Second Chance at the Riverview Inn (Riverview Inn)

“No. Those days are behind me,” he said. “I gave up tequila and I stopped peeing in closets.”

Laughter kind of burbled out of her. There was a bright line of light coming in from under the door, covering them in shades of shadow.

“You do this a lot? Hide in closets?” he asked, his voice dropped to a whisper.

“No. Not really. It’s new,” she whispered back.

“Just something you’re trying out?”

“Yeah. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Aren’t you hiding in here, too?”

“I guess so.”

Someone walked past the closet, making the light under the door go dark for a second.

“Micah!” Jo yelled again in the hallway.

“Are you—”

“Shhhh,” he said.

“Are you scared of your manager?” she whispered.

“Very.”

She laughed, as silently as she could, and in the light coming up from under the door she saw his smile.

The corkscrew of anxiety slowly unwound, sped up, maybe, by the sheer shock of her current circumstance.

I’m in a closet with Micah Sullivan.

She glanced down and realized her fingers were just a few inches away from the fingers that had written “This Is Forgiveness,” and “What Happens Next” and “When I See You.”

“I had a panic attack,” she said, and then wished she hadn’t. “I mean…that’s why I’m here. I had a panic attack and went looking for the bathroom and found the closet.”

“Close enough?”

“Something like that.”

In the dark he was silent and the quality of his silence was…well, it was excellent. Some people’s quiet felt like pressure. Or worse, judgment. His was…neither.

“Do you have them a lot?”

“Panic attacks?”

She felt more than saw him nod.

“More than I’d like,” she said, as if it was a joke.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“I am. Thank you.”

“I hope it wasn’t caused by me?” he asked. “The panic attack?”

“Do a lot of people get panic attacks when they meet you?”

“You wouldn’t believe what some people do when they meet me,” he said. And she realized his smile wasn’t so much an actual smile but the appearance of a smile. Like he was able to convey a full smile with the quirk of his mouth. That was an interesting trick. “But most people aren’t actually meeting me, you know. The ones that cry or throw up or, I don’t know…hide in closets. They are meeting their memories or whatever my music reminds them of. Their first cars and first crushes. They’re meeting the fight they had with their dad or the way their cigarettes used to smell or sex used to feel.”

She made a noise when he said the word sex and it was honestly only because she was human, and the sexiest man living had said the word sex right in front of her and she…well, she made a noise. A kind of squeak.

Is it hot in here? It’s totally hot in here.

“So?” he asked. “What are you actually meeting when you meet me?”

She wouldn’t say it. She didn’t owe him that. She didn’t owe anyone Evan’s name, or his memory. The silence in the closet stretched taut. The heat going cold.

She could feel him looking at her and she didn’t understand why he was interested. It didn’t make any sense. He was Micah Sullivan, about to go on a worldwide tour with his uber-famous band, and she was Helen Larson, who’d just been on the highway for the first time in years.

“You should get back,” Helen said. “Your band is probably looking for you.”

He reached up and pulled the light string. The bulb was dim and gave the man a kind of glow—one that he probably had anyway. She hoped in the back of her mind that she had the same kind of glow, too.

“They absolutely are,” he said with the grin she’d seen flashed across dozens of magazines. “But you can stand in this closet for as long as you need to.”

What did it say about her life that that was the sweetest thing that had been said to her in years? The strange kindness of Micah Sullivan would be something she would never forget.

“I’m okay. Thank you.” She reached for the door to let them out.

“Helen. I need to tell you—” He put a hand on her arm, and through the denim and her grief and years of loneliness she felt the weight of his hand, the pressure of his touch, and made another gaspy squeak.

“Sorry,” he said, and pulled his hand back.

She threw open the closet door, blinked into the sunshine. Gasped for fresh air. The hallway was empty, thank god. Because she would not live this down if Jonah knew she’d just spent five minutes in a closet with Micah Sullivan.

She turned and smiled at Micah, though she could not meet his eyes. “I wanted to sincerely thank you for the fantastic donation to Haven House. We are putting the money towards our summer picnic—”

“The summer picnic,” he said, stepping into the hallway and shutting the door behind him, and it was like the closet had never happened.