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“Michael, you need to understand I’ve been asking questions for the past four years. In my head, out loud, every way you can think of. And I’ve never gotten any answers until you came along.”
“We can’t cover four years in one night.” He slid his hand across the roof toward me, palm down.
I slid my hand toward his, palm up, the shingles rough on the back of my hand. Our fingers barely met, yet every inch of my skin responded. The desire to close the distance so more of me could touch more of him was overwhelming. My breath caught in my chest, and I looked at him.
He pulled away without looking back.
I left my hand open to the night sky. “How long before you tell me everything?”
“Not long, I promise. Can you wait?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He didn’t answer.
“You have no idea how frustrated I am.” About so many things.
“Give me until tomorrow. Tomorrow, I promise. I just want to make sure we do this the right way. Trust me?”
“Yes,” I answered, breaking my own rule.
Chapter 16
You want a ride to work?” Thomas asked as I grabbed my backpack. I was wearing my trusty pink rain jacket because it was raining. Again.
“No, it’s not that far.” My hair was already wet anyway. I’d had some difficulty motivating myself to wake up and shower and hadn’t had time to dry it. After I’d climbed in my window last night I could still sense Michael, could almost hear him breathing on the other side of the wall. It took sleep a long time to pull me under, my thoughts racing too fast for my brain to keep up.
As I walked to Murphy’s Law, I wondered why I had never seen Michael in a car. How did he get around? Probably he snapped and appeared places at will. Or maybe he time traveled where he wanted to go.
Or maybe he was delusional, and I was one small step away from buying it.
I snorted out loud, not even bothering to be embarrassed as a man in a Confederate soldier uniform looked at me strangely. He probably wasn’t really there anyway. I’d have liked to kick him just to see, but I didn’t want to take the chance.
Time travel? Saving the world? Had I fallen into a straight-to-DVD release? How could I believe Michael was telling me the truth? It was all so crazy. If I had learned about rips before I experienced one, I wouldn’t have believed it. Lots of unbelievable things happened. Every day. Things like gravity.
But time travel? Saving the world? At seventeen?
I pushed open the door to the coffee shop so hard I almost knocked the welcome bell from the doorframe. “Morning,” I mumbled to Lily as I walked past her, reaching greedily for the espresso machine.
She leaned over to peer into my eyes before saying with a hint of disgust, “You look like something I’d scrape off the bottom of my shoe.”
“Great, thanks. Not all of us can be naturally gorgeous. I bet you can’t even tell when you have sleepless nights.”
She shoved me out of the way and took over. “Let’s keep you away from heavy machinery until you get your groove on. Why no sleep?”
“The list is way too long.” And if I gave it to her, she’d call for the men in white coats. “Let’s just say I’m facing a challenge.”
“Does it have anything to do with Michael?”
I grabbed the cup of espresso she offered and threw it back in one scalding, exhilarating moment. After I could feel my tongue again, I held out my cup for a refill and said, “Sort of.”
“Sort of.”
“I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“Hmph.” Lily turned to start another espresso, and as if the day weren’t already off to a rip-roaring start, an image began to take shape behind her.
Just beyond the register sat a table full of teenagers in poodle skirts and letter sweaters. I knew they had to be ripples, because Murphy’s Law had slick, modern furniture instead of the leather booth with the Formica table where the couples were seated. They joked with a waitress in a pink nylon dress, a gingham-checked apron tied around her waist.
