Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“I’m so glad you followed me home,” she said after a few minutes, her fingers tracing patterns over my chest. “I was pretty confused there for a second after I hit my head.”
“Sorry I didn’t see it,” I replied, resting my cheek on the top of her head. “Shoulda been right behind you.”
“You were there when it mattered,” she argued. “It’s not like you could’ve stopped that truck from hitting me.”
“Coulda been a deterrent.”
“The guy was a psycho,” she said with a yawn. “I doubt he would’ve cared if anyone saw him.”
“Maybe.” She still thought it was random. Part of me wanted to tell her that I thought the guy had targeted her, but I hadn’t been given the all clear. If it came down to it, they could order me away from Harp or, at the very least, make it difficult as fuck to see her. It wasn’t worth it.
“I’ll go with you back to the house when you’re ready,” she said, changing the subject. “Just let me know when, okay?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t want you to do it alone,” she mumbled, her voice groggy. Her arm squeezed me around the middle. “You got me.”
I lay there wide awake while her breathing evened out in sleep and for a long time afterward. I’d been an asshole that morning. I’d lost my shit and hadn’t had the ability to hide it from her. If anyone else—even my best friends—had seen me wild-eyed and panicking like she had, I would’ve been embarrassed as fuck—but with Harper I wasn’t.
I was glad she’d been with me, even though it had gone sideways. I liked having her by my side. I liked that she’d seen where I grew up, it was almost comforting. Someone else had seen it now. For the first time since I became an adult, someone important to me had a memory of the little yellow house with the white trim, the twin bed with the blue comforter, and the hallway with the creaky board right in front of my bedroom door.
I was glad that person was Harper because I had a feeling that this was it.
We’d been seeing each other less than a week.
We’d known each other for years before that.
And, knowing that after the day we’d had, neither one of us had wanted to spend the night apart? I was pretty sure that sometime in the future, I’d be sweating bullets when I let Leo know I planned on marrying his daughter.
Chapter 12
Harper
“I just need a trim,” I warned my Gram, watching her wearily as she walked around me. “Like an inch, maybe two.”
“I could add in some layers,” she mused, lifting her eyebrows.
“Trim,” I repeated, widening my eyes at her. “And no bangs either.”
“We’ll save bangs for if you break up with Bas,” she said, waving her hand airily.
“Oh, my god,” I groaned.
“I’m kidding.” She swatted at me as she walked around to my back. “Anyone who’s seen you two together knows that isn’t going to happen. That boy worships you.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” I assured her, closing my eyes as she began to run a comb through my wet hair. “It’s weird to think that I’ve known him forever, but I only realized how awesome he is now.”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly available before,” she said, little snips of scissors punctuating her words. “Or not that you knew, anyway. How’s that going? Your cousins still being assholes? I’m surprised Olive hasn’t called you, she seems less entrenched in the drama than the rest of them.”
“No.” I sighed. “But I haven’t really been available anyway.”
It had been over a week since I went with Bas to Portland and ended up in a car accident that night. I’d been emailing with old coworkers and college friends, and I’d gotten a couple more job offers—but nothing that I wasn’t willing to give up. The longer I stayed in Eugene, the surer I became that I didn’t want to leave again. I didn’t want to travel, not even once a month.
I wanted to work and then come home to Bas.
Of course, I hadn’t told him that. We’d spent every night together, but it was always packaged as a date that didn’t end until the next morning. I hadn’t even left a toothbrush at his house, and from what I could tell he wasn’t in any hurry to give me a drawer. Which made sense, we’d only been seeing each other for two weeks, and I wasn’t crazy. But with each passing day, it became more apparent that we just fit. We never ran out of things to talk about. Sex was mind-blowing. He was funny and charming, and he looked at me like he couldn’t get enough of me.
The feeling was mutual. I didn’t think I’d ever get sick of looking into his warm brown eyes or watching his ass flex as he walked naked across the room. But it was more than that. I wanted to hear about his day. I wanted to know what shows he was watching, what books he’d read, what his favorite foods were. I wanted to know where he saw himself in five years or ten—and I wanted to be wherever he was.