“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I dredge up a smile for him. “Fine.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod. No reason why I shouldn’t be. Blake has probably gotten bored with this little game already, thank God.

Micah holds my gaze for a long moment, then we set off again, passing outside familiar shops and crossing small alleys. This is the path I walk every morning and every afternoon, to and from work. My mind is sort of blank, a pleasant blank, the feel of Micah’s strong hand around mine and his presence at my side the only clear details in a muted world. The pressure of his fingers, clasped around mine, the big shadow he casts against a hazed sun, and…

He slows to a stop, twisting away from me. “Gimme a sec,” he says and releases my hand.

I reach after him, the world suddenly returning, sharp and ugly without him at my side. The stench of urine and trash from the alley, the exhaust fumes and noise from the street, the dirty sidewalk and store fronts.

Micah is striding into the alley. I follow him, curious.

He crouches down in front of bags of trash—no, not trash. A person, bundled up in dirty rags and newspapers. Micah is talking to him, asking him how he is.

I stand there, frozen.

Micah glances up at me, gives me a flash of a smile, then tucks a bill into the old man’s hand and rises. “Let’s go,” he says and grabs my hand again, pulling me back out onto the street.

Oh God. I look back over my shoulder at the alley, then around, still expecting Blake or his sentry man to appear. But he doesn’t.

“Sorry,” Micah says, though he doesn’t sound remorseful. “I usually make my rounds but haven’t been this way for a while.”

I say nothing, pressing my lips together as we approach the sports store. We stop outside, and he tugs on my hand, so I turn into his arms. His hands settle on my waist.

“It’s not dangerous, Ev,” he whispers. “It was just an old man.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what scared you and made you stop talking to the people on the street like you used to. I…” He grimaces. “I like that about you. That you care. You’re an amazing person. Don’t let fear change you.”

He has no idea what he’s talking about.

Or maybe he does? Maybe it’s time to let go of my stupid fear of Blake. Time to finally do everything I want to do. “I’ve been thinking…” I draw strength from the cloudless blue of his eyes. “I want to do this properly, you know? Work with an organization. Make a real difference.”

His smile is dazzling. “Seriously? I could put you in touch with someone to talk to, if you like.”

“Who do you have in mind?”

“A friend of Zane and Rafe, the guys who run the tattoo shop. His name is Asher. His mom works for the National Runaway Switchboard.”

I draw a deep breath, let it out. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

My parents will have a fit. This isn’t what they envisioned for me. Then again, this is my life, not theirs, and this is what I want.

He bows his head forward, and I expect him to kiss me, but instead, he presses his forehead to mine. “Love you, Ev,” he whispers and then releases me and strides away before I’ve even had the time to process his words.

I enter the store in a daze. Does he mean it?

Chapter Nine

Micah

What the fuck is wrong with me, blurting out stuff like that to Ev? This is fucking nonsense, and I have no clue where the words came from. Or that warm feeling in my chest that lingers, making me feel like I could laugh out loud. Like I want to turn around and go back to her, grab her in my arms and never let go.

Have I mentioned I got it bad for this girl? Well, it seems it’s a whole lotta worse. I’m fucked in the head. Truly fucked.

And when that happens, there’s only one way for me to get my head on back straight: my art. I head back to Damage Control as quickly as my legs can carry me, even break into a run at some point, which earns me a coughing fit, and thank God Ev is not there to witness it. I catch my breath and hurry into the shop, wash my hands, pull on my gloves and grab my tattoo gun.

Ready for my next customer. Ready to blank out my mind.

Zane nods in greeting from the back of the shop, and I nod back. His eyes narrow at me and I turn away. The guy can see right through me. I’ll never forget the day he found me leaning against the fence outside my last foster home, drawing with a piece of chalk on the wooden planks. All but the first foster home I’ve had were hellish, and this one was no exception, but at least nobody really cared where I was at any time. Zane talked to me, looked at my pitiful etchings and offered a tattoo apprenticeship.

I didn’t even have to think twice about it. I apprenticed with him for almost a year before I ran away from that foster family for good and was taken into to the residential facility where I got sick. Is it any wonder Zane is my god? Kinda distant, but there, my lifeline in the last two years.

When I next look around, he’s gone, probably back in his booth, working.

My customers file in, one after another. As I work on a guy’s arm, and then a woman’s back, today replays in my mind. Ev at my door, on my sofa, in my shower, in my bed. Beneath me, naked and gorgeous. Sipping coffee on the bench. Her wide eyes when I stopped to talk to Ben in the alley, the fear that began to fade. Her determination to do something good.

How can I not fall for her? Truth is, I fell for her long ago, when she checked on me on the streets. When she saved my life. The unbearable happiness I feel now has as much to do with being with her as with the fact that she may be getting over her new, mysterious fear of the homeless, meaning I may be able to open up to her soon. Tell her the truth that weighs on my shoulders like a sin.

I barely hear my last customer thanking me as I consider this.

Why haven’t I told her yet?

Easy. I’m afraid to lose her before I even really have her in my life. She’s a ray of sunshine in the gray. She makes me breathe harder, live sharper. She brings everything into focus, brings back the colors and the light.

Fuck. If she goes…

I run my hands through my short hair and close my eyes for a long moment. This is why I don’t do feelings, why I don’t fall for anyone. Why I don’t trust.

Because if I’ve learned one lesson in my life, it’s that sooner or later everyone goes, and I’m left behind.

***

My good work at keeping my mind blank through work gets ruined on the way back home. When I stop to talk to my usual people, checking on them and offering some money for food, not thinking about Ev becomes even harder. So much so that, by the time I enter my building, I’m shaking with nerves.

I stand in the living room, unzipping my jacket, wondering if she’ll come. Seth is at the bar, working, and the apartment is quiet. Too quiet, letting my thoughts become too loud. I wish for something to dull the ache in my chest, the memories and the worry, but Seth’s rule for living with me is that we keep no alcohol in the apartment. I don’t know what he heard about me. I’m not a drunkard, but I agreed to his terms, and now there’s nothing I can use as a crutch.

Time passes, minutes ticking by, stretching into half an hour.

She’s not coming. I pushed her too far. Fucked her against the wall when she only came by to check if I’m okay. Forced her to follow me into an alley when she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that anymore. Maybe she really changed in these past few months, and I’m clinging to who she was. To who I thought she was. I never really knew her.

I don’t really know her now. I have no idea why she changed her ways, what is scaring her, and what she will do with me, but I’m in her hands.

Goddammit.

I shed my jacket and tear off my sweater and T-shirt. It’s cold in here. I need a hot shower. I stumble into the bathroom and turn on the water, then kick off my boots and pants, tug down my underwear and step under the spray.