Dropping the Ball

23. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Kaitlyn

I find the movie and the “Play” prompt appears as Micah joins me, but instead of sitting down, he pauses and studies me, my booted feet propped up on an ottoman.

“That’s one of my pieces,” he says.

It’s more of a stool with an upholstered cushion sitting on top of curved iron legs. “It’s cool. What’s it made from?”

“Frame is from a restaurant renovation. They tore out the Western kitchen vibe, so lots of decorative iron. Eva welded that for me. And the top is woven from the curtains in a conference room from a business park demo.”

I drop my feet so I can tug the stool to the couch to study it closer. I can definitely see that the muted seagrass upholstered top is made from an already-woven fabric. Like a rag rug, but far more intricate. “This used to be a curtain?”

“This lady who lives at the end of my street does handweaving stuff. Baskets. Things like that. I asked her if she could turn it into a cushion cover, and this is what she gave back.”

I run a finger over it. I can’t begin to guess how she did it. It all lies flat, but the closer I look, the more the pattern emerges. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yes.”

His tone makes me look up. He’s studying me, not the stool.

He wants me. He’s looking at me the way I wished he would have in high school. No, that’s not it. If he’d looked at me then like he’s looking at me now, I would have had no idea what to do with that kind of heat. That he’s in no way trying to hide it makes it clear how capable he is of masking when he chooses. It’s also clear that this draw I feel toward him is mutual. Intensely mutual.

The tension isn’t the kind that you cut with a knife. Or crack like glass. Or deflate like a balloon. It’s the kind like a dam: high risk of flooding. Flooding of senses. Flooding by hormones. I need to take a breath before I drown in this, so I set my feet on the stool again, using it as an excuse to break eye contact.

“Want help with your boots?”

There are so many ways to take off boots. A couple of them might reduce me to a soundless blob on my sofa. It might lead him to conclude that I’m interested in way more than a truce. It might confirm his suspicions that I’m obsessed with his pecs. And encourage my constant impulse to reach out and feel how soft his hair is.

“Kaitlyn?” There’s no hint of a smile around his mouth, like he guesses what I’m thinking. He knows. That straight-up knowledge is dangerous.

On the other hand, these boots really are hard to remove by myself. It’s why I rarely wear them.

“Help would be great.” My voice is even. It’s a miracle.

Then this—this guy, this man, this piece of freaking work, he—

In a move as graceful as a dancer, he steps over my crossed legs, cups the back of my ankle to lift the boot, and he—oof.

He presses his thighs to either side of my calf and jellies my entire right leg. I draw a deep breath through my nose, making it as silent as possible, while his other hand curves over my foot and he begins to tug. Gently.

The view is—

Another deep breath. I have not spent enough time appreciating this man’s backside.

As an Armstrong, I have worn many, many pairs of boots in my life. No matter how a boot is removed, there’s a distinct sense of relief when it slides off, like a Victorian lady loosening her corset.

I do not get that moment. Because when he lowers my foot back to the stool, his touch radiates straight up through my legs and curls low in my abdomen, moving through my chest and warming my cheeks.

“Feel better?” Micah asks, glancing over his shoulder.

I don’t think I school my expression fast enough, because the corner of his mouth twitches.

“Sure.” There. Make something of that boring syllable, Micah Croft.

He pulls off the other boot, and everywhere he touches decides to burn.

This man is messing with me.

I slide one of my feet back toward me, then set it on that prizeworthy backside, and—

Push.

He tips forward and drops my boot, and his other hand shoots out to catch himself on the rug. He twists and lands on his butt, turning to look up at me with a glint in his eye that suggests payback.

“Ready to start the movie?” I ask.

He sucks his teeth, eyes on me, for several seconds before he gets up. “Sounds good.”

I nestle into my corner, free to curl my feet beneath me now. What’s he going to do? Take the cushion next to me and cage me in? Bring it . I’m not backing down.

He takes the opposite corner.

Huh. Never realized how long this sofa is. Whatever. It’s for the best.

Daisy appears and wanders in front of me before hopping up onto the sofa and curling up next to Micah. She’s a traitor even if I understand her choice.

I can’t say I watch the first ten minutes of the movie. My eyes are on it, but I’m distracted by trying to guess what Micah wants to tell me, my thoughts running in a hamster wheel with “he wants to father your children” at the top to “he’s quitting the gala job” at the bottom.

But then I accidentally get interested in the movie when the plot takes a group of five college friends to their old, abandoned summer camp to find out what happened to their sixth friend who disappeared there the summer they turned fifteen. She was never found, and the camp closed after her family sued it for negligence.

Chrissy—strong freshman class secretary vibes—demands the camp director’s single suite for herself because she’s secretly been hooking up with Tuck. Tuck who was the missing girl’s boyfriend. Tuck who sneaks into Chrissy’s room, because Tuck is down to—

Anyway. Tuck refers to the missing girl as Dead Jules while Chrissy giggles. Tuck quickly loses his shirt, and Chrissy is making all kinds of breathy noises.

Exactly what kind of movie has Micah picked for us? If I see Prissy Chrissy’s “pecs,” I’m kicking him out.

Thirty seconds later Tuck does a seductive shirtless crawl up the bed to turn the heat up. No way. I’m not watching a spicy scene with Micah. Prissy Chrissy might only have lost her socks so far, but there is a logical progression here. I straighten to look for the remote.

“Micah, I’m not—aaaaaaahhhHHH!” I scream as clawed human hands erupt from Chrissy’s stomach and drive straight into Tuck’s shirtless torso to yank out his heart.

Daisy leaps into the air when I yell and lands on the floor with her back arched and tail flared. She hisses. Micah jumps too then laughs until Daisy launches herself into my lap and crouches, ready to attack whatever made me scream.

Micah’s laugh trails off. “Whoa, Kaitlyn. Are you okay?”

I point at Chrissy’s face contorted in terror as she watches the hand—gray and decaying except for a perfect shell-pink manicure—protruding from her abdomen squeeze the beati—never mind. Ew. Ew, ew, ew.

I clap my hands over my eyes.

Micah hops up. “I got it, I got it.” The sounds stop.

I lower my hands. The movie is paused, title card back on the screen.

He sits on the cushion beside me. “You didn’t know that was coming?”

“You did?” I ask, my voice shrill and not remotely cool.

He gets a concerned look on his face. “You don’t like horror movies, do you?”

“Apparently not,” I say, only half as shrill.

“Why did you agree to watch it?” he asks. “I wouldn’t make you watch something you hate.”

“I thought I didn’t like horror movies the same way I don’t like car chase movies,” I said. “They sound dumb, so I’ve never bothered. I would have passed if you’d said ghosts or something because that might freak me out for real, but when you said it was zombies, I thought it was going to be corny, not scary.”

“Oh, man. I’m sorry I laughed. I thought you were messing around when you screamed.”

“How did you know it was coming if you haven’t seen it yet?”

“You watch enough horror movies, you know what to expect.”

“Then it’s not scary,” I said. “What’s the point?”

“In the zombie genre, the fun is watching how gross the director can make each infection.”

I press my hand to my heart like the pressure will make it stop beating so hard. I pet Daisy’s back with the other one until she relaxes, stepping off my lap to sit beside me. She doesn’t lie down, but she does curl her tail around her.

“We’ll find something else to watch. A comedy. How does that sound?”

I shake my head before he’s done asking. “No. I want to finish this one.”

“It’s fine, I promise. I wasn’t that invested. I can watch it some other time if I feel like it.”

This is a point of pride now. “If you can watch this without being scared, I can too.”

“It’s not a competition, Katie. Seriously.”

“Sit back, press play, and tell me every single thing that’s going to happen before it happens.” I will not be defeated by a movie that only made him laugh.

“I—”

“Push play.”

He shakes his head but reaches for the remote. “Just so you know, Tuck is definitely dead, but she’s going to be a zombie. That’s the trope. If the brain or heart stops, the zombie stops.”

“Okay, go.”

It plays out exactly like he tells me, and for the next hour, he predicts everything that will happen. My anxiety drops, but I still hate the grossness.

“Oh, pacing shift,” he says. We’re down to a nerd named Jasper and a likable girl named Penny, who Micah has already told me is the Final Girl, who has never done anything mean or wrong to anyone, ever, so that means she’ll survive.

He pauses the movie as Jasper and Penny reach the edge of the dark woods. “Forest of doom, so there will be zombie jump scares, and I can’t predict them. I can watch the rest later.”

I think about it. “Penny will kill all of them and face Zombie Chrissy?”

“Of course.”

“I would like Zombie Chrissy to die.”

He smiles and hits play.

After two or three scares that don’t make either of us jump, we’re getting to the other edge of the woods, and I, very stupidly, relax. Jasper and Penny step out of the forest near the lake, victorious, and they stop to catch their breath and do that relieved, hysteria-tinged laugh of what-the-crap-just-happened. The more they laugh, the more it makes them laugh, and even I’m smiling as they—

WHOOSH and—

“AaaaaaaahhhHHH!” A blur of zombie evil yanks Jasper backward and scares me so thoroughly that I dive for Micah. He catches me with a muffled grunt but recovers quickly, settling me on his lap and tucking my head under his chin, hands shielding my eyes from the screen.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs, not loudly enough to drown out the wet ripping and tearing sounds as Penny also screams in terror and Jasper screams in pain. “I should have seen that one coming. I’m sorry, boss.”

More nasty horror movie sounds.

I cover my ears and burrow my head into his chest. “Tell me when this part is over.”

“You got it.” His arms are firm around me as he narrates what’s happening. The rhythm of his voice is calming, and I focus on it. This is the third time I’ve been in a position to absorb the vibrations in his chest against my cheek, and it has become a favorite sensation. My own heart rate is slowing.

Slowing, but pounding harder.

A minute later, Micah lifts my hand from my ear. “We’re safe. They’re setting up for the final battle.”

That’s too bad. I don’t have a reason to be in his lap anymore. I start to push up, but Micah flexes enough to keep me there. A wordless request for me to stay.

I answer by relaxing. It doesn’t feel like a thing that needs to be fought.

He slides an arm beneath my legs and stands, lifting me before claiming my corner. He stretches out, back against the armrest, one leg resting on the floor, situating me in the vee of his legs, my back pressed to his front.

I have to turn my head and rest it against his chest to watch the movie, but I’m not mad about that either.

We watch Penny promise Jasper to get help and leave him with a flare gun they found. Over the final half hour, she discovers that Dead Jules disappeared because she was abducted by Prissy Chrissy and the former camp director after catching them in an affair. They knocked her out and threw her in a lake. She survived and collapsed in the woods, where a fungus infected her, and she became a zombie. She is the biggest, baddest, wiliest zombie, and she’s about to go for Penny when Zombie Chrissy appears. They fight. Zombie Jules wins and takes out Zombie Chrissy. Penny feels sorry for Zombie Jules but knows what she must do. Surprise! She pulls out a second flare gun! Skipping the squelchy details, Zombie Jules is now Dead Jules for real.

But I can’t swear to these plot points, even though it’s not a complicated story. I’m too distracted by Micah.

His jeans rasp lightly against my forearms as his thighs become my armrests, contracting and rolling when he tenses or shifts.

He toys with my hair, sifting tendrils through his fingers. Every strand he grazes pings a corresponding nerve in my spine, shooting pleasure bolts out to my fingers and the soles of my feet, up to my cheeks, and all through my core. I swallow my breathy Chrissy sounds. I don’t want to distract him into stopping.

What am I doing? There isn’t a single part of me that isn’t touching some part of Micah. Of the guy who could hijack my train of thought without trying when he was only seventeen. I’m older and wiser, but so is he. And he’s seasoned now.

His finger brushes my ear while he gathers another lock of my hair, and a shiver runs down my back.

“Cold?” he asks, his voice low and lazy.

I give a single headshake, not trusting my voice. I keep my eyes on the screen, and he drops it. I’d rather die than get up, but it’s possible I’ll spontaneously combust if I don’t.

I stay.

Micah occasionally stops playing with my hair to draw me tighter and warn me another jump scare might be coming.

I think he makes up a few of them.

Somehow, by the time the credits scroll, I am both utterly boneless and nothing but pins and needles.

Neither of us reaches for the remote. The credits keep rolling.

It would be so simple to turn my head ever so slightly, and Micah’s mouth would be right there by mine.

A quarter turn.

I want to do it. But I also want him to do it. I want him to initiate this so that if this goes wrong, it’s on him. He took us this direction. He chose this.

It’s hard to think over my deafening pulse, but the truth is still louder.

I want this too.