Harley & Rose

by Carmen Jenner

  Harley’s gaze turns from molten to ice in seconds. “But you can kiss that client of yours? Isn’t that ironic, that you make up the arrangements to send to his wife every week, and yet you still have no problem dry humping him by the pool?”

  “You saw us?”

  “Yeah, I saw. I saw him trying to shove his tongue down your fucking throat, so how is this any different?”

  “Are you shitting me right now?” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “He’s my client, a married one at that. Yes, it was wrong of us to drink too much at dinner and flirt as if we were both free to do so, but that’s as far as it went. We both stopped that shit before it even started, and that is largely different than you and I—”

  “Why?”

  “Because you broke my fucking heart, Harley. Again. You proposed to another woman and it destroyed me.” I suck in a deep breath and cover my mouth, but the words are out, and I can tell by the haunted look in his eyes that the damage is done.

  “I didn’t … I didn’t kn—”

  “You didn’t know? Is that it?” I swipe at my tears and make a choked sound in the back of my throat. “God, I know you are not this stupid.”

  “I thought you were over it.”

  “Over it?” I laugh but there’s no humor in the sound. “I wish I could put you aside as easily as you seem to be able to dismiss me, but I can’t, because I’ve been loving you so long I don’t know how to stop.”

  I wrap the towel around my body and grab my clothes from the armchair. Harley reaches out a hand to stop me. “Please don’t touch me.”

  “Rose, I’m not letting you walk like this. I fucked up.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I whisper, yanking open the door. On the other side, Margaretta stands with her hand raised to knock but clutches her chest as if I just gave her a heart attack.

  “Is there somewhere I can change?”

  She points in the direction of the amenities across the hall. I stalk by and push open the door, ignoring Harley’s pleas.

  I’m at least twenty minutes in the bathroom. I cry for a good stretch of time, splash my face with water, rinse and repeat. I don’t know how I’ll face him now. I don’t know how to undo the things I’ve said. I can’t. Instead, I decide to hit the bar by the pool, because going back to our room means having to talk to him, and I am too damn angry with the both of us to hold a conversation and behave like an adult right now.

  Dermot left this morning, so I know there’s no chance of running into him again. Down here I’m as alone as I’ve ever been back in SF, only this time I have a view of paradise to make up for it and a chatty bartender named Mick, a handsome black man with gleaming white teeth and an infectious smile.

  Mick will be my new best friend, I decide, when I’m three sheets to the wind and the Hawaiian sun has set. The tepid breeze glides off the ocean, and after what I think is my fifth cocktail and a handful of peanuts, I finally start to relax. Until some asshat sits down beside me. I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of him. It’s some kind of beautiful torture being this close. Always has been.

  “What can I get you?” Mick asks, and Harley opens his mouth, but I beat him to it.

  “He isn’t here for the drink.” I swirl my umbrella in my almost empty glass. “He’s just here to tell me it’s time to leave.”

  “Have you been looking after my girl the whole time …” Harley pauses, reading the nametag pinned to my new friend’s shirt. “Mick?”

  “I’m not your girl.” I slide my forearm across the sticky bar and lay my head down.

  “The hell you aren’t,” he says, quietly. “Like it or not, you’ve always been my girl, Rose.”

  “Rose?” Mick says, side-eyeing me suspiciously. “You told me your name was Alecia.”

  “Oops,” I deadpan.

  Harley frowns. “How many has she had?”

  “Six.”

  “Jesus.” He pulls out his wallet and throws some cash on the bar for a tip. I charged all my drinks to the room, on account of not having a single thing on me but a bikini and a sundress. “Come on. I’m taking you back to the suite.”

  “No you’re not. Mick, another drink, good sir.”

  “Sorry, sweet girl, but I have to cut you off.”

  “Oh come on.” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Why? Because my fake husband says so? I thought you and I were friends, Mick.”

  “He’s not your friend, he’s a bartender who’s being nice to you because big tips keep him fed for the week,” Harley says coolly. “Or they would, if you’d paid them.”

  “Did you just say tits?” I slur, and maybe my two besties are right—maybe I have had too much.

  “I’m taking you back to the room.” Harley gets up off his seat and reaches for my arms, but I pull away from his grasp.

  “No. I’m hangin’ out with Rick. He’s going to teach me how to surf.”

  “Mick,” Harley overemphasizes my new best buddy’s name, as if he’s trying to prove some point. God, he’s such a, dumb, handsome jerk. “He isn’t teaching you how to do anything because you’re coming back to the room with me, and we’re gonna talk this shit through.”

  I narrow my eyes on him. “You’re a really shitty fake husband, you know that, right?”

  “I know, and you’re still nagging me as though you’ve had my ring on your finger for years.”

  I gasp in shock. Oh no he didn’t. Before I can get my wits about me, Harley pulls me off the stool and throws me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

  “Put me down,” I scream, reaching out to the bartender in the hopes he’ll come to my rescue. “Dick, save me.”

  The man just waves and gives me that ridiculously sweet smile as Harley carries me away, slung over his shoulder. He grunts as my fists strike his back, but he turns us and heads toward the exit. I bob against his body the entire way to the elevator, and then, when we’re alone inside a giant, moving metal box, my stomach twists and I murmur, “Put me down. I’m gonna be sick.”

  “Nice try, love.”

  “Harley I’m …” My stomach heaves as I puke all down his back and over the floor. He stiffens beneath me and then gently sets me on my feet as the elevator pings and the doors slide open.

  “Feel better now?” he asks sarcastically, and I glare at him. Harley takes my hand and leads me out of the elevator, but he’s walking funny on account of my puke covering his shirt and jeans.

  I’m mortified, but I don’t apologize because really, he brought this on himself. If he’d just left me at the bar with my new friend … “What was his name?” I say, as he stops outside our door and slides the plastic card thingy into our lock.

  Harley ignores me in favor of pulling me into the apartment. I make a beeline for the bed, but I don’t get very far before he jerks me into the bathroom and I lean over the toilet, puking up my guts and watching all that perfectly good alcohol go to waste. He takes the band from his own hair and ties mine back, and then, as I lean against the cool tiles of the tub, he runs a shower and steps inside, fully clothed. After peeling off his sodden clothes, he leans over, wraps an arm around my waist, and pulls me in with him.

  “Get off me,” I complain.

  Harley attempts to remove my dress, but I swat at him. I’m too tired to keep fending him off though, and he keeps at it until my defenses are whittled away to nothing and I eventually raise my arms for him. He doesn’t try to rid me of my bikini, he just tugs me back against his body and we’re engulfed by the warm spray. Seconds pass as he holds me in his arms. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

  “And yet it did anyway,” I murmur.

  “Rose, I hate feeling like this,” he says against my ear. “I hate knowing that no matter what I do, I’m going to break your heart.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last.” There’s no anger in my words, no bitterness now, just truth, and to my surprise he nods as if he agrees with that. “That’s what love does—it breaks you down until th
ere’s nothing left. We’re no different.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I whisper. “Because you never really had someone you love rip your heart out.”

  “That’s not true. You walked away from me once, remember?”

  “And you fell in love with someone else,” I say and then I quote J.M. Barrie, because I think if I speak a language he knows, then he’ll finally understand, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder … or forgetful.”

  “That doesn’t mean I stopped loving you.”

  “That’s exactly what it means.” I take a step back and climb out of the tub as Harley watches me, then I strip off my wet swimwear, yank a towel from the railing and wrap it around my body. I leave the room, avoiding his gaze the entire time. I don’t even finish drying myself completely before I climb beneath the covers. I should go through my suitcase and find clothing to sleep in. I should pack, but I don’t care about any of it.

  I miss my city with the fog and fire sunsets, the scent of dumplings and pork buns wafting from The Golden Dragon. I miss fresh-cut flowers, and the bakery across the street whose chef brings me the “cupcake of the day” right before closing. I miss how uncomplicated we were when he was marrying someone else.

  I ignore the fact that Harley will be sleeping a few inches from my naked body, and I drift off to sleep without shedding another tear. All of what I told him was true—some people are just meant to break your heart, as if it were their sole mission here on earth to teach you not to fall in love with the wrong person.

  Some people will break your heart over and over again, because some of us never learn.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rose

  Age eighteen

  Head down against the May wind, I make my way from class toward the football field. We’d run late today with the yearbook because it was the last day to finalize the layout before printing, and I hadn’t had a chance to meet Harley earlier, so he’d texted to say he was on the field.

  The last month of school was winding down, and since Harley and I had officially become a thing, I’d spent a fair amount of time with the football team. I actually liked them, so watching them come together as a team for the last few months of their lives had been kind of special. But football was done with, my eighteenth birthday had come and gone in the blink of an eye, and I felt no different. I was older, one step further away from childhood, and no matter where I go from here, I’ll never get these moments back. So while high school wasn’t exactly my favorite place in the world, I didn’t mind it all that much with him by my side.

  Until it comes to scenes like the one I am witnessing play out before me. Harley stands on the bleachers with Kordell, Watson, and a group of girls all huddled around closely. Jaycee Grainier—a slutty sophomore who has made no attempt to hide her interest in Harley—has five long, pink talons resting on his forearm as she laughs at something he’s said. I don’t consider myself a jealous person, but as she thrusts her chest forward and moves closer to him, all the while keeping her hand firmly fixed on his forearm, I see red and I stalk toward them.

  I don’t direct my anger at her, though. Instead, my gaze of hell-hath-no-fury is turned right at Harley.

  He pulls away from Talons and meets me halfway scooping me up into a hug, placing huge, hard kisses against my cheek and neck. His hair is damp, he smells of boy sweat, and green field, and his jersey sticks to him as if he’s just played a game. I try to hold onto my anger, I really do, because though she was the one putting her grubby paws all over him, he was allowing her, but I can never stay mad at him for long.

  “Put me down.” I squirm in his arms.

  “Kiss me.”

  “No, everyone’s watching.”

  “Oooh shut down,” Watson says, and Harley sends me one of those delicious mischievous smiles. I sigh and press my lips to his in a chaste kiss, but he parts them with his tongue thrust deep inside my mouth. I let out a whimper and quickly lose myself to the sensation. His hands slide from my hips to my ass, and I pull away with a shriek before we can make an even bigger spectacle of ourselves.

  “Okay, mister. What gives? You only get this excited after you win.”

  He smiles against my lips. “Not true. I get this excited every time you strip down to your panties for me too.”

  I blush and bat him away. Then I look closer at Watson and Kordell and see the sweat on their brow and jerseys too. “Did you guys play this afternoon?”

  “Did we play? Rose, that was the fuckin’ shit,” Watson says, making overly expressive hand gestures. We walk toward the student carpark. Talons stays with us, though her friends quickly make themselves scarce. “Your boy here was on fire. Man, never thought I’d see Nick Raban actually cheer for a player he’s got his eye on. I read somewhere scouts aren’t supposed to do that. Supposed to act all mean and shit.”

  I snap my head in Harley’s direction. “Scouts?”

  “Err, yeah.” He takes my hand and kisses it before lacing his fingers with mine. “Just some guy looking for late recruits.”

  “Some guy?” Kordell says with a deep chuckle. “Brother, you can’t be callin’ Nick Raban ‘some guy.'”

  “Wait,” I say, the pieces finally slipping into place. I stop dead in my tracks, and the slutty sophomore bumps into me. I turn and glare at her before narrowing my gaze on Harley. “Isn’t he the scout for Louisiana State?”

  He shrugs. “It’s nothing. He liked how I played is all.”

  “Yeah, liked it so much he decided to come all this way in the off-season to see you play in person,” Kordell says.

  “How long have you known about this?” I demand as Harley pulls me along toward his truck.

  “Not long.”

  “Harley, those guys don’t just come out randomly to high schools all over the country, especially not this time of year. Not unless they’re brought here for a reason.”

  “Come on, let’s go home,” Harley says.

  I pull my hand out of his grasp. “I don’t wanna go home.”

  “Uh-oh,” Talons chimes in, and I swear to god I’m about to beat this bitch down in a big way.

  “Don’t you have a BJ or two to give out behind the men’s washroom?” I snap, and even I’m shocked by how harsh that was. Her mouth gapes open, and I cringe on the inside because I don’t know what’s got into me. Oh wait, yes I do.

  “Alright then, that’s our cue to leave you two lovebirds alone,” Watson says, taking Jaycee under his wing and steering her away from me. Probably wise. “Come on, darlin’. I’ll give you a ride.”

  Kordell pats Harley on the back in what looks like commiseration and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, brother.”

  Then we’re alone. I soften my tone, because I know I’m being unreasonable. This is a big thing, a huge thing. This is unheard of, and he’d been so happy before I ruined it all. “How long have you known he was coming?”

  “A couple weeks.” Harley kicks at a pebble on the lot, watching it skitter across the pavement. “Coach sent him my tape. That’s why he’s been riding me so hard.”

  “A couple weeks like before we got together, or a couple weeks like when you told me at the cottage that you were taking a year off of study so you could stay in SF?”

  “I didn’t know he was coming for sure until last week.”

  I frown. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

  He sighs and heads for his truck. “Because I knew you’d react just like this.”

  That stops me in my tracks. I can’t ignore the hammering of my heart, or the lump that has formed in my throat at the mere thought of him being miles away, but I am being selfish. Really damn selfish. This is Harley, and playing pro football is his dream. It’s a dream he thought was unattainable, despite all the work he’s put into being the best.

  “I’m an ass.” I move into him, wrapping my arms around his neck and playing with the wisps of hair there. He slides his hands around my waist and leans his forehead ag
ainst mine, and though I feel like crying inside, I smile up at him. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Are you?” he asks, not with sarcasm or malicious intent, but as if he genuinely wants to know, so I nod and kiss his lips.

  “You have to tell me everything. What did he say? Do you think you have a chance?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I don’t really want to think about it.”

  I laugh, because surely he’s joking. “Harley, Nick Raban from LSU came to watch you play. How are you not dying with excitement right now?”

  “I’m just not.”

  “Why? What possible reason do you have not to be happy about this?”

  “Because it means leaving you behind,” he snaps.

  And there it is, the truth we’ll never get over. The truth that could destroy us. I’ve been accepted to Berkley—a UC Berkley extension—one of the greatest business schools in the country, and the best part is, I don’t have to leave the city to attend because I’ll be studying at the SF campus. I’ve also been offered an internship with SF’s most coveted floral designer, Sara Lau. I’ve wanted that spot for an entire year, and I beat several other hopefuls for it. I can’t give that up to move halfway across the country.

  “We don’t even know if it’s going to happen.” Harley takes hold of my hand and walks me to the passenger side of his truck. He opens the door, and I climb in. “Let’s just wait and see, okay?”

  “Wait and see. Sure,” I agree, but fear twists in my belly like a worm on a hook. I don’t need to wait and see, because it isn’t a question of if he’ll get a full-ride scholarship to play varsity now that Nick Raban has been to watch him—it’s a question of which college he’ll say yes to. He’s that good. “Do your parents know?”

  “No,” he says, starting up the vehicle and pulling out of the lot. “I didn’t want the pressure; you know how Dad gets on game night. If I’d told him about this, I’d have never left the field for weeks.”

  “Well, you have to tell him now. They’re going to be so excited. This is it, Harley—you’re standing on the precipice, and all of your dreams are about to come true.”