Falling From the Sky (12 page)

The sun reflects a pink and orange glow off the water when we leave the river. In a few short hours, nightfall will take over, and this Fourth of July celebration on the reservation will be underway. I’d much rather retreat to Micah’s room and play
Zombie Sanctuary 3
until we’re ready to crash.

CHAPTER TEN

The hot water feels great running through my hair and down my back, and if Micah didn’t need to shower too, I’d probably stand in here until the hot water ran out. I half-dry my body before pulling on my boxers, and I wrap the towel over my shoulders. I retreat to Micah’s bedroom and dress. I hear the water running on the other side of the wall already, and I know he’s as anxious to shower as I was.

Within a few minutes, Micah walks into his bedroom in a pair of blue boxers. For the most part, he ignores me and digs into his closet for a pair of jeans while I continue to blow dry my hair. He’s one of the few guys I know who actually owns one of these things, and as much as I’d rather use one because my hair takes forever to dry, it’d be over my dead body before I let the guys at camp know that. Maybe Micah isn’t the high maintenance one of us.

In the mirror, I watch as Micah pulls his jeans on and walks up behind me. He runs his fingers through the hair that’s fallen on the back of my neck. I shiver – not an “I’m cold” sort of shiver but more of the “Hey, that feels good, and you’re kind of turning me on” sort of shiver.

“Your hair’s a lot thicker than mine,” he says, like it’s no big deal that he’s playing with my hair.

My teeth sink into the inside of my cheeks to keep from smiling at him. I don’t want him to feel too comfortable or catch on that I like what he’s doing. But he’s still a guy and he’s got that one true guy element about him – he doesn’t know when to stop. He’s going to keep pushing me if I don’t stop him.

I shake my head and let my hair fall wherever it wishes to. It’s still damp, but I don’t care. I hand Micah his blow dryer so he can primp all he wants, and I lie back on his bed. He still hasn’t bothered to put a shirt on, and I know if I stare, he’ll see me in the mirror and take it as a good sign. Hell, I should probably put my own shirt on, but that would require moving back toward him. I think I’ll take my shirtless chances here on the bed.

My eyes fixate on those glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, and I play out stupid scenes in my head of what stars would think if they were falling from the sky. When I think of it that way, meteor showers don’t seem so cool anymore. Luckily stars don’t think. It’s amazing the things I come up with while trying not to watch Micah’s shirtless body.

The roar of the dryer stops, and Micah drops it to the floor. I wait for him to start rattling around the cords to his Xbox, but he just stands in front of the mirror running his fingers through his hair. I sit up just a little bit and prop up on my elbows for support. My eyes can’t stay on the stars any longer. I have to see what he’s doing.

He looks back and smiles. Then he walks over to the bed.

“I want you to do me a favor,” he says as he lies down next to me.

“Should I be scared?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Close your eyes.”

He fights a sneaky grin. It tries to pour through his lips, but he does a pretty good job of hiding it. I should probably be scared. I shouldn’t trust him for half a second. Not with my eyes closed, anyway. But I do as he asks. I fall back onto the pillow and close my eyes.

“Okay, let me set the scene,” he says. “Imagine you’re in level ten of
Zombie Sanctuary 3
.”

I imagine the dark morgue. The silver slabs with corpses resting on top. The tray of incision knives, scalpels, and empty jars to fill with organs. Lights flicker overhead, and I can almost feel the heat of that fluorescent light that’s about to blow.

“You’re a human, lying on that table, nearly dead,” Micah explains. “You have a choice – live or die.”

He leans close to my ear. His breath is warm against the side of my face. Level ten, I remind myself. Don’t think of how close he is to you right now. Level ten. Level freaking ten. The choice is obvious. I should fight to live.

“The doctors are downstairs, bottom floor. The second floor has been invaded by zombies, and they’re making their way toward the elevator,” he continues.

I squeeze my lips to keep from laughing as I envision men in white coats chasing after green slimed zombies, screaming at them to hold the elevator. Why don’t they add these things into video games? It’d have been great to see a doctor slip in brain juice or a zombie’s arm snap off trying to hold the elevator. Maybe I should design video games.

Micah’s voice brings me back. “You’re fighting to stay alive. You hear the zombies dragging their legs down the hallway, and you know they’re coming to the morgue for the bodies. They’re going to take them, one by one…bite into them…and convert them.”

He moves closer to me as he speaks. The bed sinks next to me as he presses into it to reposition himself.

“So the question is: What are you going to do?” he asks, his voice all serious now. “A: Let them bite you. Let them convert you and take you away from everything you know in your human life.”

Then his voice moves closer to my ear. His words are warm, and it may actually feel sort of good. Oh God. What am I thinking? Level ten, Ridge. Level fucking ten.

“Or B: Try to stay alive until the doctors arrive. Try to fight off the urge to just let them bite you and be done. Fight to stay human, to stay in the same awful life, even though you know there’s still a chance you could die,” Micah says.

I don’t think he’s talking about zombies and humans anymore. And I’m not really in a morgue lying on a silver slab hanging onto my last breath. But if I was…

Micah leans closer. His hair brushes against my face before he whispers directly into my ear, “Fight or bite? What do you want, Ridge? Fight…or…”

“Bite me!” The words fly from my lips faster than I can even think to stop them.

But I can’t think of the words or the morgue or anything other than the piercing pain that shoots through my collarbone.

“Fuck! Micah!” I scream.

I sling him off of me with one arm and push myself off of his bed. He actually bit me.

“What the hell was that for?” I yell at him.

He shrugs. “Sorry, but you said to bite you, and I –”

“Not you!” I’m pissed. I don’t know if it’s because he did it or because it actually hurts. I’m still trying to grasp the fact that he bit me in the first place.

“I didn’t mean for you to literally bite me, Micah. I meant, if I were a dying human in the damn morgue, I’d want the zombies to bite me. Just put me out of my fucking misery.”

I study the damage in the mirror. Great. It looks like a hickey, and it’s probably going to look worse tomorrow. I lean against his dresser and bury my face into my hands.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he says.

His bed squeaks when he gets up. I don’t look up, but his feet shuffle against the carpet as he makes his way over to me. I dare to look at him. His face looks halfway apologetic.

“Look at this,” I say. “Do you see what you did?”

He runs his index finger over my bruising skin. “Does it hurt?” he asks.

No, it doesn’t hurt, idiot. What do you think? “Well, obviously,” I say instead.

That sneaky smirk is back on his face. “I can make it better,” he says. Even his voice sounds mischievous now.

“Ice pack?” I ask.

He laughs. His finger traces my bite wound. “No. This is a little bit warmer.”

He leans in toward me again, his mouth right above my stinging skin where his teeth were just seconds ago.

“You can stop me at any time,” he whispers. “Just say the word.”

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop! I can’t speak, and even if I could, I don’t know if I’d really say it. His arms tighten around me, and he pulls himself into me. His mouth presses against my neck, soft and warm. This is so what they meant by “kiss it and make it better.”

His lips move from my collarbone and up the left side of my neck. My heart pounds, and I really hope he can’t hear it. This is wrong on so many levels, and the fact that I like it is the worst. His hand slips behind my neck, and it’s warm to the touch. Everything about him is warm.

His other hand slides along my back. I love the way his fingers toy with the hair at the nape of my neck. I can’t remember ever feeling this kind of intensity with anyone. I squeeze my eyes shut as his mouth explores my skin until I can finally force his name out.

“Micah,” I whisper.

“Yeah?” he whispers against my neck.

I can’t speak above a whisper. “It doesn’t hurt there anymore.”

He pulls away and places both hands on the back of my neck. I dare to open my eyes.

“Where does it hurt?” he asks, looking me straight in the face.

I feel like I’m in the final seconds of a crucial game. Three seconds on the clock. The other team is up by one. Man under the goal is wide open. I can pass it to him, alleviating all pressure from me and still most likely securing a win, or I can try for that damn three-pointer that I usually miss.

“Where the hell do you think?” I ask.

I decide to take the shot.

I push Micah back toward his bed and onto the mattress. I pin him between my body and the bed sheets. He runs his tongue over his lips, as seductively as ever, and then he smiles that stupid tongue-tip smile at me. I ease against him, skin to skin. But Micah doesn’t like to wait. His mouth presses against mine, still warm, soft, and wet. I suck on his bottom lip, pulling it between my own. He tastes like rock candy.

What the hell am I doing?

I push myself off of him as quickly as I pushed him onto the bed. There’s no way I can pretend this didn’t happen. I kissed him – I kissed another guy! And to make it worse, I asked for it. He didn’t get carried away. It was all me. I was the one not telling him to stop, and I thought he tasted like rock candy, and I thought he was warm. All me.

“Are you okay?” he asks, sitting up next to me and wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

“Micah, I have a girlfriend,” I say. It’s the worst defense to use, but it’s all I have.

“Samantha,” he says, like her name is filth in his mouth. “Dance team Samantha. The one whose phone calls you avoid and text messages you bitch about. The one who you always say you wish would find someone else and get the fuck on with her life and leave you out of it.”

He pulls his arm back to himself, like I’m suddenly the plague. He’s right. Every single word of it. Even down to the part where it sounds like filth in his mouth. His tone is exactly how I feel about her too.

“But she’s still my–”

“Hell no,” Micah interrupts. “You are not about to fucking ‘Samantha’ me. You can feed me your excuses and whatever lies you want to tell yourself, but she’s not going to cut it. You
want
me, and you damn well know it.”

For once, I wish I was one of those typical guys who spent his nights with his teammates hooking up with different girls and taste testing different beers. I would have all the friends I needed at camp, and I wouldn’t have to shoot pennies into fountains and rely on carousel horses to get me through the summer. I wouldn’t be the weird kid who prays for airplanes and kisses guys. I’d just be typical.

Still, I can’t ignore the fact that hanging out with Micah is better than making out with Samantha. I haven’t missed her at all. Yet every single day, I find myself wondering what Micah is doing while I’m practicing free throws. I wonder if he’s at work thinking about me while I’m running suicides.

How do you let yourself become so miserable that you cheat on your hot dance team girlfriend with a guy?

“Do you know how bad this is?” I ask him, trying to add some reality to this puzzle. “It puts me on the same level as Zach Perry and all the other jackass guys at camp, those same ones who are out getting a piece of every girl in Bear Creek who’ll give it up.”

Micah looks around the room like he’s waiting for an asteroid to fall through the roof and spare him from having to deal with this mess.

“Really, you’re not, because I’m not a girl, and–”

“Micah,” I stop him.

“Ridge,” he counters. “You don’t even want her. You don’t like her. That relationship needs to be the 13 skull on my tree. You want to get real? Okay, fine. Samantha deserves a boyfriend who actually wants to be with her, yeah. But you deserve someone who gets you, who actually makes you happy and makes you want to live again because when you first got to Bear Creek, you were living hour by hour, just trying to survive a day.”

What sucks the most is that he’s right. He gets me. He doesn’t get mad when I want to go to bed early because I’m exhausted from basketball, and he doesn’t get ill when I’d rather just hang out at the house and play video games than go somewhere. I don’t have to pretend with him. Being me is enough, and having someone who actually gets that is even better. I haven’t felt this alive since the plane crash. I actually get through the days without dwelling on it.

Zoey calls Micah’s name from down the hallway. He jerks his shorts on over his boxers and pulls his T-shirt on as he makes his way out of his bedroom. I wait for a few seconds before Micah comes back. His smile is too big.

“Get dressed,” he says. “I know, timing sucks, but Kyle just said some black guy is here and asked for me. Then he asked if Terrence was my new boyfriend.”

Shit. Terrence. I grab my shirt and nearly face-plant into the floor to find the rest of my clothes. Micah tells me to lighten up. Lighten up? I’m not a fucking firework.

“I can’t believe you kissed me,” I mumble.

Micah sighs one of those dramatic, frustrated sighs. “You kissed me back.”

That I did.

And I totally want to do it again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The scent of charcoal and gasoline is bittersweet. It smells like summer, like the Fourth of July. Fireflies flicker among the trees, and those electric bug zappers crackle. Smoke and humidity swim in the air. Everything feels right. I don’t know what I was expecting the holiday on a reservation to be like, but normal was not an option.