Everyone else joined after me, the tinny sound of ceramic splitting in half weirdly mesmerizing.
The boxes had all the supplies we needed to glue the bowls back together again, and we were instructed on how to mix the epoxy and gold mica powder and how to apply it to the broken pieces.
It took a helluva lot of coordination that I had none of. The brush was thin, and the epoxy had a short window to work with, so I had to think fast. A couple of times, I didn’t hold on to the pieces long enough because I got carried away with trying to get to the end.
“This process isn’t just about repairing. It’s an art. It requires patience and constant attention,” the teacher said as she walked around to check on us. “It’s an evolution of beauty. Take a moment to hold on to that. Give it the time and attention it deserves.”
Well, it wasn’t like I was getting anywhere with this, so I might as well do as the lady said. I stared at the gold lines that bound the bowl in my hands, cupped the weight of the ceramic in my palms. I gave it the attention it deserved and the love it didn’t know it needed.
I made it whole again.
We took our finished products to the storage shelves so they could settle overnight. I stared at mine, a knot in my throat. When I came into this place tonight, I didn’t expect to nearly be in tears, but here I was.
The instructor walked toward me. “You have a gift for it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you kidding? The thing fell apart on me three times.”
The woman bobbed her head back and forth in consideration. “You didn’t force it back into what it was before. You accepted its imperfections. Few people can do that.” She pulled a sheet off a stack of papers behind a nearby desk and handed it to me, her dark eyes tender. “I have an advanced class coming up that involves breaking something you’ve already made. If you have something, sign up for it.”
I took the paper, folded it up, and shoved it into my shoulder bag. “Thanks.”
Most of the people who recognized me didn’t know about my fucked-up past, and I could let loose and just be . . . here. No one thought of me as a person in recovery. I was just a normal dude to them.
Being with Micah was like that too. Like I was a normal guy who was just fucking a dude who was mind-blowing in bed.
I hadn’t seen him in almost two weeks, and it felt like it’d been an eternity. I’d wake up in the morning to check my phone for messages from him, and when I found one, it was impossible to not notice the way my heart jumped into my throat.
I missed him.
Scrubbing my hand over my face, I picked up my pace to my car. If I didn’t get a hold of myself, I was going to turn into some kind of stage five clinger.
But I couldn’t argue that the thought of Micah’s mouth and what it could do lived rent-free in my mind, and that was an itch I needed to scratch. I got my phone out of my bag and pulled up my texts with Micah.
What you getting into right now?
Hopefully you
I rolled my eyes, but the flutter in my throat was back again, and I swallowed it down, focusing back on the text.
Meet at mine?
Sounds good
When I got to my house, Micah was already leaning on his elbow against the car, typing away on his phone. His face was half in shadow, and it took several more steps for me to see that he’d pulled his hair back into a ponytail.
Micah lifted his head when he heard me come closer, his lips still bunched in a pout that showed off his cupid’s bow. He pushed himself upward, tucking back a bit of hair that fell into his face, and as he stepped closer toward me, his sharp blue eyes glowed under the streetlight.
Damn, no matter how many times I saw him, Micah made my heart wild. Ain’t no way I’d have ever been able to ignore him or what he did to me. We walked to the front door together, and I pulled my keys out of my messenger bag. “How long you been waiting?”
“Not long,” he said, following me inside and bumping the door closed. He squatted to take off his combat boots, then stayed there, slowly tilting his head up. He flicked his eyebrows and hummed in approval.
“You look good.”
Confused, I spread my arms and looked at the raggedy-ass clothes I wore to pottery—an old coaching T-shirt from the Collective and a pair of basketball shorts that had seen better days. “These clothes are trash.”
Micah’s hand cupped my ankle and ran his palm up the side of my leg, eyes locked on me as he slowly stood until we were face-to-face. He placed his hands on my hips and dipped toward me. My lips parted as I waited for his kiss, my heart hammering in my chest.
I closed my eyes, shuddering at the heat of his breath over my mouth. But his lips never touched mine, instead grazing over my jaw, stopping at my ear. He tugged my hips until our chests bumped into each other, holding me tight, fingertips digging into my skin.
“I’m not talking about the clothes,” Micah whispered before taking my earlobe into his mouth and pulling it between his teeth. A sudden moan punched out of my throat, and Micah hummed like he was agreeing to a comment in a conversation.
He slid a hand into my shorts, took hold of my already growing erection, and gave it a firm squeeze from the base to the tip, running the tip of his tongue along the base of my neck.
The fact Micah had paid attention to what this did to me, kept it stashed away somewhere inside of his head, made me want to go feral on him.
I grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked his head back, getting a dazed smile in return. He poked the tip of his tongue into the corner of his mouth, a husky laugh rumbling out of him.
“What do you want?”
I dove toward him in a hungry kiss, pressing my tongue between his lips and running it along the top of his mouth, which got me that high whine I loved pulling out of him. He cupped the back of my neck, his thumbs running along my jaw, taking the kiss down several notches. I practically melted into the floor.
This dude got me fucked up real bad.
“Jesus, you fuck me up,” Micah said against my lips, like he’d just read my mind.
A sudden flutter circled around my rib cage, leaving a warming glow in its wake.
Huh. That was new.
