Chapter Fourteen

Reed

For a second, I thought I’d cruised up to the take-out window at Wendy’s for a double Baconator. My mouth watered since I couldn’t afford fast food anymore, bacon was rarely on the menu. And the luscious lips I’d hungered for and were about to kiss disappeared in a cloud of smokehouse fumes as Laurie’s face spun away from me.

“What is this?” I heard her say to the white-coated server.

I looked over at the plate he’d just set down and wrinkled my nose at the strong odor. As much as I loved bacon, I’d never thought of it as a dessert, but I guessed some people must enjoy it. I smirked, thinking it must be some kind of mistake or practical joke. I thought of all the connotations a plate of bacon might imply and came up with none that would apply to Laurie.

As I watched the waiter’s face turn an ashen shade that matched his jacket, I thought perhaps the joke was on him. But Laurie didn’t laugh. She didn’t even crack the tiniest smile, and more than that, she looked downright horrified. Her hands shook as she tried to swallow, clenching her swanlike neck like she was about to throw up. As I looked around for something that might serve as a puke bucket, I saw the source of her discomfort. The last thing I wanted was for my date to embarrass herself over some idiot’s idea of a prank.

Olivia sauntered over, a look of malicious delight in her dark eyes. She leaned over our table, the generous tits I’d once ogled threatening to fall out of her low-cut dress. It hit me.

Why the hell did you ever find her attractive, Matheson?

I felt like the worst kind of immature asshat.

“What’s the matter, Bacon?” Olivia sneered, putting her hands on her tiny waist, drawing attention to her best feature. “No room for dessert? Well, like I said before, a moment on the lips and a lifetime on the hips. I see you took that advice. How many pounds did you drop, Harper? It has to be at least a hundred?”

Harper?

What. The. Fuck.

“Olivia,” I said, confusion lacing each syllable. “What the hell are you talking about? Have you been drinking?” I rose from my seat and placed a protective hand on Laurie’s shoulder. She seemed frozen in place. “You’re not making any sense.” I recalled Olivia’s state the last time I’d seen her. “I think you’d better go back to your table. There’s nothing for you here. Maybe you should look up your local AA center and attend a meeting.”

Olivia fixed her glittering, feline stare on me. “The joke’s on you, too, Reed. Didn’t you know who’s been pulling your strings like a puppet master with her NHL blow up doll? Playing you for a fool? I admit you cut a dashing profile holding up that phony check in your penguin suit, but it’s not nearly as phony as your date.”

I noticed other guests starting to look our way, some of them standing up and moving closer for a better view. If we were behind closed doors, they’d be putting a glass up to their ear to eavesdrop. Olivia’s accusation closed in on me along with a growing throng of people. Harper Payne. Dr. Payne. No, it couldn’t be. This was Laurie Arnold, svelte and beautiful Laurie Arnold. Harper Payne was… well, she was Harper. My buddy. My pal. The only female in my life who never once acted like she was into me.

“I think you should stop talking now, Olivia. You’re only embarrassing yourself, not me.”

Her mouth opened in feigned surprise before she said, “Oh, that’s what you think, huh? Well, I think you should stop being such an ignorant dipshit, Reed. You’re date’s an impostor. Getting her revenge on you for all those years you made fun of her and her lard ass. Harper Payne, Bacon Payne.” Olivia cast an accusing glare at Laurie—Harper?—who still sat immobile in her chair. “Isn’t that right, Bacon?”

When I glanced around, a multitude of cell phones were videotaping the fallout. A photographer maneuvered his way alongside Olivia and started shooting. Harper/Laurie’s head snapped up at the sound, her eyes casting about as though looking for an escape route. She started to rise to her feet. I caught her arm and helped her to stand. At that moment, I didn’t give a shit about her identity. I already had developing feelings for her, and my main priority was to protect her and get her away from an untenable situation caused by a vengeful bitch.

“Yes, yes. I knew I must have heard wrong,” an older gentleman at our table said, pointing his bony finger at us. “You are Harper.”

I heard the name being passed from one person to the next like tin cans on a string as more people gathered around our table and more cameras lit up in a cacophony of paparazzi annoyance.

“Well go on, eat up,” Olivia laughed, delight turning her eyes an even darker shade. “Don’t let it go to—waist!”

“Shut up,” I growled, incensed at Olivia’s tactless behavior and simultaneously mortified at her use of the name Bacon and the memories that moniker evoked deep in my soul.

I’d blown it. Even though I’d grown and evolved, regret still lingered over the way I’d treated one of my best childhood friends and how it had ended in a blazing inferno of shattered trust. Mainly at the hands of this heartless witch. But I’d played my own role to perfection, and the chickens had come home to roost.

It had all started with me—I was responsible for that hurtful nickname. I cupped Harper’s chin in my hand and turned her face toward me. Funny how she’d already made me think of old Harper with her razor-sharp remarks, and yet I hadn’t seen it—seen the echo of my past in those intelligent blue eyes that now brimmed with fearful tears. The immense ballroom began to swirl like a carousel around us, and my mind focused only on one thing.

Protect her, Reed. Do it now. Even if you have to do it at your own expense.

“Excuse us,” I spat, gripping Harper by both shoulders and steering us through the sea of onlookers and out the doors.

I didn’t stop until we reached a small lounge off the main lobby that afforded some privacy. She collapsed into an armchair, covered her face with her hands and cried, great heaving sobs that wracked her tiny frame.

I crouched down beside her, ignoring the protests from my fucked-up knee. If I had a Smith & Wesson, I’d shoot the other one out. Anything that would wipe that tragic look off her face. And I’d put it there as surely as if I’d been the one to bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. I’d gotten it both right and wrong. Laurie had been lying… but not about her work.

“Harper, is it really you?” I asked, searching her eyes for the answer I already knew.

My soul told me it was true. I didn’t even stop to consider her new effect on my body. I’d worry about that anomaly later. Olivia had just raised shittiness to a whole new level. “I don’t understand any of this… why didn’t you say anything? Why the charade? You look so different, I didn’t—”

“Didn’t what?” she sputtered between wracking sobs. Her pain slayed me. Each tear a weapon and each ragged inhale like poison seeping into my heart. “Didn’t think you’d ever see me again in a million years? And if you did, you wouldn’t touch my fat ass with a ten-foot pole? As you see, I’m the same girl. Just far less disgusting.”

I winced, at both the insinuation of her repulsiveness and her repetition of my words down by the river. My head spun trying to make sense of it all. I tried. I failed. But then, I’d always been just a dumb jock with laser focus and a talent for the game. I’d never stopped to develop much emotional intelligence. I’d never needed to. But Robin had blown my world sky high, and I’d had to adapt. But that didn’t help me right now. I’d been trying to be a better man but evolving was a marathon, not a sprint, and I was a work in progress.

“I didn’t recognize you,” I finished, knowing how lame it sounded. Words were futile. What could I possibly say that would chase her agony away? “I’m sorry, but hold on a second. Obviously, you knew who I was, and you let the game go on. Why would you do that to me, Harper? Can’t you see how far I’ve fallen already? I don’t need a vengeful blast from the past to come along and kick me in the face while I’m down.”

“Oh, as usual, it’s all about you,” she said, her choked voice laced with resentment. “You couldn’t possibly have hurt anyone’s feelings by calling them nasty nicknames and chasing after every pair of tits and stiff breeze that twitched your cock.”

The sound of racing feet and excited voices interrupted our pissing match. I glanced up in annoyance as a group of people from the fundraiser burst into the lounge.

“There they are,” a woman said. A photographer raised a handheld videocam. “Can you get the shot, Jeff? Shit, she’s crying the ugly cry. It looks like a train wreck. Please tell me you’re getting the shot? That’s the Harper Payne.”

“Fuck. Let’s get out of here.” I pulled her from the chair, feeling like a class-A shithead, but with no time to wallow in my feelings. Harper clearly had enough for both of us, and I had to get to the bottom of this shit storm for both our sakes. “C’mon,” I urged, and hustled us past the crowd to the main doors and the string of waiting taxis outside.

Screw the limo. We had to go now.

“Take me home,” she pleaded as I folded her into the back seat. “I just want to go home.”

“No chance. I’m not letting you slip off into the night, hide in the safety of your ivory tower to never let your hair down again.”

Too many hours spent watching Tangled on repeat with my sick daughter in my arms.

I wrapped my arm around her quivering shoulders while giving my address to the driver. Harper twisted her body away, shrugging me off her, giving me the shutout. Only a goalie enjoyed that sensation. I wasn’t having it.

“Tell me honestly,” I said, turning her face until she looked at me. “Did you choose me from the agency out of spite? Out of some need for revenge? Maybe you even tracked me down like some kind of obsessed little vengeance stalker and called the agency just to put me in my place.”

She jerked her face away. “No.”

“You sure? If you lied about your name, you could be lying about other things too.”

“I’m not lying,” she cried between shuddering sobs. “Irene picked you, and everyone uses fake names for… that.”

“I didn’t,” I said in my defense.

Harper just cried harder, so I clammed up and waited for the storm to abate before speaking again. My hands itched to reach out and comfort her, but I fisted them instead. Pressing her just seemed to make her sobs more intense. Jesus, I should have recognized her. How could I not have seen the spunky Harper inside? Because you couldn’t see past the hot-as-fuck outside, you headless dick. She was my friend for so long, but I certainly hadn’t been hers. I’d hurt her way more than my dumb jock brain ever knew, sticking her with that horrible name, betraying her and tossing her aside like trash.

And she was right about me. I had chased after every hot pussy that crossed my vision, including those belonging to Olivia Woodward and Laurie Arnold. I snuck a glance at Harper from underneath my eyelashes. Man, she looked so different. I couldn’t believe the transformation. No more dorky eyeglasses perched between chubby freckled cheeks. No shabby sneakers or worn-out jeans that stretched over plump thighs.

As a privileged athlete, I’d been schooled in all things nutrition, and it now occurred to me that her weight issues were likely caused by cheap, unhealthy processed food because it was all her mom could afford. I felt guilty, but I saw before me a beautiful, successful butterfly that had emerged from a cocoon of poverty. What had I done in the meantime? Fucked an endless string of skirts until the wrong one fell on top of my dick, gutting me. Her story read like a fairytale and mine read like a tragedy.

The cab pulled up in front of my building, and I suddenly regretted my choice of destination. But it was too late now. It was time to start my penance by paying the piper of apartment selection. I paid the fare and escorted Harper inside, glad I’d sent Jess to spend the night at Milo’s.

“I’ll make you some coffee,” I mumbled after leaving her on my butt-ugly, second-hand couch with Kool-Aid stains and ripped cushions. She stood there staring, probably trying to find a safe place to set her perfectly sculpted ass. Shit. It was like displaying a diamond ring in a matchbox. Harper finally made the safest decision and sat motionless as I brought her a steaming cup, my eyes sweeping my ramshackle apartment. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. “Sorry I had to bring you here. Ignore the décor or lack thereof.”

She took the cup and cradled it in both hands, her eyes flat and dead. I wondered if the real Harper had retreated back into her shell of protection. I wouldn’t blame her. Throwing my tux jacket over my old La-Z-Boy, I sank down next to her on the couch, grazing her slender thigh with my own.

I kept my arms in check despite how much I wanted to hold her, protect her. Even from myself. She held the coffee, using it as a piping hot shield because she looked like she’d bolt at first contact. For the first time, I noted her fingers bare of rings. One more tick in the truth column. Finally, she spoke.

“You hurt me, Reed. You, Olivia, everyone. But you most of all. You tossed our longstanding friendship away for the sake of some loose pussy. Maybe now you know. The farther up on the pedestal you go, the farther you have to fall.”

Guilty as charged.

“We were just kids then, Harper.” I paused and tilted my head a notch. “You are Harper, right?”

My joke didn’t quite bring a smirk to her tear-stained face. She looked so tragic and vulnerable, just like when I’d found her by the trash can back in high school. And I felt just as shitty now as I did then. Conflicted and confused. Except now, I understood the implications, the ramifications. I couldn’t resolve the duality of Harper versus Laurie. One I wanted to fuck until she squealed my name, and the other I wanted to pen a notarized apology to.

In blood.

“I’m sorry,” I said, speaking with as much shame and remorse as I could muster. “I was a brainless, horny teenager. I plead testosterone blindness disorder. And… I got too big for my britches. I wish I could tell you that I figured it out right away, that it changed me and I learned my lesson. But I didn’t, Harper. I’m human, and I didn’t figure out that I was infallible until my ex-wife.”

That one triggered a tiny twitch at the corner of her lovely mouth. And I still wanted to claim it with my lips and tongue and… whoa there, overachiever. Who said she even wants you anymore? You’ve blown it again. She hadn’t said revenge, but that didn’t mean a little payback wasn’t on the agenda. And everyone knew what they said about payback.

It’s a bitch.

“I don’t think that’s listed on MediGo as a recognized affliction. I’ll add it on the next round of updates,” she said in a small voice.

I felt a smile start to crease my cheeks. The old Harper wasn’t far away, hadn’t been chased away for good. I just had to coax her out with the right temptation. But what could that be? What did she really want from me? If the incident at the fundraiser hadn’t happened, what was her plan? Reveal her identity when I was balls deep inside her? Laugh in my face as I climaxed? Give me the worst case of blue balls ever recorded and then put it up on the MediGo website as the latest boutique illness?

Harper took a sip of the pale, instant coffee in her mug. She was probably used to some fancy Italian concoction, and my many inadequacies showed their ugly faces once again, spitting and hissing at my demise.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” I said, meaning every damn word. She deserved to hear it. She deserved to hear nothing but the truth from my lips from this moment forward. “Really, really beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off you when we met… er… met at Irene’s.”

Ugh. I was astounded at my continued inability to say the right thing in front of Harper Payne. I felt like I’d just reverted back to first grade. If she’d had her glorious hair in pigtails right now, I’d give them a yank.

She set down her cup and turned to face me.

“As opposed to when I was just the DUFF next door? Didn’t rate even a glance then, huh. Just one of the boys. Not even a real girl. With feelings under all that blubber.”

“Duff?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Dumb Ugly Fat Friend.”

“Stop it,” I warned. “Of course you’re a real girl, and beauty is only skin deep. I learned that the hardest way possible. The past is the past. Whatever you thought of yourself, or what you assumed I thought of you, doesn’t make you any less beautiful. Honestly, Harper, I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve for the very first time with you. You can cradle it in your hands, or you can stomp it into shards of muscle underneath your stiletto. Your choice. But before you decide, it’s your turn. You owe me an explanation. Why’d you do all this? What’d you hope to accomplish?”

Her tears started again, and I wanted nothing more at that moment than to sweep them all away, remove all the pain they held, not just the part I’d put there.

“Oh, Reed,” she sighed. “Don’t you know? Can’t your jock brain figure it out? I wanted to be more than your friend. I liked you. I adored you. But who was going to date me without being subject to ridicule, or think of me as anything but a…?” she broke off, her unspoken selection of nouns coagulating in her throat. “No one. Certainly not you. When you brushed me off with one look at her…” she gave a pitiful shake of her head, probably imagining the disgusting Olivia, adding more fuel to the fire of torment. “I swore I’d never forgive you. Then I saw you at Irene’s. I wanted to run, I did. My escort fell ill at the last minute, and she replaced him without telling me. I had no idea it would be you. I didn’t choose you.”

I didn’t choose you.

I’d been called a lot of things by a lot of people on the ice and off it. But for some reason, those four little words stabbed me in the gut harder than any other slur or slander I’d ever endured.

Her words made sense. So that’s why Irene took me on so quickly. I was just a stand-in for some dude who called in sick. A bench warmer called up in a crisis. Reality finally hit me, like a two-by-four between the eyes. Revenge had nothing to do with it. Harper went along with the setup because all those years we’d been in school together, she’d liked me that way, and I was too hormone-soaked and caught up in my own hype to see it. I was such a fucking idiot.

Suddenly, the inches between us seemed like the Grand Canyon, and I closed the gap in a heartbeat, putting my arms around her. She didn’t resist. Instead, she melted into me, her silky head falling against my chest as her hands wrapped around my back. It felt good, and right. In that instant, I knew why we’d been so comfortable on that first cab ride. We already knew each other inside and out. When lovers started as friends, the foundation was made of brick instead of sand.

“Were you at least planning on telling me at some point?” I whispered, fanning the strands of her hair between my fingers. “Or were you just going to fuck me and disappear from my life again? I guess it would have been poetic justice.”

She squeezed me tighter and wiggled her nose in the negative.

“All I know is I didn’t want to ruin tonight. Everything was so perfect until… well, until her.”

I tightened my embrace in response and stroked my hands up and down her spine, wishing her skin was bare underneath the heat of my caress.

“I know. Until the wicked witch of the west flew in on her diamond-encrusted broomstick. She’s no Elphaba. She’s exactly what she appears to be. Nasty and vindictive. Beneath your notice.”

I finally got a laugh out of her. Or at least a chuckle. My chest tickled with the vibration of it.

“Was she nasty in bed too?” she asked.

Burn.

I’d been called out on the carpet with that one.

“I don’t want to talk about her.” Shit, she was so damn far in my past. I wouldn’t admit how many women I’d had between Olivia and this moment. If Harper could start fresh, so could I. “Tonight’s about you. What you did for the foundation was amazing. I was very proud to make that presentation; and even prouder of you. You’re one hell of a human being, Harper Payne. You inspire me to be better. To do better.”

And the rest of the night’s going to be about you too. About you screaming in the throes of passion and feeling like the first, last, and only woman I’ve ever been with. Because in my heart, you are.

Harper didn’t speak. The warmth of her body and how she clung to me did all her communicating for her. My cock stirred to life, and damn, it felt so fucking good. I wasn’t going to be able to remain a gentleman for much longer.

“Well. I’d be a very bad service provider if I didn’t give my customer what she paid for,” I said, cupping her face in my hands.

I felt her tremble as I raised her head and kissed her on the cheek. I rubbed the tears away with my thumb then leaned forward. We wouldn’t be robbed by any interloping waiters this time. I crushed her lips with my own and delivered what I hoped was the kiss of the century, sucking on each luscious lobe of her lips then driving home with my tongue, past her teeth and into the wet warm cave of her mouth, leaving no corner unexplored.