“We fell asleep, huh?” Larissa said, and her arm moved away from Harlow’s body, making her miss it immediately.
“Yeah, seems like it.”
“Sorry. I should have taken you to bed, but I was too tired to walk there myself, so I just crashed with you.”
“It’s okay,” Harlow said and moved to sit up. “I think I’ll go charge my phone before my shower so that it makes it through the day.”
She wasn’t sure why she had added that, but maybe just to have something to say that wasn’t about them falling asleep together.
“Want breakfast? I can make those toaster waffles for you to take with you,” Larissa offered. “Can’t messthoseup, can I?”
Harlow stood, wiped her face with both hands, and replied, “Yeah, sure. Thank you. Just use the second setting on the toaster, please. Four burns them.”
“Two. Got it.”
“You have work?”
“Later, yeah,” Larissa replied.
“Okay. Well, I’ll shower then and head out.”
“Want coffee, too?”
“Will you put it in a travel cup for me, please? I’ll take it with me.”
“Will do. I can also pack you a lunch. I got that honey ham you like, and there’s tomato and lettuce, and you know about the cheese already.”
Harlow laughed and said, “Yes to all of that. Thank you. I’ll be ten minutes.”
She headed into her room with her phone and set it to charge. She had a few notifications, but nothing important in messages or on social media. There was an email that caught hereye, though. Harlow picked her phone back up and went to open it. She had gotten the apartment.
CHAPTER 21
Larissa shook her head as she packed lunch for Harlow. The waffles were done, and she’d made sure they hadn’t overtoasted in the toaster, which she had yet to master, despite it being hers and also the fact that she had an advanced degree and was well on her way to another one.
She’d woken up with her arm around Harlow. Not just that; she’d woken up with her arm under Harlow’s breasts, and with her hand dangerously close to cupping one of them. What had her sleeping body done? She remembered Harlow putting her legs in her lap, and she remembered running her hands up and down them, which wasn’t a common thing with them, but ithadhappened before. She’d even given Harlow the occasional foot massage from time to time after she had worked a long day or just needed one.
It hadn’t felt different when Harlow had put her legs in her lap, but she remembered looking over at her whenThis Used to Be My Playgroundby Madonna had started playing at the end of the movie and noticing that Harlow had been asleep. Larissa had tried to wake her up gently by patting her stomach, but Harlow had been out. Not wanting to disturb her in the middle of an important sleep phase, Larissa had planned a slow escape, but said plan had involved her somehow getting out from under her best friend, around the coffee table, and not hitting theempty beer bottles or stepping on the chip bag that she’d placed by her feet after grabbing it from the kitchen during the movie.
She hadn’t been sure she would make it without waking Harlow, and she remembered a yawn. Then, she remembered the song from the credits starting to lull her to sleep. That was it; that was all she remembered. At some point during the night, she’d moved to lie down behind Harlow, and not only that, but she had reached for her. She’d pressed herself against Harlow’s back, and when she had woken up, she had breathed in Harlow’s scent. Harlow smelled of laundry detergent from her shirt and a little of her pink citrus body wash that Larissa had replaced for her recently. She’d been cleaning up around the house, and when she’d gone into the guest bathroom Harlow used, she had noticed that she was nearly out. Knowing how busy Harlow was, Larissa stopped by the store and picked up another bottle for her, and she’d smelled it on Harlow’s back and neck when they’d woken up next to each other not even ten minutes ago.
She went with ham and cheese, added mustard because she knew Harlow preferred mustard on that sandwich, and packed some lettuce and tomato separately so that it wouldn’t ruin the sandwich by making it soggy. Then, she grabbed the chips she’d nearly stepped on the night before, put some in a small plastic bag, and added them to a lunchbox she’d forgotten that she’d even had until she found it under the sink. There was an applesauce in the fridge, so she put that in there, too, and added a spoon. Thinking Harlow would need a beverage to go with all that, she added a soda and zipped the bag.
“Hey. Sorry, I took longer than ten minutes,” Harlow said, emerging from the hallway looking like it had taken her an hour to get ready, but it was only about fifteen minutes at most.
“No, you… All good.”
Larissa cleared her throat, taking her in.
Harlow had a blazer on today, which was black, matching her pants. Her navy blue button-down under it was unbuttoned at the top, and her hair was slicked back mostly, but not completely dry yet. Harlow had never been one to wear makeup, and she never needed it, either. Her brown hair framed a near-perfect face with those equally brown eyes, and Larissa needed to stop staring at her best friend’s face.
“So, I’ll be here later. We have that interview,” Harlow said and shoved keys into her bag that she’d picked up off the floor.
“Yeah, the interview. It’s not another throuple,” Larissa replied with a little laugh.
“No? Did you reach out to them with your follow-up questions?”
“I did. Brynn got back to me and said they’d talk about and type up their answers for me by the end of the week. She was very nice about it. It actually got me thinking about what other kinds of people I might be missing by focusing on just couples. I mean, there’s polyamory, but there are other spectrums, too. I hadn’t considered things like demisexuality or the asexual spectrum. God, there are so many spectrums. I could talk to people from all overallthe spectrums. I’m sure there’s a whole other book to write about each, but I could start with–”
