“You’re asking permission three years too late. No Soft Cell?” Micah slid his toes up Cosmo’s ankle and watched as Cosmo’s eyes widened slightly.
“Listen, future ghost, I was living in that studio long before you. From my perspective, you were hauntingme. Always on the phone with your French telemarketers and lurking as a shadowy figure in the hallway.”
The bed creaked as Micah pressed Cosmo back against the pillows and kissed him softly. “I’m not going to complain with any earnestness because I don’t want to jinx it and have the universe take you away. I’m not letting you go anywhere.”
Cosmo’s lips parted, and he slid his hands around Micah’s waist. There was guarded hope in his voice as he said, “And what are you going to do with me now that you have me?”
“I want to be close to you. As close as I can get. It’s hard for me to pick apart exactly where that feeling is coming from. If it’s purely romantic or if there’s some low-grade sexual attraction mixed in. Maybe we can just… see where this goes?”
Cosmo’s voice was barely a whisper. “Yes. Yes, let’s. I’ll follow your lead.”
Dark curls hung in Cosmo’s eyes, and Micah swept them away. He left a peck on each shimmery eyelid, down his cheek, and kissed the lingering hint of citrus from his dianthus lips. “I want to be inside you. In your blood. Your veins. I want to haunt the valves of your heart, the way you haunt mine.”
Cosmo grabbed a fistful of Micah’s hair, tugged his head close, and hissed in his ear. “You already are. This chapel is dedicated to you.”
Micah lost himself in Cosmo’s leaded glass gaze and the warmth of his hallowed halls. “You’re my muse. You inspire me, motivate me. You make me want to put the broken pieces of myself back together.”
It had only been two months since the first message on Micah’s mirror appeared, but three years had passed for Cosmo. Micah wanted to make up for all the empty moments that had occurred before they met in person. He was intent to learn every desire in Cosmo’s heart and make sure they happened.
Sometime during the night, Micah’s eyes flew open, his pulse racing. Someone had tapped on the window.
No. Wait. It was presque vu. It hadn’t happened. But it had on the other timeline. He hadn’t sensed anything off during the other events of the day, which meant that this moment, for whatever reason, was slightly shifted from where it was supposed to be. Maybe it was Déjà’s butterfly effect or some other cosmic reason Micah didn’t have time to figure out right now.
Cosmo slept on his back, one arm thrown over his face and his mouth open slightly. Snatching his glasses off the coffee table, Micah blinked in the darkness and strained for more sound. After groping through the clothes on the floor, he found his jeans and pulled them on, then peeled the knife from under the table.
Zedd’s note was a trick to lull them into a sense of false security. It had to be. Why would someone be tapping on the window in the middle of the night? But the only thing that note had guaranteed was that Micah spent the night holding Cosmo close.
“Your plan backfired, asshole,” Micah whispered.
A softtap-tapcame at the window, and he jumped and squeezed the knife handle. Okay, he had the upper hand here. What was going to happen next? The doorknob would jiggle. The light from a weak flashlight would cut through the darkness outside the window, but Micah had ensured the curtains were drawn tight; there was no way for the person to see inside.
He could jump up right now and fling open the door, brandishing the knife. No, that was a terrible idea. Then the door would be wide open, and Cosmo would be exposed. Zedd would shove past Micah, walk over the threshold and inside.
That thought made Micah’s chest seize up and his joints rust. No, no, no. What happened to Micah wasnotgoing to happen to Cosmo.
The doorknob jiggled, and Micah squeaked and dropped the knife. Jesus! Even if he didn’t open the door, he should at least shout through it that he was calling the cops and scare Zedd away. But he was frozen to the spot, still imagining Zedd’s motorcycle boots clomping over the threshold.
A flashlight beam wavered outside and tried shining through the window. He held his breath, waiting for something else to happen, but after a moment the flashlight clicked off and footsteps crunched through brush. A car door slammed.
The sound broke Micah from his paralysis. He crept to the window and parted the curtain with trembling fingers, but only caught a glimpse of glowing taillights as a car pulled away.
22
THE SUN ALWAYS SHINES ON T.V.
Micah - Snagged Thread
Today was a new day, and instead of asking himself what could go wrong, Micah was forcing himself to wonder what could goright.
Telling Cosmo that Zedd had been slinking around and testing the doorknob in the middle of the night hadn’t gone right. He’d been convinced Micah had only dreamed it, insisting that he was a very light sleeper and if someone had knocked at the window or Micah had gotten up for any reason, that Cosmo would have woken up. And hehadwoken when Micah got out of bed later to use the bathroom. But none of what happened had felt like a dream.
Despite his dubiousness, Cosmo said he’d take the newest note to the police, and he’d promised to text Micah throughout the day so Micah knew he was okay until they were together again. Which would be sometime soon. Micah was going to practice letting him inside. There was still the potential for something to go right.
His phone vibrated with a text.
Micah chuckled and opened the door. “My mouth is ready.”
Cosmo stood on the step wearing an orange cardigan and plaid pants, a pan of bread in his hands. He cocked his eyebrow and smirked. “I like the sound of that. And I have good news! Here, take the bread.”
