Page 65 of Freefall

This is reckless—borderline self-sabotage. But after everything that happened this morning…I can’t pretend I don’t want to know what it’s like to be with this grown-up version of Nate.

He takes another step. “Then yes.”

Neither of us says anything as seconds tick by.

“I have limits,” I finally say.

“I know.”

I shake my head. “I don’t mean that.”

He arches a brow.

“I mean…” I search for the right words. “We have to agree on boundaries. You can’t keep showing up and forcing your way in whenever you feel like it. When it comes to Daisy, we’re equals. You have to check in with me before you make decisions that affect all three of us. What we do in the bedroom is separate, Nate. You don’t get to control my life and… I may not always answer your calls right away. You have to be okay with that.”

The obvious reference to our history tastes bitter in my mouth as the words leave it. Nate winces like I pierced a nerve. Blinking hard, he releases a ragged breath.

“Okay,” he finally says.

“This stays between us,” I add. “I can’t risk Daisy finding out we’re anything other than friends. Not yet.”

His eyes drift toward the school building before settling back on me. “I agree.”

Those two words dissolve all of the uncertainty that’s been hanging between us for weeks. Something shifts in his expression, the last trace of hesitation disappearing as he closes the distance between us. Barely an inch separates us now. He hooks a long finger under my chin, tipping my face up to his. “Did you touch yourself last night, Harper?”

It’s my turn to shake my head.

“Good. That’s rule number one. Your orgasms belong to me. I decide when and if you get them. Understand?”

My eyes flutter closed, and when they open, I half-expect him to be gone, like the last few minutes were a figment of my overactive imagination. But he’s still there, tall and unyielding, looking at me like he already knows exactly what he’s going to do to me. So I say the only thing I can. The only thing that makes any sense right now.

“Yes, I understand.”

17

NATE

When I was fourteen, my football coach told me that in order to be great at something, you have to do it every day. It didn’t matter if it was a game, a drill, or five minutes in your backyard. Your body would remember every second.

The more you repeat something, the deeper it buries itself until you stop having to think about it. So I practiced every day. Weekends. Off-season. Snow days. Even if it was nothing more than tossing it around with Luke until Gram yelled that we were going to catch our death, I made sure my hands touched a football.

He was right. By junior year, I wasn’t thinking anymore. My feet knew where to go. My hands knew where the ball would be before it even got there.

The same thing happened when I taught myself to play guitar during the off-season. At first, every chord felt impossible. My fingers landed on the wrong strings, the tips splitting open until they formed calluses. I played every day until football season picked up again, but by then it had clicked. I was so busy with practice and games that weeks would go by without my hands touching a guitar, but the second I picked it back up, I remembered. My fingers would find the chords before my brain even caught up.

It’s called muscle memory.

You know what else I learned in high school? The heart is almost ninety percent muscle.

Nine years. A thousand reasons to hate her. Every excuse in the world to let her go, and that damn muscle remembers everything.

All it took was two quiet words whispered into the cool air for every beat in my chest to forget.

I am.

Harper asked me if I would consider showing her what it would be like to belong to me for more than a day, and I couldn’t think of a single reason to tell her no.

Now, in the harsh light of reality, I can think of several. Most of them have to do with that little girl crying in the office because the world decided to show her its cruelty. I’m only slightly ashamed to admit I wanted to punch an eight-year-old boy in the face for saying what he did to her. I’m not at all ashamed for wanting to knock that pretty boy principal on his ass.