Work of Art

by Monica Alexander

  “No, we were just talking,” I told her, and her face fell. “We’re just friends – for now.”

  I felt the need to add that just in case Kelly was in the mood to put in a plug for me. I needed all the support I could get to prove to Harper how I felt, and getting in good with her friends would be a positive step.

  Kelly shook her head. “That’s too bad. Feel free to go in and surprise her if you want.”

  My eyebrows rose, and there was a definite reaction from below my waist at the thought of seeing Harper naked in the shower.

  “Seriously?” I asked when Kelly didn’t say she was kidding.

  Then she laughed. “No, she’d kill me if she knew I told you to do that, but you can wait out here.”

  She gestured to the living room, so I went and sat on the couch. “So, uh, you guys have plans today?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, we’re going shopping and then to lunch.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Why, did you want to have plans with her?”

  Harper had plans. That sucked. It looked like my whole ‘smother her until she realized I was serious about being with her’ plan was going to be put on hold. Damn.

  “Um, I wanted to have plans with her,” I said

  “Did you ask her to do something?” Kelly clarified.

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. I just sort of woke up and wanted to see her. I actually thought we could maybe spend the day together or something. I don’t know. She said she just wants to be friends, and I guess I’m cool with that, but I figured maybe if we got out of town, away from the city then, I don’t know . . . I sort figured we’d go out to wine country or something . . .”

  I drifted off when I realized I was just rambling. I wasn’t exactly sure what my intentions were when I’d gotten up and driven over to Harper’s apartment. I just wanted to see her, be near her, because I’d felt an all out pull toward her since she’d hugged me the night before, giving my muddled, hopeful brain a spark of encouragement.

  “Really?” Kelly asked, her eyebrows rising in question. “That sounds . . . romantic.”

  I smirked at her. “Not romantic necessarily, just remote, I guess.”

  Kelly nodded, as if finally understanding where I was coming from. “So you’re hoping that if you get her alone and spend some time with her, then she’ll finally admit that she has feelings for you.”

  I looked at her coyly, hoping she’d maybe share a little insider friend information. I was dying to know what Harper had said about me.

  “I’m sort of hoping she’ll realize she has feelings for me. I know she does, but I don’t think she’s ready to come to terms with that reality yet.”

  Kelly eyed me speculatively for a few seconds. “Here’s the deal, Ryan. I know things were really screwed up between you guys, and neither of you was at fault, and because you aren’t the asshole I once thought you were, I’m willing to help you out. We – me, Julian, Devin and Brandon, all think that you and Harper belong together, and we know she has feelings for you, but she’s guarded her heart for years. She doesn’t let people in easily, so if you love her, you’ll respect that and let her come to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t overwhelm her with telling her how you feel. She knows you love her, and if she knows that and she’s willing to be your friend, then that means she trusts you, but if you push her, she’ll run.”

  I took a deep breath, realizing I was basically walking a very thin line, and if I slipped I’d lose my chance with Harper.

  “So what do you suggest I do? Was coming over a bad idea?”

  Please say no.

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t think so. She was in a really good mood this morning, and I’m willing to bet that had something to do with last night, so I’d capitalize on that if I were you.”

  My ears perked up. “Okay.”

  “Stick your head into the bathroom, tell her you ran into me as I was leaving her apartment because I was sick, and see if she wants to hang out. If she says no, let it go, but if she says yes, just be her friend and have fun with her, okay? Don’t pressure her.”

  I nodded. “I can do that.”

  I just hoped she wouldn’t say no. I was so keyed up, that all my nervous energy would be for naught if Harper turned me down.

  “Good luck,” Kelly said, rising from her chair. She started to walk toward the door before turning back around to face me. “Be good to her. Remember how much she went through, and know that if she lets you in, and you hurt her, I’ll chop your balls off.”

  I winced involuntarily. “Noted, and for the record, I’ll never hurt her.”

  I hated that Harper had distrusted me for so long and thought I had hurt her. I needed to be sure she knew I wasn’t that guy.

  “I hope not,” Kelly said before she let herself out through the front door.

  I took a deep breath and then stood, walking toward Harper’s bedroom. When I reached the doorway, I could hear her singing in the shower, and a smile crept up on my face. She was singing Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins way off-key, and I sincerely hoped it was because she was thinking of me.

  I knocked on the closed bathroom door, but she must not have heard me, so I slowly opened the door, the thick steam in the room smacking me in the face.

  “Harper?”

  She abruptly stopped singing and didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

  “Ryan?” she asked, and I could hear the disbelief in her tone and hoped it was a good thing.

  “Yeah. Hey.”

  “Hey,” she called back. “Where’s Kelly?”

  “She, uh, got sick. I ran into her on her way out of the apartment, and she asked me to tell you. She said she thought she had food poisoning or something.”

  “Oh, no. Poor thing.”

  “Yeah, she looked really green,” I said, embellishing just enough.

  “Oh, well, I guess my day’s shot then.”

  I smiled.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked then, and I could imagine her scrunching her face up in question.

  I leaned against the door frame and crossed my arms casually in front of my chest. “I came to take you to lunch.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. I was sort of going to surprise you – so, surprise.”

  She stuck her wet head out from behind the shower curtain, and I could see rivulets of water running down her cheeks.

  “That’s really sweet,” she said, and as soon as she said it, my heart soared.

  I was in. I was in, and I just had to play my cards right if I wanted to stay there.

  “Alright, cool,” I said as calmly as I could while on the inside I was doing a happy dance. “I’ll just, ah, let you finish your shower, and I’ll be out in the living room.”

  “Give me twenty minutes,” she said and winked at me before sliding back behind the shower curtain again.

  I closed the bathroom door, stood there for a few seconds taking deep breaths and then went back out to the living room to sit on the couch and wait.

  Thirty minutes later, I was thumbing through some photography books Harper had on her coffee table when she emerged from her bedroom wearing a light green sundress. My heart started pounding when she smiled at me, and I knew I was so far gone that I wasn’t ever coming back, and if she didn’t love me, I was a wasted man.

  “Hey beautiful,” I said, hoping I wasn’t overstepping my bounds.

  I wanted to heed Kelly’s warning, but I couldn’t help it. Harper looked beautiful.

  “Hey you,” she said, as she grabbed her denim jacket from a nearby barstool and shrugged it on, before sliding her feet into a pair of brown oxfords. “Where are you taking me for lunch? I’m starving.”

  Back to your bedroom so I can devour you. I’m starving too, but in a whole different way.

  I mentally shook my head to shake out the very inappropriate images of Harper laid out naked beneath me on her bed, her hair fanning out ov
er her pillows, and her body open for me to touch, taste and savor. If she let me, I would seriously devour her.

  “I was thinking we could go out to Sonoma. I figure we could get a few bottles of wine from Brandon’s winery, get some salads, some really good cheese and a loaf of French bread and have a picnic.”

  She looked at me curiously, the corners of her mouth turning up just enough to let me know she didn’t hate the idea.

  “Ryan Carson, that sounds very romantic.”

  I shrugged with fake nonchalance. “I wasn’t aiming for romantic. I’m just a sucker for good wine and good food and really good company.”

  “We’re just friends,” she cautioned, as she strode past me to the front door.

  “I know,” I told her, as I got up from the couch. “But I’m kind of a romantic guy at heart, so I can’t help it. Trust me, if Brandon was going to lunch with me today, he’d get the same treatment.”

  She laughed, and I relished the sound of it.

  “Are you sure you and Brandon don’t have feelings for each other? You’d make a cute couple.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. He’s really not my type.”

  “Okay,” she said, but she was smirking.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Harper

  Ryan had surprised me by showing up at my apartment that morning, and he continued to surprise me as we drove out to wine country with the top down on his Porsche, the wind whipping my hair around.

  I looked over at him as he shifted and accelerated once we got over the Golden Gate. He smiled at me before turning back to the road, and I knew I was in trouble. I was fighting so hard to just be friends, to make sure he wasn’t trying to rebound with me, but my defenses were starting to crumble.

  He’d already unsettled me the night before, and I’d figured all I needed was a good night’s sleep to regain control of my emotions, but it seemed sleep hadn’t helped. I had a burning urge to reach out and take his hand, to feel my fingers laced with his, but I kept my hands firmly in my lap where they belonged.

  He played music most of the way out to Sonoma, so we didn’t talk, but it would have been too hard anyway with the wind blowing around us. I liked the mellow beat of The Mumford and Sons album he’d chosen since their music always put me in a good mood.

  We made a brief stop off at a local deli where Ryan made me stay in the car while he went inside, and fifteen minutes later, he came out with two grocery bags of who knows what, but he was grinning as he set them in the backseat while I turned around and ogled his bare legs that stuck out of his khaki shorts.

  He was so casual in such a preppy way that I just wanted to stare at him, but I had to be careful. Although he gave the pretense of understanding we were just friends, I knew the whole day was part of what he’d promised me – that he wouldn’t stop until I admitted I loved him, and even though knowing that made me tell myself to keep my guard up, I wasn’t really listening to my own directions.

  Ryan smiled at me as he got back into the car, shifted it into reverse and pulled out of the gravel parking lot.

  “You’re fairly impressed with yourself,” I teased him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked as he turned left onto the country road we’d traveled in on.

  I turned in my seat to angle toward him. “You put some thought into today’s outing.”

  He shrugged mildly, and I wondered if he was playing it off for my benefit. I continued to watch him, following the sharp line of his jaw while resisting the urge to reach out and place my hand on his stubbly cheek. He had that sexy ‘I haven’t shaved in two days’ growth that only certain men can get, and he wore it so well.

  After a few minutes he turned to me. “Thanks for hanging out with me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He smiled and turned back to the road, and I wondered why he was playing it so close to the vest. Had something shifted between last night and today? Was he truly honoring the ‘let’s be friends and see how that goes’ request I’d made? I didn’t expect him to sit back so passively, but I was sort of glad he was doing it. I knew how he felt. He didn’t need to tell me.

  When we arrived at Brandon’s winery a few minutes later I realized how different it looked since the last time I’d been there in the dark. The house was actually way back on the property, and you had to drive past the tasting room, the building where they made the wine and the actually vineyards before you could even see it. I’d mindlessly driven past it all a few weeks earlier when I’d been going to meet Brandon’s plumber. Now I looked around and really took in the breathtaking beauty of the place.

  Ryan got out of the car, and I followed him around to the front. Almost instinctively, his hand drifted toward mine, but as soon as our skin connected, he pulled back as if he realized he should do that. Then he wouldn’t look at me as we walked up the wooden steps to the porch of the tasting room that had four rocking chairs sitting on it, and I had to stifle a laugh.

  “What?” Ryan asked, playfully smirking when he turned to look at me.

  I shook my head. “Brandon has rocking chairs. It’s weird.”

  He chuckled. “I know, right. He’s definitely not the rocking chair type. Unless he’s using them for sex.”

  I knew Ryan had made that comment as a joke since we both knew what a man-whore Brandon was, but my body didn’t know that. I felt heat rush between my thighs at his statement, and instantly my brain imagined trapping him in one of those chairs and rocking him slowly back and forth toward ecstasy.

  I realized that Ryan was expecting me to respond, so I jokingly said, “Yeah, I know, right. That Brandon is such a slut.” But it came out sounding awkward.

  When we entered the tasting room, I was surprised to see Brandon behind the counter pouring wine for three girls in their early twenties.

  “Speak of the slut himself,” Ryan whispered in my ear, his warm breath caressing my skin and making it tingle.

  “What the fuck are you two doing here?” Brandon’s voice suddenly boomed when he looked up and saw us.

  “We’re here to get sloshed on your wine, bro,” Ryan told him, as Brandon came out from behind the counter and hugged him.

  Then he moved over to me. As he wrapped his arms around me, he whispered in my ear, “Are you giving him a chance?”

  “We’re just friends,” I whispered back.

  “Yeah, we’ll see how long that’ll last,” Brandon said before he released me.

  Yeah, I know.

  Thankfully Ryan had stepped up to the counter, so he was out of earshot. “What do you recommend?”

  “The pinot is really good,” one of the girls said to Ryan, and I noticed she’d sidled up next to him and had placed her hand on his forearm.

  My hackles suddenly rose, and the feelings of jealously that poured over me caught me by surprise.

  “Is it?” he asked, gently pulling his arm away from her hand, and I wanted to smile. He turned to me. “Did you hear that, Harper? The pinot is really good.”

  Then he put his arm around me and pulled me flush against his side. It wasn’t a gesture I’d been expecting, but a part of me really wanted to stick my tongue out at the girl who was now awkwardly standing next to him.

  “Here, try it yourselves,” Brandon said, placing two glasses in front of us as Ryan let his arm drop from my shoulders.

  Ryan picked up his glass, sniffed it, and then he took a sip. I was glad he didn’t do the douchy swirling and examining and tasting display that I knew he was accustomed to doing. I’d seen him do it at his rehearsal dinner when the waiter had presented that night’s selection of wine, and it was so pretentious.

  “That’s good,” he said, then he turned to me. “What do you think?”

  I’d been watching him taste and swallow, so I hadn’t even touched my glass. “Oh, um,” I said, hurriedly picking up my glass and taking a big gulp. I swallowed so quickly I could barely taste anything. Damn, he had me really flustered.

  I held up a thumb to let him k
now I liked it.

  Ryan chuckled. “Did you even taste it?”

  “Yeah, sure. It was great,” I said quickly after I’d swallowed the mouthful.

  He turned back to Brandon. “Alright, we’ll take a bottle of that.”

  Brandon pulled a bottle from underneath the counter and set it behind him.

  “When did you start working in your own tasting room?” I asked him as he started to open a bottle of what looked like a red blend.

  His gaze shifted to the three girls at the end of the counter. The blond had migrated back to her friends once she realized Ryan wasn’t going to entertain her advances.

  “Since I realized I could meet really hot chicks,” he said, and I rolled my eyes. “I’m kidding! I like it. It’s cool to connect with the customers, and I’m learning about the wines I own and sell, so that’s a bonus. Besides, I needed something to do. I’ve worked so much for the past eleven years that I don’t know how to not work.”

  “Maybe you need a girlfriend to keep you busy,” I suggested, and he waved his hand in dismissal.

  “If I had a girlfriend, I couldn’t sleep with multiple women in a week. I was hoping I’d have a wingman after Ry called off his wedding, but I don’t think–”

  Brandon stopped talking suddenly, and I looked up to see Ryan making slashing motions against his throat with his hand.

  “Since Ry what?” I prompted.

  “Since Ry decided he wanted to try some more wine,” Ryan said, reaching for the glass in front of him and swigging back a gulp. “Try it.”

  He was practically choking as he gestured to the glass in front of me.

  I bit back my giggle and picked up the glass in front of me, giving him the benefit of trying to do right by my request and just be friends. He was really working hard at it, and he deserved credit for his efforts.

  “We’ll take two of these, Brandon,” I told him. “And give us another bottle of that pinot, okay?” Then I turned to Ryan. “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat lunch.”

  Brandon handed me the two bottles of the red blend I’d asked for, and I walked outside to the car, leaving Ryan to pay for them and the two bottles of pinot.

  I was standing by the car when Ryan came up behind me. He placed the two bottles he’d carried out in the backseat, his arms reaching around me on either side and essentially trapping me for a few seconds.