Page 73 of A Crazy Kind of Love
“And you?”
I thought about telling him I’d been sorted into Ravenclaw via Pottermore, but shrugged. “I’d have to be in Gryffindor, too. Someone would have to keep you in line.”
“Hey. Take a picture of me here wearing this. Nobody ever prints any pictures of me having any fun.”
“What?”
He froze. “I mean. If you want to.” He tugged on the scarf and let it fall back on the table. “Never mind. I wasn’t thinking. It was a dumb idea.”
I scanned the crowd around us—under the adjacent tents or passing between. So many people held their phones in their hands. Any one of them could have just snapped a picture of Micah and uploaded it to Twitter. I sighed. “Put the scarf back on. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. My boss will love it.” Andy would probably never print this fluff, but it didn’t hurt to humor Micah and shoot the picture.
“Nah. Let’s keep moving.”
We wended our way through to a stall filled with hilariously smutty dresses. Micah held one up. “I changed my mind. I want to see you in this.”
I fanned out the skirt, what there was of it. “Seriously?”
“Maybe tonight?”
I laughed. “Sure. Anything you want.”
He bought the skimpy thing. I doubted it would even fit, but I’d rather deal with that later. I had so many other things to sort out. Not the least of which was the problem of his profession of love.
My first impulse—to ignore it—had only caused it to grow in my mind. And I knew it would grow between us if I didn’t address it. But how could I without ruining things one way or another? Why’d he have to go and say that? And if he went around saying that so easily, what words had he never said to another girl? “Would you like to eat squirrel?”
The flea market went on forever. I led Micah in the direction of the waterfront and spied an unoccupied bench. “You mind sitting for a bit?”
We’d barely situated ourselves when a kid who’d been playing Hackey Sack walked over. “Hey, man. You’re Micah Sinclair.”
I nearly barked, “Are you kidding me?”
But Micah’d already switched on the charm. I counted to one hundred, coincidentally about the amount of time for the whole routine: handshake, name exchange, picture, autograph, compliment, thanks, disengage.
“Stay here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I went into the flea market and walked around until I found what I was looking for.
When I came back to the bench, Micah was chatting with a girl about my age who’d taken my spot. He saw me, touched her shoulder, told her it was great to meet her, and nodded toward me. The girl took her cue and cleared out.
I shoved a paper bag at him. “Put these on.”
The sunglasses weren’t the most attractive, but they were cheap and dark. The baseball hat had a pickle embroidered on it. I could have bought a plain hat, honestly. But I liked to think a hat with a pickle on it might encourage Micah to keep a low profile.
“What’s all this?”
“Portable privacy.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Only when I’m with you.” I punched him, teasing. “And no, but I wanted to talk.”
“Here?”
“Okay, fine. Later then.”
“No, here’s good. Unless you’re doing this in public so you can break it off with me where I won’t cause a scene.”
I crossed my arms. “Do you really think I’d break things off with you right now?”
