by Vivian Lux
But the way she bit her lip made me re-think that assumption. "It's where my friends are," she echoed. She tucked her chin down and I saw her jaw work for a second. "Yeah," she said. "I've missed my friends."
Cal took a brazen step towards her and my fist balled up. All at once I was ready to punch my best friend — the guy who'd taken me in and saved me from homelessness — in the face. I took a deep, steadying breath and called out, far more loudly than necessary. "How about downstairs?"
Harper snapped out of her trance. "I think you saw everything already. Should we go check though?" She whirled sharply and fairly ran down the stairs.
Cal looked at me sharply and narrowed his eyes. His fist was clenched too. I tried like fucking hell to tamp down the urge to go at it, right here, right now. Whatever my feelings towards Everett's sister might be, I had to watch it. Because Callum was in love with her, completely. Had been forever. And I'd never do anything to fuck Cal over like that, so I backed away before my dick got too fucking hard to deal with.
We tromped back down the stairs and into the giant sunken living room dominated by the naked frasier fir. Little drip-drips of melting snow collected on the wooden floor. Rett reappeared at that moment, like he'd been timing our return down to the second, with a long string of lights in his hand.
Cal was still close to Harper. Too close. "So, are we decorating this bitch or what?" I called, clapping my hands together. "You, get moving and stop lazing around," I said pointing at Cal. "You start stringing the lights," I barked at Rett.
"What about me?" Harper asked.
"You stand there and look cute and try not to get in the way."
"Always the kid sister," she sighed and plopped down on the sofa.
Clearly you aren't a kid anymore, I did not say. She was a full-grown woman now, all softly rounded curves. I grabbed a handful of ornaments, and then took a moment to drink in the way her neck curved into her shoulders, which were broader than I remembered. I chucked a few ornaments on the tree all haphazard, all while sneaking glances at her through the branches. She clearly was working out now, and had lost some of that rangy adolescent scrappiness. And the way she laughed that same laugh, but with a bright note of confidence; it squeezed my heart at the same time it made my dick stiffen...fuck me, I didn't think it was possible that she'd get better with time but she clearly fucking had.
"Ah man, what the hell, you're clumping all your ornaments in one place." Cal came barreling over to my side, interrupting my lovely train of thought. "You are legitimately terrible at this."
"What are you, some kind of old woman?" I scoffed. "Have I messed up your vision board?"
"Yes I do have a vision, and it involves you shutting the fuck up and letting me do this," Cal said, smoothly stepping around and putting himself right in my line of sight.
Blocking my view of Harper. It couldn't have been deliberate, except it looked completely fucking deliberate.
I snuck a glance over at Everett, who looked like he was conducting complicated mathematical equations in his head involving surface area and other shit I'd slept through in high school. He held up his string of lights at precise mathematical angles, completely oblivious to me and Cal squaring off like two billy goats.
I shot Cal a giant grin and stepped back. "Fine, do it all yourself, you fucking control freak," I said, throwing up my hand. "I'll go keep Harper company."
His head whirled around so fast he was at risk of whiplash. I flipped him off behind my back and plopped myself down right next to Harper. "Hey kid," I said, because what the hell else was I supposed to call her after all these years? "Glad you're home."
She twined her fingers together and then stretched her arms out in front of her, then raised them over her head. "Ah, it is good to be home," she sighed. "It's so quiet here."
"Not with the three of us around, it isn't," I pointed out, gesturing to Rett and Cal.
"No, this is true," she said, nodding sagely. "But I mean, there's no street noise, or noise through the walls of the apartment next to mine. The noise sort of...seeps into you after a while, making you feel like you can never actually relax." She sighed and dropped her hands to her lap. "Or maybe that's just me. Everyone else just seems to deal with it."
"Maybe you're not cut out for the city," I said, a little too eagerly.
She gave me a baleful look. "It's my home now, Gray."
I was an idiot, that's for certain, but more than that, I was a stubborn idiot. I already knew I'd mildly pissed her off by suggesting she wasn't succeeding — even though I knew she clearly was — but instead of backing down and reassuring her that I knew she was doing great, I doubled down. "This is your home," I told her, reaching over and grabbing her fingers and spontaneously bringing them to my lips. "It always will be, no matter where you end up."
She froze when my lips brushed her fingers, and I froze in turn, pausing just before I could press them to her knuckles. Slowly I turned to see that Rett and Cal were both staring at me.
Swallowing hard, I nonchalantly lowered her hand.
"Hey Gray," Rett said, stepping around the tree, his voice low and dangerous. "How about you help me get the lights up outside?" He glared at Harper. "You'll finish decorating the tree, right Harp?"
"Uh, sure," she said, scrambling to her feet.
"You can help me," Cal said smoothly.
"Actually, Cal, we're gonna need a third man to hold the ladder," Rett said, and there was no mistaking that big-brother-fuck-you in his voice.
"Yeah," Cal said, slowly placing his last ornament. "Sure man."
"I'll see you later?" Harper called. "At the party?"
"I wouldn't miss it!" I told her. Rett glared at me for a second, and I just gave him my standard dopey grin, the kind that always smoothed shit over. He sighed and shook his head. I knew he was trying to tell himself he'd only imagined it, that me kissing Harper's hand was totally fucking innocent.
I wanted to believe it myself.
But my lips still burned where her fingers had grazed them.
Chapter Four
Harper
As the party kicked into high gear, I swayed in place to the sounds of Bing Crosby and tried not to fiddle with the pompom at the end of my elf hat.
"I have to tell you something," Brynn Reese said, grinning like a jack o' lantern. "And you have to promise not to laugh about it, because it's really important."
Her sleek cap of blonde hair was so shiny it reflected the twinkling Christmas lights. It was a few shades darker than Cal's short, sun-streaked waves, more honey colored than her brother's burnished gold. And I really needed to stop thinking about her brother instead of paying attention to what she was saying to me..."Okay?" I chirped in my bubbly, obnoxious way, then bit my tongue before I asked her what the hell hair conditioner she used to get her hair to do that. I felt like a donkey standing next to a thoroughbred.
She smiled widely again and lifted her drink to her perfectly scarlet lips, then grabbed my arm and forced me into the corner. "It's just that, I was thinking, I know her, right? For real, not in a 'she went to my school,' sense. We go way back, you and me, don't we?"
"Uh," I babbled.
I'm not exactly sure why Cal's sister always intimidated the fuck out of me. Maybe it was because, with her sleek blonde bob and take no shit attitude, she seems like the epitome of big city sophistication, even though I knew for a fact she'd rarely ever left Reckless Falls. How could she? Just like Cal, she was stuck at the mercy of her father's bar, wiping down glasses from an early age. That's probably why she seemed so worldly, because at thirteen years old she knew more about cocktails than most of my New York friends.
"—But I was re-reading that book and realized just how perfect it was," she was saying. "You laid it all out..."
I was trying to wrap my head around what she was telling me when suddenly I put two and two together and remembered that Brynn taught kindergarten and she was telling me about using one of my books.
Brynn w
as still holding on to my arms, talking without breaking eye contact. "—A whole curriculum around Gilly's Garden," she was saying, naming my most successful picture book, but once again I was stuck wondering why I had ever found her stand-offish. Because right now, with her flushed, half drunken cheeks and wild, honking laugh, she was just as down-to-earth and warm as anybody in Reckless Falls. I felt a pang, wishing that she and I had been better friends, but as I took another drink, I got the feeling we were making up for lost time.
"Yes," she said, grasping my upper arm emphatically. "The whole curriculum."
"I mean, I guess I see it," I said haltingly.
"You got letters, numbers, phonics sounds, it's perfect. I always said that if I saw you again I would kiss you right on the mouth for writing that book, but I don't think either one of us are drunk enough for that."
I laughed hysterically.
"I'm serious, it's a godsend."
"I'm just...I dunno, I guess I never thought you'd be teaching kindergarten," I said hesitantly.
"Oh what, because I'm the..."
"Queen of Kegstands?" I ventured.
She wrinkled her nose at the nickname. "Yeah well, those days are over." Then she leaned in. "But I could still totally do one, you guys got a keg at this party?"
I laughed again, feeling delirious. Last I knew, Brynn Reese was doing keg stands with Derek Granger, and Gabe Foster, partying in the woods, with all the bad kids while the rest of us goody-two-shoes were left out of the fun. And now she was here talking to me like we were old friends and for some reason that meant more to me than all the celebrities I'd hung out with in New York. Brynn Reese, my bad-girl idol was talking to me.
And she was teaching kindergarten.
It would never fail to amaze me how much time just marches on.
"Actually," Brynn went on. "I'm kind of surprised that you never became a teacher, you know." She took another sip of her drink, her face flushing beet red. "Although, I'm sure it's a bit more lucrative being a big time children's author," she said, rolling her eyes. "But still, you always were so good with kids."
"I love kids," I told her firmly.
Brynn nodded. "I remember you trying to set up your own babysitting service when you were eleven years old. Nobody wanted to hire you, and you were so hurt, Cal said."
I straightened my shoulders a little bit and laughed. "Oh probably because they didn't want a kid younger than their own kids watching them," I pointed out. "I finally did get a couple clients, and I worked way too hard to prove that I was old and mature. Stuck in the trap of being a perennial kid sister I guess.
Brynn nodded emphatically. "Don't I hear that," she said.
"Yeah, but there's not so many years between you and Cal." My tongue almost tripped over his name. Why was I talking about her brother all of a sudden? Danger. This was the last thing I wanted to be doing.
But luckily my flush was hidden under the alcoholic redness, because Brynn didn't seem to notice my sudden onset of stuttering. She just shook her head. "I kind of wish you could have been my babysitter, even though you are two years younger," she said, her mouth twisting oddly.
With a pang, I remembered how it was for Brynn and Cal growing up. Their mother flickered in and out of their lives like a TV with bad reception, and though I never knew why exactly she'd left, from the whispers and innuendo around town, I'd figured out it was for reasons that were both embarrassing and sad.
Their father tried very hard to be both parents at once for his kids, but his work schedule made it so that they had to suffer through an endless parade of babysitters, for better or worse. That was probably why Cal started spending most of his time at our place.
And I felt bad about the selfish pang of gratitude that that gave me.
"But anyway, I'm super glad you didn't end up being a teacher, I guess, because this means that I get to use your books for my classroom. But why didn't you think about going into education instead?"
I pressed my lips together, trying and failing to look natural.
Clearly I failed. Brynn's eyes widened. "What is it? Spill it!"
“I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
Brynn waved her hand. "Every single emotion you ever have is written across your face, Harper. You'd be a really shit poker player, what's going on?"
I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "You have to promise you won't tell anyone," I slurred. This wine was going right to my head.
Brynn danced a happy little shimmy and leaned forward. "I am a locked vault for secrets. Do you know how much I know about Autumn Melton?"
"I think the point of you keeping secrets is to not tell people that you have secrets," I pointed out.
She clapped her hands over her mouth and laughed. "But seriously, you can tell me. What's going on, why do you look like the cat who swallowed the canary?"
"When I get back from here?" I said eagerly, leaning forward. The words had been tripping over my tongue the whole time at the party and I could no longer resist the urge to tell people. "I'm going to be negotiating with The Children's Network. They want to create an animated show and a lineup of plush characters for Uggo the Puggo."
Brynn squealed and wrapped her arms around me. From across the room I spotted Cal, stretching his neck over to see what the hell his sister was doing. His eyes met mine, and for one second I felt a pang of something, something I wasn't quite sure what it was. Because even as Brynn and I were celebrating my triumphant return to New York City, the thought of leaving again had me strangely melancholy.
But Brynn was anything but. "Oh my God, okay, so I'm going to keep your secret," she said, bubbling over in drunken sincerity. "
Her eyes flashed and suddenly she whooped out loud, grabbing my arm and shaking me so hard my teeth clacked, which made me giggle.
Tell me again why I was scared of her?
"But I will make a bargain with you," Brynn warned.
I didn't like the sound of that. "A bargain?"
"I won't tell anyone you're going to have a TV show. If!" She raised a finger for punctuation. "If you come and do a talk to my classroom.
I heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh, that's it?" I was happy to help, happy to be lining up a classroom visit. Those were always my favorite part of the job, sitting and reading to kids and watching their mouths move as they spoke my words along with me. I fucking loved kids. "Of course! I'd love to."
I'd been in a warm half-buzz most of the day and was well on my way to getting hammered. I should drink some water, I thought to myself, then took another sip of the wine. Then I trailed off, remembering my last meeting with Cecily, my publishing agent. She'd been scaling back my visits, calling them a waste of time when we should be focusing on the "bigger picture."
"But my agent doesn't want me doing them anymore," I said.
Brynn sniffed. "Fuck your agent," she said dismissively. "You're a grown woman, you can do what you want."
I nodded firmly, knocking back the rest of my wine. "Damn straight I am," I announced, a little more loudly than I intended.
Just then, the text message alert went off from my phone.
"Excuse me," I said sneaking a peek. "Speak of the fucking devil," I laughed. "It's my agent."
"Tell her you're a grown woman who can do what she wants!" Brynn urged, peering over my shoulder. "Do it! Do it! Do it!" she chanted, pumping her fist. I had a momentary vision of her cheering Derek Granger on as he did a keg stand.
"No," I sighed. "That's not what she's texting about." I quickly scanned the screen. "She's reminding me to post something on social media about my trip."
Brynn rolled her eyes. "How annoying," she observed.
"No, it's easy." I turned in a quick circle and caught sight of the giant Christmas tree that Cal, Gray, and my brother had wrestled into the living room. "Perfect." I quickly snapped a shot of the Christmas tree, and posted it on Instagram with the caption, "What did Santa bring you?"
I leaned over and showed it
to Brynn. "There. Does this look properly wholesome enough for a children's book author?"
She leaned in. "So wholesome I want to barf," she said, nodding sagely.
I nodded back. "Good, let's go get more wine."
Chapter Five
Callum
Half the town was at this party, all crowded around the kitchen island like a plague of locusts on the hors d'oeuvres. I craned my neck to try to see Harper, but the second we walked in, Gray and I were cornered by Mrs. Collis, our formidable old eighth grade English teacher.
She was rambling out some long-winded, yet very eloquent complaint about the difficulties she had teaching the classics to unruly boys such as ourselves, when I spotted Harper across the room and my breath left my lungs like I'd been punched in the gut.
In that shiny red satin dress, Harper looked just like a present. Like a goddamned gift just waiting to be unwrapped. She was talking animatedly with my sister, completely oblivious to the effect she was having on me. I raised my beer to my mouth, needing something to calm me down. The way that dress hugged her curves...
I nearly jumped a fucking mile when something lightly brushed my arm. I looked down to see Mrs. McCabe tugging at my shirt. "Excuse me, Josie," she cooed, interrupting Mrs. Collis's rant. "But I need these boys."
I cleared my throat, trying to convince myself that there was no way she could know the thoughts I was thinking about her daughter. "Yes, what's up Anna?" I asked, my voice several octaves higher than normal.
She shook her head. "Will you boys please go see what the hell is wrong with Everett?" she sighed. "He got here this morning and everything was fine, but as soon as people started showing up, he holed himself upstairs like some kind of morose teenager. He's missing the party."
Gray looked at me. I shrugged. "I have no idea why," I sighed, "But that sure sounds like something Rett would do." I looked down at Anna's anxious face. "Don't worry Ma. We've got it."
Mrs. McCabe squeezed my arms. "I don't know what I do without you boys," she said, and fluttered off to refill drinks for the rest of the partygoers.
