by Vivian Lux
"What do you think is bothering him?" Gray asked as we walked towards the back of the house. The echoes from the party were silenced as we rounded the alcove off the main great room. Gray looked around. "This house carries sound weird," he observed. Then he cleared his throat. "Echo!" he yelled.
"You idiot," I growled, but he was right. The sound was bouncing crazily all over the place, muffled in some places, but carrying in others. I wondered if it was some kind of architectural quirk of the house.
Gray grinned. "Come on, let's go get our boy."
Our boy was sitting on a guest bed, playing with his phone. He looked up sharply when we barged in without knocking.
"Least he wasn't jacking it," I observed.
"Are you seriously doing this again," Gray hissed, immediately barging over to snatch Rett's phone away. "Come on, Mr. Antisocial. Your mom sent us to get you."
Everett rolled his eyes. "Did she really?" he asked looking straight at me, knowing I’d be the one telling the truth.
I shrugged. "Sorry to say, man. You might stand a foot and half taller than her, but you'll always be her little boy."
Everett growled. "I am literally in anything but the mood to go talk to a bunch of people that I try to avoid most other days." There was a strange bluster in his voice, something a little more emphatic than he'd normally be in this situation. It made me wonder if he was being genuine.
I shrugged again. "Listen, I'm just the messenger," I told him. "And your mom will have my hide if I don't drag you out to the party."
Everett grumbled and complained, but eventually we manhandled him to a standing position. Gray shoved him bodily out his door and every time he slowed down, I prodded him along with a slap to the back of the head.
"You guys are the biggest assholes on the face of the planet," Everett said.
Then he stopped short.
I looked out to where he was looking. The bulk of the partygoers were now gathered in the great room, while below them the lights on the Christmas tree twinkled off the polished wood floors.
I looked out across the sea of faces, some familiar, some I didn't recognize, and I spotted Harper again, still talking with my sister. "Come on," I urged. "If we go talk to Brynn and Harper now, your mom will be satisfied and we won't have to make you talk to our old world history teacher or something."
Everett still look like he was a deer caught in the headlights, but we managed to drag him over to where his sister and my sister were standing.
"There you are, Rett" Harper teased, nudging him with her shoulder. "Were you hiding from the scary people?"
Everett darted an odd look back and forth between Harper and my sister. "No," he mumbled. Then he looked at his empty hands. "I need a drink," he said and shuffled off over towards the liquor cabinet.
Harper looked at me. "What's gotten into him?" she asked.
I shrugged. "You know how he gets. Easily overwhelmed and stuff."
Brynn was looking over the drink table. "I think I need a refill myself," she said, swaying unsteadily.
"Uh, hey. You take it easy there," I warned my sister.
"Bite me," she said evenly. "I've been drinking you under the table since we were kids."
Harper laughed out loud and I turned on her. "Hey, what are you laughing at, are you even legal yet? Can I see your ID, young lady?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm twenty-five, you know that."
"I knew that," Gray piped up. "Because it's been five years since you've been home."
Harper shrugged indifferently. "Unfortunately the children's book publishing industry in Reckless Falls is lacking these days."
I smirked at Gray. "She saying she's too good for this town. And too good for you."
Gray threw up his hands. "Hey now. We all know she's too good for any of us. In fact why is she talking to the likes of you right now?"
Harper rolled her eyes so hard there was barely any iris showing. "Would you two cut it out? I'm sorry I haven't been home in a while, it's been too long, I agree."
"Well in celebration of suddenly being allowed to drink legally," Gray teased. "Can I get you something?"
I shot him a look. His face was a mask of blatant adoration. I wondered if she saw it.
"Another glass of the dry Riesling would be awesome," she said.
"Oooh, fancy."
"I've come a long way since sneaking Boones Farm in the gully, huh?" She grinned, then winced. "Ooh, don't let my mother hear that."
Gray snapped a crisp salute. "Whatever my lady desires, my lady shall get." And he disappeared into the crowd heading over to the drinks table, leaving me and Harper alone.
"It has been too long since you've been home," I heard myself say.
She nodded emphatically. "Every time I thought I was going to definitely make it, something came up," she sighed, looking around the room. "I'm surprised how happy I am to be here."
"I'm happy you're here too," I said softly.
She looked up at me, startled. What the hell was I doing? The drinking had loosened my tongue. "Really?" she breathed.
My stupid mouth moved faster than my brain. "I thought a lot about the last time you were here," I said. My hand moved of its own accord, reaching out to touch her shimmering hair.
Her eyes followed my hand, but she didn't flinch, not when I picked up a strand and let it fall gently back to her shoulders. "You mean my graduation party?" she asked, her voice a little breath in the air.
It was that voice that made me move closer, I swear to God. "You remember what we did?" I asked her, winding that strand of hair around my finger.
She looked up at me, her lower lip shining wetly. "I do," she said, looking me directly in the eyes.
The fact that she didn't shy away, the fact that she didn't demur or hesitate had me bending to kiss her all over again...
When suddenly Gray reappeared.
"My lady's drink!" he practically shouted. Then he paused and stared at us. My fingers were still in Harper's hair and her eyes were half closed. I could see color that had nothing to do with alcohol flame across Gray's cheek and the white on his knuckles as he squeezed his fists.
But he said nothing other than, "How about you Cal, you good?"
"I'm good," I replied, though I felt anything but.
Chapter Six
Grayson
I was happy for him, I was happy for him, I was fucking happy for him.
My fists didn't believe my brain.
Rather than punch my best friend — the guy whose house I was currently crashing at while I tried to sort out my shit — in the mouth, I decided to walk away. If something happened between him and Harper tonight, I wasn't going to stand in the way, but that didn't mean I wanted to stick around and see it.
I stalked away, not really paying attention to where I was walking, until I suddenly looked up and found myself in the huge kitchen. Alone.
I took a deep breath and slowly unclenched my fists. Yeah. I just needed to hide out here a few minutes, let my blood pressure go back to normal, and let the urge to kill Cal in a jealous rage subside.
"Hey, you okay?"
Her voice was soft but I still nearly jumped out of my skin anyway. "Yeah," I breathed as I turned to see her standing in the doorway in that red satin dress, "I'm great."
She grinned a little and made for the fridge. "I'm drinking too fast," she giggled, opening the door. "I need to eat something more solid than canapés." She rummaged through the shelves and then suddenly turned to look at me still standing there frozen in place like an idiot. "You want something?"
"Sure," I mumbled.
"What?"
"Um." I swayed on the balls of my feet. "I dunno." The sight of her in that dress, the way her hair just skimmed the top of her shoulders every time she turned her head, had rendered me speechless. Me. The motormouth himself.
"Well come over here and look!" she trilled, completely oblivious to my current mental meltdown. "My mom always overbuys for these parties and then ge
ts busy socializing and forgets to put half the stuff out." She shot me a grin over her shoulder. "Makes it a bonanza for leftovers."
I moved to her. Yeah, she was spell-binding in that dress, but she was still Harper, one of my favorite fucking people in the world. "Does it count as a leftover if we're eating it at the actual party?" I asked her.
She emerged from the fridge with some kind of fancy dip. "I know where the crackers for this are. You want to share?"
I grinned at her. "I don't think there's going to be any left by the time I'm done with it," I told her, holding up my hands. "I'm a big boy." I looked down at her green eyes. "With a big appetite."
She'd dipped her bare finger into the dip and raised it up to her mouth. I watched her as she closed her lips around it, and my dick twitched in my pants. "Harper," I exhaled, not sure what the fuck I was trying to say, but needing to say something.
"Yeah, Gray?"
I twisted and grabbed my glass off the kitchen island and downed the rest of my drink in one shot. I was still feeling jittery as a junebug, as my great-aunt Hilda would say, but I couldn't let this moment pass me by. "You have to know how I feel about you," I blurted. "Right?"
She froze, finger still in her mouth. Her eyes darted to the side and I looked over her shoulder.
Rett was standing in the doorway. With Cal. They were both staring right at us.
Rett blinked a few times, like he was trying to mentally erase the image of his best friend macking on his little sister from his brain. I had no idea what Cal's face looked like because I pussied out of looking him in the eye.
"Hey guys," Rett said, clearing his throat. "Come on. It's time to open presents."
Harper turned on her heel and started following her brother. She hadn't said anything. Was she just going to pretend nothing had happened?
She paused in the doorway. There was a whole crowd, practically the entire fucking town it seemed like, there waiting for us to find our spots. I peered around behind her. For all anyone could see, I was just casually searching for a spot to sit, but her ear was close enough for me to whisper, "Sit next to me."
I couldn't see her face, not straight on, but I could see the color, scarlet, just like her dress, wash across her cheeks all the way up to the tips of her ears. If I thought I loved her before, that blush fucking cinched it. But she didn't turn and look at me like I expected. She didn't dart a quick reassuring smile over her shoulder, private just for me. And the longer we stood there, the more I wondered if I'd gone and fucked everything up. She viewed me as another big brother, always had. These feelings of mine, well they were pretty fucking perverted when you looked at them from that angle.
My heart started sinking and didn't stop until it reached my too-tight shoes.
She lifted her head, just a fraction, but it was enough to send her hair dancing around her shoulders. She walked into the room.
What else could I do? I followed her, feeling like a shitheel.
"You guys can fit," Brynn called loudly. "Right here, there's room." She slapped the bit of exposed cushion next to her, and for some reason Rett jumped like he'd been shot, but whatever, the guy always was getting startled by shit. I went and sat next to my other best friend's sister, the one who was pretty and funny but I could somehow look in the eye without feeling like the earth was opening under my feet. What the fuck was up with that, anyway?
"Thanks," I mumbled to Brynn, and sort of squirm-shimmied my way onto the couch. The McCabes were already starting to exchange gifts with some of the older crowd, and I tried to pay attention appreciatively as old Mrs. Feathergill expounded about some dusty relic from her antique shop, currently being held at arms length by Mr. Green, my old history teacher. Xavier Tully, the guy who'd bought my family's old homestead and turned it into a B&B was laughing really loudly with Cole Granger while Old Man Melton groused audibly about something to his long-suffering granddaughter Autumn. But all this was just background noise not even worthy of my attention because Harper had just sat down next to me and delicately, almost innocently, placed her hand on my thigh.
My dick seemed to be reaching for her and she had to fucking notice, but she just slammed back her drink. "Slow down there, kid," I whispered.
"I'm not a kid," she murmured back. "I'm a grown-ass woman who makes my own decisions." Her hand fluttered on my thigh a second. "I swear I come home and everyone still thinks I should be wearing pigtails. I'm twenty-five now for God's sake and I've got a really great career..."
She blinked and sort of sagged back on the couch, all the bravado draining from her stance. "Whoops," she sighed. "Sorry."
I was so busy staring at her lips that it took me a moment to realize why she thought she'd screwed up. "Oh, me? Nah." I waved my hand. "I was ready for something new anyway. Actually, I've got an interview the day after New Year's so...things are looking up."
She smiled. "That's the day my parents are renewing their vows, are you going to have to miss it?"
I shook my head emphatically. "No way, kid." Then I ducked and shot her a grin. "I mean, no way, grown-ass-woman-who-makes-her-own-decisions. I'll be there for sure."
"I'm glad," she said and sank back further into the couch, smiling happily. She lifted her empty drink to her lips. "Fuck it," she sighed. "I'm way too comfy to move. Will you judge me if I just suck on the ice cube?"
"Will you judge me if I watch?" I asked her.
Her eyelids fluttered and that beautiful rosy blush spread across her cheeks again. Then she lifted her chin slightly and tipped the glass against her lips. I watched, fucking nailed to the spot, as the ice cube slid between her lips and her cheeks hollowed as she sucked and all the while she kept her green eyes fixed right on me.
Her hand was still on my leg and I was two seconds away from leaning in and kissing her, when suddenly she and I were both jostled. "Sorry," Cal mumbled as he slid against our legs and landed at Harper's feet. "Couldn't find a place to sit, can I fit here?"
She laughed and looked down, amiably widening her stance so Cal could lean against her leg. She lifted her hand from my leg and rested it on his shoulder, her fingers lightly petting his stupid argyle sweater.
Cal murmured his thanks and then, I swear to fucking Christ, that asshole, my best friend, looked me right in the eye and grinned.
Chapter Seven
Harper
The room stopped spinning somewhere around eight-thirty in the morning.
I woke up and carefully made my way to the guest bathroom, then knelt by the toilet. But the moment I could've used to puke had passed a long time ago and my stomach yielded none of its contents. The time to puke and save myself this hangover was probably some time last evening. Probably the time I spent sandwiched between Cal and Gray, glued to the spot with happiness and too drunk with desire to move or do anything to help myself. Like get bread, or drink some more water. With Cal's head between my legs — and yes, every inch of me was aware of how perverted that sounded — and Gray's warming bulk pressed up against me on the side, I'd spent the entire gift exchange in a state of acute arousal. The only thing that kept me from leaping at one, or both of them was the fact that Brynn was seated beside Gray and my stupid, overbearing brother was next to her.
So I spent the night in delicious agony.
But my early-morning agony was quite different.
I got up and stumbled back to the bed, vowing not to move again until the icepick dislodged from my brain. I closed my eyes...
"Oh God," I winced as the guest room was suddenly flooded with light.
"Well, you look as bad as I'd expect," my brother's voice rumbled from the door.
"Really? With the lights?" I groaned.
He chuckled and mercifully shut them back off again. "Here," he said, walking into the room. Each footfall of his feet on the floor boards sounded like the house was about to come down around me. "Drink this, and swallow this," he commanded.
I opened my eyes weakly to see him sitting at my bedside holding a tall glas
s of water and a fistful of aspirin. I tried to dive for them, the world lurched, and then I decided to move much more slowly. I shoved the aspirin in my dry, cottony mouth.
"What are you even doing here?" I croaked. "Did you sleep over or something?"
Rett shrugged. "Didn't feel like going home to an empty house last night," he said. "Drink your water."
I dutifully drank the entire glass of water, which sat heavily in my stomach, roiling around.
"I haven't done this since high school," Everett observed. "Taking care of my hung over baby sister before our parents find out."
He stood up again, and went to the window and yanked open the curtains.
I rolled over and groaned, then grabbed the pillow and smashed it against my face. "My God, why are you being so annoying?"
"Your absence is beginning to be noticed," Rett said. "I'm just covering your ass."
"You're telling me Mom and Dad have never considered I might be hung over?"
"Mom and Dad still think you read those children's books you write," Rett said dryly. "If they saw you right now, they'd probably stage an intervention. Come on," he said, slapping the comforter. "Get up, I'll take you out to breakfast so you can avoid them."
I groaned, and whined, and complained bitterly, but somehow I managed to get myself assembled into something that resembled a human. I brushed my teeth, piled my ratty hair on top of my head, and gazed at myself in the mirror. With my schlubby sweatshirt and plaid pajama pants, I looked more like an undergraduate then a successful New York author. Truth be told, I probably looked more like a high schooler than anything else.
Rett was waiting for me down the back stairs. He called out some excuse to Mom and Dad about sibling time, and then hustled me into his truck.
I sagged into the seat and rested my head against the cool window. "I guess I owe you, kind of," I said. "Where are we going? Bob and Lou's?"
"Who else is going to be open the day after Christmas?" Rett said. "The rest of the world still treats this like a regular business day, but here in Reckless Falls it's still 1953."