Page 62 of Never Been Shipped

Micah realized she’d been holding the same strawberry in her hand for the last five minutes, but she just found it impossible to eat. She didn’t know how she’d swallow around the lump in her throat.

“So many people wouldkillfor the opportunities I got,” she said. “So many other people would’ve done more with them than I did.”

“Yeah, okay. There are a ton of systemic issues in the musicindustry—inanyindustry—and there’s a lot we can try to do about them. Ways we can be more thoughtful in how we spend our money, who we give attention to, who we boost up and choose to work with. But taking on those issues as a personal failure, as somehow amoralone…I just don’t think it’s helpful. You are not a failure, Micah. You’re someone who took a few cheap shots, got knocked down, but you’re more than capable of getting back up again. God knows the world doesn’tneedour music, it doesn’t need shit from us. You want to talk about hubris, who are we even to think that anyone cares? ButIcare. And you should care. Not for the record sales or the concert crowds or any of that, but because you love music and there’s such rare, special, precious joy in being able to make it.”

He was breathing hard now, like that speech had taken something out of him. It had stolenherbreath, made it difficult to even speak.

“Damn,” she said finally. “All right.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Believe it or not, one of the biggest complaints I’ve gotten on early dates is that I don’t talk enough. Sorry about that.”

“No, don’t apologize. I’ve been trying to decide whether I would sleep with you at the end of this date and I think I made up my mind sometime around when you started raging against the machine. It was hot.”

“That’s what does it for you, huh?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t the Knock-Offspring,” she said. “That was almost a dealbreaker.”

“I knew I shouldn’t bring it up. Bad Habit.”

She grinned, enjoying the callback to their little game frombefore, even though she was still full out of any additional song titles to bring up. Turned out, hehadbeen able to outlast her.

He took the strawberry from her hand, popping it in his mouth with a cheeky look that told her he was thinking back to that conversation, too. “So you’re from Ohio?”

“That’s cheating,” she said. “You wouldn’t know to ask me that.”

“You gave yourself away with the accent.”

Her jaw dropped in mock offense. “I donothave an accent.”

“You mostly don’t,” he allowed. “But it comes out every once in a while, on certain words. The way you just saidhot. It’s cute.”

“Okay,” Micah said, picking up another strawberry and holding it in front of his mouth, making him lean forward and nip at it in order to get a bite. “You got me. I’m from Ohio.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “What a coincidence,” he said. “Me, too.”

“Do you miss it?”

He took longer to answer that question than she’d expected him to, like he really had to think about it. She’d assumed he’d say no, maybe evenHell no. Between what had happened with the band and what he’d confirmed about his childhood, she couldn’t blame him if most of his memories were bad.

“I miss seasons,” he said. “The dandelions in late spring, the leaves changing color in fall, the snow even though it was a pain in the ass. I miss riding our bikes in the winter and it being too cold to feel our hands, even through the gloves, the way that the smoke from all the chimneys made the air smell like a fireplace.”

The way he’d saidourbroke their game a little bit, if they hadn’t broken it before. But Micah wasn’t about to point it out.It was comforting, hearing him talk about their hometown like this. It made her own nostalgia that she’d been feeling lately sharpen into something real, an emotion she could take out of its box and turn over in her hands.

“I miss the people,” she said. “I haven’t felt very close to my parents, especially my dad, after—” She bit back the rest of her words, less out of concern for any continued pretense that this was just an initial date between two people who didn’t know each other very well, and more because of course this was stuff he already knew too well firsthand, and she didn’t need to get into it now. “And there’s my sister, too. I just think of how much better our relationship could be if I lived closer and could see them more.”

She automatically reached to twist the ring on her finger, before remembering that she’d lost it recently. She’d worn it every day since her sister had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday, and it still felt weird not to have it. John tracked the movement, smiling a little at her when she glanced up at him.

“How is Hailey?” he asked.

Her sister had alwayslovedJohn, had monopolized his attention whenever he came over to introduce him to every single one of her stuffed animals like he hadn’t met them the last time he was at their house. And he would sit there patiently, letting her stack them higher and higher in his lap, asking the occasional question.What’s this one’s name? Oh, Giraffe-y, that makes sense.

“She’s doing great,” Micah said. “She got her cosmetology degree a few years ago and opened her own salon.”

“God,” John said. “That makes me feel old.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What does that make me?”

It had been a running joke between them, when they were kids. They’d been in the same grade, but Micah’s October birthday had made her four months older, and she’d loved to hold it over John’s head for that short time.It must be for a more mature palate, she’d say when he didn’t automatically rave over the new album she’d put on.

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