Page 138 of IRL: In Real Life
Then he saw my face and his whole expression changed.
“What happened?”
His concern softened me a little against my will.
I angled the phone. “You tell me.”
He frowned. “Talia.”
“Look at your little friend, Candace Johnson’s, post.”
His eyes changed, but he stayed quiet as he reached for his tablet and looked.
Then Micah went still in that way he did when something had gotten under his skin fast and hard, but he was refusing to let it show.
“Are you serious?” he said.
“So it is about you.”
His jaw tightened.
“That shit is old,” he said immediately. “Old as hell. And there was never anything real there.”
I looked at him carefully, because I wanted to hear how he said the truth.
Micah exhaled once through his nose and leaned back in his chair like he needed the extra inch of space not to say something reckless before breakfast.
“She was somebody I talked to for a minute,” he said.
The answer came out controlled. Too controlled. Like he had a client on the other side of the glass and did not want his voice carrying through the office.
“Talia, hold on.”
He stood, crossed out of frame, and I heard his office door close with a soft click.
When he came back, his tie was still straight, his face was still calm, but something in his eyes had changed. Less banker. More man.
“Now,” he said, settling back into his chair. “Let me say this how I need to say it. I ain’t never been with Candace. We talked for a minute. That’s it. Never kicked it. Never got serious. Never got close like that.”
That helped.
Only a little.
“She wanted to,” he added.
I bet she did.
“But I got weird vibes from her, and I left it alone. Stopped hitting her up. Stopped responding. It was so long ago, I don’t even know what the hell she thinks she has to be mad about.”
The heat in me hadn’t fully gone anywhere yet. Jealousy was ugly like that. It could hear reassurance and still want to throw one plate before it sat down.
“She sounds bitter,” I said.
“She is bitter.” His eyes stayed on mine through the screen. “And she’s also irrelevant.”
I studied his face another second.
“Talia.”
