Once the table was cleared, they watched a little television until David’s bath time. Harper put him to bed, kissing his cheek.
“You smell nice and clean. I’m glad you had a fun day.”
David kissed him and sighed, closing his eyes.
He left the room after shutting the lights and went to take a shower. Luis was still watching television, having turned on the ball game, and his eyes lit up when he saw Harper had changed clothes. He put up a hand.
“Don’t even ask. As I’ve mentioned many times, your TV is twice the size of mine, and you have better snacks.” He popped a pizza roll into his mouth. “I know ’cause I bought them. So I’m happy to stay up here and keep the monitor on.” His eyes crinkled shut with laughter.
Harper rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake. Everyone has an opinion about my life.”
“Only because we’ve been waiting for you to wake up and start living.”
“Has everyone I know started working at a greeting-card company? I don’t know what you all think I’ve been doing, but I don’t need a relationship to feel alive or validated. I love being with David. Nothing brings me greater happiness than seeing him happy and knowing he’s secure.”
“And do you know how David feels?”
In the middle of sticking his wallet and keys into his pocket, he stopped and stared at Luis. “Huh? Of course I do. I know he loves me.”
“David wants you to be happy too.”
Harper’s eyes burned. “What’re you talking about? You talked to David about me dating someone? You shouldn’t have.”
“Why not? Sometimes it seems like you’re using David as an excuse for hiding.”
“Hiding from what? That’s ridiculous.”
“No. It’s not. Everyone you’ve loved has hurt you in some way, either by accident or deliberately. Your father died young, your mother took her own life because she couldn’t deal with the stress of taking care of David on her own for the rest of her life, Ronnie broke your heart by pretending to care for David only to try to move David out of your life.”
“You haven’t ever let me down. You’re the one person I can count on.”
“And I’ll be here, but you need to be good to yourself. I thought we had this talk and you knew what you had to do?”
Saying it was one thing. Doing it was another, and Harper hadn’t reached that level in a very long time.
“I’m fine,” Harper mumbled. “I’ve always handled things the best way I knew how.”
Luis squeezed his arm. “That was then. Try another way now. Let people in.”
***
On his walk to Colson’s, he ran through a slew of conversations in his mind—what to reveal and what to hide—but when Colson opened the door, he knew there was only one thing that needed to be said.
“I missed you.”
Colson’s brows shot up. “Come in.”
Head bowed, he walked straight into the living room and sat on the couch, with Colson beside him.
“I have a lot to say, but please let me speak without asking me any questions.”
“Okay.”
He concentrated on the wood grain of the floor, the fringes on the rug…anything but Colson’s curious face.
“I live with my younger brother, David. He’s brain-damaged and a quadriplegic from an accident that happened when he was five. We have a live-in aide who cares for him while I’m not homeand is basically like a father to him and an older brother to me. David’s ten years younger than me, and I would do anything to protect him—I have since both our parents are gone.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Three years after the accident my father died suddenly, leaving my mother as David’s sole caretaker. She—she couldn’t handle my brother’s injuries. It changed her. She became depressed and withdrawn.” He swiped at his face. “I’d just started college and was living at home, trying to help her out. She thought having an aide to help her meant she wasn’t a good enough mother. Of course, no one else thought that, but she sank lower and lower, and despite all the help she got with therapy, I came home one day and…” His voice caught.Dammit. He hadn’t thought he’d get this emotional about it after so many years.
Colson pulled him close. “I don’t care if you told me not to interrupt. Harper, dammit, I’m so sorry.”
