Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
It was Harper.
Immediately, I swiped open the call and held the phone to my ear.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ve been trying to reach you, I—”
“I know,” Harper said. She sounded both tired and keyed-up at once, and my heart did a flip in my chest. “Look, I know you’re probably busy, but I need you to come over to my place. Right now. You remember where I live?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
Harper didn’t answer. “So, you’re coming then?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, yeah,” I told her. “But what’s going on?”
Harper hung up and I pulled the phone away from my ear and blinked down at the screen just to make sure.
“What was that?” Clint asked. He wasn’t laughing anymore, and I sighed and raked a hand through my unruly hair.
“That was Harper,” I said.
Clint gave me a blank look.
“The girl I’ve been ... well, I don’t know what it is that we’ve been doing,” I said, rolling my eyes. “She’s been weird lately. She dropped a bomb on me the other day – that she has a kid, for fuck’s sake – and she hasn’t been taking my calls or texts since then.”
Clint raised an eyebrow. “Only you, man,” he said, shaking his head. “You need some liquid courage before going over there?”
I sighed. “After,” I said. “I don’t want to show up shitfaced, especially not if she’s gonna lay something else heavy on me.”
“What are you so worried about?”
Narrowing my eyes, I glanced out the window. The sun was just beginning to set and I should have been exhausted but I felt jittery, wired, like I’d drunk three cups of espresso.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess that she’s married, or separated but wants to get back with her husband, or some shit like that.”
“Well, you had a good run with her, right?” Clint asked.
No, I thought to myself. I wanted so much more.
“I should probably get going,” I said. “She lives out in Brooklyn.”
“Hell of a commute for a woman,” Clint said. He smirked at me. “She’s really something to you, isn’t she?”
I didn’t reply. How could I tell Clint the truth – that I was in love with Harper, and I would have done anything to make her mine. He wouldn’t understand. Even though he was happily married and a faithful husband to his wife, Clint was the kind of guy who could have been happy with anyone. He’d told me once that he hadn’t settled down because he’d met the right girl, but rather because he’d just felt like it was the right time to do so.
“Anyway, I’ll see you,” I said.
“Can’t wait,” Clint replied. He grinned at me and I tried to smile back.
The drive from Manhattan to Brooklyn seemed to take forever – even longer than usual – and by the time I reached Harper’s building, I was so anxious that I wished I’d taken Clint up on his offer of a drink after all. One thing was certain: I’d definitely be drinking after this.
I sighed before knocking on the door. Harper answered almost immediately and I saw that she looked disheveled and exhausted. There were heavy bags under her green eyes and her brown hair was twisted into a greasy knot at the nape of her neck.
She was, of course, still beautiful. But she looked just like the mother of a sick kid.
Which, I guessed, she was.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up? What’s wrong?”
Harper bit her lower lip, then put her hand on my arm and hustled me inside. She shut the door behind me and looked up at me with her eyes wide and her chin trembling.
“I guess I should introduce you to your daughter,” she said. “Are you ready to meet her?”
26
Harper – Wednesday
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I froze.
“I ... I shouldn’t have said it like that,” I whispered.
Nico was looking at me like he was about to seize up and have a heart attack. All of the blood had drained from his face, making his pale skin even paler and he clutched the frame of the doorway with one hand so tightly that his knuckles were a ghostly white.
“What did you just say?” Nico asked. He raised an eyebrow at me and I felt my cheeks flame.
“I ...” I trailed off with my mouth hanging open and my jaw aching. God, why did I have to be such a colossal idiot? There were a million things to blame it on – the fact that I hadn’t slept properly in days, the fact that Ada had been up all night coughing and wheezing – she’d even coughed so hard that she’d made herself sick and had thrown up all over my bed, right after I’d changed the sheets, the fact that when my dad had left earlier in the morning I had cried from sheer exhaustion.