by Lola Darling
“Better than I do, probably.” He flashes me a quick look. “Speaking of which. Did you see the information about the grant that I left the other day?”
“I did. Thank you for that.” I squeeze his hand a little tighter. “I’ve got to think about it some more.”
“It’s good for any school, you know. Anywhere.” The way he says it, it sounds like he’s worried I misunderstood. Like I thought he was trying to tell me what to do.
“I read the fine print, yeah,” I reply with a small laugh. “I’ve got to do some research on schools.” I adjust myself in the seat again—it’s still uncomfortable, especially on a drive this long. But I think, judging by the way the neighborhoods around us look more and more city-like, that we’re almost there. “But, to be honest, I did a lot of research before I applied to come here. Merton is where I really want to be.”
Jack nods. “It’s a great school, especially for poetry. My obvious bias aside.” He wiggles an eyebrow at me, and I laugh again. He, on the other hand, sobers up pretty quickly. “I just want to be sure you’re doing what’s best for you, Harper. Not for anyone else.”
Something about the way he says it nags at me. Doesn’t he trust me to do that already? Does he really think I’d just uproot my whole life for a guy, even one that I am falling hard for?
But it doesn’t seem the right time or place to tell him off—I mean, he’s not in a good mindset right now, all the smiling aside. He can’t be. His father just died. So instead of starting a fight, I just nod back. “Of course. I always do.”
Don’t I?
Jack
The wake doesn’t start until this evening. I drove up early to get us checked into the hotel (after declining Mum’s twenty offers for us to stay with her, and another twenty curious phone calls from Kat about why I told her I’d be bringing someone), but also to give myself a little breathing room first.
I’m not ready to break the denial that I know I’m experiencing. Not quite yet.
So we check into our hotel in downtown Newcastle, twenty minutes on the bus from where we need to be later tonight, and I spend the afternoon showing Harper where I grew up. First we stroll across the Millennium Bridge, which I remember visiting the weekend it opened with my parents and Kat. From the peak of the bridge, we count the few boats out on the Tyne, and I point out the few buildings I remember the names of.
“What was it like growing up here?” she asks as we head back across the bridge toward the Newcastle shoreline.
“That’s sort of a broad question,” I point out, swinging her hand between us. “What’s it like growing up anywhere?”
“Fair point.” She wobbles her head a little as she considers this. “What do you like most about your city?”
My city. Is it my city anymore? I left it so long ago, half the pubs have changed in my absence, and the people I knew here have either moved away to start their own lives elsewhere, or else they’ve settled down and grown up into people I wouldn’t recognize if I ran into them on the street. Adult people with whole different lives and worries and hobbies than we had when we were teenagers mucking about this town, catching buses in from the suburbs to pretend we were university students already, not yet aware that being older was not always better than being our age.
But I guess, in some ways, it will always be my hometown. “My favorite thing is . . . Well, it’s a place.”
Her eyes flash with interest. “Show me?”
“It’s a bit of a hike from here.”
Harper kicks up her feet at me. She’s donned flats for the walking around part of the day, with heels stashed in her bag for—for later, I tell myself, stubbornly refusing to think about what, exactly, happens later. “If you insist,” I reply.
We cross town, and then I take the back route up from the river. Meandering through little bridges across a small creek off the Tyne, we take a narrow path alongside said creek past a few strands of ducks, nestled into the grass along the banks. One last bridge to cross, and then we’re at the little pub where I used to go almost every weekend. Mostly because they didn’t card, but also because it’s one of the few old-school pubs that’s survived in the city.
Granted, on the weekends it turns into a club just like the rest, and yes, I definitely knew which bartenders didn’t card, and lurked around the bathrooms while it changed over when I was still underage, so we could stay inside without facing the bouncer or the cover charge out front.
All in all, this pub had everything a growing boy needed. Fried food, loud music, and the promise of alcohol if you were smart enough to earn it.
It looks smaller inside than I remember, the dance room at the back half as big as it looms in my memory. But it smells just the same, like beer and old wood.
Harper smirks at me. “This is your favorite place in Newcastle? No wonder you left.”
“Oi.” I swat her arm to shut her up before the bartender overhears. “I’ll have you know this place has plenty of charm, if you know where to look.” We pull up two chairs at a table near the bar, and I take the liberty of ordering us both the fish and chips (for nostalgia’s sake). Then I spend the next hour boring her with stories of everything that went down in this pub. Breakups and makeups and fights and my first kiss, actually, with a girl who turned out to be twenty and slapped me when she found out I was only sixteen, right there on that barstool in the far corner.
By the final story, she’s doubled over with laughter, and I have to admit, my teenage self, in retrospect, was not as suave as I remembered.
Then my gaze falls on the wall behind the bar. The last story I’d been about to tell. The day I, overage now, but only barely eighteen, decided to take on a friend in a very ill-advised contest, somewhat fueled by how many shots of Jäger we’d already consumed. We were both trying to throw our drink coasters onto the highest shelf, where the bar stashes funny old knickknacks that are still up there today, old-school toys and creepy dolls from the late eighteenth century.
We may or may not have smashed an entire shelf of the latter. And been escorted straight into the back of a police wagon.
The one and only time I’ve ever been in trouble with the law. We were lucky in that when we explained what happened, the policeman who’d brought us in doubled over in hysterics, and the pub didn’t want to press charges anyway. But now that I’m remembering the whole story, anticipating telling it to Harper, I think about the ending, and my mood crumbles as hard as that shelf did once upon a time.
My father was the one who picked us up at the station. He drove us in stony silence the whole way home, and I was sure, I was sure, based on everything he’d done in the past, the way he’d always treated me, that I was done for this time. He was going to throw me out of the house, lock me out without waiting for the word go.
But when we got home, and my mother came screeching to the door, wringing her hands, asking what on earth had happened, what was that policeman saying, my father looked at her, and he said, “All a mix-up, Suzanne. They brought in the wrong kid.”
I never thanked him for that. I mean, he must have known I was thankful, by the way I gaped at him while Mum went back inside, and kept gaping even while he explained, “You learned enough of a lesson today. If you ever pull something like this again, I’m leaving you in that cell to rot.”
But I never said thank you to him, for not making it worse. For not telling Mum, and blowing the whole story into a mess it would’ve taken months for me to shovel out from under. As far as I know, he never told another member of the family, not even his sisters.
Not even when he was throwing everything and the kitchen sink at me the last time I saw him, listing every reason I’m a failure. At least he had that much courtesy.
Harper squeezes my hand. I didn’t notice her move, didn’t notice her scoot her chair around beside me to gaze into my eyes, her soft hands encircling my calloused ones. She doesn’t ask what I’m thinking. She doesn’t need to. She just smiles at me, holds onto my hands, until I take
a deep breath and nod.
“Let’s go.”
From there, we hike across town to the Green, where all the uni kids hang out. I used to come here underage too, trying to fit in, making friends in the weird majors like arts and textile designs. And other poets, of course. Lots and lots of other poets, most of whom were even more dramatically inclined than myself, and we all dressed very poorly.
After the Green, we meander through the Grainger Market, an indoor market that’s been around for centuries, and still sells some of the same stuff they probably sold when it opened in the 1800s—fresh fruit, meat, cheese and fish—along with some newer additions – Apple products, weird hats, clubwear. We pause at a stall selling furry neon leggings and joke about how if you wore them, you’d look like you cut off a yeti’s feet and dyed them yellow to make shoes.
After the market, we cross back into town, and I spend longer than Harper probably likes telling her about the history of the statue in the center of the city, Grey’s Monument, dedicated to Earl Grey (yes, the one the tea is named after).
But it’s as we wander down the block from Monument that my eyes light on the storefront I’ve been half looking for. The suit I brought for the funeral is back at the hotel, but it’s an old model, grungy, the sleeves tattered. I’ve been meaning to replace it for ages, though I never had a reason to. Now . . . Well . . .
The least I can do for the father I completely and utterly disappointed in life is to show up well dressed at his send-off.
“Do you mind?” I ask Harper, but she’s already tugging me inside.
“God, I was hoping you weren’t actually going to wear that hideous thing in the trunk,” she mutters as we slip through the doors.
“Gee, thanks,” I grumble.
She’s already picking suit sets off the shelf, though, forcing tailored product after tailored product into my arms. I have to admit, it’s a lot more pleasant shopping for this with her than it would be by myself, or with my sister, which was usually my default option for unbiased and straightforward female opinions.
“Come out and model your favorites for me,” Harper says when she sends me off toward the dressing room with a final jacket stacked on the pile.
“Oh no.” I cast a quick glance at the clerk, currently distracted by a portly older man asking about cufflinks, then grab Harper’s hand and drag her into the dressing room with me. “You’re not getting off that easy,” I tell her. “You want me to try all this on, you need to watch.”
Her eyebrows rise, a smirk on her lips. “Gladly.”
We only make it to one suit. The moment I finish pulling on the jacket, her eyes light up in a way that spells trouble. Exactly the kind of trouble I like. I lean over her in the changing room, pressing her back to the mirror.
“What do you think?” I grin at her, catching one of her wrists in my hand. I can feel her pulse quickening, and her eyes go wide with desire.
“I’ve got to say, I like this one.”
My hand trails from her wrist up her arm, then down her body, over her soft, supple curves. She’s wearing a black dress, simple and tasteful. Less tasteful, though, are the red panties I find underneath when I yank the dress up above her hips.
“Ms. Reed, were you hoping I’d find these?” I tug at the edges of the fabric.
Her cheeks flush a telltale red. “I, uh . . . Habit?” She shrugs one shoulder.
I bend to suck her ear into my mouth, letting my teeth dig into her lobe. “Good habit. I think you deserve a reward for your forethought.”
She arches against me, her fingernails digging into my neck. “If I tell you what else I’ve thought about, do I get an extra hard reward?” She grins, and I lift her against me until her feet leave the floor, and she wraps both legs around me for support.
“Only if you’re very detailed.” With one hand, I brace her against the mirror, cupping her ass tight, while my other hand fumbles with the zipper on these suit pants.
“Well, it starts with me, dripping wet.” She runs a hand slowly down her body to brush against her panties, before she slips a finger beneath to touch herself. I’m practically panting, watching her. “And you getting too hard to stand it . . . ” She drops her other hand down to touch mine against my fly, which I’ve forgotten about. With a sharp tug from her fingers I spring free, my cock pressed against her now-bare arse.
“And the ending, well . . . ” She bites her lip. “That part is just punishing.”
I close my mouth over hers to bite it for her instead, all while I lift her body higher against the mirror. “You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you.” I catch her gaze, watch her baby blues go wide with pleasure as I drive deep into her pussy. She moans against my mouth, clenching tight around me.
Fuck, she feels so goddamn good.
“Jack . . . ”
Especially when she moans my name like that, helpless beneath me.
I brace her small, deliciously curved body against the mirror and thrust up into her, slow at first, building faster and faster, my hands biting deep into her thighs, her ass red from slapping against the mirror, until the whole mirror starts to rock with us. Her breath comes hard, and I can tell she’s about to lose control, so I press one hand over her mouth, covering it to muffle her keening cry when she comes, her whole body tightening around me.
Moments later I’m finishing too, and I dig my teeth into her shoulder to suppress my own grunt of pleasure. When I release her legs, she keeps leaning against the mirror for a moment, trying to regain control of her knees, while I slide the suit pants off.
“Not sure about this one,” I say, trying not to enjoy her obvious shakiness too much. “I’m going to pick another pair . . . ”
#
Before I know it, my phone’s going off, reminding me that if we don’t catch the bus now, we won’t make it to the funeral home in time. Kat told me about a hundred times to be early, since it would be weird for guests to arrive before the family itself.
Now dressed in a much nicer suit than the one I’d planned to don, and after leaving a hefty tip for the obviously annoyed clerk at the store, I have no excuses to linger anymore. It’s time to get this over with.
“Come on.” I tug on Harper’s hand to lead her toward the bus terminal, where we shuffle into the queue. Unfortunately, the bus takes longer than even I guessed, and I’m used to the delays on this particular line. We listen to the dispatcher explain to three people in a row that he’s not sure why the bus is fifteen—no, twenty—no, thirty minutes late.
Well, I listen to him. Harper mostly squints in confusion the way she’s been doing when talking to 90 percent of the people since we arrived here. I hadn’t noticed how my accent was changing, melding into a more southern British sound (or, you know, as southern as Oxford gets), until we came back. But watching her try to understand my fellow Geordies, I realize my voice has changed considerably since I left home ten years ago.
That’s also a strange feeling.
Finally, the bus arrives and we settle in behind an elderly woman lugging about 100 pounds of groceries, which she politely declines my offer to help with, and an eighteen-year-old kid whose music blasts so loud we can hear every word from our seats.
The kid gets off first, thank god, and the old lady exits the bus a stop before us. With every mile that we crawl closer to my hometown—my real hometown, not the city I adopted as mine because it was the nearest thing to better than what I had—my stomach clenches tighter. I’ve always hated this part. Arriving to see what’s changed while I was away. It’s only been a week since I was here last, but that time was a quick one-day visit, and I barely even stopped to think. I drove straight to the hospital, didn’t make a pass by the house or anything.
Now, through the trees, one stop away from the funeral home where my father lies in wait, I catch a glimpse of our townhouse row, and I clutch Harper’s hand tighter, not offering her any sort of explanation.
This time, more than I could possibly imagined has chan
ged. Not for anyone else in the neighborhood, but for me? Everything is different.
Even the trees, which have shed their fall foliage just since last weekend, it seems, have gotten worse. They look naked against the cold, darkening gray sky, a symbol of the winter to come.
The bus wheezes as it arrives at our stop, a lonely little corner on a windswept side street. Just the funeral home, a hair dresser’s, and a sad looking corner bar across the street, its windows shaded even though it’s dark now.
I take a deep breath of cold, sharp air.
“You ready?” Harper murmurs beside me, her eyes fixed on me, not wavering once. How did this girl get so strong? How does she always know exactly what I need?
What did I do to deserve her?
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I reply. Hand in hand, we cross the near-empty street, and I open the funeral home door for us both. Inside the overheated foyer, we’re greeted by a lackluster bouquet of lilies and a sign for the Kingston Wake pointing to the main viewing room. The lobby is empty aside from that, so I figure we’ve made it before any of Mum and Dad’s friends, at least. I wonder if any of mine or Kat’s friends from primary school will stop by—Kat keeps in touch with a few of them, though I mostly only say hello via social media on their birthdays, if I remember to even do that much.
I open the final door between me and the truth of my father’s death, and I feel my guts tie into knots. But when we step inside, my father isn’t the reason my mouth drops open and my whole body freezes, caught between fight or flight, trapped in utter shock.
At the head of the room, beside the open casket, stands my family. My mother, her sister, Dad’s sisters, my sister . . . And one more woman.
Hannah Butler.
Harper
At first I’m just confused. Jack freezes a half step inside the door, and I wonder if he’s panicking. I would be, at the thought of seeing my father laid out in his burial clothes. This is the last time he’ll ever see the man who raised him. I can’t imagine what’s going through his head right now.
