Zion laid a hand on his shoulder. “She hasn’t ever needed any of this since she’s lived here. But you have to be prepared. She lives in between the margins.” He kept talking while I packed a couple of juice boxes and glucose tablets. “Her worst habit is letting her blood sugar drop too low. She doesn’t eat enough or at the right time. She can usually tell you if she’s feeling faint, and a juice box will do the trick.”
“Now for the worst.” I let him see my strips and blood stick. “I’ll have to show you how all this works. Zion made a cheat sheet for the readings in here.” I flipped through the phone book until a small paper fell out. “Here.”
Zion said, “If she’s unresponsive or falls outside these ranges, get her to the hospital immediately.”
I took a glance at Micah, hoping my love life hadn’t just gone up in flames. It was worse than the time Molly Johansen walked right up to Danny Burke and told him I had a crush on him. Micah rubbed his temples clearly overwhelmed by it all. I walked behind him and wrapped my arm around him. “Don’t worry. It’s all a precaution. I just have to be a little careful.”
He nodded, eyes glazed over. And I had an idea. “You want to come help me pick out my pajamas for tonight?”
His face relaxed, and he looked at me again like I was human. “Yeah.”
By the time we had everything ready to go, with my clothes, cameras, laptop, and medical crap, I looked like I was going to stay a week. I gave Zion a hug before I left, and he whispered in my ear, “Damn, girl. Don’t blow that.”
I whispered back, “That’s what she said.”
Chapter 18
The driver arrived moments after Micah texted for him to pick us up. I couldn’t believe how quickly he had responded. “Does that poor guy just sit in his car constantly waiting for you to call him?”
Micah looked at me confused. “It’s a service. They work in shifts. Haven’t you noticed it’s not always the same guy?”
I hadn’t, and I felt like an unobservant heel, so after we climbed into the car, I changed the subject. “What are we going to do at your apartment that we couldn’t do at mine?”
He slid over and put his arm around me, his hand brushing lightly against the exposed skin on the back of my neck. “You don’t have a guitar.”
I marveled at the power in a single touch. We’d been together only a couple of hours earlier, and already, I longed to be alone with him again, in his bed, slowly undressing him. I shivered at the thought, and he wrapped his arms around me more tightly.
The driver let us out in Park Slope on a tree-lined street with a coffee shop on the corner. We climbed a few steps and entered near the ground floor. It took seeing the stairs inside his front door to realize all three floors of the building were his.
Normally, my next question would be “How can you afford this place?” But then I remembered that there were people at an Iowa community college who knew his name.
Micah moved around picking things up and closing doors. I still hovered in the vestibule. Both of us had transitioned into awkwardness. Somehow Micah put me at ease so much that I went long stretches forgetting about who he was. I knew he’d dated groupies, but it didn’t matter. I knew he was a celebrity, but he didn’t act like it.Butat odd times, I felt like the looking glass cracked, and reality would creep in. Right at that moment, I wondered how I’d ended up standing in Micah Sinclair’s Park Slope apartment ready to stay the night.
And then he came back to take my hand and pull me into his living room with its cherrywood floors and high ceiling. All I could think about was biding my time until we could call it bedtime so I could take those stupid shorts off him again.
He led me through the living room on a tour of his apartment, stopping in the kitchen to put my snacks and syringes into the fridge. His fridge was frighteningly empty and dwarfed my small stash of emergency energy. His kitchen opened onto a patio and yard. I didn’t know the true meaning of jealousy until that moment.
“You have a yard.” I opened the door and took a step out into the night air. The brick patio spanned a few feet before ending in a patch of dirt and crabgrass. The plastic table seemed cheap and out of place compared to the interior decorations. A single lounge chair told me that Micah didn’t host many backyard barbecues. The cigarette butts on the ground revealed Micah’s tendency to sit out here. Alone.
“Is this where you were when you called the other day?”
“Yeah. It’s peaceful out here in the evening.”
I jumped when a cat rubbed up against my leg. I knelt down. “Well, hey there.” The cat flopped onto its back, purring, so I rubbed its tummy. “Where did you come from?”
“That’s Oscar.” Micah squatted beside me and scratched Oscar behind the ears. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”
“No. I love cats. Is he yours?”
“Sort of. Felix is around here somewhere. He’s mostly blind, so he gets a bit shy sometimes.”
Micah picked Oscar up and carried him inside. He set him down on the floor and grabbed a bag of cat food from a cabinet. I supposed in an emergency, I could always eat the cat food. Or I could eat the cat.
“Where did you get them?”
“I got Felix while doing a benefit concert for the SPCA last year. With his condition, he couldn’t find a home. But he’s a great cat. And Oscar buddy just showed up here and wouldn’t leave. I let him go out in case he’s got a home nearby, but every time I come home, he’s there.”
“But who takes care of them when you’re not here?”
