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“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Helen opened her mouth and shut it. It was too humid under the blankets and she tore them off, but still didn’t have a reasonable answer.
“Because of Evan?” Josie asked.
“No,” she said. “Evan would…I mean, this sounds crazy. But Evan would want me to …you know with Micah Sullivan.”
“Okay, if you’re going to call it you know, you’re not ready.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Josie. I’m not ready. I was with Evan for years and before him it was…god, that football player in high school and then the guy who worked at the library with me first year of college. Like, I’m never going to be ready for Micah Sullivan.”
Josie made a quiet noise. That sounded like understanding and also pity.
Helen stiffened. “You know, never mind, it’s probably late where you are—”
“We’re in New York City,” she said. “It’s barely eight in the morning.”
“I’m not pitiful.”
“You aren’t. And I think…well, I think if you let this opportunity slide by you, you will regret it for, like, ever. And there has to be a first person after Evan, and I don’t know, why not let that first person be a rock god? He’ll be good at it. I think that’s a given.”
There was a mumble of another voice.
“Cameron says hi,” Josie said.
“Okay, but don’t—”
“Do you think Micah Sullivan will be good in bed?” Josie asked Cameron. There was a laugh and a mutter. “Cameron says he thinks, yes. He’ll be good in bed.”
All this talk of being good in bed was making her a little queasy. Or maybe that was the garbage plate.
“All right,” Helen whispered, the adrenaline from nearly kissing Micah having worked off, leaving her even more tired than before. She felt herself melting into the mattress. Exhaustion coming for her. “I’m going to bed.”
“Okay,” Josie said. “But remember, you deserve to be happy. And Evan would want you to be happy and life keeps going, Helen. It keeps going.”
Micah
Calling his brother was a mistake. But calling his mother wasn’t an option anymore, so the only person he really had was his brother. And he didn’t want to fight. He wanted to fuck Helen Larson against a hotel door. But since that wasn’t an option, either, fighting with his brother was all he had.
“Holy shit,” Alex said on the first ring. “You got picked up.”
“Yes, I got picked up, you asshole.”
“Why didn’t you call me to come get you?”
“Like you would have come, you were out of that bar so fast, Alex.”
“Yeah, did you see the size of those guys? Shit. I can’t believe you stayed.”
“Someone has to stay, Alex. Someone has to take responsibility.”
“Jesus, listen to yourself, Micah. It’s a fight not a bar bill. And those fuckers started it.”
Micah squeezed the bridge of his nose, exhaustion giving him a headache.
“Tell Jo I’ll be back in White Plains in a few days.”
“Taking time to see the sights of Rochester?” Alex laughed. “So, who’d you call to get you?”
He didn’t want to say. And that he didn’t say was already too much of an answer.
“Danny peddled his bike out to ride you bitch?”
“Don’t…” he sighed. “Leave the kid alone.”
“Who’d you call?” Alex asked like it was all a joke. Like the hundreds of times in his life Alex had left with some girl or some cooler guy and abandoned Micah to sort his own way home. Once, memorably, at a party on a boat. His brother had left on another boat.
“Helen.”
“Helen? Who the fuck is…the charity girl?”
“Her name is Helen Larson.”
“She’s, like, three hours away. And you called her? And she came?” Alex started to laugh. “Remember that wrong number you called, and it was some girl in Australia and she flew all the way—”
“I remember.”
“She flew all the way to Seattle to fuck you.”
And he’d fucked her because that was what he did.
“Alex. It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
Again. More silence and the thing with Alex was, if you gave him silence he’d fill it. “You have a thing for her?”
“You sound like an idiot.”
“You like, like her?” He said it in a singsong voice and Micah was filled, as ever, with the joint urges to laugh and put his fist through his brother’s face.
“So why are you calling? Just to talk about your feelings?”
There were suddenly twenty questions he wanted to ask his brother. Did he mean to start those fights and then bail? Did he mean for Micah to get hurt? What urge was this bullshit satisfying for Alex? But instead, he did what he always did when he felt this way. Turned inside out and upside down, wishing, god, just wishing for a soft place to land.
Shit. He pulled the napkin out of his pocket and wrote that down.
“No, I called to give you shit about leaving me in that bar.”
“Look,” Alex said. “I’m sorry about that fight. That guy was just such an asshole, talking shit about the band.”
