Harlow
“I’d like to be friends with you.” I’d like to be able to see his smile and hear that gruff laugh. “But it can’t be friends like we’re friends now.” He can’t play with my hair or make me feel like I’m the only thing he sees. “What we’re doing this week… it has to end here.”
He looks past me into the morning sun.
“Why?” And then before I can answer he adds, “I’m not arguing with you. I’m asking, because I don’t get it.”
That’s the thing. I don’t think most people would. No matter how I tried to explain. But Wade? I think he might.
“You know how you were with hockey, where you wanted it even though your coaches maybe didn’t see your potential until you proved it?”
Some of the light leaves his eyes. “Yeah.”
“My career goals come with their own set of obstacles. Not everyone sees my potential. I’m young—”
“You’re smart as hell with a handful of degrees to back it up.”
“Thank you. But I’ve already been boxed out of the job I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in.” Years of experience, trainings, and certifications at every turn.
“What happened?”
“I’d been offered a promotion to head up the division. But at the last minute, they did some restructuring and brought someone else in.”
He coughs, eyes narrowing. “Someone with more experience?”
If only. Someone with more entitlement.
“Someone with a better relationship with the person making the decisions.”
“So now you work for this… guy?”
He thinks it’s about me being a woman. That there’s a boys’ club behind my problems. Who knows, maybe that’s part of it. But not all. Not even most.
“No. I don’t work for him. We’d already backfilled my position with someone who moved from out of state. I became a redundancy.”
“The fuck, Harlow?” he demands, outraged on my behalf. “They can’t do that, can they? Does HR know?”
It feels like everyone knows.
“There are a number of issues complicating the situation. But no. This avenue of advancement isn’t an option anymore. Which means what I do now matters. I can’t afford to drop the ball. So no distractions. No conflicts. No mistakes.”
“This guy in charge. He still going to have a say in your advancement?”
“Yes.” And that’s the point. “He’s at the top of the food chain.”
“You should definitely take my seats. Invite him to a game.”
I lean a shoulder into Wade. He’s strong and solid and warm. “If only it were that simple.”
“Don’t tell me he doesn’t like hockey.”
Shaking my head, I take a deep breath. Dig deep to keep my voice level. “He doesn’t like me.”
He’s quiet beside me. Then, “Why the hell not?”
And the way he says it, like it’s not possible, like it’s so far outside the realm of possibility that someone wouldn’t like me… It’s really nice.
“No idea.” That’s the truth. Part of it anyway. “It’s been like that from the start. Something about me rubs him the wrong way, I guess.”
“Why would you want to work for a guy like that? You could change banks. They have compliance departments everywhere, don’t they?”
I meet his eyes. “But this is the bank I care about.”
“So what you’re saying is you really, really needed this vacation.”
I laugh, and it feels good after a conversation it hurts to have.
“Seriously, let me know if you want seats.”
He lays another quick, hard kiss on me, then pulls me up and challenges me to a race back.
Wade
I’d like to say I let her win, but Harlow guts it out fair and square, making it back to the hotel besting me by less than a two-foot lead.
Damn, she’s intense.
I reward her with the first turn under the shower spray and a full body wash so thorough and complete, I’m rewarded with my name echoing off the walls as I get her dirty all over again.
We have breakfast at the bakery in town. Harlow wants to hear more about the team, and I tell her about the guys I play with. I give up the stories I know will make her laugh, even the ones that make me look like a tool. But I can’t stop thinking about her job. I hate the idea of her getting screwed over like that. And more, I hate the idea of what she’ll be going back to when this trip is over.
I can relate to going after something not everyone believes is within my reach. But at least when I prove I can deliver, I get to keep the job.
After breakfast, we drive out to the city to pick up the place cards from one of Janie’s aunts. My mom tried to talk me into leaving Harlow behind to hang out with her—and I get it, we all want more of her—but she’s mine, and I’m not giving up a minute I don’t have to.
We hold hands in the truck.
I make her laugh and make her blush and ask her a million questions.
On the way back, we ride long stretches with a kind of comfortable silence between us I’m not used to. It’s nice. It makes me want to take her to the hotel and pull her into my arms for more.
But my mom is waiting, so we head to my parents’ place instead.
“These turned out so pretty,” my mom coos, checking over the hand-done calligraphy with Harlow at what used to be our dining room table. Currently, it’s covered with every kind of crafting DIY supply you can imagine.
“What’s with the hot glue gun?”
She rolls her eyes and laughs like I’m pulling her leg.
Harlow gives up one of those soft smiles that’s somehow twice as potent as its full-bodied counterpart.
Then she’s offering to help with the “embellishments,” and even though I don’t know what the hell that means, I’m assuming it’s this arts-and-crafts stuff. “Yeah, I’ll help too.”
Both women turn to me with raised brows.
Okay, so my hands are twice as big as theirs, but I think I can handle some glitter and sticking a few of those beady things to a card.
“Wade, honey, you don’t have to help. Why don’t you call your brother or Tommy? Relax a while.”
Harlow bites her lip against a smile. So cute.
“Nah, I’ll help.”
She peers up at me. “When was the last time you did anything crafty?”
“Art class in high school.”
My mother’s hand moves to her hip, her eyes going narrow. “You got a C.”
Harlow coughs, her eyes going wide like she’s just uncovered my greatest shame and doesn’t quite know how to face me.
Jesus.
“C-plus.”
“Only because Sandy White did half your projects.”
How the hell does Mom know that?
I straighten, digging in because I can’t fucking help it. “The bad half.”
And then I’m pulling out my chair and sitting down. End of discussion.
Two hours later, I’m going blind beneath the glare of my mother’s makeup mirror, my two favorite women in my face, both fussing at once.
“I told you not to touch your eyes.”
“Jesus, it’s in his ear.”
“Have you seen his hair?”
“We may have to cut that out.”
I try to push them away—gently—but my mother says my name in that way that has me slumping back.
“It was an accident,” I groan.
“We have more glue, honey.”
“I can drive back out for more of those card things.”
Harlow pauses from working the coconut oil into my face. “This one’s like a glittery beauty mark. I kind of want to leave it.”
They both fall into another bout of teary-eyed laughter, and suddenly, I don’t really mind at all.
When they can breathe again, my mom pats my chest and then sighs at the fresh coating of glitter on her hand. “Honey, don’t worry about the place cards. I only gave you the ones for the guests that canceled after we placed the order.”
“What?”
My mom points at my left eye. “Get his lashes.”
I’m sentenced to a shower, but first I’m forced to endure the indignity of standing in the backyard while my mom empties a can of Aqua Net, spraying down my clothes. I don’t even get to use my own shower, instead being banished to the first-floor shoebox off the utility room where I strip and hand my glitter-coated, hairspray-soaked clothing to Harlow through the door.
After washing my hair with olive oil and then a crusty bottle of baby shampoo I suspect has been squatting under our sink for the last twenty-five years, I dry off with a torn towel from the rag pile. When I’m done, there’s a neat stack of folded clothes waiting outside the door, probably left behind from my college days.
I pull them on and mutter a curse.
Mom and Harlow are in the dining room, their backs to me, the glitter miraculously contained to the tiny bowls of its origin.
Standing in the doorway, I wait for them to notice me. And when they do, it’s everything I’d hoped for.
Harlow catches me in the corner of her eye and turns with a smile that goes slack as her eyes drop south to the sweatpants so snug they’ve got to be two sizes too small and… make everything under them look two sizes too big.
“Umm, Wade…”
“Yeah, babe?”
My mom turns. Her eyes bug and then squint shut as she throws her hand out to block her view. “Jesus, Wade!”
Uh-huh. “I’m going back to the hotel to grab some clothes.”
Hand still blocking her view, my mom fumbles out of her seat. “You aren’t leaving this house, mister. If Kelsey comes home from the courthouse early, lock yourself in your room.” Then to Harlow, “Grab his keys, we’ll get his clothes.”
Harlow
I make it all the way to the truck before I crack. Grace slides into the passenger seat beside me, the horror still lingering in her eyes. She takes my hand in hers and we both fold forward, laughing so hard I’m not sure it will ever stop.
“I’ve never seen anything so—”
“He should have warned us—”
“Were those even his?”
Grace wipes her eyes and sits back. “I thought so, but maybe they were Walt’s?”
I shake my head. “From middle school?”
She scrunches her face in thought. “I don’t think so?”
And I die laughing some more.
I get a text from Wade telling me the circulation is being cut off to my favorite “fun park” and to put the truck in gear and go. After adjusting every setting six hundred times, it’s about as good as it’s going to get.
“I don’t normally drive Wade’s truck. Are you sure you want to come along?”
Grace buckles up. “Absolutely. You see what I have to deal with raising these boys? I’ll take every minute with their girls I can get.”
I don’t wreck the truck and Grace waits in the lot while I grab the clothes. She peppers me with stories about Wade as a boy, and I’m grinning so hard I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to ice my cheeks from the workout they’re getting.
When we get back, Walt’s car is in the drive and I can only imagine his reaction to his brother’s nothing-left-to-the-imagination ensemble.
But when we walk in, it’s not Walt I see.
“David?” I choke out.