you would have prevented had you known.”
When Micah reached across the table and took one of her hands in his, the shock waves of his touch reverberated through her body to her belly. His hand was more callused than she had expected. It was also warm and solid and strong. “I’m not sorry that what I said devastated you. But give me a chance to show the world the new person you’ve made from that devastation.”
She wished she could leave her hand in his all night and into the next morning. Crawl into bed with him and feel his strong arms wrapped around her. Find comfort in the warmth of his bare chest against her back. Not just sex, but a night in which she could pretend she was loved. “I hope I’m a new person, but it’s been five years and I’m still running and still living with my parents and I’m not sure what parts of me are new.”
“Be patient.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “One morning, I woke up in a different body than the one I remembered.” Then he laughed and gave her a rueful smile. “Of course, when everyone told me to be patient, I told them to fuck off, that I’d never been patient before in my life and I didn’t intend to start now.” He shrugged and his hand tightened against hers once again. “It’s still good advice, though.”
“You can’t run fifty kilometers and not be a model of patience. Or perseverance.” Not to mention the fifty miles she was planning in the back of her head. Stop that, Ruby. But thinking about Micah was no safer. “And we haven’t even talked about how patient I have been and will continue to be about my finances, because I’ll probably be dead before the lawsuits against me are resolved.”
“Let’s both hope it doesn’t come to that.” Micah slipped his hand out of hers, leaving it feeling limp and empty. “I should go. This has been a far more interesting—and more pleasant—conversation than I expected.”
He backed his chair away from the table and was maneuvering himself out of the tight hotel space when she thought to ask another question. “Why did you interview me? That first time?”
Micah moved so that he was looking at her, his face as expressionless as his voice when he answered, “The ratings, of course.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” She knew—had known at the time—that her father had only agreed to the interview because he’d confused Micah’s loss of agility in his legs with a loss of agility in his mind. It was a miscalculation her father regretted to this day, though he blamed Micah for the mistake.
“Yes, I know what you mean.” Micah sat, suspended between the table and the door, assessing her yet again. “I was angry at your father and his arrogance. And I could have let my anger get in the way of the fabulous opportunity he offered on a silver platter wrapped up in gold ribbon. Or I could have harnessed my anger to do the best interview of my life. I decided on the latter.”
He put his hands on his wheels and the chair rolled forward, just slightly, then stopped. “Halfway through the interview, I was angrier at you than at your father. Your father is nothing. His position in life is due to his parents’ money, a good education and other people wilting under his bluster. You, though—you were something special.”
She grimaced at the past tense, the mistakes she’d made in her life floating around her. They weren’t threatening specters anymore, but they were ghosts all the same, and no exorcism she’d tried had rid her of them yet. “Patience, you said, right?”
“Whatever you remake yourself into, you won’t be the same as before. And no distance you run will bring that back.”
“I know.” She bit back angrier words. Of course she knew. The details of her suspension had been explained to her over and over and over until she could recite them in her sleep. There were no medals in her future, no matter what she did. She took a deep breath; she’d asked Micah for honesty. “I’m running for me.”
“I think I believe you.” Micah looked at his watch. “I really do have to go.”
“Don’t leave on my account.” She didn’t want to be alone in this hotel room again. When he rolled out that door, the promise of friendship would fade into prepared questions, studio lights and a voice-over turning her life into a movie trailer.
“No, I have to go on my account. I have to use the bathroom.”
She glanced to the doorway of her bathroom, assessing whether his chair would fit. “You can use mine. If you can’t close the door, I’ll step outside.”
“Ruby, I didn’t bring a catheter.”
“Oh.” She felt stupid for not realizing that. She stepped around him, putting her hand on the doorknob and bracing herself to let him out.
“Maybe the arms aren’t so attractive now that you know the details of how I pee?”
Her face got hot, and she was sure she’d turned bright red. “I wasn’t...” She didn’t realize he’d noticed, but she’d probably all but drooled at the ropy definition in his forearms. He wasn’t oblivious.
“Everyone admires my arms. I’m the only person who seems to remember that my legs still exist and are living their own life, even if we’re no longer on speaking terms.”
She had remembered his legs and wanted to see them, but she couldn’t figure out if it was an athlete’s natural curiosity about bodies or because of the way her insides tingled and her breath stilled when she thought of him. Curiosity or desire?
Her motivations probably didn’t matter to Micah. She shrugged. “I had someone stick a needle in my arm and pump a stranger’s blood through my body in order to win a shiny necklace. It would be silly for me to be put off by the plastic you use to pee.”
The smile she surprised out of him was as smooth as sin and just as confident. “Good night, Ruby.”
When she opened the door, the real world rushed in with the sounds of a couple laughing in the hallway, the beep of the elevator and the false brightness of the light outside her door. Micah wheeled out her door, and she watched until he disappeared around a corner.
MICAH WOKE UP the next morning still thinking about Ruby and their conversation. Not only thinking—which would be acceptable—but caring. Much to his surprise, he was beginning to believe her when she said she was doing this for herself and not for notoriety and fame. The lady may be protesting too much, but he now thought she might be doing it because she really didn’t want the spotlight on her.
A shame, because he was more convinced than ever that the series he imagined would boost his career, along with rehabilitating her image. And, if he was honest with himself, he liked spending time with her. Worse, he liked the tilt of her nose and the slight curves of her breasts as much as he liked her perseverance.
Well, she wasn’t the only one made more tenacious and stubborn by life’s experience. So long as Derek didn’t pull the plug on the whole enterprise, Micah would keep showing up at Ruby’s races with Amir to get footage. Eventually she would say yes. She would cave, if for no other reason than that she would gain enough confidence in her new self that the thought of letting other people tell her story would start to piss her off. Hell, by that point he might have so much footage on her that he wouldn’t need an interview.
He swung himself out of bed and into his chair, respect for her tugging at his conscious. She was trying to redefine herself and her life with notoriety hanging over her head. Whether or not she should have awakened to her new life five or four or three or two years ago was beside the point. Rebirth was a hard and painful process. It didn’t matter if the world was rooting for you or against you, just cracking that old skin and letting the sensitive new bits see the light of day was scary. Many people didn’t even try it until it was too late.
Micah dug a pair of jeans and a Texas A&M T-shirt out of his bag, still mulling over his plans for Ruby while getting dressed. Her worry that the world wouldn’t accept