The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix) (13 page)

“
I mean, I don’t have a problem with what you’re wearing,
”
Micah called after me.
“
Could even get us a discount at the lumberyard. Up to you.
”

My face flushed even hotter, and I nearly missed the first step of the ladder. Then I rushed the whole way up, once again angry and embarrassed, now with myself because I let him get to me. No guy had ever affected me like Micah did. I was reacting like a schoolgirl, and I hated it. The fact that he hadn’t explained how we’d
“
coincidentally
”
run into each other in two different states at two different times had even slipped my mind, which was unacceptable. Whatever Sammy thought of the guy, it was a little creepy he’d show up again so randomly.

After an awkward sponge bath since I had nothing to clean the shower insert or even a shower curtain, I dressed and returned to the ground, my mind changed. I had decided last night if I had any work done, it would be by someone I trusted, not some dude who freaked me out so much, let alone was the one sleazy Buck pushed so hard on me. Micah probably made up those bogus lies about the other two so I wouldn’t even think about them, but I wasn’t falling for it. No, I would make my own decision, not be forced into this. So when my feet touched the ground, I pulled the two business cards and scrap paper out of my jeans pocket, and turned, ready to announce my decision, only to find Micah playing fetch with Sammy.

“He’s an awesome dog,” Micah said as Sammy ran up to him with a stick in his mouth. Micah sank into a squat and scrubbed Sammy’s neck and patted him on the back. “Aren’t you, boy?”

Sammy licked Micah’s cheek.

“Sammy,” I said, trying to sound stern because he wasn’t supposed to lick people’s faces, but the word came out as more of a jealous whine. Sammy came bounding over to me, sat at my feet and looked up at me with a smile in his eyes. I dipped down and hugged him. “Of course you’re a good boy. You’re
my
boy.”

Micah eyed me again. Making me feel self-conscious. Again.

“
What?
” I asked.

“You just, uh . . . never mind. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“What?” I demanded again.

“You’re a little overdressed is all.”

I’d put on another pair of ripped-up jeans (I didn’t have any other kind), a loose, black top and a black tank under it, which was necessary because the top often slid off one shoulder or the other. I wasn’t into showing off bra straps. Since destroying most of my punk clothes, not much remained of my wardrobe, and this was one of the last clean outfits left.

“Overdressed? For the lumberyard?” What kind of place was this?

“No, for the heat. There’s a reason most people around here wear as few clothes as they can get away with.”

I cocked my head. “You’re wearing jeans.” Which he looked very good in.

“I’ll be working. Trust me, those clothes will be coming off you soon enough.”

My cheeks heated again.

“Not likely,” I muttered. I wasn’t like the locals with their deeply bronzed skin. I had typical redhead coloring with fair skin and freckles, and others would be blinded by the sun reflecting off my flesh if I exposed any more of it. This had always been my excuse anyway when the talk of bathing suits ever came up, and I stuck to it now. Micah didn’t argue, but simply shrugged, as if he knew he’d be proven right soon enough. Whatever.

“You ready? We’ll take my truck,” Micah said.

I waved the small papers in my hand. “We’re not going. I changed my mind.”

Micah stopped in his tracks, and his lovely smile slid off his face, replaced by disappointment. Dammit. I didn’t like that look on him. I had to mentally kick myself, because I shouldn’t care. He was only disappointed because he wouldn’t be taking my money.

“Okay, then,” he said amicably enough. “So which one are you going with? Butch? His orange card matches his speedo. He also happens to be Buck’s brother. He’s your real estate agent, right? I’m sure he really talked Butch’s work up. Or will it be Paul, the one with the fancy card? He’s probably already out on the boat, so you’ll have to wait until this evening to even get a quote.”

“Neither,” I said all smart-assish as I waved the scrap paper in the air. “This one. Humphrey. So you can—” I paused as his words fully registered. “Wait. You’re not orange-card-dude?”

Micah wrinkled his nose and forehead. “Not even.” Then he held his hand out again. “Once again. Micah. Micah Humphrey.”

His dimples showed as he took in the expression on my face, then pulled his hand back to his side. Were we both a little scared of what happened when we touched?

“So,” he said, once more moving toward his truck. “If we put Sammy in the bed, will he stay?”

I didn’t answer at first, but nibbled on my inner lip. The coincidences were stacking up, making me wonder if this was good kismet or bad karma. I
had
asked Pops for a sign last night, but never expected to actually be given one. Getting into a truck and going somewhere with a guy I’d met less than an hour ago didn’t seem very smart. Not something Pops would condone.

“Your Jeep won’t fit everything we need,” Micah said, noticing my hesitation. “And it’s a bit of drive to take two cars. If you’d rather Sammy get in front with us, that’s fine. I just thought it’d be a little crowded.”

When Micah opened his truck door—the passenger side, as though being a gentleman—Sammy followed him over and jumped right in. As if to say Micah could be trusted.
Jeez, Pops, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re really screwing with me.
With a sigh, I climbed in after my dog. At least Sammy was big, creating a decent barrier between Micah and me. I only hoped he hadn’t gone completely traitor and would still protect me if Micah made a suspicious move. I tried to ignore a certain part of me that envied the dog because he got to sit so close to the hot dude on the other side.

“So . . . UVA?” I asked as we turned off the road the bridge was on and into the traffic of “town.”

“UVA what?” Micah asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Guess not,” I muttered. I didn’t think so—he didn’t appear to be UVA material. Probably not James Madison either. “Radford? Virginia Commonwealth? Um . . .”

I wracked my brain for other colleges I knew within an hour-or-so drive from Charlottesville. Of course, he could have come from farther away like Bex and I had, but I doubted it. Only girlfriends and groupies did that, especially in the dead of winter.

“Should I know what you’re talking about?” Micah asked.

“Just trying to figure out where you go to school. You never said what you were doing in Charlottesville that night and now you’re here, so I figured you go to school around there, and you’re down here to work for the summer. You from around here?”

“No. Across the board.”

“What does that mean?”

“Not from around here. Not from Virginia either. And do I really look like the scholarly type?”

“Do I?”

His eyes cut over to me, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile. “Touché.”

“But you’re not? You don’t go to college?”

“Not exactly. Do you?”

He was being evasive, so I thought I should be, too. “Not exactly.”

It was true—I’d basically dropped out last semester and still hadn’t finished registration for the fall—even if the plan was to return in a couple of months.

“So what were you doing there?” I asked.

“What were you doing there?” he countered.

“Seeing the band, of course.” I didn’t go into details about why that particular band. He didn’t need to know anymore about my life at this point of our, er, relationship. Or whatever you call it. “Wanted to check it out.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Micah didn’t elaborate either, and my frustration grew.

“How’d you get from there to here?”

“I drove.” He patted the dashboard as I let out a groan of frustration. Before I could complain, though, he continued. “You have Sammy. I have Ginger. This truck is my best friend. We’ve been through a lot together, including a lot of states.”

“So you’re a drifter?”

“You could say that.”

“But why here?” I pressed.

“I heard there was work. Was hooked up with a cool place to live. So I’ve been here for the past few months.” He peered sideways at me again. “I could ask you the same, you know. What you were doing there and here, right where I happen to be.”

“I have good reasons. For both.”

“So do I.”

“Well, you know mine. I didn’t show up here for the hell of it. I didn’t have a choice. You know that. So what are
your
reasons?”

He looked at me full-on now, over Sammy’s back, with a big smile on his face and a gleam in those mocha eyes. My stomach dropped like it had when I’d fallen from the door this morning. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine? Is that what you want to play? Because there are much more fun versions than this.”

My mouth might have fallen open a little. His grin growing wider, Micah turned his attention back to the road.

“Last I checked, coincidences aren’t a crime,” he said. “That’s all it is. A weird coincidence.”

Reluctantly, I nodded in agreement. What else could I do? He obviously wasn’t going to give me any other answers, and I certainly didn’t want to piss him off since Sammy and I were currently at his mercy. Who knew what he could to do to us? Sheesh. What had I gotten myself into? I needed to be very wary. Alert. I patted my pockets for my switchblade and pepper spray I always kept with me. Both were in easy reach.

“So, didn’t like the skinhead thing?” I asked, changing the subject.

“What the hell are you talking about now? Do you ever speak English?”

“I am! The last time I saw you, you had long hair. Now it’s extremely short, as if you’d gone skinhead but changed your mind.”

He snorted. “Definitely not skinhead. Those guys are assholes.”

Agreed. I’d never met one I liked. “Then what? Some kind of makeover?”

He chuckled. “Once again, I could ask you the same. You look different, too.”

I swallowed. He was right, and for some reason, I felt the need to explain. Maybe something inside me wanted to trust him. I ran my fingers through my straggly hair that barely reached my shoulders. Trudy had helped me return the color to natural, but we’d had to cut it pretty short. At least I hadn’t shaved any of my head for over a year, or she probably would have sheared it all off and given me a wig. Apparently, Micah had noticed the change, as well as the lack of heavy eyeliner. In fact, I’d been going with the natural look lately, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible these days. I inhaled a deep breath and let it out.

“My grandfather was my last living relative.” I swallowed again to keep away the lump trying to form in my throat. “When he died, I wigged out at first. Practically drank myself to death. When I finally came out of it, I knew I couldn’t go back to that whole punk scene. So here I am, trying to be a grown-up.”

Micah’s right hand left the steering wheel and made the smallest move toward me, but then he pulled it back, as if changing his mind. Yep. He’d definitely felt something when we touched.

“I didn’t know about your grandfather,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel.”

Now it was my turn to snort. “I hate it when people say that.
Nobody
knows how I feel. Not really.”

“Well, maybe not exactly. You still have your friends, right? The girl you were at the show with, at least?”

“Bex? Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, there you go. You have someone still.”

I peered over at him. His face resembled a stone statue’s, and his knuckles shone white, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard.

“And you don’t?” I asked.

“There’s a reason I’m a drifter, as you put it. Nothing to tie me down.”

“No parents? No brothers or sisters?”

“I grew up in foster homes and couldn’t wait for the day to escape. Closest I’ve had to real brothers was in the Marines Corps. But, well, shit happens.” He clammed up then. I was surprised he’d even told me as much as he had. Not normal for a guy, especially with a girl he just met. Then again, maybe he’d felt the same as I had—that we somehow already knew each other.

“So ex-military, huh? That explains the hair. You finally had the chance to grow it out and didn’t like it?”

His hand ran over his short dark hair. “Pretty much. Old habits die hard.”

“How long were you in?”

“A little over four years. I enlisted the day I turned 18.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Well, you obviously didn’t enlist for the education benefits. You already said as much. So not a good career choice?”

His face hardened again. “You ask too many questions. I’ve answered more than I should.”

As if on cue, he turned into a parking lot of a large building with a fenced-in lumberyard to its side. Time to focus back on the business at hand, but my last question burned my curiosity. Actually, Micah’s reaction was what ate at me. Had something happened? It must have been something bad. Had he been dishonorably discharged? Ah, man. Maybe trusting him had been a bad idea after all.

“I’ll go put the order in for all the supplies, then you can go in and pay,” Micah said, sliding out of his door and slamming it shut. He strode off, leaving me with Sammy.

I watched the smooth way his body moved as he headed for the store’s doors, admiring his physique while absent-mindedly rubbing at my arm. When he disappeared inside, the ache in my left wrist fully registered in my brain.

“What in the hell?” I shrieked, startling Sammy. The flame mark, which I’d forgotten about when it had faded to nearly non-existent, had returned, much brighter and more defined than before.