Page 54 of Embracing the Beat
WEST
Well, fuck, that went well.
A part of me considers going after her, but the other part realizes I need some time to process what she said.
The garage door goes up, and I make sure she’s inside and the door is closed before walking in the other direction, tucking my hands in my pockets as I ruminate over the events of the day.
Lunch. The news about my job. The gossip about Mikey.
Fuck. I do it even when she’s not around.
I was nine the first time I went home with Sawyer after school and met Mikey. It’s what everyone called her—Mike or Mikey. According to Kelly, she had given up trying to convince people to call her Michaela.
Mikey was a toddler at the time, blond hair so light it looked like white dandelion fluff around her head.
From that day forward, she has been cemented as Mikey in my brain. Until a few weeks ago when I saw her bent over the counter at the coffeepot in the middle of the night. Since then, my thoughts about the girl I’d watched grow up haven’t been so brotherly.
Do I deliberately use Mikey as a nickname?
Yes.
Is it for the reasons she listed? Not returning the attraction? Thinking she’s beneath me? No. Hell no. I want her beneath me all right, preferably on a soft surface, but I’m not picky about comfort. As for the attraction? Without a doubt, she’s sexy as hell when she’s fired up about something, including when she was passionately telling me what an idiot I am.
She isn’t like Ashley. At all. The two couldn’t be more different if they tried. My emotions today had nothing to do with what Ashley did. And unlike what I told Michaela, I know exactly why I was angry.
Watching the video. Realizing it was Michaela with another man. The knowledge still has my molars changing each other’s surface area.
Michaela is mine.
Mine.
And that possessiveness as an automatic response confused the hell out of me.
Forty-five minutes and several blocks later, I let myself back into the house with the keys jangling in my pocket.
“Mikey—shit—Michaela?”
I have to start thinking before I speak, especially since she’s told me why she doesn’t want me using the nickname. It’s not that I find her unattractive or beneath me. Neither of those could be further from the truth. I’ve been using it to control my attraction to her.
If she’s attracted to me, then why do I need to control my attraction to her?
Good question. And not one I have an answer for, despite thinking about nothing else for my entire solo walk.
She’s not in the kitchen when I check there first and I head upstairs. Her bedroom door is open, so I turn in there, hoping to find her.
Empty.
“What are you doing in my room?”
I turn around, ready to defend myself—I wasn’t in her room, only in the doorway—and the words die in my throat. I didn’t hear the bathroom door open, but she’s framed by it, towel wrapped around her, skin rosy as coconut-scented steam fills the hallway between us.
“Well?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.
“You took a shower?”
For being so smart, you can be pretty stupid.
She rolls her eyes at the obvious answer to my question.
