From everything he brought, I managed to fish out an egg with some cheese still clinging to it, the apple, and a couple of slices of whole grain toast. “How’d you know to get whole grain?”
“Easy. I just asked myself what the worst possible toast would be. Whole wheat.”
I snorted. “Why’d you want to get me the worst toast?”
“I figured it would be the healthiest.”
He stood behind me and combed his fingers through my long hair. “Your hair is the first thing I noticed about you. Silky.”
“What if I cut it all off?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed the top of my head. “It wasn’t the only thing I noticed about you.”
“No? What else?”
“Positively shameless fishing, Wilder.”
I spun around and cocked my head at him. “Waiting.”
He twisted his mouth, and for a second, I thought he was going to tease me. But he touched my cheek and said, “Your skin glows like a golden statue.” He ran his finger down to my mouth. “That first day I saw you, I had to drag my eyes away from your lips so I wouldn’t creep you out with lusty attention. When you smiled, all I could think about was how one day, I’d like to kiss you.”
My cheeks heated with flattered embarrassment. “You’re just saying that so I’ll kiss you now.”
“Maybe.” He smiled his bratty smile. And I let him kiss me anyway. He leaned an inch away. “Did you notice me at all that day?”
Despite his professions of first crush, I hesitated to let him peer into that strange part of my brain where I was still nobody and he was still somebody. Even standing here with his arms around me, I worried he’d be repulsed by what I still saw as early unrequited desire. “I may have thought you were cute.”
“Cute,” he said, like a parent whose child has just told a whopping fib.
His phone vibrated, saving me from a thorough investigation. His driver had arrived, and Micah walked me out so he could give me a kiss and send me on my way with many promises to call and text and see each other when he got back from Connecticut.
Twenty-four hours had never seemed so daunting.
* * *
Time in an airport is like perpetual déjà vu. Different people repeating the exact same tasks for the billionth time. One day here had felt like a reprieve. Three days felt like a prison. I texted Zion,Find out anything you can about people traveling through JFK today. I can’t take this.
But it gave me plenty of time to think about my relationship with Micah. He was right. He was going to kill me. Not from the sex—which incidentally is how I’d choose to go—but from total ignorance. He meant well. I gave him about a week before he hit the wall and couldn’t deal anymore. And then he’d walk away. I hit that wall constantly. But I couldn’t walk away. Maybe I should make it easy on him and just let him go.
On the other hand, he was a flibbertigibbet and went through women faster than I went through glucose meters. He’d probably get bored with me soon anyway.
Bored. I was so bored. I walked through the pre-security area of the terminal, looking for my people. Around eleven, I spotted a cluster of photographers and approached. I asked one, “What’s the scoop?”
“McCauley Leffert is coming home from rehab today.”
The poor kid. Walking into the same fishbowl that had brought him to the breaking point. I considered leaving the feeding frenzy to these other guys. They had huge video cameras and would walk side by side next to the kid, prompting him for any words. McCauley would be smart to say nothing and get out of there. On the other hand, how much worse could I make things for him, and Andy would love to get a shot of the returning washup. People loved stories of celebrities falling from great heights and then climbing up from the depths of their own personal hell. Especially when they were only seventeen. So I stood there and watched the crowd exiting the terminal for any signs of him.
When he came out, I had to shoot around the horde, and in the end, Andy would have to mostly take my word on the pictures being of McCauley. Most of them were of baseball caps and microphones.
That meant I needed to stay and try to catch at least one more celeb. Zion texted to alert me about an actress who hadn’t acted in several years but had recently been in the news for some controversial statements she’d made during an appearance on a reality show featuring “where are they now” celebrities. He sent me a link to the article so I’d have the background.
The other paps had cleared out, so I had a clear shot of her, wearing exaggerated sunglasses and an outrageously wide-brimmed sun hat.
“Miss Walker?” I called, snapping pictures. “Are you here to talk about last night’s show?”
She veered around me, and I followed her. “Were you misquoted? Do you want to tell your side of the story? Is that why you’re in New York?”
She stopped, and I hit record on my camera instantly. “You people. You take moments of people’s lives and twist them and—” she ground her teeth “—reconstitute them into garbage. A whole person’s life is not one statement made in confusion.” Her voice choked. “People make mistakes. Sometimes there’s a context around a mistake that would make anyone do the same thing at the same moment. But you people—” she poked her long fingernail at me “—you sit around waiting to pounce. You wait to ruin a person’s entire life, and for what? Money? Your own twisted curiosity? Why do you do it?”
