Harry
Two weeks later
They say there’s no fool like an old fool, but I knew that wasn’t true. I wasn’t that old. And I was the biggest fool of them all. As I walked out of the plane and into Heathrow Airport, I realized that I was the dumbest man I’ve ever met in my life. Well, maybe that wasn’t true, I wasn’t the most dumb, but I was the most selfish and utterly lacking self-awareness. I shook my head. I pulled up my phone and checked the last email that Sarah had sent me; it had been a few days ago. She’d gone on and on about how she loved being in London even though it was dark and damp and how she was having an amazing time. But I could read between the lines, she was miserable. Most probably as miserable as I had been without her. I couldn’t believe that she’d been gone for two weeks already.
I couldn’t believe that I’d let her go without telling her exactly how I felt, without telling her everything that she meant to me. But I was the fool that hadn’t even realized. I hadn’t even realized everything that she’d meant to me. And now here I was hoping that she’d understand and give me a second chance or a real chance. “Oh!” I groaned out loud as I continued walking. She had no idea I was in England and she had no idea I was going to show up at her house. I just hoped she be happy to see me and be willing to give me a chance to talk and explain everything.
I walked over to the taxis and grabbed the line and sat back. “Going to Chelsea, please,” I said to the taxi driver and he just nodded. I grabbed my phone and debated calling her or not. Though, I didn’t want to give her a heads-up. I didn’t want her to know I was here. I didn’t want her to start thinking and overthinking, overanalyzing. She needed to hear everything directly from me face-to-face and in person, I owed her that, and I owed myself that. I looked out of the window... and realized that this could be the start of a brand-new life for me, and it didn’t scare me at all, it made me excited. I was so excited to see her and yet nervous. I didn’t know how she felt. I didn’t know if she wanted the same thing as me but I needed to figure it out and I needed to talk to her.
We arrived in Chelsea about an hour later and I paid the taxi driver and then got out of the taxi. I walked into the building that she was living in and went to the front desk, “Hi, I’m here to see one of your guests, Sarah Caddington.”
“Does she know that you’re coming, sir?”
“No. If you could call up to her flat and let her know that Harry Parker Huntington is here.”
“Yes, sir. One moment.” The man walked over to a phone and pressed something. “Hi, Ms. Caddington, you have a guest downstairs in the lobby. He says his name is, sorry sir, what was your name? Harry? He says his name is Harry. Yes ma’am, one moment. What is your last name, sir?”
“Harry Parker Huntington,” I said with the slightest attitude. How many Harrys did Sarah know?
“Thank you, sir. He says his name is Harry Parker Hunter—”
“Huntington,” I said.
“Sorry, sir. Harry Parker Huntington, Ms. Caddington. Yes. Yes. Okay. I’ll send him up.” He put the phone down and looked over at me, “You can go up to the tenth floor. The elevators are to the right.”
“Thank you. And where do I go after that? Or is it like a penthouse?”
“You can go to apartment 10-E, sir.”
He looked at me and he didn’t look impressed. I’m sure he was thinking what sort of friend could I be if I didn’t even know her apartment number, but I just shook my head and said, “Thank you.” I walked toward the elevators and wondered what Sarah was thinking and wondered if she’d be happy to see me. I got in the elevator and then as soon as I exited on the tenth floor, she was standing there looking as beautiful as ever. She had a curious and shocked expression on her face.
“Harry, what are you doing here?” she said as she glanced at me.
“Nice to see you too, Sarah. I mean, it’s great to see you.”
She walked over and gave me a big hug. “I’m just shocked.”
“I’m sure you’re shocked.” I laughed. “Take me to your flat and we’ll talk.”
“Okay. Sure. You’ll have to excuse the mess, I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
I laughed, “Sarah, I’ve known you all your life. I know how messy you can be.”
“Fine, I know.” She giggled. “But it’s really messy.”
“Aha.” I followed her behind as we walked down the corridor, “So how’s your job going?”
“Oh, it’s going okay.” She made a face. “It’s not exactly what I thought it was going to be. Though I don’t really know what I thought it was going to be, it’s not really what I want to be doing.”
“So you’re not working in history or?”
“I’m basically... putting inventory into Excel sheets.” She rolled her eyes. “Not exactly what I wanted to be doing but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Yeah.” We walked into her apartment and then she closed the front door. “Wow. This is nice.” I said, “It’s not as messy as I thought it would be.”
“Well, you know.” She laughed. “Come, let’s have a seat.” We walked over to the couch and sat down. “Do you want something to drink or?”
“No. I’m okay,” I said. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”
“You could say that again,” she said.
I gazed at her face, remembering every single detail clearly. As I stared at her, my love for her poured through and I couldn’t imagine or believe that I’d let her go for one second. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, Sarah.”
“I already think you’re crazy, Harry. So that’s okay.”
“I’ve really missed you.”
“I missed you too.” She smiled and nodded. “Is that why you came to see me, you couldn’t live without me?”
“Something like that,” I said softly. She looked at me with an uncertain expression and I could see that she was trembling slightly. I grabbed her hands and pulled her toward me. “Hey. Hey, I’ve been a real fool, Sarah.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have been a real fool. A couple of weeks ago you asked me a question.”
“What question was that?”
“You asked me why I’d never been in a serious relationship and I didn’t really give you an answer.”
“Yeah, that’s true, you didn’t. Don’t tell me you came all this way to give me an answer.”
“Yeah, I did actually.”
“Oh.” She looked surprised.
I took a deep breath. “You know, we’ve always been in each other’s life, Sarah. You’ve always been there for me. I’ve always been there for you. We’ve grown up together. I’ve seen you blossom. You’ve seen me blossom. You’ve seen me in weird dating situations. I’ve seen you with a couple of boyfriends you’ve gone out with but at the end of the day, we always had each other. You always had my back. I always had yours, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And I guess a part of me.” I let out a deep breath.
“Yeah?” she said softly.
“A part of me has always been in love with you. Sarah. Part of me has always known that I don’t want to be in a long-term relationship with anyone else because there’s no one else that could measure up to you. There’s no one else that I could love as much. There’s no one else that could make me laugh. There’s no one else that could understand me and put up with me and realize that I’m a goofball and I’m funny and I’m serious and I’m sad and all of those things... only you, Sarah, only you. It’s always been you. You’ve been the one that I’ve loved. You’ve been the one that’s been a part of me since before I even knew what that meant. I love you, Sarah. I have loved you my whole entire life.
“And a part of me has just been waiting. A part of me has been waiting for us to realize that we were made for each other. We’re soul mates, we’re best friends and there’s no one better to be in a relationship with. There’s no one better to love than your best friend. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I looked at her and laughed at her open jaw. “If you keep your mouth open like that, you’re going to catch a lot of flies.”
“I’m just in shock,” she said as she closed her mouth, her face was bright pink. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Okay. That’s not necessarily a good sign.” I chuckled, suddenly feeling nervous. “Do you not feel the same way?”
“I... oh, Harry.” She put her finger against my lips. “I love you. I realized that I loved you a long time ago. And I honestly never expected or thought that you could love me in return. I thought that... I was just your best friend. I thought that you were scared of commitment because you just didn’t want to be in a serious relationship. I thought that I wasn’t good enough. I was so sad and hurt, don’t you understand?”
“I was the one that wasn’t good enough for you all these years. I’m the one that’s had to grow. You’ve always been perfect. You’ve always been beautiful. You’ve always been my Sarah. You’ve always been there for me. You’re the funniest, kookiest, most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world and I don’t deserve you but my god, I will do everything in my power to show you how much I love you. How much I need you, how much you mean to me. I love you, Sarah Caddington. I love you so much and I’ve been a fool. I can’t believe I let you come up to another country without telling you that.”
“You knew you loved me?”
“Sarah, I’ve always loved you. I was a fool to not acknowledge how much I loved you and what that love meant. I knew I loved you that night when you told me you were going to England, but I didn’t want to be selfish. I didn’t want to make you stay because you loved me too or because you felt like you owed me. I didn’t realize that you loved me.”
Then she shook her head. “You seemed so happy to just let me go.”
“Because I didn’t want to be selfish, Sarah. I didn’t want to be the one to hold you back, but I’m here now because I can’t live without you. I can’t be without you. I need to be with you.”
“You want me to come back home, huh?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want you to come back home. You’ve always wanted to study and work with... the Brits. That’s been something you’ve always talked about. You studied history and I realize now that you need to expand your world horizon. You need to live out your dreams as well.”
“So what does that mean?” she asked softly.
“It means that I’m going to move to London.”
“What?” Her eyes widened. “But you can’t, you’re taking over your father’s business. You’re going to be CEO.”
“Hey.” I shook my head. “All our lives, you’ve done everything to support me and to help me. And I appreciate that so much more than you’ll ever know. It has meant everything to me, but I love you, Sarah. And I want to appreciate it and I want to support you and this is your dream. Maybe the job you’re in right now isn’t your dream but what you want to do, it’s here. Right now, it’s in England and I want to be here with you. I can’t live without you.”
“But what about your dream to take over your dad’s company? You... you’ve always talked about that.”
“I can work here in Europe and it’s not like my dad is going to retire anytime soon.” I laughed. “And you know what? Maybe Ethan might step up or Josh or I don’t know, but right now, it’s more important for me to support you. You mean more to me than business, you mean more to me than money.”
“And if you don’t want to take your parents’ money anymore and if you don’t want to live off the trust fund, you don’t have to, we can do this, Sarah. We can do it by ourselves. We can travel the world. We can do whatever we want to do. I don’t want us to be limited by our parents’ expectations of us, and I don’t want us to be limited by our expectations of each other. I want us to continue growing together. I want us to live a life that’s beautiful and appreciative of everything that there is to offer. I love you, Sarah. I love you and I want to show you with all my being, that I’m here to support you. No matter what you want to do. I was an idiot. I fully admit that. I never should have gotten you to buy presents for those women I was dating, but you know what? You made it funny and even though at the time, I didn’t think it was funny, it was because you are funny and you’re my best friend and I can’t let you go. Please say something.”
“I love you so much. So, so much, Harry. This is beyond my wildest dreams. You don’t even understand. I just want to be with you, and I want to love you and thank you for coming. Thank you for showing me how much I mean to you. Thank you for wanting to come to England. I can’t believe you would give up New York City and everything just for me.”
“For us,” I said. “This is for us, Sarah. Life is short. I realized that. And it doesn’t mean anything if you’re not with the people you love, and I love you and I don’t want to continue living my life without you in it on a day-to-day basis. Sarah, I love you so much. Will you be my girlfriend officially?”
“I think I can say yes to that,” she said with a laugh.
“And will you make me the happiest man in the world?”
“Oh my gosh, do not tell me you’re about to propose to me.” She laughed.
“No.”
“Then one day soon, I hope.”
I grunt, “No, I have something else to ask you.”
“Okay. And what’s that?”
“Will you make a pact with me?”
“Hm, what’s the pact?”
“Well, initially I wanted a one-night pact, right?”
“Aha.”
“And we see how well that worked.”
“Aha.”
“So what about if we have a lifetime pact.”
“A lifetime pact?”
“Yeah. Instead of a one-night pact, let’s have a one-lifetime pact. You and me against the world forever and ever.”
“That sounds awfully like a proposal.” She laughed. “Do I get a ring with this lifetime pact?”
“You can get whatever you want, my dear. I love you.”
“I love you too, Harry.”
And then she leaned forward, and she kissed me and it felt like the most amazing thing in the world. I never wanted to let her go. I pulled her into my arms and I ran my hands through her hair and I kissed her passionately. I kissed her back with everything I had in me. I needed her to see and to know and to feel how much I loved her, how I was never going to let her go. She was my everything and I would do anything for this woman. I would do absolutely anything to let her know that she was mine, and I was hers and we were going to take on the world together.
Thank you for reading Friends with Complicated Benefits. To read an exclusive epilogue, join my mailing list here. The next book in the series is Roommates with Complicated Benefits, starring Harry’s brother, Ethan.
What do tequila, furry handcuffs, shame and a six foot, two-inch hot man with a black eye all have in common?
They were all in my bed last night. Well, shame was there this morning.
My asshole roommate up and moved out and rented her “room” to some guy her brother’s coworker’s cousin “knows really well.” The aforementioned roommate thinks we’ll get on like a house on fire. I tell her I don’t think anything related to fire is a good thing. Especially as this guy and I will now quite literally be sharing the same room, with a divider for “privacy.”
Sounds bad, right? Well, it gets worse.
Ethan Huntington is the most annoying, frustrating know-it-all, pompous jerk, I’ve ever met. I did try to be open and ask him about himself when he moved in. But his response consisted of, “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” Yeah, okay. Cue major eye roll as I walked away from him. It only made me angrier when I heard him laughing as I slammed the door; as if he’d gotten the last laugh.
He thinks he’s God’s gift to women, just because he’s hot. I can’t lie, I’ve seen him without his shirt and let’s just say, he got more than my heart racing. But that doesn’t mean I’ll succumb to him. No way. Well, that was the plan. Until that night. When we decided to play a few rounds of cards and drank way too much. Sure, we had one night. But that’s all it’s going to be. I’m not going to let my one-night mistake stop me from going out and meeting Mr. Right. Even if Ethan is still living with me and I can’t get him out of my mind. And then the first letter arrives, and it changes everything. Maybe that one-night mistake was just the beginning of something really special.
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