Tearing my eyes away from the painting, I focus my attention on Harper for the first time since I walked in and have to blink a second time at the woman standing in front of me.
“Well, don’t you look all professional and spiffy,” I comment.
I’m not used to business-attire Harper dressed in a red silk blouse, dark brown pencil skirt, and low heels. Her gold-streaked hair is done up in a French twist and delicate diamond drops hang from her earlobes. She looks fancy and refined and every bit the millionaire she is now, a perk of being a Montgomery. But Harper has never let the money she inherited from her biological father change her. She’s more of a tomboy at heart, so seeing her all polished and professional is new.
Harper spins around, then looks down at herself. “Yeah, not my usual tank top, blue jeans, and ballet flats, which I’d rather be wearing. These heels are murder on my poor feet,” she says while pointing with what has to be a Louboutin with the red sole in my direction.
“Well, you look beautiful,” I reply, and she smiles at the compliment.
“Thanks. So do you.”
My lips purse in a self-deprecatingpfftof disbelief as I gesture to my worn sneakers and black jeans with rips in the knees.
“Oh, please. You’d look gorgeous with a paper bag over your head. I’m sure my brother would agree,” she says with the devil in her grin.
The woman is a master of extracting information, but I’m immune to her tactics.
“If you’re going fishing, you might want to use different bait on your hook.”
Harper loops her arm through mine and starts walking. “I’ll wear you down eventually. And don’t think I haven’t forgotten that you owe me one huge-ass explanation about the sister you kept secret from me, who was almost my sister-in-law. I think I threw up a little in my mouth.”
She visibly shudders, and it makes me giggle.
Smacking a horrified hand over her face, she says, “Shit, I am so sorry. Again. I shouldn’t have said that. She’s your sister, and that was very rude of me. I really do need to learn to keep my inner thoughts to myself.”
“Say whatever shitty thing you want about her. Honestly, I’ve probably thought worse.”
An awful thing to say to someone out loud about a family member, but it’s the truth. Amelia has never been my sister. Growing up, she hit me, hurt me, hurled nasty insults at me, but never, not once, showed me any sisterly love. When I was little, I learned early on to fear her and avoid all contact with her if I didn’t want another broken arm or painful bruise. But I’m an adult now, stronger. I’ve been through hell and back and survived. There’s nothing, not one fucking thing, Amelia can do or say to me now that can hurt me. I hope I proved that last night when I confronted her over the phone.
We stop in front of the reception desk, just as a pink-haired slip of a woman in biker boots comes strolling out of a back room. I love the whole ‘Tinker Bell going to a rock concert’ look she has going on. Her heart-shaped face lights up just as she thrusts her hand out at me.
Before Harper can make the introduction, the woman exclaims, “You must be Douglass. Love the name, by the way. Harper has talked non-stop about you. I’m so glad to finally have a face to go with the name. I’m Angel. Oh my gosh, your hair is so pretty.”
She’s talking so fast, it’s hard to keep up. But her energy and her kindness instantly win me over. This must be Harper’s new assistant she mentioned at Mickey’s.
“Nice to meet you,” I reply, shaking her proffered hand. “I love your shirt.”
It’s black with hot pink writing that says, “OnlyBad Girls Get Good Book Boyfriends,” on top of an old Fabio romance cover. It’s funny seeing her standing next to Harper, who is dressed like a regal businesswoman. The dichotomy is glaringly apparent.
Angel picks at the front of her shirt with her fingers and pulls it away from her body as if she had forgotten what she put on today.
“Thanks. I made it.”
“You did a great job. I love it. It’s totally something I would wear,” I tell her.
“She made me one with Bennett’s picture and jersey number that I’m going to wear to Opening Day,” Harper says, leaning over the reception desk and grabbing her cell phone and a set of keys on one of those plastic, curly bands you can slip onto your wrist.
Angel pouts. “She won’t wear the other one I made for her.”
“Answer is still no. Bennett would kill me.”
Intrigued, I ask, “Why?”
“It has his picture on it and says, ‘His Bat Isn’t The Only Thing That’s Big.’”
It takes me longer than it should to get the veiled reference, but when I do, I double over, laughing.
“You’ve got to wear that,” I implore Harper.
