Page 35 of Dropping the Ball

“That’s exactly—wait, what?” He looks at me, totally baffled. “Any of them?”

I shake my head. “Superhero movies aren’t my thing.”

“Superhero movies are not your . . .” He stares at me for a couple of seconds. “All right. What is your thing?”

You, I almost say.Ummm . . .That thought jumped way too easily out of nowhere. And we’re talking about movies, not unhealthy impulses. “You know how there are ten Best Picture nominees for the Oscar every year, but everyone has seen five of them and no one has seen the other five? I like the other five.”

He opens and closes his mouth twice, but nothing comes out.

“Don’t act like I’m being a snob while we’re sitting by a highbrow sculpture you’re making to the tune of one billion dollars.”

“Still not returning the fee,” he says, and I grin. “And you’re off by several zeros.”

“Anyway, I get it. Can we get back to Sirius Black and your highbrow art?”

He opens his phone. “Siri, is it inappropriate to call my client a brat?”

I lean toward his phone. “Yes, it is inappropriate to call your client a brat.”

He smiles and sets the phone down again. “All right, so the actor versus role thing isn’t a perfect analogy. But Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise no matter what costume you put on him, while you’re halfway through a Gary Oldman movie before you realize it’s him. That’s the difference between decorating for an event versus changing the perception of a space. It’s not enough to put a cool sculpture in here. It has to interact with all this negative space and turn it into something.”

“How do you start building Gary Oldman?”

“Always with the foundation.” He walks me over to the nearest orange pole. I could not feel dumber standing beside it.

“We’ll start by painting all these black and enclosing them in fluted rebar sheaths. We’ll use full twenty-foot lengths but bend them to curve outward at the top.” His face is so expressive as he literally walks me through the beginning phase, his hands tracing forms and shapes in the air.

This is a Micah I don’t know. This is not a guy who is playing it cool and allowing himself to express emotions only in the cool-to-medium-warm range. This is what passion looks like. For a job, I mean. It’s how Madison looks when she’s talking about her next idea for Threadwork. It’s how I feel about studying the law, and the way it imposes order on chaos. Makes wrongs right.

After he’s explained the work they’ll be tackling over the next week, I stop beside a pile of rebar and sweep my eyes over the space. I can’t make the full connection between where I’m standing now and the concept he showed us, but . . . he’s going to do it. And it fires me up to make sure that I meet that effort.

“This feels like the old days,” I say before I think it through.

Micah gives me a quizzical smile. “How do you mean?”

“Watching everything you’re putting into this, it’s . . . motivating.” It’s a familiar stirring to push myself harder, to match his pace, his intensity.

His face grows serious. “Kaitlyn, I don’t want you to set yourself up for disappointment.” He sets a hand on my shoulder. “You’re never going to be better than me at architecture.”

I can’t keep a straight face. “But if I start now . . .”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Kaitlyn. No.”

“Boo, fine. I’ll have to step it up somewhere else. Like making sure I leverage this piece to make as much money for the people it represents as I can.”

He drops his hand and I wish he hadn’t. I want the weight of it back, and that’s when I realize my stomach has been fluttering. This isn’t good. Even though it’s been ten years, I recognize this now. These are specific to a Micah Crush.

Micah doesn’t seem to sense a change in the current between us—also familiar—and keeps the joke going. “But if we’re not working on the same thing, how will we know who won?”

The flutters grow stronger as he smiles, and I shift to gaze toward the center of the warehouse. “This is one of those obnoxious cooperative games where we can only win if everyone wins. I prefer to smoosh you like a bug, but if I can’t do that, I choose to feel happy about what this will do for the people Threadwork supports.”

“Tell me about it,” he says.

I turn to face him. “You don’t know what Threadwork does?”

“I do. I want to hear it from you.”

I consider that. I want to turn the temperature down, and I’d been about to do it by leaving. But talking business might be okay.

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