lingered on muscles that glistened from his exertion. I bet my hands would slip right along his body right now.
Micah interrupted my dirty thoughts. “These are great.”
Relief. “So, I can share?”
“Yeah. I don’t care what you share, but Lars will only want one of the new songs. The rest is miscellaneous stuff for the diehard fans.”
He was right about that. I didn’t feel right posting their banter, though. Not without Micah’s permission. “I caught some of your arguments. Should I delete that?”
“If the fans don’t know Noah can be a turd, they’re not paying attention.”
He handed me the camera back. “So, which new song did you like the best?”
“Wow. They were all so good. Um—”
He chuckled and looked up at Shane. “She’s diplomatic.” He touched my arm. Micah Sinclair touched my arm. “Seriously, though. We don’t need to be coddled. Did you have a favorite? Or were they all shit?”
“No! They were all fantastic.”
His eyebrows rose a half an inch, and his clear blue eyes pierced me. Damn, Jo must melt every time he looked at her. It would have been unnerving enough even if I hadn’t seen those eyes on the glossy cover of a magazine. But he was waiting, so I gave him my honest opinion. “I loved them all, but I liked the second one best, I think. Does it have a name?”
“The one that went—” and he sang a little of the chorus “—Hit me like an aftershock?”
He was singing a foot from me. The corners of my mouth felt like helium.
“That’s the one.”
Micah nodded. “Cool. Then that’s the one we’ll play at our next show. It’s called ‘Aftershock.’ ”
I felt dumb. “Of course.”
He stood and thanked me. “Feel free to post those other vids over on Facebook or on our message board if you want. Shane can point you to it.”
I became aware for the first time that I’d been gaping at Micah right in front of Shane. As soon as Micah was out of earshot, I said, “Sorry for the fawning, but super fan and all.” I hoped that would cover for enjoying the eye candy far too much.
He twisted his lips into an inscrutable expression. Reluctant acceptance? Judgment? Displeasure? He sighed. “It’s fine. I’ve seen worse.”
“Yeah?”
He sat beside me. “Oh, God, yes. There’s a girl who used to come to all our shows, and at the end, she’d somehow manage to get Micah into a bear hug. I don’t know how it started, but Micah’s too nice and afraid of turning away any single fan.”
“Wow. He just let her hug him?”
“I’d stand behind her making signs at Micah asking if he needed a rescue, but he’d shake his head.” He shrugged. “Eventually, Micah just stopped coming out after shows because of shit like that.”
“So, I passed the test?”
“He probably didn’t even notice. It’s the way things are in Micah world.”
Shane had noticed, and I felt like a jerk. “Well, right now, I’m fawning over a certain drummer. By the way, you are incredible.”
His face lit up. “Good?”
“Very.” I dragged my teeth across my lower lip. “And fucking hot.”
He quickly glanced at the empty studio, then leaned in to steal a kiss, just a peck. He started to pull away, but like gravity, he drew me toward him, and my lips caught his. I could feel him smile, and so did I, essentially wrecking what might have turned into a passionate makeout.
“Maybe we could sneak out. Go back to my place?”
Whether he was teasing or not, his would-be plan was foiled when Micah came back in, trailing Noah, and said, “Hey, can we finish this up so we can break for lunch?”
Shane stood, adjusting his pants. “I need to walk around for a minute before we start back up.”
I turned airplane mode off, and my phone notifications started coming in one after another. I had a missed call from my mom and voice messages from Ash. I groaned. “Ugh. I’m gonna have to check on this.”
“Do you want to go back to the waiting room? You won’t miss much. We’ll just be going over shit Micah wasn’t happy with.”
I weighed my options. I really wanted to sit through the rest of the rehearsal, but if Ash was calling me, things had gone south according to her DEFCON meter.
With a wistful look at the guys setting up for another set, I took my phone and headed to the breakroom.
I played back the messages from Ash. She rambled on incoherently about trolls, and I couldn’t piece