Page 61 of IRL: In Real Life
Heat moved through me low and quick.
I looked up from the table on instinct, like somebody in the yard might somehow know.
Nobody did. My mother was still talking. My father was still halfway focused on the grill and halfway focused on me. Shay was outside laughing too loud near the deck railing.
I looked back down at the screen.
Me: Did I?
The reply came fast.
Micah: Talia.
Just my name.
Heavy enough all by itself.
Then:
I need to see you tonight.
The yard kept moving around me. Somebody asked for more ice. My uncle called for hot sauce from the far end of the table. One of the little boys got fussed at for waving an unlit sparkler too close to the citronella candles. My mother told my father to stop hovering over the ribs like nobody else knew how to eat.
And all of it drifted back.
I read his words again.
Then another message.
Micah: I’m serious. I can’t wait till next week. Not for more of you.
My thighs pressed together beneath the table.
All week we had been talking. Laughing. Circling. Letting the line between curiosity and want get thinner every night. And now here he was, not pretending patience he did not feel, not wrapping desire in ten polite layers, just saying it plain.
He had to see me.
My whole body heard that before my pride did.
I set the phone facedown in my lap and tried to listen to Shay dragging somebody’s fiancé for wearing too much cologne to family functions. I could not have repeated a word if my life depended on it.
Because something in me had already started leaning.
It was reckless. Probably too soon.
Exactly the sort of thing a grown woman with family all around her and sense and history and enough disappointment behind her ought to make herself think through properly before acting.
And yet.
All week he had been calling because he wanted more than the phone could hold. All week I had been waiting for the next little pulse of him. My body had gotten there first and was standing there now with its arms crossed, unimpressed by caution.
I picked the phone back up.
Me: Where?
His answer came fast enough to feel like he had been waiting with the screen open.
Micah: Velvet Room. 9:30.
