“Harper, thank you for—Aiden?” My friend doesn’t reply, just holding out a plastic bag overflowing with supplies. “Aiden. What the hell? Where’s Harper?”
“Back at that ridiculous cafe. The Roasted Chestnut? Is this town serious?”
“Forget about the town, what are you doing here? What did you do to Harper?”
“Do to her? It’s what she did to me!”
“Harper?”
“Yes! She was swamped and trying to pass off a hundred orders for something called a pumpkapocolypse to a pimply teenager who just stood there. I snapped at him, she snapped at me, I ended up at the pharmacy with a list in my hand.”
“Harper. At the cafe.”
“Yes, Harper at the cafe, are you having a stroke?”
“Areyou?I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her raise her voice above a whisper, let alonesnapat someone.”
“You must be thinking of a different Harper then, because she was like a little fiery dragon. Red hair and angry eyes and venom.”
“I don’t think dragons have venom.”
“Fire then! Damn it, Ben, take your drugs!”
I still can’t get past my shock as I slowly reach for the plastic sack, but then I hear Janelle padding around in the house.
I narrow my eyes at my friend, “We will be discussing this later.”
“We will not. Goodbye.” He turns and stomps off.
I watch him go, puzzled as all hell, then hear a pitiful sniff.
Right.
Time to take care of my girl.
Wait, what? No. Not my girl.
Just Janelle. Janie, I mean. Not even my wife, not really. She’s my friend and she needs looking after. And I guess I quite like looking after people, if the pride stirring in me is any indication.
“I don’t want you to leave me.”
That was maybe the best sentence I’ve ever heard.
Except that’s ridiculous. She’s just sickly.
We’re friends with occasional benefits.
I’m being a good friend.
That’s all this is.
Or, rather, that’s all thiscanbe. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want more.
A sinking feeling settles somewhere deep within me.
A feeling I don’t think I can ignore any longer. Something I’ve never felt before in my life. Something that’s growing. Honestly, it’s getting more difficult to joke it away and hide it behind my smiles. But that’s what she wants, what she needs. She needs light and fun. She needs a friend.
And so that’s what I’ll be.
