CHAPTER NINETEEN

HARPER POLSEN

As the waves of orgasm lessen, a noise comes from the other side of the door. Someone is in the bedroom and immediately every last trace of calm leaves my body. I tense on top of Zane and my heart pounds in my chest in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with how much he turns me on.

“Shit,” I whisper.

Zane’s hands are tight on the small of my back, and both of us stare at each other, absolutely silent, both of us even hold our breaths, waiting to see what’s going on.

I hear a woman’s laugh just beyond the closed door, and I immediately recognize it as Bev’s. I close my eyes. I want to groan at how absolutely awkward this is, how completely inappropriate, but if I do that then both Zane and I will be discovered.

“It’s not rude to leave our guests, right?” I hear Bev saying, and the flirty note in her voice is enough for me to realize exactly what she’s talking about.

“I don’t care. It’s distracting as hell to have to chat about Harold’s golf game with this threatening to rip through my fly at any minute.”

My eyes fly open at the sound of Zane’s dad speaking and saying those words, and all at once it hits both of us — Zane’s parents are talking about having a quickie.

It’s weird and hilarious and absolutely mortifying all at the same time. I cover my mouth with my hand, pressing my fingers against my lips to stifle the sound of the irresistible giggles that I just can’t keep down. I’m trying too hard to stay silent, even as the laughter bubbles up, that I’m shaking on top of Zane like a cup full of Yahtzee dice. I realize that Zane is chuckling too, as quietly as he possibly can.

By the time we can get control of ourselves, we hear his parents starting to moan in the next room. We both lose it again, barely smothering the sounds of our confused, mortified laughter against each other’s clothes.

“Oh my God, your parents are going at it not twenty feet away from us,” I whisper in Zane’s ear. He groans, lips against my neck to cover the sound.

“This is… God,” Zane murmurs.

“It’s gross,” I finish for him.

“No, just really, really weird,” he says.

I’m trying to listen enough to make sure that neither of his parents can hear us, and not listen enough to really, truly know what’s going on. It feels like it’s going on forever, but when I check my watch, thank God, after I hear Bev and Nolan leaving the next room chuckling at their quick getaway, it’s only fifteen minutes.

“We need to get out of here,” I say.

“Yeah, someone will notice,” Zane agrees.

“I wonder if anyone noticed that the host and hostess were missing. You go first. You’ve been gone for longer and you’re the darling son,” I tell him.

I get myself cleaned up after Zane leaves, and put my panties back on and straighten my dress. I wait a minute longer, and walk out of the bathroom, and then the master bedroom, as unobtrusively as I can.

There are so many people at the party that nobody has noticed that I was away, at least as far as I can tell. The break and the big climax I got out of it at least makes it easier for me to deal with all the questions about why a girl like me is still single, what I’m up to in the big city, whether or not I’m lonely out there on my own.

By the time my parents and I walk back to the house, I’m exhausted. I can feel the sticky-slick feeling between my legs. My toes ache from the heels I’ve been wearing for hours, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I go up to my room barefoot, and toss my shoes into my closet, and look out through my window. The light’s off in Zane’s room, but I don’t know if that’s because he’s not there, or if it’s because he’s asleep already.

My phone vibrates, and when I grab for it and scramble to look at the screen, I see it’s not Zane, as I half-hoped, but instead my boss.

“Hello, Harper Polsen here,” I say.

“Harper, glad I could catch you. Sorry, I know it’s late,” Vanessa says.

“I just got back to my parents’ house,” I tell her. “I’m about to get into bed.”

“So I have to ask you something, and you’re not going to like it,” Vanessa says.

I close my eyes, sinking down to sit on the edge of my bed, knowing that if she admits ahead of time I’m not going to like it, I’m really not going to like it.

“What’s up, Vanessa?”

“Do you think you can come back maybe a day or two early?”

I make a face and look up at the ceiling, shaking my head. “Why?” I know the probable reason why, but I also know I have to ask to keep the conversation moving forward.

“Jonah Hildebrand wants to get started on the project earlier than we projected,” Vanessa explains. “And of course, since he’s a bigwig…”

“You have to at least make a token effort,” I finish for her.

“So, what can I tell the folks upstairs?”

“You can tell them that I can’t possibly make it in a day early,” I say firmly. I know I’m going to get pushback, and I try to think of a good reason. Not that there’s a hot guy I just had sex with who I don’t want to go away from early, that I just can’t do it.

“What’s going on? You know I’ve got to give them some kind of excuse,” Vanessa says.

“My mom, she threw out her back yesterday, doing something out in the yard and she needs me here to help her while she’s bedridden,” I tell her quickly. “My dad can’t help her, he’s stuck at work himself and all that.”

“If she’s sick, then of course you should stay,” Vanessa says.

“The pain in her back is a pain in my ass,” I quip, putting just enough annoyance into my voice. Vanessa laughs.

“Sounds about right. Okay, I’ll let them know you can’t come in early.” I almost breathe a sigh of relief. I finish up the call and get off the phone as quickly as I can, before I feel the need to embroider my lie. It’s good enough, and I need to stick with it.

I strip off my clothes and curl up in bed without even bothering to take a shower first. I decide I’ll deal with it in the morning.