Right now, on her day off, she wore gold rings on nearly all her fingers, some that sat below the knuckle and others above.
I thought of Harper as a glamorous punk. She liked edgy, but she liked her edginess to glitter and sparkle. Today she wore skinny jeans that were ripped at the knees, biker boots, and a cropped T-shirt covered in rose gold sequins that reflected light everywhere she turned.
She was the most beautiful person I’d ever met—on the inside as well as the outside—but because of her past she had a hard time believing it. Yet it was exactly because of her past that I admired her so much. Harper had been through the unimaginable and yet she didn’t let it affect who she was. Someone outspoken, opinionated, open-minded, brave, loyal, and determined. She’d left home at eighteen with very little money, had been just a step up from homeless when I met her … and now she was the pastry chef in the only Michelin-star restaurant in Boston.
“Ava? An epic one-night stand?”
“Huh?” The sound of her voice pulled me out of my musings.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I shrugged. “I just missed you.”
She gave me a sad smile, her dimples appearing and disappearing so quickly it was almost like I’d imagined them. “I wish I’d gone with you.”
Thinking about my trip back to Arizona made me want to curl up in a dark room and not leave for a good long while. Instead, I shrugged it off with a joke. “And have you cockblock me? No, thanks.”
Harper chuckled. “I wouldn’t have.”
“He would have taken one look at you and forgotten me entirely.”
She snorted. “Okay. Yeah. Sure.”
“No, really.” I studied her, thinking I wasn’t wrong. “You are probably more this guy’s type.”
“How so?”
“Uh … he looked like something off that show … Vikings. He was covered in tattoos. And his hair was a guy version of yours.”
Her lips parted in shock. Again. “No. Way.”
“Yes way.”
“Not exactly your type.”
“Nope. And I wasn’t his. We didn’t even like each other,” I admitted. “He was so rude and obnoxious, had no manners …”
“But …?”
I huffed in exasperation. “My body disagreed with me. I can’t explain it … the attraction was inexplicable but explosive and … he found my G-spot.”
Amazement brightened Harper’s eyes. “He sounds like a god.”
“A Norse god. A bastard. An asshole. But the man sure knows what he’s doing in the bedroom.”
“Do you think we could find him and have him teach Vince about the G-spot thing?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you and Vince were good?”
Vince was the guy Harper had been dating for the last two months, which was a long time for her. Like me, she didn’t trust people easily. Plus, her job might sound fancy, but it entailed a lot of long hours and none of the men she’d met so far had been able to deal with the fact that Harper’s job came first. Vince was different. He was a drummer in a local band that had found some success playing bars and clubs all over Massachusetts. He seemed to understand her dedication and admire it. I liked him.
“We are and the sex is good … but G-spot? I’ve only met one guy who found that.” She wiggled her fingers suggestively.
I laughed and blushed a little. “He didn’t find it with those.”
She gasped. “Oh my God … how … what?”
I buried my face in my hands, embarrassed but amused. “I’m not giving you details.”
She understood the muffled words and cried, “I need details!”
“Oh Lord.” I dropped my hands and looked up at the ceiling, unable to meet her gaze. “He—he—”
“Stop stuttering. He what?”
“He just … he positioned me … you know, at an angle, and, well … he knew what he was doing, okay,” I rushed out, my cheeks burning with mortification. I told Harper pretty much everything, but an explanatory description of how I reached orgasm was crossing a line I didn’t want to cross.
She eyed me in awe. “I have to meet this man.”
“No, you don’t.” I stood up with my empty wineglass and strolled over to my kitchen to put it in the sink.
“You’re telling me that you met a guy who was that great in bed and you don’t want to see him again?”
The truth was that part of me did, but his words from the plane came back to me and I hated that they had the power to hurt me even a little. I glanced over at her. “He wanted to, you know. See me again while he was here. I said no because I didn’t think it was smart. And you know what he said? He told me not to worry about it, that there were plenty of beautiful women in Boston and he wouldn’t be lonely.”
Anger suffused Harper’s pretty features. “That asshole!” She stood up, her hands going to her hips. “Who the hell does he think he is? Does he not know that he was lucky he even got near you? You’re Ava Breevort. There is no one better than you.”
Warmth and gratitude flooded my chest. “Except Harper Lee Smith.”
The left side of her mouth pulled up into a rueful grin. “What have I told you about full-naming me.”
“Oh, I thought that was only in public.” She thought her mother naming her after the author of To Kill a Mockingbird was too cutesy and did not at all reflect her personality.
I loved her name. I thought it suited her.
“Whatever. Back to the Scottish guy. You’re right … he sounds completely unworthy.”
“It’s almost a sin, you know, that someone that gorgeous and sexually gifted is so unlikable.”
“You really didn’t like him?”
“I mean … he was smart. CFO of Koto. And witty. Plus, like I told you, he stopped those annoying guys in the restaurant from harassing me. I guess he wasn’t all bad … but he was fundamentally rude to almost everyone he came in contact with, and he was mean to me. I was mean to him too but … I thought we maybe just had this insulting banter thing going on. But I was wrong. There’s a coldness about him. High spiked barriers on that one.”
“Well, you know something about barriers.”
“Yes, but I’m generally not mean or ill-mannered to people because of them. Unless provoked.”
“True.” She rounded my coffee table and came to stand by the kitchen counter. “At least it distracted you from Gemma, though, right?”
I winced, reminded of my time in Arcadia.
“Nick had no right to say those things to you—you know that, don’t you?”
I looked away, staring at the large bay window in my living room that looked down onto tree-lined Mount Vernon Street. “I know. I do know that. But I still feel guilty. I can’t help it.”
Suddenly I was pulled into a deep hug. Harper was a couple of inches taller than me, so I could rest my head on her small shoulder and hold on tight. We were from two entirely different worlds, two entirely different people, but years ago she’d stepped in to protect me when I was a stranger, and from that moment on I’d vowed to protect her back.
But these days it felt like she was saving me.
I hugged her tight before stepping out of her arms. “I’m okay,” I assured her.
“Promise?”
I nodded. “I just need to get back to work and back to my life.”
“Hmm.” She eyed me carefully. “Have your parents called to check that you got home safe?”
I made a face and shook my head. At Harper’s answering expression of contempt, I sought to remind her, “Harper, don’t worry. I’m used to it.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
My parents liked to think of themselves as free spirits, but they liked their money a lot. I grew up in a nice house with nice cars and clothes. They didn’t believe in parenting me at all, so if I’d wanted to, I could have gotten away with murder. They gave me and Nick and Gem weed when we were sixteen, but I refused to smoke it—though Gem and Nick did. I didn’t li
ke the idea of being out of control.
There were no rules in my house growing up. No boundaries. No checking in to see where I was or if I was okay.
And I guess that made me go the opposite way. I was responsible and conservative. It didn’t take a therapist to tell me that I liked being in control since everything had been so out of control with my parents.
“Honestly, I was just surprised my mom made me go to the dinner the night before Gem’s funeral. Very un-Mom-like to care about what people think.” I shrugged. “But she loved Gem, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Harper scowled. “Even when she screwed you over.”
“Let’s not go there.” I shook my head and squeezed her shoulder. “I’ve been going there for the past ten days and … I want to leave there behind and move on.”
My friend sighed heavily. “Okay. But I’m here if you need me.”
“I know.” I reached over and kissed her cheek. “Now you need to get home and get some sleep before work tomorrow.”
She nodded and walked over to the couch to grab her leather jacket and purse. “Back to work tomorrow?”
“Yes.” I grinned. “I can’t wait.”
“Even with the Shrew breathing down your neck every fifty seconds?”
Harper was referring to one of my current clients. I was redesigning her summer home in Nantucket and the woman drove me crazy with constant phone calls and demands for me to send her hourly updates. “Even then. I have a bajillion voice mails from her. Apparently, my attending a childhood friend’s funeral has seriously messed up her schedule.”
“Ugh, what a cow,” Harper said as I led her to the door. “Seriously, how do you work with these people?”
“Says she who works with Jason Luton, the most intimidating and scary man I ever met until I got to know him.” Jason was the English head chef of Canterbury, the restaurant Harper worked at. He opened it six months before Harper started working there as an apprentice chef. Two years after that he was awarded a Michelin star and had held on to it ever since. The man was exacting and ambitious.
“Yeah, but he’s not that scary now, right?”
“Not to me. But I’ve heard him yelling in the kitchen.”
Harper grinned, not at all intimidated by Jason’s yelling. She respected him, but she didn’t fear him, and I suspected that was why Jason liked her so much. He had invested his time in her and helped her become one of the finest pastry chefs in the state. Speaking of … “When you put those little chocolate tart things back on the menu, remember to sneak me one.”
“They’re seasonal,” she replied. “Winter only. But … if you play your cards right, I might make one especially for you.”
“Oh, like the Kylie and Jason song?”
“Huh?”
I winced. “Sometimes the four-year age gap between us feels like thirty.”
Harper laughed as I opened the apartment door. “That’s because you’re older than your years. Or, well … you were before you reverted to your early twenties and had a one-night stand with a hot Scottish guy.”
A throat cleared and we both jerked our heads around to see my neighbor Brent, from the apartment above me, hiding a smirk as he climbed the stairs with his King Charles spaniel. “Ladies.”
I blushed and gave him a wave.
As soon as he disappeared out of sight, Harper burst into laughter and I cut her a filthy look. “Thank you for that. You do know it’s the first thing he’ll tell his husband, and once Ian knows, everyone in the building will know.”
“So what?” Harper shrugged. “You don’t think anyone else in this building has ever had a one-night stand? Own it. You finally did something for yourself and there’s no reason to feel ashamed.”
“Even if he’s an asshole.”
“An asshole who found your G-spot.”
I chuckled. “Okay, then.”
She smiled, giving me those dimples. “I’ll call you, babe. Be good to yourself.”
“You too.” I watched her leave, not closing the door until she was out of sight. Then I turned and leaned against the door, staring around at my apartment.
A fireplace in the center of the wall. A coffee table set in front of it and between two chesterfield sofas in ivory velvet. Soft cream deep-pile carpet Harper told me I was crazy to put down. Crisp, Hessian-colored walls, lush oyster silk curtains that draped the bay window and pooled on the floor. A small country-modern kitchen of cream-colored cabinets with a Belfast sink and thick oak countertops. I had a few paintings on the wall, and the odd ornament. Scatter cushions on the sofas.
Everything precise, perfect, and in its place.
And for some inexplicable reason I wanted to take the half-opened bottle of wine on my kitchen counter and dump its contents all over the room.
Nerves shaken, feeling lonely when I never felt lonely, I decided it was jetlag. It was the only explanation, so I got ready for bed, despite the early hour, and willed sleep to come and take me away from thoughts of Arcadia and the intrusive stranger I’d met in an airport.
Nine
ARCADIA, ARIZONA 2002
Curled up on a small armchair beside the patio doors in my bedroom, I stared out at the pool lit up by the lights my dad had installed in fake rocks around it. Mom had told me our house was built back in the sixties. It was all on one level with lots of glass and gray brick curving around a huge backyard and ridiculous outdoor pool. And by ridiculous, I mean it had a mini waterfall rock feature.
Sounds of my parents’ party filtered down the hall to my bedroom and I squeezed my knees closer to my chest. My parents were social. To the point that they’d started throwing parties for their friends at our house nearly every month. Parties that went on into the early hours of the morning. Parties I was not invited to because that would mean my parents would actually have to spend time with me.
Nope. I was ushered into my bedroom and told to stay there.
The music and laughter made me feel resentful and I glared at my bedroom door.
My parents were not like other people’s parents.
The thing that really made them stand apart from my friends’ parents was the fact that they never bothered to hide the act of sex from me. Sure, they’d never openly started going at it in front of me, because that would have been traumatizing, but they also didn’t do sex quietly like my best friend Gemma’s parents. At least, Gem and I assumed they were doing it quietly. Either that or they never had sex. But Gem thought they got along too well for that to be the case.
And then she asked me to stop talking about it. Which was, like, totally fair enough.
My mom and dad lacked consideration for me, and these loud parties were just another way in which they didn’t seem to care how I felt. When I told Gem about the parties my parents were throwing, she felt bad for me. That didn’t bother me. What bothered me was Nick’s reaction.
He was worried about me, and Nick never worried about anything. However, at fifteen he was a year older than us, so maybe he knew something we didn’t. Whatever he knew, his unease made me anxious, creating horrible butterflies in my stomach as I listened to the party beyond my door.
“I want you to come to me if you ever feel scared,” Nick had said.
I’d nodded but wondered what I had to feel scared about. It was just a loud, annoying party.
Still, something made me get up out of bed that night. It made me stare at the door. And it wasn’t the dry, heady heat of a July in Arizona, because I had a separate air-conditioning system in my bedroom suite, and while my parents liked it tepid in the rest of the house, I liked it cold. Gem said she didn’t believe for a second I was born in Arizona. Surely, I should have acclimated years ago. I hadn’t. And when I was older and I didn’t have to live with my irresponsible parents, I was moving to a state that had all four seasons.
No more Christmas in the sun.
I wanted snow.
I even used to ask Santa for it when I wrote him letters back when I believed in him. It sucks
that he isn’t real, I moped. If he was real, and I was wishing for things, I’d ask him to abduct my parents and replace them with the kind that remembered parent evenings and taking me to dental appointments and, you know, feeding me and stuff. I started cooking my own meals at the age of seven.
A creak of the floorboards outside my room made me tense.
My pulse started racing so hard I struggled to hear anything over the whooshing in my ears. I saw my door handle turn. I saw the door open and the crack of light that spilled into my dark room.
Goose bumps erupted all down my arms and spine as a tall masculine figure stepped into the room, his head turned toward my bed. I couldn’t make him out in the dark, but I knew it wasn’t my dad. He was too tall.
Seeing I wasn’t in my bed, the man turned his head toward me and he grew still at the sight of me on the chair. After a moment’s hesitation, he closed my bedroom door behind him and then began unbuckling his belt.
Instinct made me jump up and lunge for the patio door. I was running barefoot across the backyard and climbing the stone wall into our neighbor Mrs. Munro’s backyard before I could even think about what was happening.
Tears burned in my eyes as I ran in my pajama shorts and tank, heading toward Nick’s house three blocks away. The streets were quiet, empty, as I ran faster than I did in my tryout for the cross-country team.
By the time I climbed the fence into Nick’s backyard, my tank was damp with sweat, my feet stung, and I was shaking so hard my teeth chittered together. I grabbed a pebble from the multitude of pebbles that made up Nick’s mom’s patterned landscaping, and I threw it gently up at Nick’s bedroom window. He didn’t hear it, so I threw another.
I saw his light come on and then his head appeared at the window.
Nick pushed it open. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Lately, ever since joining JV football, Nick had taken to half-nakedness. I was used to nakedness à la my moronic parents. But not Nick’s nakedness. And even though he was only a year older than me, he looked older than that. He had just sprouted this last year and filled out too. When he first moved on to high school without me and Gem, I thought he’d forget us, think of us as babies.
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