Page 36 of Never Been Shipped

“Yeah, but it’s better if you weren’t in on the plan. That way you couldn’t be held responsible if we got caught.”

“Like they would’ve tortured the information out of me? Come on, give me more credit than that.”

She laughed again, then patted the bed next to her. “You can sit down,” she said.

He hesitated. It wasn’t like there were many seating options in the small cabin. She had a chair in one corner, too, the same way his room did—and hers was a little bigger, in fact. But that was where they’d stacked the trays of room service, so it was out of commission. And then there was a small countertop in another corner with a round stool tucked underneath. It was clearly where Micah had been doing her hair and makeup, because she had a bunch of products spread out on the counter. John still could’ve gotten the stool and pulled it out far enough to sit, except now that felt awkward to do once she’d offered the bed.

“You’re looming,” she said. “It’s distracting.”

He took the spot next to her, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. When he glanced over at her, she was looking at his feet, and then her gaze flickered to his before she looked away, her cheeks a little pink.

“Your turn,” she said.

“For what?”

“Clearing the air,” she said. “Airing our grievances. Whatever this is that we’re doing.”

He didn’t even know what to call it. But it felt good to talk to her, so he was willing to keep playing.

“Uh, let’s see…” He racked his brain for something else he could confess. “When I was going through that phase where I thought I’d wear eye makeup onstage, I borrowed your eyeliner pencil a few times.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Iknew aboutthat,” she said. “John, you asked me! I’m the one who taught you how to do it!”

He remembered that. Of course he remembered that. She’d been very patient with him, and veryclose, her breath warm on his cheek as she carefully applied eyeliner to one of his eyes while he watched, and then handed him the pencil and talked him through the steps to do it himself. “Yeah, but after,” he said. “Before I’d bought any of my own stuff.”

She waved that away. “I didn’t care.”

“Those magazines you always read said that was one of the worst things you could do,” John said. “Share eye makeup. It was only a couple times.”

“And the magazines were probably right on that one,” she said. “Along with the tip to rinse your hair with cold water, which Istilldo. But they also told you to eat strawberries before a date so your lips would be naturally red and to pop a wintergreen breath mint before a blow job to really blow his mind, so. I didn’t live my life by those magazines.”

He couldn’t tell if she meant that she’d never tried those techniques, or if she had and they hadn’t worked, but he definitely wasn’t going to ask. He just wished his body hadn’t had such a stereotypical response to even hearing her say the wordsblow job, because now he wished he was under the covers instead of on top of them.

“Well, so far I invaded your privacy and could’ve given you an eye infection,” he said. “And you only copied off my tests, which I was one hundred percent letting you do, so I don’t think we’re even.”

“I stuck my tongue in your mouth when you didn’t ask for it,” she said. “I think that might give me an edge.”

John didn’t know what shocked him more. That she’d referred to that kiss at all, or that she’d referred to it likethat, which was far from his memory.

“Micah,” he said. “Ikissedyou.”

She’d had her own elephant made from a folded towel on her bed, and she picked it up now, turning it over in her hands. “Only technically. I made you do it. And then I came on way too strong, and ruined your first kiss.”

He almost didn’t know what to say to that. There was so much he could say, and yet he didn’t know how much he should. But he also couldn’t just leave her thinking that.

“It was perfect,” he said. “You didn’t make me do anything, and you didn’t come on too strong.”

“Pitchforkwould give it a ten?”

He could tell she was trying to make a joke out of it to lighten the mood, but the fact that she’d brought it up at all meant that it had to have bothered her some, over the years.

“You knowPitchforkis stingy with those,” John said. “But maybe a nine point eight.”

She looked at him. “Where did I lose the two tenths?”

“You could’ve given me a second to recover so I could kiss you back.”

She pulled at the towel elephant’s ear, and the entire thing unwrapped in her hands until she was holding a balled-up stripof terry cloth. “Oh,” she said, laughing a little, and he couldn’t tell if she was referring to the elephant or to what he’d just said. Either way, this conversation was starting to feel like a minefield, so he pushed himself off the bed, standing up.

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