Second Chance at the Riverview Inn (Riverview Inn)

“Sure. I understand that job,” Jo said, with a tight smile. “Nice to finally meet you.”

She and Jo had been emailing back and forth over this visit.

Helen wasn’t sure what her face was doing. Was she smiling? She nodded but then couldn’t seem to stop.

“Band of Outlaws start a North American tour in three months,” Jo said over the guitars. “They kick off the tour in Madison Square Garden.”

“I got the update,” Jonah said. “So excited. I’m a huge fan. And I’ll be taking my wife to the show.”

“We’d be happy to provide you some tickets.”

“Oh!” Jonah looked so thrilled. So shocked. It was sweet. Oh my god, am I still nodding? Helen wondered. “That would be so kind. We appreciate it! “

Jo smiled. “We’d love to give you two tickets, too,” Jo said to Helen, and the tears came out of the blue. Hot and mean at the back of her eyes, and bile was suddenly thick in her throat.

I don’t need two tickets.

“Helen?” Jonah whispered and she saw this scene from outside her body. Jo, oblivious, was looking at her phone, but then catching some strange vibe in the air, looked over at Helen. Her eyes grew wide with awareness that something was wrong. That Helen was, in fact, about to cry or vomit or both.

“It’s all right,” Jo said, putting a hand on Helen’s arm that felt terrible. “Lots of people get starstruck.”

Oh, God. That was worse. Infinitely worse.

“Can you point me in the direction of the bathroom?” Helen asked with a smile that felt more like a grimace.

“Third door on the left,” Jo said, pointing right outside the doorway. “Just past the closet.” The rehearsal space was sort of round so the hallway curved out of sight.

Helen left, the music becoming indistinct as she put some distance between herself and the instruments. She just needed a breath. Some cold water on her face. Some dark and some quiet.

She was fine. Totally fine.

Behind her, the music stopped and she heard Jonah’s laugh. Awkward and too loud.

He’s meeting Micah, that’s why he’s laughing like that. It made her feel incredibly tender toward her stepdad, but nauseous all the same.

Third door. She pulled it open and found a big dark closet. It held a bucket and four hanging coats.

“Helen?” Jonah shouted.

And it wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. It made very little sense. But she went into the closet and closed the door behind her, the dark slipping over her like cool, refreshing water.

I’ll be fine. I just need a second.

She closed her eyes and repeated that like a mantra.

Minutes later the door to the closet opened, cutting a slice out of the darkness and she undoubtedly looked like a mole person blinking into the light and the familiar face of Micah Sullivan.

Well. Shit.

Chapter Three

Micah Sullivan was beautiful. Like, for real, beautiful. But a different kind than the pictures of him in magazines.

This real-life version of him was infinitely more interesting. His sandy blond hair hung down in messy waves to his shoulders and those famous blue eyes were darker than she’d thought. Dark blue. Like old denim. But he had wrinkles around them, like he’d spent some time squinting into the sun. There was that infamous scar that ran down through his right eyebrow, that came from a beer bottle smashed against his head when he was twenty-one.

His nose had been broken a time or two. And his jaw was covered in a patchy beard that gave him the look of a Civil War soldier.

The effect, all in all, was very serious. Nearly stern. A man who’d seen some shit.

But his lips. His beautiful, thick, puffy lips. The lips were a law unto themselves. Too much, really. But they gave his rather beaten-up face a softness.

An almost outrageous sexiness.

“Hi,” she said, stupidly, because she was in a closet. Thinking about Micah’s lips.

“You okay?”

“Totally,” she lied. “You?”

He smiled.

Helen had seen some things. Some beautiful things. But, good lord forgive her, her child’s first smile was NOTHING on Micah Sullivan’s grin. It was so beautiful it robbed her of brain cells.

“I thought the closet was a bathroom,” she said.

“You’re not using it as a bathroom, are you?”

“No!” she said. “Just…taking a second.”

She pulled the edges of her denim jacket down and took a breath. She wasn’t ready to get out of the closet, but clearly the time had come.

“I’m Helen,” she said.

“Micah.”

She laughed. “I know.”

“Micah?” Jo’s voice came around the bend of the hallway.

“I think that’s our cue,” Helen said and stepped around the bucket to get out of the closet, but to her surprise, Micah stepped in and shut the door behind him.

“You’re not…you’re not using it as a bathroom, are you?” she asked. And then wanted to die. You just asked Micah Sullivan if he was going to pee in a closet.