Page 14 of Coming for You


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I don’t really have a response to that. I decide to just move on. “So, after he told me he was coming outside, I seriously considered making a run for it,” I admit shamefully. “Then I considered just marching back inside and meeting him in the middle, you know, make it a sort of ‘be bold and take a chance for once’

kind of moment.”

“What scenario really played out?” she asks, clearly doubting my levels of gumption.

“I decided hiding in the shadows by the plants along the building was a reasonable compromise between both options. A happy middle ground if you will.”

“Your happy middle ground was not running but possibly not being found as well?” She’s not impressed with me. “And after what I put myself through to make this meeting happen? Do you know how many sweaty arms brushed up against me in that line? How many times I wanted to offer someone deodorant? Or a mint? Or a restraining order? It wasn’t pretty in there. Twenty minutes of my life and I may need therapy for years to come.”

“Do you want to hear the rest of my story?”

She grins, immediately dialing back the guilt and drama. “Yes, please.”

“So,” I start again. “There I was, undecided between wanting to be found and wanting him to run right past me, before I settled into, there’s no way he’s really coming out here.”

“Oh, he was really coming out there,” Arizona cuts in. “He literally ran out of the meet and greet. No security. No warning. Just took off.”

“Really?” No, don’t need to know. It’ll only give me more material to embellish this story with down the road. And I absolutely will. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. Let’s stay on point.”

“I’m good with that. It keeps us talking about the stuff I don’t know yet.” She gestures for me to keep going.

“Anyway, just as I’ve convinced myself I’m crazy for thinking Knox Marley would really come outside to meet me, there he is.” The image will forever be seared into my memory. The way he stood there, looking for me. Suddenly, he didn’t look like the same phantom of a man I’ve been watching and listening to from a distance all this time. Sure, he was wearing his signature ripped jeans and flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to his biceps. And his overgrown hair was pulled back into the tiniest ofponytails, a change from the backwards baseball cap he wore for the show, but still a go-to look of his.

The thing that was different, was his face. His expression. Even with all the raw emotions that stream from him when he sings, he’s never looked as human, asreal, to me, as he did standing there. Brow slightly crinkled, eyes narrowed and worried. Mouth serious, but somehow anxious to have reason to smile. Which he did. The second he heard me.

“Obviously, hiding didn’t work,” Arizona fills in when I’ve been silent for too long.

“No. Because the words ‘Oh my God’ flew from my lips before I could stop them,” I explain, grimacing. Then I sigh. The best parts are next. “As soon as he heard me, he spun around. And he smiled. God, Arizona, that man can smile.” And apparently, listen. “He heard me, you know.”

“I know, you just said that. You gasped an over the top ‘Oh my God’ and he heard you,” she recaps dryly.

“Not that part.” I shake my head, trying to keep this from getting too confusing. “I mean, that part too. But that’s not what I meant. I meant he heard me go off on that chick about misinterpreting his song.”

Arizona raises a brow, intrigued. “Oh?”

“He called me the writer with an affinity for stormy weather.” Yes, I’m gushing now. Even I’m disgusted with me.

“So, what I’m hearing is, the fantasy man may turn out to be real after all?”

I lean my head back against the headrest of my seat and stare up at the ceiling. In hindsight, not a great move. Someone (Sloan) squashed a mosquito there and left it, giving me smashed mosquito guts to look at while I contemplate how much of my current life is dependably happening and how much is just my imagination raging out of control. “I’m not hearing that. Or seeing that. I’m sure as hell not believing that,” I ramble, eyesstill locked on the bloodsucking carcass and its unfortunate fate. He probably never even saw it coming.

“That could be me, you know?” I tell Arizona, pointing at the crime scene overhead. “If I’m not careful, if I just roll with this and let myself believe that Knox Marley has a genuine interest in getting to know me, the moment will come that there’ll be a loud splat and you turn back to find me squashed and in need of being scraped off some surface or another.”

Arizona glares at me. “You can hear yourself, right?”

I drop my gaze from the ceiling, and the ill-fated mosquito, to face her. “I’m freaking out.”

“That much I sorted out for myself.”

“Knox Marley asked for my number.”

She nods. “Maybe we should stop referring to him by his whole name.”

“Mister Marley?” I try.

“I was thinking more like just Knox. You know, something that makes him sound more like any other regular guy and less like a distant phenomenon with really great vocals and a sexy ass.”

I make a face at her. Then I grin. “He really does have a great ass. I mean, I thought it was a pretty pleasant view from the loft to the stage but watching him walk away when he’s been within a foot of you, tops that by a long shot.”