by R. Linda
He looked at Linc. “You’re still welcome. Even though you never thanked me.”
“You don’t deserve a thank you. And you kissed my damn fiancée this morning. In. Front. Of. Me.”
Harper gasped and stared at them both with wide eyes.
“Would you rather I do it behind your back? ’Cause I’m good with that.”
Shit.
Jack was a dead man.
“Jack. Enough.”
“Okay, sorry. I’ll keep my lips,” he paused and took in the expression on Linc’s face, “and tongue to myself. Happy?” He pouted.
“No.”
“You love me.” He flopped back into the booth and smiled innocently at Linc.
“Not likely.”
“But your fiancée does.” He rested his head in his hands and pursed his lips, making kissing noises.
Harper giggled beside me.
“I give up.” Ryder threw his hands in the air and leaned back against the seat. “I’m not saving your ass this time.”
“Ahh,” Jack sighed in contentment. “It’s so good to see you guys.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Linc muttered under his breath. Linc had nothing to worry about, and he knew it. Aside from the fact that Indie was head over heels in love with Linc, Jack was gay and not interested in Indie that way. He was just good, too good at acting and knew how to press Linc’s buttons. Indie and Jack were best friends.
“Get used to me, Linc baby! I’m all yours. All summer.” Linc’s fist tightened on the knife. “Hey, where’s Brody? I thought he’d be here.”
“Nightshift,” I said.
“Oh, shoot.” Harper looked at her watch. “I gotta go or they’ll be ringing to see where I am. You guys have a good night. Jack, try not to get dead.” She waved goodbye and left.
My eyes trained on her ass the whole way to the door.
“Playing with fire, man,” Linc said.
I shrugged. It was nothing. I was totally in control. Nothing was going on. We were friends.
“Huh?” Jack asked, and Ryder looked between Linc and me, lips pinched between his fingers. The guy noticed everything.
“Nothing.” I reached for a burger. “Let’s eat so we can get out of here.”
“Oh, my god. This burger is so good,” Jack mumbled through a mouthful of food.
“Don’t let Johnny hear you say that. He’ll come to brag,” Ryder said.
After we finished eating and insisting on paying the full bill, because Julie never charged us when we came in, and I was concerned how they still managed to run a business with no customers and no profit, we made our way into the centre of town to the little bar.
“Wow. Blackhill has a bookstore?” Jack asked incredulously. “I’ll have to check it out while I’m here.”
“It’s a great bookstore,” Ryder said before adding vaguely, “Lots of good memories.”
I laughed. “Good memories of a bookstore? Man, you gotta get out more.”
“Trust me.” He smiled wistfully, and I figured it had something to do with Bailey. I was pretty sure she worked in a bookstore when they were in high school. I remembered Indie saying she was hanging out there and thought it was weird. Indie never read, and she only went because Bailey was there.
We approached the bar and could hear the music echoing down the street.
“One bar in town?” Jack asked.
“Yep.”
“Hmmm.”
“Don’t like it? You can always go home,” Linc suggested.
“I’m sure I’ll love it. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
We found a table in the back corner, and Ryder went to get a couple of jugs of beer. The bar was relatively quiet. The town was small, so the number of young people who ventured out at night was low. Most places were guaranteed to be quiet. Traffic was almost non-existent. There was no noise. It was peaceful. I liked it.
After a couple of beers, Jack and Ryder got up to play pool, and Linc went to get more drinks for the table. I didn’t want to move. My body ached from exhaustion. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a text.
Harper: Hi, friend.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. My thoughts drifted back to her and her leather pants that I wanted to run my hands all over. I was screwed.
Nate: That’s my line.
Harper: I learned from the best. How are you?
Nate: Exhausted.
Harper: Have you slept?
Nate: Not since your bed.
Harper: That’s not good. I’m worried. What are you doing tonight?
Nate: Watching Jack and Ryder play pool and drinking beer.
Nate: What are you girls doing?
Harper: Pillow fights in our underwear. You know? The usual girls’ night shenanigans. We’re going to paint our nails and braid our hair later too ;)
I barked out a laugh and thought about my response.
“What’s so funny?” Linc asked when he returned with another jug of beer.
“Nothing.”
Nate: I’d like to see that, friend.
I waited for a response. The dots moving at the bottom of the screen indicated Harper was typing and deleting the message and retyping.
“Who are you texting?”
“Harper.”
“Nate.” His voice held a hint of warning. It wasn’t that he didn’t approve. He liked Harper. It was just that he didn’t want to see Brody get hurt either.
“What? We’re friends. That’s it,” I said, bringing my glass to my lips.
“Friends who snuggle?” Linc asked, with an eyebrow raised and an amused expression on his face. I just about choked on my beer. Snuggle? I’d said that exact thing to Harper after waking up in her bed.
“What?”
“Friends don’t snuggle like that.”
“How do you even know?” I glanced at my phone again. Still no response. Did I push it too far?
“Come on. Kenzie walked in on you in her bed. She told Bailey. Bailey told Indie, and Indie told me. Secrets don’t stay quiet for long.”
I took a drink of my beer, the cool, bitter liquid soothing my suddenly dry throat. “It’s not like that.”
Linc folded his hands on the table and waited.
I checked my phone again.
“Friends also don’t obsessively check for text messages.”
“I fell asleep. Passed out from exhaustion.” It was the truth. I just left out the rest of the night.
“So, you’re sleeping better now?”
“Not at all. Haven’t slept since that night at Harper’s. The nightmares are getting worse.” I drained my beer and poured another one. Maybe I could drink myself to sleep.
“Hmm…” Linc stood and rapped his fist on the table. “Just be careful. Play with fire, and someone’s bound to get burned. You’ve got a message,” he said and walked over to Ryder and Jack.
I looked down at my phone and saw a message from Harper.
Opening the message, I spat my beer out, spraying it everywhere.
Harper: This what you were imagining?
I stared at the photo she sent. I couldn’t believe she actually took the photo, let alone sent it to me. Her hair was twisted into two small schoolgirl type braids on the sides of her head, and she posed in front of a bathroom mirror in nothing but her underwear and a pillow placed strategically in front of her body to hide everything. But I could clearly see a hint of skin on her lower back where she arched, pushing her chest forward, her bare shoulder blade, the curve of her hip covered by nothing but small scrap of black material. Her left foot was lifted behind her, and she balanced on her right. Her lips pursed as though blowing a kiss at the phone she held in her right hand and aimed at the mirror.
As though blowing a kiss to me.
Shit.
Nate: Are you trying to get me killed?
Harper: You said you wanted to see…
Nate: I thought you were joking. No one actually has pillow fights in their
underwear.
Harper: I was joking. We’re watching a movie and drinking a bottle of wine.
That meant she purposely stripped out of her clothes and posed with a pillow. For me.
Nate: You can’t send me something like that and not expect me to have inappropriate thoughts.
Harper: Oh, do tell, friend…I’m listening. What are these inappropriate thoughts of yours? ;)
I groaned and dropped my head into my hands. What was I doing? I wasn’t seriously entertaining this idea. But I was. I lost it the moment she cried in my lap over her brother and traumatic past. I was beyond the point of no return when I fell asleep with her in my arms, because as exhausted as I was, I was sure I only slept because she was there. She was the calm in the storm.
Nate: I’m thinking how much I want to lick the two dimples on your lower back.
Harper: Nate…
I hesitated, thinking about what I wanted to do, about the right thing to do, what I should do, and what I wanted to do.
Jack came over to the table in a rush. “We have to go,” he said urgently. I looked up to see Linc and Ryder behind him, frowning in confusion.
“Okay,” I agreed, not really caring what was so urgent that we had leave right then. All I cared about was finishing things with Harper.
Then I typed the only thing I could in a message to Harper.
Chapter Fourteen
Harper
“Who are you texting?” Kenzie asked, pulling my attention from my phone held firmly in my grasp. What was taking him so long to respond? Maybe I pushed things too far when I sent the photo. He was adamant that we were just friends, but that wasn’t good enough for me anymore.
“Just a friend,” I said, knowing she’d put two and two together.
“You don’t have friends.” Indie laughed into her wineglass.
“I do so. Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Because you only hang out with us.”
It was true. They were my only friends, and now I was trying to talk Nate back into my bed after I ended things in the first place. He was Indie’s brother. He was Brody’s cousin. How messed up was that?
Maybe I should text him and tell him…what? That I’d only been messing around. That I didn’t want him as anything more than a friend. But I couldn’t do that. Not now, not after another “one night” together. I’d be lying to him, to myself, and to my heart.
“How’s the Chace situation?” I asked Kenzie, changing the subject.
“Haven’t seen or heard from him since he showed up at school, so I don’t know. It’s a good thing, I guess.”
“Maybe not.” Indie frowned at her phone.
“What?”
“Linc just texted me to say they were leaving the bar early because Chace showed up.”
Kenzie winced and closed her eyes.
“Ryder?” Bailey asked, concern etching her features.
“Didn’t see him.” Indie nodded in confirmation. “They got him out of there before he ran into Chace.”
“Thank god.” Kenzie sighed. “He can’t get into any more trouble.”
My phone buzzed in my hands.
Nate: Screw the consequences.
My fingers loosened their grip on the phone, letting it fall to the floor.
All eyes turned to me.
“Sorry.”
I picked up my phone and typed a reply.
Harper: Nate…
Nate: Brody is working all night. I’m going home now. It’s your decision, friend.
And he was still calling me “friend.” What did I do? Should I meet him, or stay here with my friends? He was giving me what I wanted, and I was suddenly unsure what to do. We agreed after the other night it could never happen again. It was a one-time thing. A one-time thing that still had my body tingling. A one-time thing that consumed my thoughts. Seriously, I was like a teenage boy thinking about sex with how often my thoughts wafted over to a naked Nate.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Bailey said.
“I, uh…I have to go.” I guessed I’d made up my mind.
“Harper,” Kenzie warned.
“I have to, Kenzie. I can’t…,” I paused, trying to think of the right words. “It’s just something I have to do, okay?”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Just be careful.”
“Always.”
I said goodbye, grabbed my bag, and left. Bailey and Ryder’s place wasn’t that far from Nate’s small apartment, so I could walk there easily enough. I just hoped I didn’t stumble across any of the others on my way. That would be too many questions I couldn’t answer.
***
One look at Nate as he walked toward the stairs, I knew I had made the right decision. If not for the reasons I was expecting, but for the one that was glaringly obvious.
“Hi, friend.” He smiled when he saw me waiting for him, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were drawn and red. He was exhausted.
“Hi.” I stood and let him link his fingers with mine, pulling me up the stairs to his apartment door. He never let go, not until we were in his room, standing quietly face to face.
“You came,” he whispered, his free hand reaching for my hip. He tugged me to him and dropped his head to my shoulder. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Screw the consequences, right?”
He dropped my hand and reached for the hem of my shirt, lifting it over my head and dropping it on the floor.
“Screw them. Screw everything.” He pulled back to look at me, his fingers dancing along my collarbone before they dragged down over my arms and back to my hips, and then he dropped to his knees in front of me. He leisurely trailed his hands down my legs until he reached my boots. He lifted one leg and placed it on his lap so he could release the zipper and remove my shoe before repeating the process with the other one.
Still kneeling, Nate looked up at me, a dazed expression on his face as he caught my gaze. My hands were in his hair, my fingers aching to touch him in any way. I was lost in his eyes, lost in the moment. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t form a thought as his hands rubbed circles on my legs, inching higher and higher until he popped the button on my waistband and slid my leather pants down my legs and discarded them with my shirt.
With a kiss to the top of my thigh that sent chills up my spine, he stood, removed his shirt, and handed it to me. I took it from him, clutching it in my fingers as I stood frozen to the spot, watching him kick off his shoes and drop his jeans to the floor with mine. He took his shirt from my hands and pulled it over my head because I couldn’t function.
What was wrong with me?
Nate wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him, my hands finding their way around the back of his neck and into his hair once again. He gripped my thighs and lifted me, forcing my legs around his waist while he buried his face in the crook of my neck. It seemed to be his favourite spot.
“You smell so good,” he said, inhaling the scent of my skin, my hair, my body wash. “Sweet…like honey.”
Carrying me over to his bed, he laid me down gently and climbed in beside me. We were on our sides facing each other. Our fingers twisted together beneath the covers, our eyes locked in their own embrace.
“Nate, you need to sleep.” He couldn’t keep going the way he was. It was going to kill him.
“I don’t want to.” He folded one arm under his head and watched me.
“It’s not good for you.”
“You’re good for me.”
I smiled. “For now. This is all going to blow up when people find out.”
“When Brody finds out, you mean?”
I nodded. “We agreed it was a one-time thing.”
He laughed. “Yeah, we said that in Fiji too. That worked out well.”
“One night, Nate. That was all it was meant to be.” As much as I wanted this.
“Screw the consequences. Remember? One night isn’t enough. One night in Fiji clearly wasn’t enough if the three months t
hat followed were anything to go by. And all that one night this week did was serve to remind me how good we are together. Naked, of course. I’m done fighting this.” His squeezed my hand. His eyelids fluttered closed before he snapped them open again. “I want a hundred ‘one nights.’” His voice trailed away as sleep finally overtook him.
“Screw the consequences another day,” I whispered, watching his breaths even out as he fell into a deep sleep. I wanted a hundred nights too. Only I feared that still wouldn’t be enough.
I rolled onto my side, pressing my back against his chest, and wrapped his arm around my waist, falling into peaceful sleep with him.
I fully intended on waking early and leaving before Brody got home from his shift, but that didn’t happen if the sound of the front door closing was anything to go by. Nate woke with a jolt beside me, almost jumping out of the bed.
“What was that?” He looked around frantically.
“Shh, it’s okay. It’s just Brody getting home,” I reassured him.
“Okay.” He nodded, still half asleep, and pulled me into his arms as he settled back into his pillows.
Then he froze.
“Brody’s home?”
I nodded, not wanting to speak in case Brody heard. Linc had told me once the walls were thin.
“Dammit. We have to sneak you out of here.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel real good about myself.” I shoved him away.
“Sorry. That sounded worse than I thought. But you know…” He threw his hands in the air to emphasise the urgency of the situation.
“I know.”
What if he came looking for Nate? What if he walked into Nate’s room?
“I should get dressed.” I rolled over and kicked my legs out of the bed, but Nate’s arm around my waist pulled me back.
