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)
“Crimes against humanity?”
“Talking the people who want to fight you out of fighting you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you imagining that looks like?”
“Well, you know, you’re rich. You’re famous. People love your music.”
“And I should pay my way out of a fight?”
“Or offer tickets or autographs. Or…” She trailed off, her eyes on his face. “No?”
“I would rather fight than do that,” he said.
“Why?”
He didn’t know how to put into words that his music was him. And fighting was more about his brother and his childhood, so it was easier to fight. How did he explain that fighting cost him nothing. Nothing that mattered.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said, honestly.
She looked up at him through her lashes and the edge of her bangs, and he was struck by a lightning bolt of lust. Something so real and so visceral he needed a second to get hold of himself.
Her eyes were green, a real dark green. The color of a lake. And the freckles. The freckles slayed him. Ruined him. He lost track of his thoughts, looking at the freckles across her cheeks and scattered across her chest where the low neck of her cotton camisole revealed them.
It had been ages since he’d felt this way. Longer than anyone would believe. Longer than he could admit and still keep his rock-and-roll credibility.
Which was why, he guessed, she hit him this way. Like a fist just below his belly button. Deep into his body. A solid throb. A deep ache.
She coughed, glancing back down at their food, and he realized all these things he was feeling, she was feeling, too. And it felt like they were on a high wire together, the whole rest of the world a distant blur.
He could get drunk on this feeling.
“You know what would make this garbage plate better?” she asked, changing the subject. She licked her lips, leaving them damp and lush.
“Nothing. Not one single thing. It’s perfection on a plate,” he said.
“Sour cream and salsa.”
He wanted to take one finger and trace the edge of that purple camisole and he wanted to exert the slightest pressure against it, pushing it back. Out of his way. So he could see more of her skin, the freckles, the top curves of her breasts.
“Micah?”
“Let’s see if you’re right,” he said, snapping back into his body. He lifted his hand and asked the waitress for sour cream and salsa, which arrived in little plastic ramekins.
“My god,” he said, after swallowing a bite. “I did not think garbage plates could be improved upon, but you have done it. You are a wonder, Helen.”
She laughed, her cheeks going pink. And he bent over his food, distracting himself.
After a few minutes, she pushed her plate away, still more than half full. “I cannot eat any more.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m out, too. Finishing a garbage plate is a rookie mistake.”
“The heartburn alone is gonna kill you.”
He laughed. “I think when you’re young and drunk—”
“Beer soaks it all up. Makes sense.”
He put some cash on the table. “Hey,” he said, suddenly realizing he owed her what might be a thousand dollars. “The bail.”
“You know, we’re going to add it to what you’re contributing to Haven House.”
“All right.”
“But you’re going to double it.”
“You are ruthless, Helen.”
“For Haven House, yes,” she said with a definitive nod. “Someone needs to be ruthless for those women.”
Inspiration, for him, struck out of the blue. The lightning bolt of hearing something. Of connecting a feeling to a word. A chord to a progression. He could do all the shit that creative coaches told a person to do—set the stage for creativity, sit down every day at the same time, practice writing garbage.
But it was total bullshit.
The good stuff came in a lightning bolt. There was no other way.
“Micah?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He patted down his pockets. “You got a pen?”
“Sure,” she said in the tone of voice of a person who had supplies for a lot of emergencies. She put a big leather purse on the table and fished out a pen.
He wanted to ask her what else she had in there, but he couldn’t look away from what was happening in his head. If he did, it might vanish.
He started to scribble on the back of the napkin and she watched him for a while and he was about to be self-conscious when she finally asked, quietly, “Can you walk to the car and write?”
“Yep,” he said, and scooted out of the booth and kept scribbling away on the napkin.
He followed her to her truck, got in the passenger seat, and before they were at the highway, he had the first verse and the bridge of what he thought was a pretty great song. He tucked the napkin into his pocket and put the pen down in the console between them.