On the Verge

Micah woke up the next morning, her muscles aching. She struggled to roll over onto her back, her sides, abs, and thighs aching. She glanced at the green numbers on her alarm clock and rolled her eyes. She had once again woken up on her own before her alarm. She tried to push herself into a sitting position, but whimpered when her muscles ached.

The night before, Piper had come over as she had said she would, and of course, Piper couldn’t work out on her own. The pair spent nearly two and a half hours in the gym at the hotel, attracting the eyes of everyone from wealthy businessmen to hotel workers. She hurt everywhere and her stomach grumbled.

She finally forced herself out of bed, padding across the wood floors of the suite with her bare feet. Her thighs ached, but the pain went away after a dozen steps. She adjusted her tank top, pulling it down over her stomach. She had learned long ago that her shirts never stayed in place in her sleep. Her sweatpants were riding low on her hips and she didn’t even bother to fix them. She twisted the knob of her bedroom door with a yawn, and walked into the living space of her suite.

Piper was sitting at the dining table, a bowl of granola cereal in front of her. Micah’s favorite coffee cup was in Piper’s hand, surely full of Micah’s favorite coffee blend. Piper was still in her pajamas, a tank top and boy short underwear. Her right foot was curled under her and she was looking through the pages of the Los Angeles Times, looking for the gossip section.

“Morning,” Micah mumbled to her friend, stumbling into the kitchen. Piper had left the milk out, much to Micah’s annoyance. She poured herself a cup of coffee, pouring plenty of milk and sugar into the mug. She reached for a spoon and began to stir the contents as she put a slice of multi-grain bread into the toaster.

“Any big plans today?” Piper asked, bringing her bowl into the kitchen. She leaned back against the counter, watching as Micah took a drink of her coffee and grimaced.

“Not that I can think of. I think Dad’s having me run some errands, so at least I won’t be stuck in a chair all day. Why?”At that point, Micah’s piece of toast popped out of the appliance. She reached for it, cursing when it burned her fingers slightly.

Piper shrugged, her spoon halfway to her lips. She chewed her cereal and swallowed before speaking. “Just curious. I have a fitting for my mom’s dress for some celebrity who’s the same size as me, and I am not looking forward to it.”

Micah made a face and opened the top cabinet, pulling out the nearly empty jar of Nutella. She spread a fair amount on her toast before taking a bite. She swallowed, taking a drink of her coffee to wash it down. She put her toast and her mug down on the table and headed to the sitting room to retrieve her laptop. She sat down in the dining chair, cross legged, opening her laptop. Still munching on her toast, she replied to a few emails and checked the news headlines.

The pair chit-chatted for a while before Piper returned to the guest room to get dressed. She bid goodbye to her best friend and promised to text her later. Micah let out a sigh of relief when she heard the door close behind her friend and leaned forward, resting her head on the cool glass of the tabletop. As much as she loved her friend, Piper was flat out exhausting most days.

Micah waited a bit longer before heading to her bathroom to shower and dress for the day. After her shower, she turned on her iPod and turned it to her Jack’s Mannequin playlist. Working conditioning cream through her hair, she hummed along softly. While her curling iron headed up, she brushed her teeth and rinsed with mouthwash. She curled her hair, tousling it. She did her make up, sticking to a neutral palate for the day. She put on a knotted rope headband, adjusting her hair around it.

She headed into her closet, searching for her favorite pair of skinny jeans, hoping that they were clean. To her delight, they were. She pulled them on, buttoning the waist band with a smile. She sorted through the racks of blouses and shirts, settling on a baggy, black and white striped t-shirt. She returned to the bathroom quickly, rolling on deodorant quickly and spritzing herself with Juicy Couture perfume. She looked through her shoes and settled on a pair of pale pink ballet flats. She put earrings in, and slid a large ring onto her middle finger.

She transferred her things to a different bag before slinging it onto her shoulder. She thought about calling to have her car taken out of the garage, but didn’t feel like dealing with traffic. She opted to hail a cab once she got to the street. She slid her phone into her pocket and put her iPod in the front pocket of her bag. Locating her sunglasses, she dropped her keys into her bag before leaving her suite.

The elevator stopped several times to pick up and drop off passengers on different floors on the way to the main lobby. The air was stuffy and stale inside the very confined space. Micah was extremely thankful when the doors opened on the ground floor. She was wearing flats, so her heels didn’t click on the floors as they usually did. She nodded to the doorman as she walked past with a smile.

Outside, she hailed a cab. It was humid that morning, and within a minute or trying to get a cab, she could tell that her hair was starting to frizz a bit. The air inside the cab was cool enough for her to breathe, thankfully. She gave the driver the address of the studio, her phone in hand as she answered her brother’s text, wanting to know when she’d be there.

The cab parked outside of the studio five minutes later and Micah handed the driver a ten dollar bill before opening her door. She nearly sprinted towards the front doors of the studio, desperate for air conditioning.

Before heading back to Jonah’s control room, she popped into her father’s office like she did everyday. He wasn’t in at that point and she frowned, walking in anyway. She dropped her bag on his desk and took a seat in his desk chair. She spun around in it slowly, leaning against the padded leather back. She was stalling, hoping he’d return soon enough. She waited another moment, and when he still didn’t appeat, she reached for a Post-It and a Sharpie. She wrote a little note for him that read, “Have a good day, Dad. Come find me later. Love, M.” She stuck the note on the screen of his desktop computer before standing up, grabbing her bag, and leaving his office, shutting the door behind her.

She stopped at the vending machine for a bottled tea and bent to retrieve it from the chute. When she returned to a standing position, bottle in hand, she came face to face with one of the band members that had been recording with Jonah the day before.

He wasn’t the one who she’d had the run in the day before. He was insanely tall, and possibly the skinniest person she’d ever seen. Micah could only see the roots of his sandy hair, while the rest of it was concealed by a grey beanie. He was wearing a maroon v-neck so low that she could see the black ink of a tattoo plastered across his chest.

“Hi,” he said with a charming smile as she stepped aside.

“Hello,” she responded with a polite smile, unscrewing the cap to her bottle as she watched him insert a dollar into the machine. He looked her over quickly and she felt an uncomfortable, irritated heat rising up the back of her neck. She shook her head softly before walking around him and heading towards the door to Jonah’s control room.

“Hey, you’re Jonah’s sister, right?” he asked, stopping her a few feet from the door.

She nodded quickly, taking a quick drink of her tea. “I’m Micah,” she told him, twisting the cap back on the bottle. She felt awkward, simply standing there. She could feel his eyes on her.

“John. Lead singer,” he added, making eye contact with her again.

“Yeah, I know,” she informed him. He raised his eyebrows and she blushed slightly. “I recognize you from yesterday...you were singing.” She wasn’t completely lying.

After telling Piper about the band, she had decided to look them up, and they spent quite a while watching their music videos. She didn’t know their names yet, but she could remember well enough what they each played.

John only nodded and they stood in an awkward silence, both of them simply standing there. They both jumped slightly when Jonah stuck his head out the door of the control room.

“Hey, John, we’re ready to record,” her brother told the overly tall singer. “Oh, and I see you’ve officially met my baby sister.” Jonah put emphasis on the word ‘baby.’

“Uhm, yeah man. We were just introducing ourselves,” John said, catching Jonah’s hint that Micah was not to be messed with.

Micah smiled in the awkward environment. She took the few steps towards the control room door and her brother propped it open for her. The air inside the control room was stuffy, and she instantly kicked off her flats just inside the door. She walked further into the space barefoot, and dropped her bag on the sofa beside the boy she recognized to be the drummer.

“Hi, I’m Pat,” he said instantly, looking up at her with a wide smile. His hair was long, for a boy, and he was wearing a loose-fitting tank top. His feet were curled under him on the sofa. A pair of drum sticks were sitting beside him.

She couldn’t help but smile as she looked down at him. “Hi Pat, I’m Micah,” she responded back, pushing a section of her hair behind her ear.

“I know,” he said with a quick nod. “Jonah was telling us about you.”

“Well, what exactly did he tell you?” she questioned, sitting down beside him on the sofa.

Pat shrugged. His eyes lit up for a moment before he spoke. “Micah, that’s Garrett,” Pat said, pointing to the brunette who she’d had the run in with the previous day as he passed. She remembered that he played bass, and Piper had said that he was cute.

Garrett turned at the sound of his name and when his eyes focused on Micah, they widened a bit. She smiled softly, nodding to him.

“Yesterday, Garrett said you were really pretty,” Pat told her, not even bothering to keep his voice down. The corners of her mouth twitched as she smiled, amused. She hesitantly looked towards the bassist, who was displaying a bit of a deer in the headlights expression.

“Pat, shut it!” Garrett snapped at him, a blush visible on his cheeks. He looked to Micah nervously, and when they made eye contact, he looked away almost instantly. “Uhm, sorry. He doesn’t know how to k-keep his mouth shut,” Garrett muttered to her, under his breath. He cleared his throat as she only nodded in understanding before looking back to Pat.

“He was right. You are really pretty,” Pat told her with another bright smile. Then it was her turn to blush.

“Thanks Pat,” she mumbled, her cheeks turning pinker and pinker as she spoke. She cast a nervous glance towards Garrett, only to find that he was watching her. She cleared her throat, feeling the blush subside. She sat up a bit straighter and put her chin up, trying to feel more confident.

Her and Pat chit-chatted for a while before Jonah came in and gave them a rundown for the day. Pat quickly introduced her to the two guitarists of the band, Jared and Kennedy before the five of them retreated to the recording space to track a few demos.

Watching them through the glass, Micah reached for her phone. Piper had texted her about needing some retail therapy the next time she was free. She smiled, telling her that she had the day after tomorrow off, and that she could use some retail therapy of her own.

When she returned her phone to her bag, she looked back through the glass to find that John was watching her. When their eyes met, he winked at her and she bit the corner of her lip as she smiled softly.

The next two hours passed slowly, and Micah wished that she had brought a book. The Internet could only keep her entertain her for so long. Jonah decided to track some drums, so all members except Pat left the recording space. John dropped onto the sofa beside her, looking her way.

“What’d you think?” he asked after a moment of silence.

Micah glanced up at him from her phone. She shrugged, pursing her lips. “Not too bad.”

“Not too bad? Really, not too bad?” John said in mocking disbelief. “Come on, I think that deserved at least a ‘pretty good’ rating.”

Micah laughed, looking down as she toyed with the ring on her finger. “Fine, it was pretty good.”

She looked at him to find him smiling widely at her, a charming bright smile that surely made a lot of people go weak at the knees. She licked her lips quickly before smiling at back at him.

“So, is this really all you do; you just sit here and listen to the bands play? And you get paid, too?” John questioned, eyebrows raised. She laughed once.

“I’m a glorified intern. I do the occasional coffee run, I hang out with Jonah and my dad, I run errands. And I don’t get paid, well at least I don’t get a check. For the work that I do, my father pays my rent,” Micah explained to him, toying with her own fingers absentmindedly.

“And your rent is probably more per month than my car back home is worth,” he said with a scoff. She sucked her teeth in irritation. She felt like nothing more than a rich girl cliche to him. He sensed her discomfort and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I-I was only teasing.” His voice was uneasy, and he stuttered a bit. She nodded, a smile flickering across her lips.

“It’s the truth though,” she replied honestly, a blush splattering across her cheeks. John laughed loudly.

They spent the next hour talking before Ian came into the control room, with a smile on his face. He had a Manila folder in his hand, which he handed to Micah when he approached her.

“Can you deliver some contracts for me?” he asked his daughter, eyeing John suspiciously. Micah raised her eyebrows, taking the outstretched folder.

“Yeah, sure. Where to though?” She opened the folder and glanced at the papers inside.

“The addresses are on Post-Its on each contract. Here’s money for cab fare,” Ian told her, handing her a $100 bill. John’s eyes widened at the fact that he was simply handing over such a large bill.

“Got it. Can I just go home once they’re delivered?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. But hey, I’ve got a reservation for tonight at that Italian place on 93rd that you really like. I had a business dinner, but the plans fell through. The reservation’s for four, and I already talked to your brother about him and Hannabeth joining us. You in?”

Micah’s nose curled up a bit at the mention of her brother’s long term girlfriend. She didn’t get along very well with the Heiress who’s red hair obviously came from a bottle, and who’s daddy bought her a private plane whenever she broke a nail. However, her dislike for Jonah’s girlfriend didn’t outweigh her desire for the heavenly Alfredo manicotti served at the restaurant, so she agreed to meet her father and company for dinner that evening.

Ian left the control room as Micah stood up, tossing her things back into her bag. She looked through the contracts and mapped out the locations across town in her mind. She arranged them in a move suitable order and sighed, glancing at John who was fiddling with his phone.

“Well, John, it was nice talking to you today,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah,” John said, standing up, “It was nice talking to you, too. Actually, would you mind if I tagged along while you ran your errands? Talking to you is a hell of a lot better than sitting around here.”

Micah bit the corner of her lip again, smiling softly. “Yeah, um, I’d like that.”

“Cool. Well, let’s go then.”

The pair spent the next two hours in and out of a single cab, making their way across the city. They’d take turns running in the contracts, the other staying in the air conditioned cab, with the meter still running. By the time they made their last delivery, it was nearly five, and Micah’s reservation was at 6:10.

“Four Seasons, Los Angeles,” Micah told the driver after she had handed over the last document. She fastened her seat belt and John gave her a confused look.

“I thought that was the last one,” he said.

“It was,” she responded as the cab merged into traffic. “We’re going back to my suit, so I can get ready for dinner, then we’ll go back to the studio and I’ll ride with my father.” John only shrugged.

Twenty minutes later, they reached The Four Seasons and Micah gave the driver the full one hundred dollars before bolting for the front doors of the hotel, John hot on her heels.

“Damn,” he said under his breath upon walking into the lobby. Micah glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled.

They reached the elevator and John was looking around with amazement in his eyes.

“You actually live here?” he questioned as the elevator stopped on Micah’s floor.

“That I do,” she answered, fishing for her keys. She pushed open the door of her suite and took off for her bedroom. “Make yourself at home!” she shouted to her guest as she pulled off her shirt in the privacy of her bedroom.

She changed into a navy dress, leaving her hair the way it was. She switched up her make-up and put her essentials in a white clutch. She settled for plain black pumps and removed her jewelery and exchanged it for other pieces. She applied her lipstick and perfume last, looking in the mirror over her dresser before heading back to the main living space of the suite.

John was looking at the family photos on the walls and turned when he heard her heels clicking on the floor. His eyebrows raised as he looked her over. “Wow,” he said, nodding in appreciation of the view.

“I know, I know, I’m a babe. Now let’s go, I’m going to be late,” she said, walking towards him, grabbing him by the collar, and pulling him towards the door.