
Over a brief break in the music, John heard Micah laughing, that throaty sound that turned into a full-out cackle by the time she got going.
From the way her mouth formed an O, her eyes shining as she looked from one member of the Silver Cuties to another, he imagined that there had been some gentle trash-talking between them to get her to react like that.
She must’ve felt him looking at her, because she caught his eye from across the stage, her face still midlaugh.
She shimmied her shoulders and moved her thumbs in a short approximation of a hoedown dance before pulling a face like Just kidding, don’t worry about it . He grinned over at her.
He’d almost forgotten that Tatiana was still standing next to him, which was unforgivably rude, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Go on,” she said, waving toward Micah. “Enjoy the rest of your date.”