Page 29 of A Crazy Kind of Love
“What if he doesn’t? Or what if Micah comes over here looking for us? How lame would it be to tell him I’m hiding from the paparazzi?”
Zion just laughed. “I’m guessing you didn’t foresee this problem at the beginning of the week.”
I leaned against the wall. “I’ve never known Andy to be so weirdly overinvested in any other celebrities. I don’t get why he even cares about Micah that much.”
“Probably because his sister and Adam like to fuck with him.”
“How do you mean?”
“Like how Adam and Adrianna somehow had the entire tabloid industry chasing after an engagement that turned out to be completely fictional.”
“I think I remember that.” I’d been aware of the tabloids from glancing at them in the Publix while waiting to check out. But at that time, I’d been using my useless degree in fine arts to cover the local interest stories for an Atlanta newspaper. If a soldier returned from Afghanistan, I’d be at the airport snapping pictures of his tender embrace with his wife. I’d jumped at the chance to come work with Zion in New York City without questioning what I’d be doing.
I readjusted my camera strap. “I didn’t know they hadn’t been engaged. I figured they broke up.”
“You need to go and read the articles about Adam and Eden back then. Back when Andy made Eden look like the worst gold-digging home wrecker, before Adrianna put out a press release denying the engagement. Ever since then, Eden and Andy have had a kind of low-level vendetta. Although, for the past several months, she’s been off his radar.”
I thought about Eden’s pregnancy. Had she shown me something on purpose so I’d feed it to Andy? Was I a pawn in her game? “Lord, I’m naïve, huh?”
“Naw. You’re normal. This world makes people crazy.”
I laughed and relaxed. And that’s when Micah rounded the corner and stopped cold. He looked from me to Zion. “Oh.” It was the first time he’d ever met me without a smile on his face. “I assumed you’d left.”
“No, I—” I what?I can’t ever be seen with you? You who have never seen a camera you didn’t pose for?My feet shuffled.
He lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’m heading off.” He put a hand out to Zion. “It was good to meet you.”
Zion shook and said, “Yeah, you, too,” but he stared at me. The whites of his eyes practically glowed from bulging out of their sockets. If I could read his mind, it would’ve said, “Ask him to tag along.” But I couldn’t do that.
Micah’s hand stretched out to me again, but unlike the last time when he’d so casually raised it in expectation, this time it was a formal gesture. I took his hand in mine and gripped tight. I gazed into his blue eyes, wondering if I could pull him toward me and steal that second kiss. My mouth twisted into a frown, wishing I could find the words to say. I got out, “I’m sorry for—” right as Micah spoke.
“It was good to see you again, Jo Jo.” He gave my arm one good businesslike shake before he walked away from me, down the sidewalk and out of reach.
“I expect that’s the last I’ll ever see of him.” My voice cracked, and Zion put his arm around me.
“Not so fast, my friend. While you were talking to Eden, I got us these.” He slipped a pair of tickets out of his back pocket.
I snatched them from him and read the print. “Theater of the Absurd at the Dobbler Theater? You got tickets to see Micah’s band?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Yup. He said he’d intended to give them to you earlier.” He nudged me. “He said he hoped he’d run into you again.”
Hope and disappointment vied for supremacy. “That was sweet of him, but what do you think it means?”
“I think it means you’re going to have to tell Andy to back off.”
I stared at the tickets, processing the competing emotions. For the second night in a row, Micah must have thought I’d blown him off fairly blatantly. He’d apparently recovered from the rejection of the night before. He couldn’t have failed to read my reaction to him when he kissed me. Would he forgive a second cold shoulder? Or was I reading too much into what he’d said to Zion? There could be more than one explanation for wanting to invite me to his concert. More than one reason he’d want to run into me again.
And I hadn’t even processed what I thought about Micah Sinclair. It would probably be better to let him slip away before I felt anything for him.
“I’m not going to need to tell Andy anything, Zion. There’s nothing to tell.”
Chapter 10
Sometime during the weekend, Andy had sorted and archived the pictures from Friday night’s party without posting any of them online on the newspaper website. In case they might become useful in the future, he left me the daunting task of tagging them. I scrolled through the images, wishing I could steal them back. Some of them would have made great additions to my portfolio, and Andy wouldn’t use them anyway. The pics of Victoria Sedgwick were beautifully tragic but worthless to anyone trying to make a buck off her name. I jotted down the image numbers in case I caught him in a good mood. Maybe he’d let me have them.
Kristin and Jennifer argued loudly over who had aged better: Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. Leonard threw out anecdotes about stalking each of them, saying Brad was nicer to him, slightly. The chatter became a kind of background noise I heard but wasn’t listening to.
When Derek sidled up beside me, I jumped at the sound of his voice close to my ear. “So, you’re Indian?”
