Page 92 of The Secret
But Micah just pushed himself off me with a roll of his eyes. He grabbed his shoes from the closet and sat down on the bed by my knee. “I don’t even wannaknowwhere your mother thinks you are, do I?”
I blinked, stunned by this nonreaction. “Um… no,” I admitted. She hadn’t asked me about it directly in a while, but I knew from various comments she’d made that she thought I was still seeing the woman she’d heard rumors about a couple months ago, and I hadn’t corrected her.
God. I was such an asshole.
“It’s just for a little while longer, I swear,” I blurted. “I’m gonna talk to her this morning. Show her the business proposal we’ve been working on.”
“Is it done?”
“Well, no. I still want to talk to banks about potential financing. But I’m tired of waiting. I know you must be—”
Micah finished tying his shoes and sat upright. “Babe, the only thing Imust bedoing is going to this meeting.” He leaned over to kiss me, his lips warm on mine.
When he tried to deepen the kiss, I pulled away. “Ugh. My breath is awful,” I said, covering my mouth. “Lemme—”
Micah pulled my hand away from my face and stared down at me. The short gray hair at his temples glinted silver in the morning light, and there were tiny little lines on his forehead, like he’d spent too long frowning. It made my heart lurch with the need to make him smile. I was so gone for this man.
And that was before he said what he said next.
“Constantine? I don’t care about your breath. And I don’t care about your mother. Wait and show her the proposal when you’re done.”
“Really?”
“Really. And you know what? I’ve got an idea about getting you the financing, too, once your mom agrees to the rest. Something outside the box.”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Where?”
“A group that specializes in small business lending. Angel investors.”
“Yeah?” I blinked. “And you think someone would invest in my idea? Even though I have no collateral?”
“Yeah,” Micah said slowly. “I’m positive someone will.”
I grinned. “We can talk about it tonight.”
“Yes we can. As soon as you gethomefrom your shift.”
Was it possible to feel like you were flying and crash landing at the same time? Because my stomach was doing a pretty solid attempt at merging the two feelings into one.
Thirty minutes later, after Micah had left, I’d gotten some coffee, complete with the cream and sugar substitute Micah kept stocked for me. I’d showered and shaved, using the razor I kept in Micah’s bathroom. I’d looked at the pile of my laundry on the floor mixed with Micah’s, and thrown the whole thing into the tiny washing machine tucked into the closet in the kitchen. And I realized that somehow, I reallyhadgone from being the most devoted patron of The Hive to Micah’s unofficial live-in boyfriend… and I was more than okay with it. Now I owed it to Micah and to myself to move things out of the shadows and into the light.
I drove out to Ross Landscaping and parked in the little lot by the office. Mama’s little Ford was already there, along with Carlos’s pickup truck, and the ancient white van we used for deliveries. I could see Carlos walking around the closest of the greenhouses, likely checking out the systems, which meant my mother would be alone in her office.
Good.
I stepped out of my car and gave it a loving pat, because I’d never take my vehicle for granted again, then I stood in the silent morning and looked around at the place that was as much home to me as the house where I’d grown up or, apparently these days, Micah’s.
The larger garage, where the summer equipment was stored, was all closed up—we’d officially cleaned our last leaves until spring—and the trucks had both been outfitted with plows, ready for Mother Nature to unleash on us.
I loved this place. The rhythm of it, the constancy of it, the permanence and legacy of it. Hell, sometimes even the routine of it. And I was determined to keep all of that, if at all possible.
But spending the day with Micah’s family a few weeks back had crystallized a bunch of stuff for me about what family really meant, or what itshouldmean. About how mistakes couldpropel you forward, as Micah had once said, instead of holding you back.
The Blooms were every bit as loud and boisterous andnosyas my family could be. Every bit as prone to saying stupid shit. But they were open with each other and honest… more or less. Their closeness came from staring down adversity together, not because they all fell in line and did what was expected of them. There was no fear there. And I realized therecouldn’tbe any fear, if you wanted to have a family like that.
One time, over the summer, Micah had tried to tell me that not everything in life was transactional and I hadn’t really gotten it then, but I was starting to get it now, especially after seeing Julian choose Daniel despite my mother’s objections. Love and respect and support were supposed to be unconditional. Like the way Micah believed in me and saw me as something more than an immature fuckup or the unofficial court jester of O’Leary.
And if you’d told me a year ago that I’d be standing in this parking lot thinking deep, gooey thoughts about Micah Bloom, I’d have laughed my ass off, which just went to show that all kinds of things could change, if you had the right mindset.
