Read Whisper (Novella) for Free Online

say hello and meet me the old-fashioned way?”
    â€œI told you during our chat.” He let go of one of my arms and skimmed a finger down my cheek.
    The motion was so tender that I trembled again. “You said that you aren’t so good at this stuff in real life. I’d have to disagree . . . Good God, what should I even call you? ThereInTheCorner?”
    And I almost added, “Micah?” But the question caught in my throat as his finger trailed down my face and to my neck, strumming me there.
    â€œCall me what you want to call me. For now.”
    My voice returned, full of raspy need. “And after?”
    â€œIt’ll be up to you. Everything’s up to you, even how you want things to go before we get to an ‘after.’” His finger stilled on my neck. “But if you don’t mind me saying so, I’ve always imagined slow with you, Carley. Nice and slow and beautiful.”
    Oh, wow. The words. He knew how to choose them. If I hadn’t wanted to see him before, I did now, but this was so overwhelmingly romantic and I was so swept up in this moment with the throb of music and the wispy thrill of his skin on mine that I couldn’t break it.
    So I talked, I slowed, I did what he asked me to.
    â€œHow did you even notice me?” I asked.
    I could feel him smile against my head. “How could I not notice? The first time I saw you, you were at the gas station, filling up your car, and you had the loneliest look on your face. I felt that look, almost like it was a reflection of me. I didn’t know you, but I wanted to protect you from feeling that way, wanted to stop you from feeling that way.”
    â€œAnd that’s why you sent the TellTales? Because you wanted to make me feel better?”
    â€œPartly. But, most of all, I had to know you.”
    Again, I reeled. But what about all the stuff Diana had told me about Micah’s seduction games? This didn’t sound like seduction as much as . . . Well, sincere confessions.
    Second by second, doubts were nudging me harder, but it was in a quiet way that didn’t make me panic or want to run.
    If my secret admirer wasn’t Micah, then who was it?
    â€œHow did you know I’d even see the TellTales?” I asked. “How did you know I had the app?”
    â€œIt was serendipity.” Still a whisper. Still a rough, deep, yet tender and poetic string of dreamlike talk that lulled me. “I saw that someone—you, Carley—had sent a TellTale about being invisible in a new town. You were somewhere within ten miles of me, and you’d posted the words over a picture of your car on the side of the route that runs toward your house. I already knew your name, had seen your car, so I used the information to try and get your attention.”
    â€œYou knew my name?”
    He didn’t answer. He only got braver, slipping his hands down my arms until he came to my elbows. He cupped them, nestling there, bringing me to a near moan. I bit my lip, trying to keep it back, but my body was taking over all my common sense.
    â€œWho
are
you?” I asked.
    He paused. “I’m a guy who can’t believe he’s here with you.”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant.”
    â€œMaybe I could ask you who you are instead.”
    I tensed in his arms.
Now
he was sounding like Micah—or, at least, who Micah was supposed to be. The game player.
    â€œIt sounds like you already know a lot about me,” I said.
    â€œI’ve heard a few things.” He tentatively rubbed his thumbs into the crooks of my arms where I knew it was damp and as humid as the air had suddenly become in this red building. “For one thing, I know you went to college.”
    No use avoiding that story. I’d posted about it on TellTale, and my secret admirer had probably pieced together just who Carley Rios really was from all my posts. “College wasn’t for