“Yeah, of course.” I laughed my no-duh laugh. “Try to see things from where I’m sitting. You’ve got a solid reputation for soliciting publicity. I thought you brought me in only so I could photograph you at that party.”
“Whoa. I didn’t ask you to photograph my party. You started taking pictures the minute I stepped away.”
“Yeah, you already explained that. But every time you invited me with you, you offered me an opportunity to document it. The press credentials you enticed me with convinced me you only wanted me at your concert for my camera.”
He ran his fingers through my hair and tugged on a strand. “The first time I saw you on the street, I wanted you to lose that camera so I could look at you.”
“And the first time I saw you, I completely failed to do my job. Do you know why?”
“Because you’re terrible at it?”
I jabbed him with my finger. “No. Because you took me off guard. You confused the hell out of me, too. And later, when you kissed me, that was the moment you stopped being anything more to me than someone I’d like to get to know better.”
“Then that was smart of me.”
I poked him again, gentler. “Yes. That was very smart of you.”
He pulled a pillow up behind him and relaxed into it. His muscles lost their tension, and he yawned. “You’re tired. I’ll shut up.”
“No. Keep going. I want to fall asleep listening to you. Tell me a secret.”
“A secret?”
“Not a big secret. Something I can’t find on Wikipedia.”
“Hmm.” He wrapped his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “Okay. When I was five, I had a stuffed gorilla named Clark.”
“Clark,” I mumbled, yawning.
“I dragged him around so much that one of his arms became longer than the other. My parents tried to wean me off Clark the deformed gorilla when he started to ooze stuffing out the gaping hole in his side. But I wouldn’t forsake my monkey. So I hid him under my pillow. Later when my parents took us on a trip across the country, Clark stowed away in my suitcase. . . .”
As I snuggled against him, his quiet voice in the dark lulled me. What felt like a moment later, my alarm went off, and it was morning.
* * *
Micah’s arm lay across my waist, his hand tight across my belly. Snuggled against him, I hated to move, but Zion was already up and about, cooking breakfast. He wouldn’t wait around for me forever, and I didn’t want to have to ride in to work alone. So I carefully slipped out from under Micah and hunted around for some clothes to carry out.
When I clicked the door shut behind me, Zion stopped what he was doing, spatula held aloft as though he were in the middle of casting a spell. “Are you still wearing your clothes from last night?”
The door opened behind me, and Micah stepped out, wearing his bright blue skinny jeans and looking like he’d spent the night in a tent. His disheveled hair made him seem more real than he had since I’d met him, and I bit my lip at how endearing such a little thing could be. He yawned and said, “Good morning. Is it time to go to work?”
For a moment, I stood paralyzed in suspended animation. Should I kiss him or play it cool? But he rubbed his eyes, stretched and yawned, scratched his side, and then staggered over to the kitchen.
Zion asked, “You want eggs?”
“I don’t want to trouble you. Could I just get some coffee?”
While they talked, I slipped into the bathroom and checked my appearance in the mirror. My makeup had turned against me in the night, and my hair defied gravity. I brushed my teeth and did what I could to tone down the horror of morning me.
Coffee was brewing when I came back to the kitchen, and I fetched the mugs.
While Micah excused himself to use the bathroom, Zion reached into a drawer, pulled out my glucose meter, and dropped it on the table. “Sit. You’re pushing yourself too hard,” he warned.
“It’s been a weird week. I’m fine.”
“Look. Your mom said, ‘Don’t you leave her, Samwise Gam-gee. ’” He clutched at his chest dramatically. “And I don’t mean to.”
I put on my best Irish accent. “Do you mean to share the load?”
