Chapter Seven

Ben

“You didn’t tell Harper about your plans?” Mom chirps from around her wine glass.

Harper glares at me from the other side of the table. We’re talking about Harper’s newest West Coast plans. Our parents are proud and excited to have her back in their lives on a more regular basis. From that, my own plans, I was hoping to keep secret, went on blast.

I take a bite of bread. Empty carbs. I never allow myself something so silly. My diet is stringent ninety-nine percent of the time. This weekend with Harper I’ve broken every single nutrition rule I typically abide by. Stuffing another bite in my mouth, I smile around the food. “No,” I say with my mouth full. “I haven’t gotten the chance and you know how things work. Nothing is for sure yet.”

Harper leans back in her chair and folds her pretty little arms across her chest, her tongue smoothing over her front teeth. “Tell us, Ben. What “maybe” plans?” I catch her intonation when she says maybe. She keeps things from me. Huge things, like serious boyfriends that she intends to move across the country with. Asshole boyfriends who swear at their girlfriends out of jealousy. “Go on,” Harper prompts, sipping her wine.

It’s nice outside. The sun is setting and her parents have a beautiful table out on the new deck. I shrug. “I was trying to switch coasts to…ahhh…be based over there.”

“To be closer to you, Harper,” Dad says, like he’s being fucking helpful.

I glare at him. He turns his eyes down to his plate. It’s like we’re all seven again when we’re together. I have to remind everyone we’re both competent adults.

“And for different job opportunities,” he adds.

Harper’s face changes. “Seriously? Why would you want to be over there?”

You. For you. For only you. I need you. To be close to you. For my sanity.

“Like Dad said, there’s other stuff I could do if I’m stationed on that coast. Who knows, I haven’t had to go overseas yet, so I might do that instead.”

“No,” everyone basically screams at once.

“I mean, don’t do that. I’m coming back here,” Harper says, leaning toward me, cutting everyone else off.

The news plays reels of our efforts in other countries. That’s where men like me go to die. America has been restored to some semblance of rule. Our democracy keeps things moving efficiently. The rest of the world didn’t fare as well after the attacks. Terrorist strongholds are harder to eradicate overseas. Our forces and troops are busy dealing with our issues. We haven’t had men or resources to help out other nations as much.

We’re just now trickling into European borders and I can’t even count on my fingers and toes the funerals I’ve been to since the infiltration began. Harper is still going on and on, listing all the reasons why I need to stay in the States. Most are selfish reasons, but she doesn’t realize it, and I wouldn’t expect her to, so I can’t fault her.

I hold out both hands. “I don’t have much say in it. Now that you’re coming back here with your boyfriend, you wouldn’t have to worry about me stealing any of your time.” I sound like a jealous boy, but I don’t really care. I don’t have to care with these people. They’re mine. They will always understand me, and us.

“You’re being dramatic. Harper will always have time for you,” Harper’s mom says, laying a hand on mine. I glance her way, and smile. Harpee resembles her mother more and more as the years pass. Most of the sweet and lovable qualities came from this woman. “Don’t say stuff like that. If you can help it, stay in the states, Benny. We don’t want you coming home in a body bag.”

I shudder. It’s not visible to anyone except Harper, who’s watching me like an evil, woman eagle.

“You two kids need to get together already and put us all out of this misery,” Dad says, laughing as he looks between us.

My mom hits him in the shoulder. “Harper is attached. Don’t say that,” she scolds.

“Yeah, Harper is attached. I should attach myself too. What do you guys think about that?” I meet them all face on, one by one. “Should I just fix all of this and find a girlfriend?” I ask, staring Harper in the eye.

Our parents busy themselves complimenting the meal and the wine and the deck, but Harper is silent.

“Yes,” she says simply. She looks away, focusing on the conversations happening around us.

I nod. It’s been years of this. Since that first kiss. Since my pulse started hammering jaggedly anytime she came into view, since my whole heart was taken by a woman I’d never fully have. We finish dinner and move into the house for drinks. Harper pulls me aside in the kitchen. “Maybe I should stay here tonight?”

She should, my God, she should, but I’m greedy. If this is all I’m getting of her, then I’m taking every single second. “No. We have cake plans. No drama. Promise.”

Harper looks hesitant, but agrees. I have to listen to our parents praise her accomplishments and all her future holds. When they speak of me, their voices change. It is worry and uncertainty. They fear for my life and for my sanity given the circumstances our world is in. It doesn’t matter how much I assure, I’ll always be the reckless child with a pension for adventure instead of stability. Everyone respects my decision to become a SEAL and will regale my military accomplishments to anyone who will listen, but it’s understated bragging.

Harper doesn’t smile for the rest of the visit with our parents. That fact makes me happy.

++++

We read comic books and eat vanilla cake straight from the bakery box. It’s both of our favorite and I couldn’t help the falling, dying feeling settling in my stomach as we finished up. I promised no drama, but all the words I should be saying are eating at me. We’re analyzing a scene from one of our favorite comedy movies when she finally breaks our mundane conversation streak. “Our timing will never work out, you know? This newest blunder is evidence. Me moving back, you moving to where I just was. I think we need to let go of the pipe dream of forever after, Benny.” Her eyes glass over.

“Yeah?” I ask.

She turns away and her long ponytail swings, brushing an exposed shoulder. When her hair is up and she turns her head just so, a muscle moves in her neck. It’s long and elegant and it reminds me of a swan. I’ve come to realize it’s because she wore her hair up for an entire year while she waited for it to grow out. Ugly duckling. Swan. Yeah, really deep. It’s not the same as the haphazard blow job ponytails and tight neck muscles I see in the women I’m with these days. They don’t have swan necks that make me stare. They have nothing. In their defense, Harper already has everything.

“You’re right,” I say, pulling her against me on the sofa.

She leans her head against my shoulder and I wonder what her neck looks like right now.

“I need to get to bed. Your flight is early.”

She sniffles and I feel her nod against me. “I’ll miss you.”

If I hadn’t just promised to keep things simple, I’d tell her how I feel dead when I’m not with her. How inconsequential life seems without her to share it with. No one understands me, knows that weird, quirky person buried deep inside. Instead, I kiss her head, “I’ll miss you too, Harps. I’ll see you soon, though. Graduation or bust, you nerdy, awesome person.”

A quiet laugh rolls through her. “You know I don’t want it to be like this, right? I’d fix everything and make life simpler, the way it used to be, if I could.”

“Who is saying we can’t fix it now? It’s never too late. Kiss me. Kiss me and tell me you feel nothing.” My heart is hammering. I’m asking something of Harper I know is a hard limit, but sometimes you have to push limits to know you’re wrong. “If you feel nothing, then that’s it. I’ll let you go this time and I won’t look at you this way again.” As if it were an option. I won’t let her know, though. The innuendo, the thinly veiled propositions will be gone for good. I will be only her friend.

She scoots to face me, her knees folded underneath her small body. My heart might explode—the percussion hammering against every pulse point in my body, the whooshing of every beat in my ears. The look on her face tells me she’s willing to break moral code and I hope I can stop myself—can hold off from taking everything I want from her, because as much as I’d like it, I know she won’t recover from something like that. Harper is fragile. I’m asking too much already.

Before I can say another word, or tell her she doesn’t have to because my idea is idiotic, she wraps her arms around my neck and leans in to kiss me, her lips opening immediately. She straddles my lap and I forget what to do. Like I’m sixteen again and I have some untouchable Playboy model splayed on my lap. What do I do? Grinning against her teeth, I remember. I remember everything. Her kiss is like coming home after a really long trip in a cold, cold climate when I’ve had zero human contact and haven’t spoken a word. Now, my lips finally get to say everything by not uttering a word. The kiss feels like fire, warming me in record time. I touch the sides of her face with my fingertips, and she slides her hands in my hair. Little gestures that happen on their own, but feel grand in the scheme of things. What would sex with her feel like now that we’re not clumsy teenagers? Some out of body experience I could never erase. My subconscious answers the question for me.

Slanting my mouth over hers, I take control. I remind myself to keep my hands above her waist. She’s wearing a pair of jean shorts that leave little to the imagination. Her tan thighs are on either side of my legs and from my peripheral vision she looks naked and my cock hardens further. Harper leans into my body until there’s no space between us, her chest rising and falling against mine.

Try as I might, I can’t keep my eyes open another second. My eyes flutter closed and I’m lost to a landslide of emotions. The overwhelming sense that I need to keep this. Keep her. Hold onto this feeling and never let it go. Some proverbial tapping on my shoulder, as if to remind me that this electric current streaming from her body to mine can’t be duplicated. All things that are deeply hidden are forced to light by a mere kiss from her lips.

Harper’s hands become more frantic as she tugs at my shirt and my breathing speeds even as the warning bells start ringing in my head. Even as I envision us going too far, her small, creamy pale body underneath mine as I enter her in a swift, soul searing thrust, I know I won’t do it.

“Hey,” I say, breaking the kiss. She’s inhaling and exhaling at warp speed and her eyelashes are lowered. I push a tangle of long hair out of her face. “Hey,” I repeat.

She swallows, and wetness shines in her eyes. She’ll blink in a couple seconds and the first tears will fall down her round, perfect cheeks. Three. Two. One. “I’m not even sorry! I kissed you like that, and I can’t even be sorry about it!” Harper wails.

I wince, because her voice is loud and screeching as her crying becomes more jagged.

I hear the guilt in her voice. I could tell her that it was just a kiss and that kisses only mean things to teenagers and actors on sitcoms, but we both know I’d be lying. That kiss left a black mark on my soul. With one arm, I pull her against my chest and cradle her head with the other. “It was just an act. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

She calms under my touch, as she mentally sifts for the rightness in my words. “Regardless of what you want it to be, I think we have an answer to our age old question.”

She sniffles into the crook of my neck and my cock jerks. Harper shifts, moving her knees so we aren’t lined up anymore. “What question?”

“You didn’t feel anything abnormal in that kiss, did you?”

She shakes her head. “Of course. I felt everything! It still doesn’t matter.”

“You’ll do the right thing even if it means giving this up forever?” My voice cracks, but I cover it with a deep swallow.

She’s the girl who turned Paulie R in to the teacher when she saw him cheating in fourth grade, the woman who pays for her fountain drinks in her school cafeteria even though she works there. She’s the woman you want till death do you part. The saint. The angel. She’s my devil incarnate. My darkest, dirty secret. It will always be her.

“You’re with some dude right now. It’s not the end of the world. You break up with him and we continue down our merry path.” Holding my hands out to the sides, I bring them together.

She leans away, her eyes wide. Slowly, as if realizing her mortal mistake in increments, she slides off my lap and backs away from me like I’m holding a live grenade. “I know who I am, and I’m not this type of woman, Ben,” she says, voice quavering. “This whole trip was a bad idea. We aren’t just friends anymore. Were we ever just friends? Have we been lying to ourselves all this time?”

Yes and no. It took extensive physical contact for her to see what I’ve known for quite some time. “Harper, please. You’re my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend.”

“When kisses feel like that, how can you look at me and call me your best friend? Your dick was literally begging like a dog to come out and play. My mouth waters when I think about your lips. This is a case of built-up sexual frustration.”

Her words are sharp—true. “There are two options,” I say, smirking. She called my dick a dog. The smile is a necessity. First, it will keep the mood light, and secondly, she has an option to take my offer seriously, or dismiss it as garbage. I explain, “You teach the old dog new tricks and we get this out of our system.” Harper balks, as I knew she would. I continue, “Or we cool it. Take a break for a while. You throw yourself into school and whatever that stank breath boy is called, and I’ll find someone. But this is your decision. Not mine. Not what I want. You need to understand this.”

If we were both thirty and in different places in our lives, maybe I would have laid out the proposition differently, thought about it longer, been more thoughtful with my word choice. Harper has always been there. She’ll continue to be there. “I’m going to bed. You’re right. My flight is pretty early. Want me to sleep on the couch?” She leans away, on one foot, like she’s heading to my bedroom.

She took a fucking page out of my playbook and ignored my questions altogether.

“Of course not. Let’s go to bed.”

Harper crosses her arms under her chest, forcing her shirt to rise and expose a sliver of tight stomach. “Don’t make me sound like some immature child.”

“You said that, I didn’t.” Rising from the sofa, I shift my semi-hard dick. Her gaze flits down, and then quickly away. Harper licks her lips. She shifts from one foot to the other, deciding just how badly she’d rather sleep in a bed than out here on the couch. How virtuous can she be?

With a hand of fingers splayed in her face she whispers, “Please don’t touch me. I can’t. I need to be me and you are—”

“Studly? Irresistible? Chess champion in three different divisions? I know. I know. Ladies can’t keep their hands off me.”

Sighing, she brings her hand to her chest. It’s still rising and falling quicker than it should. I’ve affected her more than I thought a mere kiss could. Marcus must be a loser, selfish asshole in the sack if I can get her this riled up. Or, it’s just us. My money is on us and I’m not a gambling man. “I’m serious, Benny. Just let me have some space tonight. I hate feeling so conflicted.”

I hold out my hands. “After you,” I say. “Everything is settled. I won’t ever touch you again. Not like that.”

Harper’s back straightens and it reminds me of what happens when she’s scared. Not the type of scared that happens when you watch a scary movie. The kind that happens after you’ve taken an hour long P.E. class full of verbal abuse and you can’t take much more without falling to pieces. I never wanted to see her like that and if I had been a different man back in high-school, I would have done more to protect her from cruel teenaged ways. Now? I have the ability to protect her in every way, shape, and form and she’s rejected it in favor of doing the right thing. I think.

She spins and faces me, one hand extended between us. “Friends,” she says.

I take her small hand in mine right away and look her straight in the eye. “As you wish.”