glance over at Harley who’s staring out of the passenger window. She’s been quiet since last night.
Too quiet.
She got up to use the bathroom and when she came back, she never said a word about what happened. I felt her soft body curl into my side as she settled back into bed. I heard the concern in her voice as she whispered my name and kissed me goodnight. And even though it was dark, and I couldn’t see the hurt and confusion on her face. I know it was there.
You can’t hide everything forever.
I keep one hand on the steering wheel and slide my other onto her thigh. She slips hers inside it and entwines her fingers with mine, but her gaze stays firmly on the sky outside. She’s spoken to me this morning. But she hasn’t asked about last night and what happened. Hasn’t mentioned the colossal fuck up I made. It was instinct. A pure reflex reaction that I never even understood existed until she called me out on it. Until she pulled me back to her in that moment, and I saw myself through her eyes…
A selfish bastard who doesn’t deserve her.
Harley is pure and sweet and good. She’s all the things that I can so easily ruin if I don’t get a handle on myself. In fact, I’m already ruining her. And I didn’t even know I was doing it.
I’m a fucking idiot.
“It’s the third house on the left.” Harley points to a brick two-level house with white shutters at the windows.
I pull into the driveway and put the car in park, looking out through the windscreen at the house. It looks nice, a regular family home. I don’t know what Harley seemed so uneasy about when she talked about visiting this weekend.
We get out of the car and I grab our bags from the trunk as Harley waits for me. She seems hesitant to go inside.
“You okay, Harls?” I hold our bags in one hand and place the other on her lower back, hoping to be reassuring.
“Yeah, I’m good.” She smiles at me, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.
She looks away and toward the front door. That’s when I see the ramp.
“Mom had it put in for my brother.” Sadness seeps from her as she stands next to me like a wilted flower, weighed down by the rain. Not the usual full, bright petals that I know her to be.
I’ve rarely seen Harley sad. But the couple of times I have are enough to know that it’s the sight I most despise in the entire world. Nothing else makes my heart feel like it’s been ripped in half, like the dullness in her eyes when she is.
“He uses a wheelchair now.” She chews on her lip and lets out a sigh, her shoulders dropping. “It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything, Reed.” She glances at me. “But first, can we go inside? I always find the first hello the hardest when I haven’t been home in a while.”
“Of course.” I stroke her lower back, wishing I could wipe away the pain that’s radiating from her. Even her bright pink floral dress can’t distract enough to hide the loss of her usual glow.
We walk up the ramp to the door and ring the bell.
“Harls!” A blond guy in a wheelchair answers the door. His face lights up at seeing her.
She leans down and throws her arms around his neck, kissing him on the cheek. “Hey, big bro. Been working on the guns, huh?” She squeezes his impressive biceps, and he laughs.
“Yep. It takes a lot of muscle to lift this godly body in and out the chair, you know.”
She laughs again and then stands back and looks at me. “Brett, this is Reed, who I told you about.”
“Reed, this is my brother, Brett.”
The guy holds his hand out and I shake it, struck by how alike he is to Harley. His hair is a little darker, and so are his eyes. But they have the same sparkle in them as Harley’s do when she’s happy, like an infectious joy for life is waiting to burst out at every given moment. Exactly the way Harley’s usually look.
Just not today.
And not last night.
“It’s nice to meet you, man. Harls told us you’re going to be the next Mayor of New York.”
“Well, that’s the hope.” I smile as Brett lets go of my hand and wheels backward so we can get through the door.
“He is going to be.” Harley lays her palm against my chest. “Reed deserves it. He’s brilliant.”
I stare at her, lost for words as she takes our bags from my hands and places them down on the hardwood hall floor.
She thinks I’m brilliant?
I’ve fucked her without even calling her by her name for weeks and she thinks I’m brilliant?
I’m a fucking jerk is what I am.
“Is Mom home?” Harley asks as we move further into the house.
“Yeah, in the garden.” Brett wheels ahead of us, the muscles in his shoulders rippling beneath his light blue t-shirt.
“And Rose?” Harley whispers.
Brett looks at her, giving her a weak half smile. “She’s out back, too.”
Harley exhales slowly as she follows Brett, and I reach out to take her hand. She looks back at me, pain now replacing the sadness in her eyes.
I’m okay, she mouths when she sees the concern on my face. “I’ll explain later.”
I nod, stroking my thumb over her knuckles, and follow the two of them through the small, homely kitchen and out onto the back porch. Like the front door, there’s a ramp which takes us down to the lawn.
Brett wheels down, a grin plastered to his face. “Look who’s here!”
A woman who’s sitting in a garden chair by the side of a wrought iron table jumps to her feet and comes over, pulling Harley into a hug.
“Oh, my girl. It’s so good to see you.”
I hang back a little as Harley’s mom embraces her.
“And you must be Reed.” She smiles at me kindly before pulling me into a hug as well. Harley and Brett exchange a smile as she presses her face into my chest and squeezes me with more strength than I would think a lady of her petite frame could possess.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Jacobs,” I say as I hug her, then move back. She swats me lightly on the chest with a tut, the gesture instantly making me think of Harley.
“Call me Della. No time for that Mrs. Jacobs nonsense. I sound like my mother-in-law, and she could be a right old battle-axe. God rest her soul.” Della crosses her chest, glancing skyward, and then grins brightly at us. “Shall I fix us all a drink? Rose?” she calls over her shoulder to a young blonde woman sitting at the table. “Can you give me a hand?”
“Sure, Mom.” The blonde, who looks like a younger, waif-like version of Harley with empty eyes, stands and walks over.
“Hi, sis.” She gives Harley a tight smile and Harley wraps her arms around her in response. Rose stiffens and doesn’t hug Harley back.
“Hello, Reed.” She nods at me and I nod back.
“It’s nice to meet you, Rose. Harley’s told me about you.”
Her eyes flick to Harley. “Oh.”
“She said it was your birthday. Happy Birthday.”
Rose’s expression barely changes as she looks back at me. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” Then she turns and follows Della.
“Don’t take it personally.” Brett gives me a reassuring smile. “That’s the most interaction anyone new has gotten out of her in a long time.”
Harley takes my hand and squeezes it. “He’s right. It’s not your fault. It’s not you.”
And for once, I believe her.
We spend a couple of hours out in the garden drinking homemade lemonade and eating muffins Brett said he made that morning. Brett’s a joker, and he and I laugh over some shared interest in music and bands. After we help Della clear up, Harley pulls me toward the front door to fetch our bags.
“Mom, Reed and I are going to go freshen up. We might take a walk and come back before dinner. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Do whatever you kids want to do. As long as you’re back in time for tacos later.”
Harley rolls her eyes, smiling. “Okay, Mom.”
“I can’t believe she still calls us kids,” Harley says quietly as she grabs a key off a hook by the front door.
“She’s your mom. I guess you’ll always be kids in her eyes.” I follow Harley out the front door and down the ramp to the large garage at the side of the house.
“True.” She unlocks a side door into the garage and I follow her in. “It’s under renovation,” Harley explains as I look around at the space.
There’s an open plan living area with an area for a kitchen along one wall, and one small hallway that looks to have two doors leading from it. There’s no furniture in the room at all, and the walls aren’t even plastered yet. The floor below us looks like it’s had a concrete leveling agent poured on, but no actual boards or carpeting have been laid.
“Dad started it for Brett after…” Harley’s eyes roam the space. “Well, it never got finished, as you can see.”
I’ve heard Harley mention her dad before in stories from when she was a kid. And I recall Griffin saying over a year ago that he had passed away. But that’s all I know. I figured Harley will talk to me when and if she wants to. On her terms.
I know how hard it can be to bring up painful memories.
“Can you put our bags in the bedroom, and then maybe we can take a walk before dinner?” She smiles at me briefly before her eyes are distracted by the unfinished state of the room again.
“Sure.”
We wander through the town and end up in a graveyard. I doubt it’s by chance, even though Harley didn’t seem to lead us here purposefully. We just kind of strolled and drifted, my arm around her shoulder as she held me around the waist and talked about Maria and Griffin’s egg situation and how she wondered how you could tell the sex of a baby pigeon.
I held her close, content to listen to her light musings. But I know they’re a front. Harley loves to talk at the best of times. Even more so when there’s something bigger on her mind. The bigger the problem, the more varied and whimsical her conversations.
“Do you mind if I take a minute?” She gestures to the headstone.
Alec Jacobs, loving husband and father.
“Of course.” I let her go and move away, walking over to the treeline, keeping my eyes averted from her private moment. I’ve seen and touched every inch of Harley’s naked body. But watching her at her father’s graveside feels intrusive and wrong. Like I’m taking something that doesn’t belong to me.
And that’s something I could never do.
“Thank you.” She appears next to me five minutes later and wraps her arm around my waist again as we walk. “I don’t come as often as I should. But I like to keep him updated on what’s going on in my life. I feel like he can still hear me. Does that sound stupid?”
I stop and turn to her. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all, Harls.”
Her eyes flinch a miniscule amount when I say her name. It’s tiny, but it’s there. No one else would probably notice. But I do. I notice everything about her.
She takes a deep breath and nods as she looks up at me, as if steeling herself for what she’s about to do. “I miss him. He died suddenly of a heart attack two years ago, and I never got to say goodbye.”
“Harls.” I pull her into my arms, but she places her hands against my chest and steps back, waving me off.
“Do you remember the night of Paige’s party? When you found me sitting up because I couldn’t get to sleep?”
“Yes.” I brush the silent tears away that have run down her cheeks with my thumbs.
She nods, swallowing, before she continues. “I couldn’t sleep because it was two years to the day Brett was hurt. He was hit by a car walking along the roadside in the middle of the afternoon. It wasn’t dark. The driver hadn’t been drinking. But he still left him there, lying in the road, broken. Do you know why?” Her voice is a whisper as she looks up at me.
“He was rushing to get home to his wife and children. He’d been having an affair for nine months, and the other woman was on her way to tell his wife. He mowed my brother down and left him, not knowing if he was even alive, to save his own, lying, cheating ass.” Harley’s eyes burn with a silent anger. One I recognize all too well. One that’s deadly and destructive if you let it fester.
“That’s why you hate cheats.”
Harley nods. She’s never made a secret of how she felt. I thought maybe an ex betrayed her, or it was seeing what Suze went through with her ex-husband, Curt. But now that she’s told me, it makes more sense. A new piece of Harley I never understood before, but now I do.
“Harls.” I stroke her face. She leans into my touch and gives me a sad smile. “Is that why you started honey trapping? To catch out cheaters?”
Her eyes cloud over, and I instantly regret speaking.
“Not exactly, although it was an added bonus. Why people are so selfish, I’ll never understand. To cheat in the first place is vile. But to lie about something for so long, take advantage of the love and trust people have in you… He should have told his wife. Left her if he was that unhappy. He’s affected so many lives.” She sighs and her chest sags. “After Brett’s accident, there was a huge investigation. But it never went to court. We were told there was a lack of evidence. The man who hit him denied all knowledge. Something underhand went on, I’m sure of it. He had money, and he knew people. What happened to Brett was swept under the rug, like he was a nobody. Like him being unable to walk afterward was nothing. It changed his life, and it left our family unrecognizable. Dad took it hard, seeing his son, who was so strong and athletic have his life altered like that. The doctors said the stress probably contributed to his heart attack.” She sniffs and looks up at the sky.
“If only he knew how well Brett would cope. He’s doing okay, you’ve seen him. He still finds joy in life, he still dates… he dates a lot.” Harley laughs and the sound of it tugs at my heart.
“Dad started the guest house conversion for Brett, but then he… well, he got as far as you’ve seen before he died. Mom tried to get the money to finish it, but she’d already had to cut down her hours at work to help care for Brett. He’s independent now, but in the early days, he needed Mom a lot. It hit her hard, financially.” Harley raises her eyes to meet mine and I see the strength in them. The resilience. The love she has for her family.
And I understand.
“You’ve been helping your mom out with money? That’s why you needed it? Not for Manhattan rent prices?”
She snorts and her eyes light up. “Good cover though, right? Rent prices are crazy. I expect you to address it once you’re mayor.” She smiles at me, trying to mask the sadness that’s still held in her baby blue eyes.
“Harls, I would abolish them altogether for you, if I could. The whole city could live for free. Every man, woman, child, dog, sloth, caticorn. They’d all have a home.”
She laughs, and I break into a grin as she sighs and looks into my eyes. “You’re nothing like what I originally thought.”
I hold her face in my hands as I pull her closer. “No, I’m probably a much bigger jerk.”
She laughs again and presses a kiss to my lips. “Stop. You’re not.” She takes my hand from her face and wraps her fingers through mine as we walk again.
“Is that why Rose seems so withdrawn? She misses your father?” I ask gently as we head through the graveyard gate and out into the street.
“Rose is… Rose is complicated. She blames herself for what happened to Brett.”
“Why? I’m sorry… you don’t have to answer that. I’m being insensitive.”
“You’re not, Reed.” She gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Anyway, I want to tell you. I don’t want there to be secrets between us.”
I force down the dry ball in my throat.
No secrets.
“Rose was the reason Brett was out, walking on that stretch of road. He was out looking for her. She had a fight with her boyfriend and had stormed off. Brett went after her. He wasn’t supposed to be there when that guy sped past and lost control. He wasn’t supposed to get hit. No one blames Rose. Brett tells her all the time that it’s not her fault. No one has, for even a second, thought it was her fault. Except her. She’s trapped herself in this cage of blame and self-hatred. If you’d known her before, then you wouldn’t even recognize her as the same person now. She was fun, and feisty, and full of passion. What happened to Brett changed her. And then Dad died, and she blamed herself for that too. I don’t even recognize my own sister anymore.”
“I’m so sorry, Harley.”
The pain in her eyes is more than I can bear. I feel it like it’s my own. And what’s more, I feel helpless. Fucking helpless that she’s hurting. She’s been carrying this around with her all this time and I had no idea.
What kind of self-absorbed prick am I?
“It is what it is. I hope in time she’ll realize what we’ve all been telling her all along, that none of it is her fault. But until then, I have to believe that a miracle will happen. Something or someone will help her, make her listen, because we’ve tried so hard, and we’ve failed.” Harley’s voice cracks and I pull her into my side and hold her close as we walk back to her mom’s house.
The five of us have dinner together that night. Rose is quiet, but the conversation flows easily with Brett and Della steering it. They switch between filling Harley in on the neighborhood updates and asking me multiple questions about the role of mayor and what it entails. Della makes me laugh when she voices her opinions of the president and how she thinks he and his ‘ugly combover’ should do us all a favor and lose themselves in the next gust of wind. I squeeze Harley’s thigh under the table at the mention of him, and she smiles at me, her eyes sparkling. That was our first night together. A night permanently seared into my memory, and from the way she looks at me, I know it’s in hers, too.
We help tidy up and then say good night, heading into the guesthouse.
“Harls?”
I walk up behind her while she’s standing at the bathroom sink in her tiny lace nightie. I swear for someone who feels the cold at night, she doesn’t own any useful pajamas. Except those ugly caticorn ones, which I’ve grown fonder of, for obvious reasons. Still, I guess whatever she wears doesn’t usually stay on long once I get my hands on her. And she always says I’m like a furnace and keep her warm at night.
The thought spreads a calm stillness through my body.
She looks at me in the mirror’s reflection, her clear blue eyes hooded as I sweep her hair to the side and press a kiss to her skin where her neck meets her shoulder.
“I’m sorry about last night.” I keep my eyes fixed on hers as I kiss her again. Her lips part and her nipples pebble into peaks through her nightie as she drops her hips back so her ass cheeks hug either side of my hardening cock. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know, it’s okay,” she says, easily. Too easily. She’s so ready to trust me when I haven’t been completely honest with her. I don’t deserve her pure, sweet heart. Her understanding, her forgiveness.
“It. Is. Not. Okay.” The harshness in my tone makes her eyes snap fully open, and I kiss her again, on her neck this time, placing my lips over her fluttering pulse. A featherlight touch, a complete contrast to the rough admission of disgust I have in myself that is laced in my tone.
“Reed—”
“I would never hurt you physically, Harley,” I repeat, more forcefully than before. “But I never realized I was still hurting you, anyway. I never knew I was doing it. I am so sorry, Angel.”
She never takes her eyes off mine as I kiss and suck my way up to her ear, drawing a shudder and a sharp intake of breath from her lips.
“You’re mine. I will protect you with my life.”
She whimpers as I whisper the confession in her ear, and then she turns and wraps her arms around my neck as her sweet lips meet mine in a deep and urgent kiss.
“I know. And you haven’t hurt me. I just don’t understand everything about you, that’s all.” She kisses me again, letting her lips linger against mine. “I know you probably crave control after what happened with Riley, and I understand. I felt helpless after what happened to Brett. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t know what was going to happen. And neither did you. What happened must have been awful. She’s your sister, your twin. And your parents moved you away from New York after. Coming back must be hard for you with the memories. But just know, I am here for you, Reed. You can talk to me.”
She kisses me again and I could so easily devour her. Dive right in and lose myself in her. Not come up for air for hours until I have quenched the insatiable thirst I have for her. But her words have dread filling the air around us. It’s so thick I could pull great big thick black clumps of it away with my hands. Tear away the ugliness in the hope of finding light beneath it.
“Riley…? Harley, what are you talking about?”
She looks at me, her mouth dropping open as she searches my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just thought after what Bea said about your past and you saying there was a date that creeps up on you that… I mean, I think it’s amazing that you’re campaigning for tougher sentencing in assault cases. And Riley… her career, putting these monsters away. It’s… it’s inspiring. She’s an incredible woman, and I can’t wait to meet her. I hope I do, I mean, with you and I being…” She lifts a small hand but can’t wave it between us because I have her pulled so tightly against my chest that I can feel her heart beating against mine.
“I mean, I understand why you might need to feel control when it comes to sex. Why you don’t like me being on top of you.” Harley bites her bottom lip and the dread in the air closes around us like a dense fog as I realize what she’s talking about. A fog so deep and insidious I can’t see anything through it. Or at least, I never used to be able to. Now I see color. Bright, dazzling blue, shining back at me. Understanding, pure.
Her.
Her eyes look back at me, and I pray to God they look at me the same way in a few moments.
“Harley… I—”
“I’m so sorry you went through that, Reed. I’m so sorry that happened to her. Riley being assaulted must have been horrendous for her, for you, for your parents. For all of you.”
“Harl—”
“You can talk to me, though, if you ever want to. I’m always—”
“Harley,” I force out, making her stop and stare at me. “Harley,” I repeat more softly. “It’s okay, Angel. Riley wasn’t raped.”
“She wasn’t?” Harley’s lower lip trembles before relief flares in her eyes.
Part of me wants to seal my mouth shut, stop it from saying what it’s about to. But I know that I can’t do that to her. She’s been honest with me about her past. I owe her the same.
No secrets.
“No, Harls, she wasn’t,” I whisper. “I was.”
Confusion knits her brows together as she looks at me. All I can hear is my heart thumping in my ears as I wait through agonizing seconds for her to speak.
I tighten my arms around her to keep her from falling as her smile falls away.
“Y-you? Reed?”
I rest my forehead against hers, her reaction to my confession making her breath shallow as she stands deathly still in my arms.
“Yes, Angel,” I breathe against her lips, wishing I could kiss her and make her forget everything I’ve just said, because I’m not sure if she will ever look at me in the same way again. And I couldn’t fucking bear that.
Her voice cracks and comes out coarse. “You’re saying—”
I hold her tighter against me, hoping that she never asks me to let her go.
“I was raped. Not Riley. Me.”
