by Vivian Lux
I was leaving tomorrow, and that was the best thing. I was leaving tomorrow and it couldn't come fast enough.
When the ceremony was finally over, I was the first to jump to my feet and start gathering my things.
Cal stood up immediately and helped me arrange my coat around my shoulders at the same time he bent to whisper in my ear. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I don't know, I'm not sure," I babbled.
"Do you want me to walk you out?" Cal asked.
"Do you need me to help you find the bathroom?" Gray piped up.
"No!" I yelped, drawing several scandalized stares from my relatives. I ducked my head then looked up again at both of them. I tried to look at Cal's blue eyes, but my gaze kept resting on his lips, and Gray's hand was sliding up my back, drawing heat with the barest of touches and fuck....
"Do you regret what happened with us?" Gray asked softly.
I pressed my lips together and tossed my hair behind my shoulder. I had to get control of the situation. I had to get control of myself before I fell off into some kind of precipice that I couldn't climb out of. "No, I don't regret it," I said tightly, keeping my voice low. "But it's a good thing I'm leaving, right?"
Cal looked at me sharply. "You think so?"
I swallowed and then swallowed again, but I couldn't get around the lump in my throat. "Well yeah," I said, trying for casual but only sounding desperate. "I mean, we sure made it awkward, huh? I mean God, what was I thinking? Coming back to my hometown only to have a one night stand?"
"One night stand?" Cal growled.
I looked at him and faltered. "Well... yeah?"
"That's what that was you?" Gray whispered.
I lifted my chin. "It was fun, but it was a fling, right? Something to try. So you can cross it off your bucket list." I winced again. "I have to go," I said to them both. "I have to go congratulate my parents." And I turned to get away from them before I lost my goddamned mind...
...again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Callum
"If you don't stop fiddling with your tie I'm going to choke you with it," I grumbled.
Gray looked startled for a moment and let his hands drop back to his lap. But soon enough, they started wandering back up to the solid gray necktie that I loaned him, and started twisting the knot again.
I sighed and leaned back in the booth. "Dude, you're going to do fine," I finally said.
Gray was looking off into the middle distance like he didn't hear me. "It's weird," he said carefully, like he was forming the words at the same time as the thought. "You start to buy into the whole, 'your worth is tied up with your job’ bullshit. I mean, it's only been two months, but look, I couldn't pay rent, I had to start depending on you..."
"Stop it, stop right there." I held up my hand. "You're fine. And any company would be lucky to have you."
Gray shot me a withering glance. "Well, we both know that's a lie."
"Right. I'm only trying to get you to stop talking about your feelings," I said. "You're a damned old woman sometimes."
Gray snorted, but that faraway look in his eyes was gone and that was all that mattered. His father had spent his whole childhood telling him he was a piece of shit so I knew that voice was in his head. The worst thing was when he started to listen to it. "Touché, you ornery bastard," Gray laughed. "I'll stop talking and save it for my journal."
"With the fuzzy pink cover."
"Oh that one's full of my poetry already," he grinned. "This new one has unicorns on it."
I chuckled and leaned forward, glancing over the menu again before closing it. We were back to giving each other shit, so that was all fine and normal. What wasn't normal was the thing we were strenuously avoiding talking about.
Harper.
I wasn't about to bring that whole thing up now, though. Not right before he had his interview. He'd been prepping for it for weeks now, making me quiz him on questions like what were his biggest strengths, and his biggest weaknesses, all that corporate bullshit. It was the kind of stuff that made me so glad I owned my own business and didn't have to deal with that. Yeah sure, I had a problem client sometimes, but it was my prerogative whether or not I got to fire them.
I couldn't imagine Gray working in an office. He'd always been more of a hands-on guy, and he genuinely loved his job at Melton's. It wasn't his fault that the old man finally closed up shop after all those years, just when Gray was starting to get some skills under his belt.
It was always hard to find work around here. Especially stuff that wasn't seasonal. I thought he'd end up going back to working in his father's farm there for a minute, but then he'd run into Carla Claymore from the Sweet Shoppe and she'd mentioned needing someone to help her with advertising. It was a weirdly good fit for him, not only because he could eat his weight in cake and not gain an ounce, but also because, as unpolished as he was, he was damn good at making you like him. I was proud of him for landing the interview. Maybe the dude was finally growing up.
Fat chance, I thought as I looked down and saw that he was methodically scrunching up the wrapper of his straw and dropping water on it so it looked like a winding snake.
"More coffee, guys?"
I looked up to see Charlie, the hostess here at Bob and Lou's. The bags under her eyes were so dark she looked like she'd been bruised. "Nah, we're good," I told her. "Thanks sweetheart," I said, resolving to leave an extra twenty in her tip.
"How's the baby?" Gray piped up.
I shook my head, feeling like an asshole. I'd looked at her and thought she looked tired. But Gray made the leap that it probably had something to do with the four-month old she was raising alone. Sometimes I'm a dense motherfucker.
"He's cute when he sleeps," Charlie sighed, reaching over to pour more coffee into my cup, even though I hadn't asked for it. "When he sleeps."
"How old is he? Four months right?"
She nodded tiredly.
"I hear that's the worst time for sleep, they regress or something like that, I don't know. It'll get better, I swear."
Charlie looked at Gray and sort of blinked at him like he'd suddenly materialized in front of her. "Thanks," she said. "Everyone tells me that it's only going to get worse."
"You can't believe that. That's the kind of thinking that leads you to dark places," he said emphatically.
"Yeah, I've been there," Charlie muttered and then looked up startled, and rushed off without saying goodbye.
"That chick has been dealt a rough hand," Gray declared.
I looked down at my plate. Here he'd been dealt a pretty rough hand himself, but he was concerned with someone else. That was why doing things like taking him in, driving him around, and taking him out for breakfast before his big interview were all easy for me to do.
I took another sip of my coffee and then looked up at the front entrance, where there was some sort of commotion going on. A woman bustled her way in, taking up too much room with a big carry-on suitcase.
"Harper?" I barked out, and splashed coffee right into my lap. Gray whipped around, following my gaze. "What the fuck?"
We both leaped to our feet and rushed to her. She had her back to us and was ordering at the to-go counter. Gray reached her first.
"Is that a suitcase?" he said by way of hello.
Harper whipped around, looking like a trapped animal. And suddenly I realized something. "Were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?" I said, heart sinking.
She bit her lip, and looked around guiltily. She dropped her voice. "Guys. Please..."
"Please what? Are you on your way to the airport, right now?" What's with the suitcase?" Gray said, still fixated on the giant piece of luggage on the floor.
She sighed. "Yeah, I have to go to the airport."
"So you were going to leave without saying goodbye," I realized.
She looked up and blinked, her eyes glimmering. "It was just, it was fun, it was great, it was just you know a one night stand type of thing. Yo
u got your lives, I've got mine, and I have to get back..."
"You're just trying to convince yourself that," Gray growled.
I stepped forward. "We're not just some guys, Harper. I thought you knew that.
Her eyes spilled over and suddenly two tears tracked down her cheeks. "I knew that. I do know that," she said, and she sounded like she was choking on the words. "That's why I have to go."
"When is your flight?" Gray interjected.
"I fly out at 3:20, but it's a two-hour drive and I have to get through security and all that..." she babbled.
Gray looked at me. "Let us drive you up there," he said
I looked at him startled. "What about your interview?" I hissed.
Gray looked at me, looked at Harper, then back at me again. "This more important," he finally said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grayson
Since I am almost a gentleman, I offered Harper the passenger seat, and settled for folding myself nearly in half to fit in the back of Cal's pick up. I hated that I had to sit back here, like some kind of fucking third wheel in all of this, but once I realized that I could brush Harper's hair back from her neck, and kiss her shoulder as she talked, I felt much better.
"It's just, I have to get back," she said, and I couldn't help but hate the way her hands fluttered in her lap. I hadn't seen that nervous tic of hers the whole time she'd been home, but now that we were on our way to the airport, she was back at it again, that same folding and twisting and turning of her fingers that she did whenever she fretted about something. Back, before...all this, I used to wish that I could grab her hand and kiss them still, and even though I knew I could now, I just couldn't quite reach from back here. Goddammit.
"I have to get back, it was actually a really big risk coming here in the first place."
"How the hell was it a risk?" Cal said angrily. Harper and I both turned to stare at him. "What?" he fumed, glancing at us. "You came home for the holidays. How the hell is that a risk?"
"Well," Harper said, lifting her chin a little bit. "Literally the second I was about to leave, my agent came up to me and informed me that we were entering talks. My book is being optioned by the Children's Television Network."
"Hey..." Cal said, sort of trailing off at the end.
"You watch the Children's Television Network?" I teased. "You sound impressed"
"Don't be an ass. My sister's school kids are like, addicted to that channel."
Harper nodded. "Right. They're a big fucking deal. And they are in talks not only for a ten show season to start, but also to work with a toy company on licensing the characters from my book."
"Wow," I heard myself say. There was this weird, sort of gliding sensation, where two realities existed simultaneously. Harper, the girl next door, the girl I'd always love to tease, the one I’d pined for. And Harper, this confident woman in front of me, who, unbeknownst to me, was rising to the very top of her career, very, very fast. I shook my head as if to resolve the sudden double vision.
But she was still the same woman. A very, very impressive woman.
"So that's cool," Cal said. He still sounded pissed off though.
"I know," Harper said. "I should've stayed. I should have been on the phone, marketing, making contacts and charming them with my winning personality and all that..." She trailed off into a hysterical laugh. "But I really wanted to come home and just take a break from it all for one second and now I'm afraid that I torpedoed my chances of achieving all the stuff I've been working toward."
"I'm sure you didn't," I said reassuringly.
She twisted in her seat to look back at me. "You say that, but my agent is saying something different. I sort of went a little the dark over the holidays, radio silence is really bad in this industry. You have to keep engagement up, always new content, all this crap that I just feel so bogged down by." She looked at me imploringly. "It was really nice to kind of escape from all that, but I need to stop hiding. If I'm going to achieve any of these goals, I need to be there. In New York City. I need to be there in the meetings, letting people meet me, shaking hands and smiling and all that shit."
I sat back, not knowing what to say. My knee was jammed into the back of her seat, my other braced against the back of Cal's seat, and a little tiny nudge of claustrophobia was starting to close in. She was right. All the stuff she'd been working for was finally happening. All the stuff I hadn't realized she'd been doing behind the scenes to achieve the success she had was finally coming to fruition. It would be pretty freaking terrible to keep her at home. As appealing as it was to think of her forever chained to my bed — or... our bed... or whatever the hell was going on — I couldn't do that.
I looked out the window.
Whatever this thing was — strange as it was — it wasn't wrong. That was pretty clear. In fact, I sort of even liked the idea of having a second pair of hands that let me do to her all the things I wanted to. I could do even more with her body this way. Back on New Year's, it had actually turned me on once or twice to see what Cal was doing to her. And — God strike me down on the spot if I ever admitted it — I'd even learned a few tricks that my best friend had up his sleeve, that I planned on making my own. Cal was a smart dude, methodical as hell and it didn't surprise me that a bossy motherfucker like him would be more into a little bit of the kinky shit. Spanking her...I would have never thought to do that, but goddamn was I grateful to have seen it.
I wanted to see him do it again.
But it wasn't going to happen.
We were shooting up the expressway now, only five minutes away from the airport, our time together coming rapidly to an end. Harper leaned forward craning her neck to look out the front windshield. "I always like this, right here," she said pointing. I could hear the desperate note in her voice to try to keep things light, easy. Keep the conversation from going into some serious place.
So I indulged her by leaning forward. "What, the lights?"
"Yeah, see how they're all short right here? So they don't get hit by the incoming planes?"
I nodded. "They look silly," I observed.
She twisted to smile at me. "I don't think they look silly at all. When I was a kid we used to fly out of this airport, I always thought of it as such a hallmark of the big city. Now I really am off to one." Her voice trailed off wistfully.
Cal took the ramp around the airport to the passenger drop-off then pulled over to the side. Cal and I stumbled and scrambled over each other to pull her suitcase from the back of the truck, even though giving it to her meant she was really leaving us.
Harper stood on the sidewalk, bundled into her coat, her hair swinging in the sharp, biting wind. It was freezing out here, but we all stood in place like statues, staring. I felt like I needed to memorize her, but it wasn't this memory that I wanted to keep. I wanted to remember her naked body and the way her cries sounded as she tried to keep quiet. I wanted to remember her waking up next to me and smiling before she kissed me. I'd been waiting for that moment my whole goddamned life.
Harper looked from Cal, to me, then back to Cal again. Then she leaned forward and pressed a long kiss to Cal's lips, I waited, drumming on my thighs. My fear from that morning was coming true. We'd left the room and the spell was broken, and now we'd never get it back.
Then she twisted. I leaned forward and her lips caught mine. I took her chin in my hands to tilt her mouth up so that I could take as much of that sweetness against me as I could.
I kissed her as long as I possibly could, for as long as she could stand to stay there in the cold.
Then she pulled away. "Bye," she breathed.
Then she grabbed her suitcase and turned to the revolving door and walked out of our lives again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Harper
It'd been two and a half weeks since I returned from Reckless Falls and New York City still didn't make any fucking sense to me.
No matter how hard I tried, I kept missing appointments, spacing
details, and sending Cecily into paroxysms of tight-lipped, smiling rage. It was like I'd forgotten how to be Harper McCabe, Children’s Book Author, the woman I thought was me. My old self was competent, capable and wholesome and completely devoted to her career and her brands. This new self was a walking fucking disaster who couldn't get her shit sorted no matter how hard she tried to sit down and focus.
The subway car gave a sickening lurch sideways and I grabbed for the pole, not even caring that I didn’t' have hand sanitizer. The rocking, swaying motion of the subway had been bothering me more and more each day. I clung to the pole dizzily and tried to get my head on straight but the thoughts wouldn't coalesce in my brain. God, I owed storyboards to...who? Somebody... Who the hell did I owe storyboards to?
The car lurched again and I stumbled a little and sat down heavily on an empty seat. I looked up and caught the eye of an old woman scowling at me. Or maybe that was just the way her face looked with its heavily drawn on eyebrows. I couldn't tell and it made me laugh. I wished I had my sketchbook out so I could draw her really quickly, but with the way my stomach was acting, there was no way I could look down without puking on my shoes like a drunk. But then again, maybe I should sketch her, so I could bring it to...whoever it was that needed it.
The sway of the train brought a nauseous feeling to my stomach as I realized I could not for the life of me remember who it was that I owed work to. This would have never happened before I went to back to Reckless Falls.
The blare of the loudspeaker announcing the next stop made me jump to my feet. I tried to push my way to the front of the to the door, but they were two men blocking my way. "Excuse me?" I called. "This is my stop."
