This was not a part of my plan.
He was going to upend me. I could feel it.
I thumbed a stray tear from the corner of my eye and willed my breathing to settle. “That’s really pretty. Thanks for sharing with me.”
“No problem,” he said, but he sounded detached. Closed off, all of a sudden, and I wondered if I’d said something wrong, asked too much.
He drove us back to my house, but I didn’t want the night to end. It was late. We’d eaten our burgers and fries and downed our milkshakes. He still had to go home. I needed sleep. Work wasn’t difficult or anything but running on no rest wasn’t a great look for me.
Except.
I hated to part from him.
“I had a really great time,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Even when I made you sing?” He smiled. “Or when the police questioned our intentions?”
I laughed, opened the door and climbed out. Turning, I leaned into the passenger window. “Even then. Thanks for dinner and conversation.”
“And truths.”
I raised my eyes to his. “That, too.”
He nodded, staring at me as if he wasn’t sure what to say.
“Okay, well.” I shut the door. “Goodnight.”
“Night, Columbus,” he said and as I walked away without hearing the gentle rumble of acceleration, I knew he was watching. Waiting until I entered the house and shut the door.
I smiled, leaned my back against the closed door and shut my eyes.
“And he’s a gentleman,” I whispered into the dark.
Functioning after being alone with Lawson proved much harder than I anticipated. Routine lost the importance it had before. I tried to stay with it. Read old appellate cases, took notes. I even found a YouTube channel of a law a student at Cambridge. Bubbly yet levelheaded and likable, she featured campus tours and study-with-me sessions. But for every vlog I watched of her, there was Lawson to the right of the screen in suggested videos.
Resistance was futile.
I clicked.
Watched.
Lost myself in his voice, his eyes, his fingers sliding across the frets of his guitar.
You can’t let this happen.
I had to pull myself together, refocus. September would be here before I knew it. I did not have time for Lawson’s voice, Lawson’s eyes, Lawson’s talent that soared far past just singing and songwriting. Law school. Career. Established. Attraction was fleeting. I had to remember that, to push past physical desire. Besides, I wasn’t a fling kind of a girl. Not just because I’d disciplined myself to concentrate on my future, but I couldn’t get involved with a boy without emotional attachment. And the more time I spent with Lawson Hill, I knew—I knew for a fact that to detach myself from him, which was exactly what I’d have to do in the end, would rip me open.
I shut my laptop at the same time my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Savana: Sup, girl, you still alive?
Sighing, I grabbed my phone and answered her with the truth.
Me: Questionable.
Savana: Not much sleep, huh?
How did she know? I smiled, despite myself. Despite subscribing to Lawson’s YouTube channel, sorting from oldest to newest and hitting play. Pa-the-tic.
Me: Bingo.
Savana: Epic night. Chris is still on cloud 9. Bet you are tooooooo.
I should’ve been. I was. We’d had a great night. Not a typical first…date? Was that right? We’d started out with a group. We didn’t arrive together. But we left together. It felt like a date. He held my hand. We talked. Laughed. Shared personal stories. Sang. Danced. Nearly kissed, would have, possibly, maybe, if it hadn’t been for the cop and his dumb flashlight.
He asked if I had a boyfriend.
He asked if I had a boyfriend.
He asked if I had a boyfriend.
“Shit.” I sounded like a middle schooler. Analyzing every second spent with the boy she liked. He did all these really cool but possibly insignificant but totally meaningful things—am I going crazy?
Me: Yes. A little.
Confliction weighed heavy on my shoulders, harder than a hung jury. I hadn’t heard from him. No call, no text. But then it was only four o’clock in the afternoon and we weren’t dating. He was probably busy. Or sleeping. Or not thinking about me at all, because there was that possibility, too. Maybe he was feeling the same feelings. Maybe he didn’t have time for me. He had songs to write, albums to make, tours to book. How could I fit in to any slot of that kind of life? I couldn’t. We were on completely separate paths, Lawson Hill and I. Fame and fortune. Law school and career. With a big, thick wall of dream-on-sister in between.
Me: Thanks for inviting me. I had a good time. Gotta get back to researching.
The phone lit up with Savana’s smiling face and the chorus of Can’t Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake. Funny thing: I didn’t remember assigning her a photo and a ringtone.
I hit the green accept button. “Hey.”
“What do you mean, researching? Aren’t you at Law’s?”
“Afternoon to you, too. Why would I be at Lawson’s?”
“Uh, because you left together last night, and I haven’t heard from you? Either of you?”
“Oh.”
She laughed. “Jeez, girl, you are somethin’ else. Is he still sleeping?”
“Is who still sleeping?”
“Is who still sleeping…you really are out of it. Law, you big dummy. Is he up and recording or too wiped out to function?”
“How would I know if—” My eyes went wide. Fire ratcheted up my cheeks to the tips of my ears. “Wait a minute.” My voice shook. “You thought that we…?”
“Bumped uglies? Hell yeah, girl. Did you honestly think we’d miss the way he was looking at you all night? Swear to God, I thought he’d crack a note on stage, he was so wrapped up in making moo-moo eyes at you in the crowd. And then afterwards? When he couldn’t even stay half an hour with us at the club? He’s got it bad. Real bad.”
Did he? Did I? Stupid question. If YouTube history could confirm enough evidence to charge someone with stalking, I’d’ve been read my rights and handcuffed twelve videos ago.
I glanced down at my hand in my lap. “Sorry to disappoint you, but we didn’t have sex.” And yet the sudden thought of sleeping with him, of his arms wrapped around me, feeling his body on top of mine, inside of me…The image wove around my waist and in between my thighs as if I’d sunk into a hot bath.
I crossed my legs.
“Sister. Are you kidding me?”
I drew in a shaky breath. “Afraid not. We just hung out a while and he took me home. End of story.”
“End of story. Yeah. Fat chance of that happening.”
My brow tightened. “Why do you say that?”
“Because…” She took a sip of something. “Lawson’s not the type to let go of something he likes, and he likes you.”
And I like him. Way more than I should. The words sat on the tip of my tongue, startling me. But I couldn’t tell Savana that. She’d tell Lawson, and…no. Just no.
“I don’t see how anything could come of it,” I said. “I’m leaving in a few months, and he’s…well, he’s obviously got a lot going on.”
“Harper Evans, will you for once stop thinking about your rules and your schedule? Yeah, you’re going to college in the fall. That’s great. It’s spectacular. But what about all the days in between? What about living your life right now?”
She was right. Savana was crazy and spontaneous, and I…I lived by a virtual calendar, same as I would when I started college, as I would working for a law firm. But she was right. I had a handful of weeks before I had to be on university time. Before the rest of my life.
“Expectations,” I said, “make it difficult for me to concentrate on the here and now. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. It does. But hey, it’s also okay to expect to make every minute count, right?” She laughed. “That’s what Chris says
, anyway. Wake up every morning and start your day on purpose. She says that, too.”
Chris was maybe the smartest person I knew.
“So, you guys hit it off, right?” she asked as my phone pinged with a notification.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s wonderful.”
“Then let him be wonderful to you. Give him a chance.”
“I gotta go,” I told her. “See you at work tomorrow?”
“See you.”
I hung up and checked the notification on my phone. YouTube. Lawson Hill just uploaded a video. The next instant, a text popped up.
Lawson: To this girl I met who can sing.
Exhilaration zoomed inside my chest, and I pulled up the YouTube app, where Lawson’s smiling face greeted me right at the top. I clicked. Took a deep breath. The video faded into Lawson, sitting on his piano stool, an acoustic guitar in his lap.
“Hey, what’s up, it’s Lawson Hill.” His smile sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. He was wearing a forest green Henley, rolled up to his elbows and unbuttoned at the collar to reveal a sliver of smooth chest. “Been a while since I uploaded, and thought I’d do something different. Just for fun. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. Hope you like it.”
He tapped off a beat to the sound board—two, three, four—and began strumming a melody I instantly recognized. He opened his mouth to sing. My heart rose, pounding.
What day is it
And in what month?
This clock never seemed so alive
I can’t keep up, and I can’t back down
I’ve been losing so much time
He didn’t sing exactly like Jason Wade. But he sang like him—like Lawson. Warm, rich, and with such feeling the lyrics paired with the acoustic strings bit into me. Hard. Deep. He squinted his eyes and smiled in some places, cocked an eyebrow and grew serious in others. By the time he was finished, nodding to the camera and saying, “Thanks for watching,” I was breathing as if I’d just put myself through an hour of cardio.
I picked up my phone. Typed, That was incredible, looked it over. Backspaced. Too gushy and not meaningful enough. He was more than incredible. More than amazing, spectacular, astoundingly gifted.
He was different.
Opening my laptop, I did a quick search. Smiled as I read the poem that he’d recited a piece of last night. As he turned my world upside down, I reminded myself. He had a knack for doing that, and we’d only known each other days.
I typed, And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee… and hit send.
chapter eight
After my shift at the library the next day, as I was sludging my way home through a rainstorm (thank goodness I’d read the forecast and remembered an umbrella and rainboots), my phone lit up with a call from Lawson.
My heart started racing around my chest cavity like a caged jackrabbit.
“Hello?” Breathe, Harper. B-R-E-A-T-H-E.
“So, I’ve got you reading Poe, huh?”
I grinned, despite the weather. Despite the slant of the rain making my umbrella almost useless and the urge to put him on mute just so I could scream. “I’ll have you know I was reading Poe long before I met you, Lawson Hill.”
“Lies.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Truth, actually. The second semester of my junior literature class was all nineteenth century American authors and poets.”
“What was the first semester?”
“Eighteenth century.” I skipped over a puddle, stepped onto the sidewalk that led home. “Didn’t you study literature in high school?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it studying,” he said. “I wasn’t terrible or anything, but my focus wasn’t on academics.”
“Oh?”
“Nah. School was more like a day job I endured, so I could practice until my fingers bled. I had a gig almost every Friday and Saturday night.”
“Wow. So, no Friday night lights for you, huh?”
“Rarely, although I do love football. How was work?”
“Uneventful. Well,” I said, “I say that, but it was my turn to clean out and sort through the book drop this morning.”
“Uh huh?”
“Which isn’t usually very exciting, save for my nosiness over what people are reading.”
“We did establish you’re pretty nosy.”
“Hush.”
“Sorry. Hushing.” He cleared his throat. “You were saying?”
“So, the door was jammed, and I thought, wow that’s a lot of books, but no…not books. Some books, yeah, but there was something lodged in the hinge of the door.”
“Oh, God. Please say it wasn’t some kind of small animal.”
“Worse. It was a dildo.”
He coughed a laugh. “Holy—are you serious?”
“Yep. Big, purple and wobbly. Just tucked inside the door, right next to a copy of Moby Dick.” After I’d gotten over the shock, gagged once, I’d made a dash for the janitor’s office and, God bless him, he’d snapped on a pair of gloves, as if he was about to perform surgery—in a way, he was, now that I thought about—and removed the thing. Tossed it in the garbage, along with the used condom that had fallen out of chapter two of Moby Dick.
Other than a rough lesson in what not to do with your sex toys, the day had been ordinary.
Lawson was laughing so hard in my ear, I nearly failed to notice the large truck parked in front of my house. The windshield wipers swished back and forth. Low beam lights glowed in the dimness of the afternoon. In the driver’s seat, Lawson watched, phone pressed to his ear, his laughter fading as I stopped and stared back at him.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey,” I softly returned.
“Presumptuous of me to sit outside your door, waiting for you to get home, but…”
“Not so presumptuous.” It was sweet and sexy, and my heart was tripling in size. “How long have you been waiting?”
“Not long. Savvy gave me a heads up.”
“Right.”
For a moment there was silence and then he said, “So, are you just gonna stand there like we’re filming a long-distance phone commercial or are you gonna—you know what? Don’t answer that. I’m hanging up now.”
His headlights flicked off, engine died and the next minute his door was opening, and he was stepping out into the rain, no umbrella, nothing covering his head.
My feet set into motion, as did his, and we met on the sidewalk so fast, both of us laughing, we nearly collided. My umbrella toppled to the side.
“Whoa,” he said, catching it. His other hand settled on my waist. “You intent on soaking me to the bone?”
“What are you doing here?” I was still laughing, happy to see him and instantly wrapped up in his nearness. He was warm and he smelled clean, and the streetlights bathed his face so that his lashes looked longer, his smile brighter.
“Came to see you, of course.” He gazed down at me, eyebrows raised. “Guess I should’ve asked first.”
I set my hands to his chest and he drew in a breath. “You don’t have to ask. I’m surprised, that’s all, and surprises aren’t something I’m used to.”
“Well, that’s just gonna have to be somethin’ we remedy, isn’t it?”
I smashed my lips together. Stared up at him, heart racing, drinking him in. He was full of surprises, Lawson was. No denying it. I adored that about him; senseless as that sounded considering I couldn’t X off many days since we’d met, but the adoration felt right, all the same. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met. Around us, rain pattered the streets and sidewalks. Thunder rumbled in its soothing bass tones. The aroma of stirred earth laced the air. And Lawson was the most handsome boy I’d ever seen. He was busy, had things to do, songs to write, tracks to lay down, tours to book. Instead, he’d sat outside my house, waiting for me to get home from work.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, mildly aware that I was still touching him, and he was still touching me, and we were st
anding really, really close beneath the dome of my small umbrella.
His gaze lifted somewhere above my brow. “I could eat. What are you in the mood for?”
You, Lawson. I’m in the mood for you. “Well, my dad cooked. He does that.”
His eyebrows inched up. “He’s a professor-chef?”
“Amateur chef,” I corrected. When Dad texted earlier that he’d have a big pot of roasted pepper penne and hot garlic bread waiting for me when I got home, my stomach grumbled in anticipation. He loved to cook, and he was darned good at it. Sausage and fennel lasagna, chicken rigatoni, sirloin with garlic and herb potatoes. While takeout hit our table often, especially with a professor’s schedule, when he whipped up a homecooked meal, I stuffed myself into a food coma almost every time.
“You wanna…you know. Eat with us?” I asked.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
A boy my dad didn’t know, had never met, probably didn’t even know existed, coming over for dinner at the last minute? Sure. It would be fine.
“Come on.”
Lawson shook out the umbrella as best he could outside before closing it and setting it in a corner by the door in our small foyer. He looked around and I could only imagine what he was thinking. He was accustomed to his large home with its palatial staircase and professionally painted molding. Dad and I had done everything ourselves, from the cornflower blue walls to the tile in the master bath.
“It’s not much,” I said, feeling as if I needed to provide an explanation, “but we don’t need much.”
“It’s great, Harper.” I loved the way he said my name. His gaze landed on the Kincade painting above the mantle in the living room. “It reminds me of our house in Louisiana.”
“Small?”
His eyes found mine. “Home.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but my dad yelled, “Hey-ooo!” as always when he got home before I did.
“Hi, Dad!” I called back and Lawson grinned. “Shoes at the door please,” I whispered.
“Everything’s ready, except for the bread. Come get it buttered for me, would you?”
“Be right there!” I slipped off my Chucks and let out a soft gasp as Lawson bent and took my shoes, placing them next to his.
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