Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 67496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
“Sure,” he said and they all stood together. Him, the sergeant and fresh new guy. Big smiles, peace signs flashed. The show complete.
“Hey! You that guy from the band?” Another person asked, phone already out and recording.
“I’m a guy from a band,” he said with a smile he was far from meaning.
“Can I get an autograph?” the first woman asked, her friend recording the whole thing.
“Sure,” he said, his feet firmly on the path of least resistance.
“What did you do, huh? To get arrested?” the guy asked again. Still recording.
“Got in a little dust-up,” he said easily, though he was grinding his back teeth. “You know how it is.”
He scrawled his name across a drugstore receipt the woman gave him.
“I love your music,” she said in a quiet, nervous voice.
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” He felt Helen watching all of this.
I wonder what she thinks?
“My friend dared me to do this,” she said in a very quiet voice and handed him another receipt. “My number is on that. If, you know, you’re ever in the neighborhood again.” She gave him a little flirty look and pressed her breast against his hand in a way that looked accidental but totally wasn’t.
“Hey, do you think you can call my sister?” new cop asked. “She’s your biggest fan.”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked the cop, his frustration leaking out.
“She’d lose her mind. Seriously.”
“I’m not calling your sister.”
“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”
He just wanted to leave.
“Hey,” said the kid who didn’t know him and was still recording everything. “Can you sing something?”
“No.”
“I thought you were a singer. Sing something.”
“Goodbye everyone.” He lifted his arm, smiled as wide as he could and put his hand on Helen’s back, guiding her toward the door.
“That your girlfriend?” the guy filming everything asked.
Micah jerked his hand away. “No,” he said, turning back to the guy. “She’s not.”
And something about Micah’s shift in energy told that guy all he needed to know. “Hey,” he shouted at Helen. “What’s your name? You this guy’s girlfriend?”
“She’s my driver,” he said definitively, and then, like Helen was indeed his employee, he hit the door and walked out, letting her follow.
“Holy shit,” she said, once they were out.
“Keep walking and don’t look back.” The guy would still be filming. “Which one is your car?”
“The…the black truck,” she said, and then she must have hit her key fob and the lights blinked. He stepped sideways trying to block the license plate on the truck.
“Do I need to open your door or something?” she asked, and he liked that she was trying to make a joke.
“Just get us out of here.”
In the rearview mirror he saw the kid with the camera, following them.
“We gotta go,” he said. She started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot, tires squealing.
“Shit. I’m sorry,” he said, looking behind them to see if anyone was getting into a car. It seemed like they’d all lost interest. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Are you kidding?” she asked, her cheeks all flushed. She was smiling. “I feel like I just busted you out of jail. That’s the most fun I’ve had in ages.”
He laughed. “Well, we’ll see if you’re still laughing if that guy sells the footage to TMZ.”
“Oh.” She sobered. “That must be kind of a drag for you.”
“You get used to it,” he lied.
“People expect you to do all that for them? Call their sister and answer their personal questions? Sing on command?”
“Not all. But some, yeah.”
“That must be hard.”
“Well, let’s not kid ourselves. There are harder things.” He looked up at her under the curved bill of his baseball cap and waited for her to say something. To offer up what she knew of hard things.
Her lips tightened and that was it.
“White Plains?” she asked.
“How about some food first?”
“What?”
“I’m starving. You starving?”
“Sure…I…yes, I’m hungry.”
“Excellent. I know just the place.”
Chapter Nine
He took her to Nick’s on Main, which, because it was a weekday and now too late for the drunks and too early for the lunch crowd, they had pretty much all to themselves. She sat across from him at the scratched but immaculate Formica table and wrinkled her adorable nose, clearly trying to make sense of the menu.
“Don’t bother,” he said, flipping over their coffee mugs so the waitress could fill them. His mother would smack him upside the head if she’d still been around, but he kept his hat on. Sue him, he needed a little armor. “You can get all the usual breakfast things, but the thing you want is the garbage plate.”
“I don’t want anything called a garbage plate.”
“I know. It feels counterintuitive, but in the end, you’ll see.”
“Decaf or regular?” The waitress asked, carrying a pot of each. He liked the looks of their waitress, nothing fazed her. She’d seen every kind of story unfold in these booths. He meant nothing to her.