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“He isn’t wrong,” Master told Micca. “So far, we’ve only agreed we’re seeing where things go, but I’m hoping this lasts for years and years, maybe decades. I wouldn’t have let you be with me and Davy when I showed him to the world if I thought you might not be around long.”

Micca blew out a breath, glanced at Razor, and looked back at Will. “There are things I can’t tell you yet, and we aren’t going to make any long-term promises until I can get permission to tell you my secrets.”

“He isn’t going to turn his back on you because…” Matty cut himself off before he said anything else, and he shrugged. “He just isn’t.”

“He might,” Micca said. “I have to prepare for that possibility until I can get clearance to tell him.”

“Something was done to you, right?” I asked. “No way am I going to victim blame, and I can’t imagine Master doing so, either.”

“Good boy,” Razor told me with a smile, and he looked at Will. “You’ve done right by Davy, and I appreciate that, so I’m trusting you’ll do right by Micca. For the time being, she needs to live here and visit you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be forever.”

“He’s right,” Micca said with a sigh. “I need…” She looked at Razor and back to Master. “I need the woods here, and I need Matty’s grounding influence. I can stay with you days at a time, maybe even occasionally a whole week, but having a night in my own bed last night, and a day in the woods…” She shrugged. “I’m going to need that for a while. Maybe not forever, I hopenot forever, but for now, it’s important I have my own place to retreat to.”

“Then you’ll have it,” Will said. “I need to know what happened to you, but I can be patient a little longer.”

“She may not ever get permission to tell you,” Razor said, and the whole room went uncomfortably silent.

“I’m pretty sure I can get it, eventually,” Micca said, “but he’s right that I might not be able to.”

Micca was sitting between me and Matty, and we both reached for her hands at the same time while Master said, “Then we’ll deal with that if it turns out to be the case, but I have to hope you’ll gain permission sooner rather than later. I feel so helpless, knowing you have this really big emotional thing in your life, and hoping I don’t trip over it because I don’t know the details.”

* * * *

Will

Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could go years without knowing what happened to her, but I was assuming it was Aaron or Nathan making the decision, and I felt certain I could talk them into changing their minds. It might take an NDA where I agreed to pay a few million dollars in damages if I talked to anyone besides Micca about it, but there would surely be a way around whatever the problem was. I’d just have to find it.

We had an enjoyable evening with Razor and Matty, and then finally went to Micca’s apartment. The story goes that Micca and Matty lived together for years, best friends since elementary school, so when Razor built a house for he and Matty, he built Micca an apartment on the back of his five-bay garage.

I’d seen past the door into her place when I picked her up for our first date, but I hadn’t actually been inside yet, and I was looking forward to seeing her space.

The living room was all clean lines and neutral colors, and it fit her. There was a huge floor cushion in a corner that caught my eye, and when I walked to it, she said, “It’s a little reading nook, with old-fashioned light bulbs instead of LED, and also next to the window so I can read by natural light and not artificial during the day.”

There was a huge remote on the wall. Built into it, with buttons bigger than my hand, and she chuckled. “Matty’s idea of art, but it’s nice to have it when I lose the regular remote.”

“I like your space. I take it your bedroom is the upstairs loft?”

She nodded and motioned me to follow her up the steps, where everything was once again clean lines, including the bed and headboard. There was a shag throw rug, however, and it softened everything without looking out of place.

“Youhaveto see her closet, Master,” Davy said, and he walked across the room, through a spa-style bathroom, and opened a door.

Micca’s closet was huge, and possibly better organized than mine, which is saying something. There were purses hanging to the left, racks and racks of shoes and boots, and it appeared her work clothes were all together on the right, her casual clothes on the left, and her partying clothes on the end, facing us but farthest away. Her casual clothes and party clothes were organized by color, but nearly everything in the work section was black. There were belts all hanging together, and drawers off to the right I wanted to look through but figured would be too nosy.

I also wanted to take a picture so I could show it to my builder, but committed as much as I could to memory so I could sketch it for him. I still hadn’t figured out where to put a closet for her, but I’d like to make it as close to this one as possible,since I assumed she’d been in on the design process, and this was her preference.

“I love the organization,” I told her. “I have people who keep me organized, but you do this yourself without help, right?”

“I do, but it helps that the washer and dryer are in a cabinet in the bathroom. I have to bring the kitchen towels up to wash them, and the hand towels in the half-bath downstairs, but it’s no trouble to bring a handful of towels up once a week, and so easy to just toss a load in from the closet every couple of days.”

Micca walked us back downstairs and remoted her large television on — probably seventy-five or eighty inches — and then lifted a tablet, fiddled with it a second, and the television started playing an early version of me singing one of the songs I’d written and produced mostly by myself while in my last year of college.

“Tell me about this?”

It was one of the most angsty songs I’ve written and shared with the public,How Can I Go On Without You. I rolled my eyes and told her, “Boy meets girl, girl spends nearly two years with boy, girl breaks boy’s heart, boy goes all emo and shares his pain with the world.”

She clearly wanted more, and I shrugged and sat on the sofa. “She was smart enough to know our college romance wouldn’t survive in the real world unless one of us gave up on our career choices, and that would’ve likely killed whatever we had anyway because whoever gave up on the whole reason for college would be resentful. I can see that now, in hindsight, but at the time I was convinced we could both dive into our careers and still find time for each other.”

“I want to know the story behindThem’s the Breaks,” Davy said.