“They already did, love. This thing with LSU is just a fantasy. Only the best of the best get chosen, and I’m just … me.”
“Oh please. If you only knew what you were—”
“I’d have a much bigger head.” He grabs my hand and runs tiny kisses from my wrist to the tips of my fingers, and then he settles our interlocked hands on his knee while he drives. “Enough talk of football—I’d much rather talk about what I’m going to do to you when I sneak in your bedroom window tonight.” I blush from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair as I meet his mischievous gaze. He grins. “Or we could just drive somewhere now and get busy in my truck.”
I roll my eyes and elbow him in the stomach. He feigns hurt, but I know my little elbows hardly make a dint in that wall of muscle.
“Don’t tell my parents about LSU,” he blurts out fifteen minutes later as he turns from Noe Street onto 29th. “I don’t want to get their hopes up. No more talk.”
“No more talk,” I agree, though my thoughts have other ideas. When we pull in the drive, Rochelle comes racing out of the house, shrieking with joy. I glance at Dean, who’s beaming at us through the windshield, and my heart sinks. They know. Coach Reinhart must have called them.
Harley climbs out of the truck and they both sweep him up in a huge hug. I slowly exit the car and cross the pavement to my house.
“I’ll see you later, Harley,” I say, but I don’t think he hears me over Rochelle’s shrieking. My parents aren’t home yet, which I’m thankful for because I don’t think I could deal with Mom’s questions right now when I don’t have the answers to any of them, so I trudge upstairs to my room and lock myself away, flopping down on the bed and throwing myself into school work.
An hour later, there’s a ping against the open window, and a wadded up piece of paper lands on my floor. I tuck my pencil behind my ear, stand up and walk over to it, unfolding the page and reading the text written in bold black Sharpie.
Wendy,
Forgive me?
Pan.
I smile sadly down at the note. There’s nothing to forgive. When I glance up, Harley stands at the window dressed in a blue button-down that’s rolled at the sleeves and stretched tightly against his broad chest. Growing up, he’d always been taller than me, but between puberty and football he’s filled out everywhere. Gone is the tall and slightly gangly boy I knew, who might’ve blown away in a strong SF wind. Instead, at eighteen he is a man, an athlete at his physical peak with plenty of hard-won muscle, an exquisitely chiseled face, and his hair a messy mop of tawny curls atop his head. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that the boy next door was ever a boy at all.
I brace my hands against the sill and lean out, appraising him appreciatively. “Fancy.”
“Dinner at The Dragon. You wanna come?”
“Nah, I’ve got schoolwork to do,” I say, and smile half-heartedly. “Besides, your parents have been waiting for this moment since you started your illustrious football career as a pee wee; you should give them that.”
He frowns, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Enjoy it, Harley,” I encourage, though it breaks my heart to do so. “How often can you say all your dreams have just come true?”
“Every day you let me between those gorgeous thighs of yours.” He gives me one of those impish grins, and fear beats a stake through my heart because I wonder if one day soon he’ll look at other girls like that. What if we can’t make it work when we’re two thousand miles apart?
“Get out of here,” I say, throwing my pencil at him. It bounces off of his chest and falls into the small gap between our houses. I can’t count how many pencils I’ve lost this way; I half expected them to pile up over the years so that all I had to do when I needed a HB was reach out the window.
Rochelle calls him from downstairs, and he turns toward his door shouting, “Just a second.”
He turns his attention back to me and leans across the gap with pursed lips. I lean out too until my lips meet his in a strained and heady kiss. Falling from this height has always been a fear of mine.
“I’ll come over later, and we’ll watch a movie.”
“Okay,” I say, and give him a stern look when his mother calls him for a second time. “Go.”
“I love you, Rose Perry,” he crows like a madman. I roll my eyes and step back from the window. “Rose, say it.”
“Go.” I make a shooing gesture with my hands. “Before your mom has kittens.”
“Not until you say it.” He fiddles with his phone, and I think he can’t be all that serious about it because I only have half of his attention.
“Fine,” I say impatiently. “I love you too.”
“Say it properly.”
I throw my hands up, exasperated. “Oh my god, you’re annoying.”
“Say it.”
“I love you too, Harley.”
“I love you too, Harley,” his phone echoes back to us.
I give him a death glare because he knows I can’t stand the sound of my own voice when it’s been recorded. “I’m deleting that the second I get my hands on it.”
He shoves the phone down his pants. I fold my arms across my chest and walk away from the window, back to my studies.
“You love me. I have it on record,” he singsongs. Seconds later, Rochelle calls him again, and he shouts, “I’m coming!”
“Would you go already?”
“In a hurry to get rid of me, huh?” He smiles sadly, and it’s then that I know, he’s already made up his mind. LSU, Alabama, Ohio State—it doesn’t matter which school he accepts. Coach Reinhart would have sent his tapes to them all. Harley will be leaving SF for good, because there’s no way he won’t move onto being one of the NFL’s most coveted players.
***
In the morning, I don’t wake to kisses on my face and neck like I usually do. Instead, I’m freezing my boobs off as a cool SF breeze sneaks in my open window. My covers are gone, likely kicked off in the middle of the night, and since I didn’t have a body cuddled up behind me on my narrow single bed, I seem to have woken with a sniffle. I get up to slam the window closed when something catches my eye—his window. Or more specifically, his drawn blinds. He never draws the blinds. Never.
I head down to breakfast in such a foul mood that even my dad looks afraid as he peers over the edges of his Saturday morning paper while sitting at the table. “Bad sleep?”
I just look at him. It’s childish, I know. But goddamn it, it’s my right as a teen, and I hardly ever play the teen card, preferring instead to speak my mind no matter the consequences. Mom and Dad share a dithering look across the table and I squawk something about them not understanding what it’s like to be a girl genius with infuriatingly basic parents. Even though my mom is kind of a lush now, before leaving her career to be a stay-at-home mom, she curated one of SF’s most successful art galleries, and my dad didn’t become the head of pediatric surgery at Oakland based on his looks. So naturally, they both burst into peals of laughter as I stomp back up the stairs and throw myself into my room, slamming the door shut behind me.
Harley sits on my bed, nursing his head in his hands as he glances across at me with the same confused expression my parents wore only seconds ago.
“Hey,” he says, patting the mattress beside him.
I’m too wired, and too angry to sit down right now, so I pace. “Hey yourself.”
“You’re angry with me,” he says, and it isn’t a question.
“I’m not angry. I just have things to do.”
“On a Saturday? I’m an asshole, I know … Could you stop pacing? You’re giving me a headache.” I stand still, my arms folded against my chest and my glare practically burning a hole through his irritatingly pretty face. “Okay, I’m not sure that’s any better, but you are damn cute when you’re mad.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come over. Coach happened to be at The Dragon last night, along w
ith Nick Raban; he invited me and my parents to join him. I swear to god, you’d have puked with the way they talked about me. Anyway, after dinner I ran into Watson and Ben, and they dragged me out to a party to celebrate.”
“Whose party?” I demand.
He swallows hard and glances at the window as if he’s looking for an emergency exit. “Riley’s.”
My whole body just deflates, and not in any way that means I’m relieved. “You went to a party at your ex-girlfriend’s house without me?”
“Come on, Rose, it wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, then?”
He rakes a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture. “It just happened.”
“Oh, you’re really making this so much better.”
He shakes his head, his expression just as irritated as I’m sure mine is. “That’s not what I meant. Nothing happened.”
“You know what? I have … things, so if you could just go—”
“Rose,” he says softly.
“What?”
He takes a step toward me, and I take one back. We repeat this dance another three times until I leap over the bed in an attempt to get away, and he scoops me up and throws me down on the soft mattress. “It was just a party.”
“Yeah, and she’s just your ex. Your hot, long-legged, perfecter-than-thou ex.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of dating her or back in? I’m confused.” He smirks, and a part of me wants to punch him in his pretty face.
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t. I have it on tape.”
“Screw you.”
“Okay,” he whispers in my ear, and then kisses my neck.
I know I shouldn’t think this way, but I already feel as if he’s slipping away. Nick Raban coming all this way to meet with him is possibly the greatest thing that will ever happen to Harley, and I’m so proud. I’m happy for him, but I’m also dying. We’re dying. Little by little, we’re coming closer to the end. A part of me wants to scream and shout that we had plans, that he’s breaking all of the promises we made one another in these last few heady weeks, and that everything we dreamed of is going up in smoke because of some stupid football game.
I know that’s not fair, though. I know if the situation was reversed, Harley would be nothing but supportive of me, even if it killed him, even if it broke his heart, and so I push down those feelings. I tamp down the frustration and the fear and the anger and I smile, even though my heart is breaking.
I let him push my shirt up my body until his fingers brush my nipples and cause gooseflesh to break out all over me, and I kiss him long and slow and sweet. Louisiana is two thousand miles away and I’ll need as many memories as I can get to keep me warm at night when he’s not here to jump in through my window.
I let him make love to me with my parents downstairs and my door unlocked because to hell with the consequences. I love him, and the weight in my bones tells me that what we have, what we’ve made here, has an expiration date, and though that thought breaks my heart, I grab hold of the time we do have, and I don’t let go. I know he can sense my unease, because I feel his, too. I have no doubt that he loves me, and moving across the country doesn’t necessarily mean the end for us, but I know he feels the big, scary indecision of it all just as heavily as I do.
After my parents have left, Dad to golf and Mom to her book club meeting, Harley and I spend the day hiding out in my room watching old movies. Our kisses are slow and tempered, and our hands frenetic in our exploration of one another. It’s a perfect day, but I have no doubt it will be one of the last.
Chapter Thirteen
Rose
I am hungover. Being hungover while dealing with airport security is never fun, and even though we don’t have to wait in those ridiculously long international lines, I still need it like a hole in the head. I’m fidgety and cranky and still not talking to Harley.
Maybe that is childish, but I don’t know how else to handle the situation. I don’t have a single thing to say to him. I love him. After last night he knows that now with one hundred percent certainty, but on some level he had to have known that I loved him back then, and still he chose to marry someone else. I don’t blame him for not being in love with me; I blame him for thinking we could have meaningless vacation sex without me losing my head. I blame him for making me want to forget my morals and forge ahead with it anyway, even though it would destroy me in the long run. And I blame him for putting me in a position where I had to say no to him even though I wanted it so badly, because if I didn’t there would be nothing left of us to salvage by the time he was finished.
The security officer waves me through the gate and I collect my phone, kindle, and purse from the conveyor belt. We make our way through the airport, then Harley grabs our suitcases from the turnstile and we climb into his truck. I feel the Zen slowly start creeping in as we drive through Glen Park, and the late afternoon fog blankets the city.
Harley seems to be slowing down the closer we get to my apartment, and when he pulls up to the curb, he turns to me. “So listen, thanks for coming on my honeymoon with me.”
And all Zen is gone, replaced instead by rage and hurt, injustice, and a lot of stabby feelings. “Sure, no problem.” I reach for the handle of my door, but Harley’s hand grasps mine and I turn to glare at him.
“Rose, I know I screwed up, on more than one occasion, but we need to talk this through. I’ll give you some time to cool off, and tomorrow night I’ll come over and—”
“No.” I pull my arm free, tired of the liberties he constantly takes with me.
A hard crease forms between his brows and I can tell he’s trying not to lose patience. “What do you mean no?”
“I need some space. I need to clear my head and figure out what’s best for me, and I can’t do that with you around, so … no. I’ll call you when I’m over it.” I say those last two words with as much venom as I can muster towards this man. If I were capable of it, I’d dig the knife deeper, but I’ve never wanted to hurt him a day in my life.
Choke the life out of him, maybe ...
I climb out of the truck and head for the back where my suitcase lays next to his. Harley stays in the car a moment longer, as if he’s collecting his breath, and then he jumps out and rounds the truck to face me. I grasp the handle of the case and attempt to lift it upwards, but he puts his hand flat against it and slams it back down.
“Wait a goddamn minute, Rose. I’m not letting you walk away from me again, you got it? You’re mad; I get that. I hurt you and I’m sorry, but I won’t let you push me away. Tomorrow night, you and I are doing this whether you like it or not.”
“No, we’re not.” I take a step back, because my blood is boiling and I don’t trust myself not to punch him in his perfect face.
“The hell we’re not.” He snatches up my arm and pulls me close, until I feel his hot breath on my face as he sneers, “I’m not letting you fuck this up by walking away.”
“Me fuck this up?” I shout, tearing my arm free and shoving his broad chest. “Me? Fuck you. I am not the one who moved on to the first piece of ass I found.”
“Jesus.” Harley’s tone is seething when he says, “Twelve years on and you’re still slinging that in my face, huh?”
“Don’t you dare pretend you’re not at fault here. I may have walked away in Louisiana, but you’re the one who let us die, so don’t tell me I’m the one who fucked us up.”
I don’t even bother with my case this time. I know it will only give him an excuse to spit more vitriol in my face. If I stay here arguing with him on the street, I’m going to lose it completely—I’ll break down and give in because it’s what I always do, it’s what I’ve always done with him and at some point it needs to stop.
So I walk away. I fumble in my purse for my keys and open the shop, and I slam the door in his face.
Of course, Harley never could let me have the last word, and infuriatingly, as I’m climbing the spiral stairs t
o my apartment, he opens the door and steps inside.
“I don’t want to fight with you, but I need you to know you aren’t the only one that lost something,” he says, and his voice is so ragged with emotion and hurt that I stop walking and just listen with my back to him. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Rose, not for a single day.”
I laugh incredulously, a bitter, broken sound. “Then you have one hell of a way of showing it.”
I walk up the stairs, half expecting him to come after me, but he doesn’t, and I’m relieved. I can’t keep doing this with him. I can’t just move on or get over it. He made me a promise when he left for college and some part of me always thought that he’d fulfil it. It’s stupid, really, because how can you trust the promises made by children in love? You can’t. That man broke every promise he ever made me, and I should have known better because a leopard doesn’t change his spots.
Chapter Fourteen
Rose
Age eighteen
I sit on Harley’s front step. The taut muscles in his back constrict beneath his T-shirt as he loads the last of his belongings into the bed of his truck. Our parents crowd around the car, talking amongst themselves—mostly I think our dads are talking football and my mom is consoling Rochelle, who feels as if she’s losing her baby.
Harley comes and sits by my side. It’s early morning, but hot already, and sweat glistens on his brow and soaks his shirt. He bumps his shoulder against mine, and I take a deep breath, inhaling the citrus-spiced scent of his cologne. He holds out his hand and I lace my fingers with his, all the while swallowing back my tears. I don’t want to cry today. It feels as if I’ve been crying nonstop for weeks. I’m bitter and heart-sore, drowning in my loneliness before he’s even left, and I don’t want his last memory of me tainted with ugly tears and desperation.
I think he senses all of this, because he squeezes my hand. I can’t look at him; if I do, I’ll lose it all together.
“Rose, look at me.”
“I don’t want to,” I say, my voice thick with emotion.
He tilts my chin up until I meet his gaze. “Come on. Let me see that beautiful face.” His breath is ragged, in much the same way it was last night when we lay in his bed for the last time and he said his only regret in the past five years was waiting so long to kiss me again. There had been tears in his eyes then, and they glisten now as he cups my cheek. “I love you, Rose Perry.”
Harley & Rose Page 10
