My cursor hovers, trembling, over the wedding album. There he stands in the doorway with his jaw tight. Then—the frame where our eyes met across the room. His body relaxes. His eyes shine.
I lean back, pressing my fingertips to my lips. Three different days. Three identical expressions. Like someone had just turned on all the lights in a dark room.
Chapter 41
Ford
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter, pacing the living room of my house.
It felt like the right time. Harper admitted she doesn’t want Asher. She’s over him and indifferent to his thoughts or actions. We’ve made significant strides in our relationship, but I pushed her away.
There’s a reason Joel warned me to tread carefully. I’ve never seen anyone look so terrified in my life. I scared her. I moved too fast, and she’s probably packed up and halfway to Pittsburgh by now.
But she had to know. I thought my intentions were clear. My feelings for her have always been evident. Everyone has noticed it since we were teenagers. Maybe she doesn’t want me the way I want her. I crave forever, but maybe she seeks somethingsimpler than what she had with Asher. Something that isn’t long-term.
Just as I feel myself spiraling into despair, the doorbell rings. Maybe Eric stopped by to tell me how badly I messed up, how her entire family despises me for sending her away before Christmas.
“Harper?” My heart races as I see her standing on my front porch. She’s still wearing the sweater dress from the rehearsal dinner, looking gorgeous yet cold.
“Can I come inside?”
“Of course,” I reply, cursing myself for standing there like an idiot. “Sorry.”
I exhale deeply, wishing she’d remove her jacket, if only to let me pretend she’s staying.
“Asher never shied away from saying he loved me. He said it when he was here, and I know now he was with Kenzie. With him, those words were empty.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Everything about our relationship was romanticized. I had this fantasy in my head, wanting to believe things were better than they were, that he was better than he truly was.”
I’m not entirely sure where she’s headed with this. So, like the extremely articulate man that I am, I simply respond with, “Okay?”
Harper’s fingers twist together in front of her body. “You and me...” She inhales sharply, her shoulders rising with the breath before settling back into place. Her eyes, wide and vulnerable, finally lift to meet mine. “What we have here—” her voice catches, barely above a whisper, “—I can barely breathe when I think about it. It terrifies me.”
My stomach hollows out. The room suddenly feels ten degrees colder, and I can hear my pulse thudding in my ears. “Imoved too fast,” I manage, the words scraping my throat like sandpaper.
“It scares me because it feels more real than anything I had with Asher. It’s intense, powerful, and incredibly overwhelming.”
At least it’s real? “What does this mean, Harper?”
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth, releasing it slowly. Her fingers flutter at her sides like trapped birds. When she finally looks up, those blue eyes are wide, pupils dilated—the exact way they’d been that morning after the party when she’d jumped out of the bed we shared.
“It means I have to figure things out.”
“Like what?” My stomach churns like a shaken soda can as I stare at her, willing her not to say she can’t do this, that it’s too much. I can’t lose her. I’m so close.
“Like where I’m going to live, since I was only in Pittsburgh for Asher. Whether I’ll open a studio or continue being mobile. How to schedule travel for the gigs I have booked next year.”
I frown and shake my head. “I’m sorry, baby, but I need you to spell out what you’re saying for me. I’m not… What are you saying exactly?”
Shaking her arms out like she’s about to run a race, she juts out her chin. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this. No long-distance relationship. No traveling back and forth until we figure out who’s moving and when. No risk of something interfering and breaking what we’re building.”
The room tilts beneath me. “Wait, you’re moving home?”
She reaches for my hands. Her fingertips brush mine first, cool and hesitant, before she interlocks our fingers. The corner of her mouth lifts, but a pulse flutters visibly at her throat. “Unless you don’t want—”
I cut her off with my lips against hers, my arms circling her waist and lifting until her feet leave the floor. The scent of her perfume fills my lungs as we spin once, twice.
