Harley & Rose

by Carmen Jenner

  ***

  It’s another hour before my door opens and snicks softly closed. My back is to the door, so I don’t see who it is, but I don’t need to—I feel him. I’d always thought that when I read that in novels or when I saw the protagonist in a film turn because she felt her lover’s eyes on her that it was complete bullshit. But I know it’s Harley standing behind me because I know that flippy feeling in my stomach, and I know that scent of citrus and spice mixed with a little sweat. And I know that presence because I know his energy better than my own. It’s comforting, even though he is the cause of my hurt, and isn’t that the definition of irony?

  “Go away,” I beg pathetically. “Please? I can’t fight with you anymore.”

  He doesn’t answer, but I hear the bedsprings groan in protest as he lies on the mattress. Even this makes me cry, because he won’t leave, and it seems he’s never happy unless he’s tormenting me. I sob, and I can’t stop it. He doesn’t touch me; for a long time he doesn’t say anything, and it makes me both grateful and angry at the same time.

  “I don’t know how to fix us,” he says, exhaling softly. “I don’t know how to not have you in my life.”

  “I don’t know how to have you in mine,” I admit.

  Harley sighs, and a beat later the bed squeaks as he gets up and crosses to the door. “I know it hurts now—believe me I feel it too—but I hope you can find a way to be okay with me, with us, again, because you’re my family, Rose. You’re it. Everything is fucked up now, but I can’t live my life without you in it.”

  “Get out,” I whisper, and I’m proud that my voice doesn’t sound as broken as I feel. “Just get out.”

  He leaves, closing the door behind him, and for a second I think I hear him slump against it, but then his footsteps sound on the worn floorboards and I’m alone again.

  Mom comes to collect me for dinner a few hours later. I tell her I’m not hungry, but she insists I eat, and she doesn’t leave the room until I’m trailing along after her. I can’t even look at Harley. I take the empty seat next to my dad, and I silently thank my mom for ensuring we aren’t at least sat together this year. Even being in the same state is too close to him now.

  After dinner, the ’rentals pull out the cards and set up for poker like they do every year. I can’t entertain the thought of having to spend one second longer with Harley, so I excuse myself and head to my room. Moments later, his truck pulls out of the drive. I don’t know where he’s going, and I don’t care. The sooner we leave and put this weekend behind us, put our love affair and our childhood behind us, the better we’ll be.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rose

  I stand outside Dermot’s house. It’s huge, a four-level white façade residence reminiscent of the French renaissance. It sat on a cliff-side lot overlooking the ocean in Sea Cliff. I’ve known Dermot had money, that much is obvious in the way he carries himself, the clothes he wears, the car he drives, but this is … this is intimidating as hell. My parents are smart, hardworking people. They live in a nice house and drive nice cars, and my mom wears designer everything, so it isn’t as if I’d grown up in a poor house, but staring at Dermot’s Mc Mansion I decide I am definitely in the wrong business and I need to go back to school in order to learn how to become a CEO and founder of some billion-dollar stem cell clinical-trial company.

  I also don’t understand why, if he lives here, does he come all the way across town to slum it and buy his coffee from my store in Noe Valley? It can’t have been because we have the best coffee in the entire city. Izzy is good, but with this kind of money Dermot could afford a thousand live-in Izzys to fetch him coffee beans dipped in gold and ground by virgin hands from the Peruvian Andes.

  I don’t know how long I stand there gawping at the brilliant white house, but the front door opens and Dermot leans against the doorjamb in a white button-down shirt rolled at the sleeves and charcoal suit pants, black belt, black shoes, and no tie. He runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, and it strikes me that I have no idea how to approach him now. Do I kiss him? Throw myself at him, or just be casual? I have no idea what the proper response is when greeting a man the day after he’s spanked you on your couch and fucked you senseless. All I know is that I want more. I don’t even know what more I want—the amazing sex definitely, but the spanking? I don’t know. I do know that I want to know more about him, where he is from, how he became so successful, what his favorite food is. Does he watch football? Did he play it in school? Was he a nerd, or was he part of the in-crowd? Does he really like the fundraisers with stuffy socialites that he attends? Did he spank Mireille, his stunning ex-wife? That thought has me reeling, and it takes a beat before I realize Dermot just said something.

  I shake my head, as if I could clear these thoughts that fog my brain. “What?”

  He’s so cool and casual, leaning against the doorframe, as if he knows I’ll be eating out of the palm of his hand the minute I cross that threshold. “I said, are you planning to stand out here all night?”

  I smile sheepishly. “I’m thinking about it.”

  “I won’t bite, Rose.”

  “What if I want you to?” From the looks of it, I’ve surprised the both of us with that comment, because Dermot’s gaze goes from warm to glacial in zero-point-two-five seconds.

  I take a deep breath and brush past him, but he reaches out and grips my arm tightly, leaning in to whisper, “Do you have any idea how much I’ve been dreaming about seeing you sprawled on my dining table all day? It’s very distracting, Rose. I’ve had to leave no less than two meetings to sort out my giant erection.”

  I laugh, but clearly this is the wrong thing to do because Dermot’s gaze sears me where I stand. He guides my hand to his crotch, showing me just how sincere he was being with that last statement. “God, I can’t help myself with you.”

  “Then don’t.”

  The door closes behind him with a resounding thud, and I gulp. Dermot grasps the nape of my neck. I gasp and break out in goose bumps. His touch is firm, yet tender, as he leads me down the hall toward the dining room. The view is incredible: a panorama of the Golden Gate Bridge, Pacific Ocean, and Marin Headlands, and I feel a sweeping sense of peace watching the fog waft over the bridge. A huge antique mirror dining table with sage gray upholstered chairs stands before us. One end is dressed for two with fine crystal and Chinese takeout, and the rest is left bare. I glide my hands along the shiny surface as Dermot bends me over the table with his hand splayed flat against my spine. I go willingly, with knots forming in my stomach and the smallest pinch of fear in my heart. I let him slide up my dress and fuck me senseless right there on his exquisite dining table with the fog and the Pacific as our witnesses.

  And I barely even think of Harley at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Rose

  Age eighteen

  When I agreed to tag along with my parents to the cottage for Thanksgiving, it was under the condition that they’d drive me back to SF before Saturday. I have to work this weekend and my car is in the shop and unable to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Carmel and back. My mother insisted that this would not be a problem and that she would drive me myself, but come Friday, it is a huge fucking problem. Unfortunately for me, Harley happens to be driving back to SF this very afternoon and it “just makes sense” that I catch a ride with him. I know this is our mothers’ plan to get us talking again, but it’s not going to work. I have nothing left to say to the man, so when they pile me into his truck with my belongings I sit stubbornly silent the whole ride up the coast to the city.

  Harley pulls into his parents’ drive, and I open the door before the car has even come to a complete stop and jump out. I grab my things from the bed of the truck and stalk across the pavement and onto the drive of my own house. It’s only when I get to my front door that I realize I didn’t bring my keys. I was with the ’rentals; I hadn’t planned on leaving early and now I’m locked out of my house. I bang my head again
st the door and sigh, as the car door slams. I glance over at Harley, who’s watching me closely as he leans against the truck.

  “I forgot my keys,” I explain.

  He grins. “Looks like you’re stuck with me a little longer then.”

  I shake my head. “My window. It’s closed, but unlocked. I just need to get into your room.”

  He smiles sadly. “Been a while since I heard that.”

  “Just don’t. Please, don’t pretend like everything is the way it was, because it’s not. It’s not ever going to be.”

  His mouth forms a hard line, and he turns and heads towards his front door. “Come on.”

  When we make it inside, he gets to the stairs before me and takes them three at a time. I curse his long strides and attempt to race him the way I used to, as if there was ever a possibility of winning with him. Now is no different, and when I enter the room I find him climbing up onto the sill as he’s done a million times before. He slides his big body through the tiny window frame, stepping across the empty space between our houses, and pushes on the glass.

  It doesn’t budge.

  “It’s not opening,” Harley yells.

  “It has to. It’s unlocked.”

  “You still leave your window unlocked?”

  I shrug like it doesn’t mean anything, as if it wasn’t an invitation for him to come to me whenever he found himself back home. When I’d returned from Louisiana and ventured up to my room, my window had been closed. It looked wrong, as if it was just another door closing on the two of us, and though I’d felt miserable doing it, I’d let it remain shut, but I’d never turned that latch a day in my life and I didn’t plan on it ever.

  “It’s always been unlocked,” I tell him sadly.

  “Maybe your mom locked it this time. Either way, we’re not getting in that house unless your folks come with a key, or you want to break the window and set off the alarms.”

  My mom would never come, citing instead that it was the perfect opportunity for me and Harley to sort out our shit, and my dad would have kittens if I broke a window and called out the security guy on a holiday weekend. So, resigned, I flop down hard on Harley’s bed.

  I’ve always loved this room. It isn’t the decor or the fact that it’s the polar opposite of mine; it is just so intrinsically him. The smell, the color of the walls—even the bedding is Harley, no fuss and a little bit lumberjack for a high school kid.

  I smooth my hands over the checked quilt and smile to myself, remembering how soft that flannel felt against my naked body the few times I’d grown impatient waiting for him to come to me and I’d climbed in his window instead. Even though he’d been away all this time, Rochelle kept it exactly the same, only stripping the sheets and duvet to wash them every few weeks in case he came home.

  “You remember the last time we were in here? The night before I left and we made one hell of a mess of the sheets?”

  “I remember.” I smile fondly at the memories.

  “That was a good night.”

  “We had a lot of good nights,” I say, and the smile leaves my face.

  Harley’s does too, turning instead to a serious expression. “Come on. Come have a drink with me.”

  “Because that worked out so well last time?”

  “I promise I won’t let you kiss me again … or touch my dick.”

  “You’re such an ass,” I say, throwing the pillow at him. I can’t help but laugh a little too, because I’ve never been that forward with him. While I might have snuck across the gap between our houses a time or two, Harley had always been the one to initiate sex.

  Eventually, after I get over the heartbreak of those words he told me when I straddled him in the truck and grabbed his junk, I’ll likely chalk that experience up to a humorous one, but I can’t move past the pain of it just yet.

  “What else are you gonna do?” His mouth tips up in the corners, the very start of a Pan grin forming. “Wait out on the doorstep in the cold just to avoid me?”

  “Maybe,” I deadpan. “As far as ideas go, it wouldn’t be my worst.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” he agrees, and I know he’s talking about my decision to break it off because it landed us exactly here. Then again, Harley is seeing someone else now, so who knows? Maybe in two, three, four years’ time he’ll be thanking me for walking away first as he gets down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend.

  “What’s she like?”

  “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend.”

  “Nothing like you,” he says, too quickly. The knife twists in my gut because I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Emma.”

  “And what does Emma look like?”

  Harley runs a hand through his hair, it’s longer now. It suits him, resting just above his shoulders in one of those shaggy Jared Padalecki cuts. “Rose, what are you doing?”

  “I just want to know. We told each other everything once.”

  “That was before.” He shakes his head and glances at the window. “She’s insignificant.”

  I laugh humorlessly. “Insignificant? But not enough to throw away what you have with her? Not like with me.”

  He scrubs a hand down over his face. “She’s not insignificant—that was the wrong word. She’s important to me.”

  “But not as important as me?”

  “No one will ever be as important as you.”

  “Right, but then, I’m not important enough to wait for. Not important enough to come back for.” I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. “Do you love her?”

  Harley’s temper flares as he meets my gaze. “Rose—”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know.” He rakes a hand through his hair. A beat later it falls right back in his face. I long to reach out and touch it, but that isn’t my place anymore. “Yeah. I think so. When I’m with her I’m a different man, but when I’m here with you, I’m … I’m me.”

  “God,” I breathe. “That’s so much worse.” Fresh tears prick my eyes. I cover my face, as if I could hide my torment or the despair that I feel in this moment.

  As if I could hide anything from this man.

  “I know.” Sadness chokes his voice, making the words almost impossible to hear. Harley pulls me close, folding me in his arms, holding me the way he has a thousand times before, but this time it’s infinitely different.

  This time, it’s the end of us.

  I cry into his big chest. This hurts, having him close, having him hold me after these lonely, never-ending months, but it’s also cathartic. Yes, I’m still mad. I’m furious at him and a part of me will always be angry, just like he’ll always be angry at me for doing this to us in the first place.

  First love is always hard to get over. It’s been that way since the beginning of time, and it won’t end with Harley and me. I don’t know where we go from here. I wish we didn’t have to go anywhere. I wish he’d stay, I wish he’d choose me, but I know that he won’t because somewhere along the way we became different people. We changed. Not for the better, not the worse—we just changed. We grew up. The boy who never wanted to grow up did. And it came at the cost of everything we were.

  “I could use that drink,” I say, stepping back from him, but he pulls me in again and presses a soft kiss to my lips. For a beat I’m stunned, and then I begin to understand. It isn’t a romantic kiss—it’s a goodbye.

  It rings in a new dawn, one where Harley isn’t the center of my Earth and I’m not the center of his, and just like that, I’m lost. I’m no longer tethered to this man. I’m no longer his future—I’m his past, and he’s mine. But that’s all we are. Ex-lovers. Friends? Maybe one day, but for now are just two people who’ve clung to one another for so long we forgot we weren’t the only two to exist. We forgot we weren’t a whole, but two separate pieces.

  It will kill me, but I have to let go of Harley Hamilton, because he’s already let go of me. And there is nothi
ng sadder than a woman clinging to a ghost.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rose

  Dermot and I fall into a strange sort of rhythm over the next two weeks. We very rarely go out anymore. A part of me wonders about this, and the other part doesn’t think too much of it once he puts his mouth and hands on me. Staying in means we can get naked, so that’s what we do.

  In the mornings he’s gone before I wake, citing exercise or work at the lab, and I find a romantic note on the pillow and a coffee on the nightstand. Those nights that we stay at his place, I wake to a damn buffet breakfast … alone. I try not to be disappointed in that; we’re both very busy people, and I understood that to own a house like this, you have to work a lot. So even though we hardly ever got out, there is no doubt we’re becoming more and more serious.

  I’ve spoken to Dermot’s sister on the phone a handful of times and though we haven’t met in person yet, I like her a lot. The two of us nag him constantly about setting aside time for his baby niece. Mom dogs me with questions about Dermot and me almost every day. I think she’s just glad I’m not spending my weekends alone, but dad was not happy about me dating a work colleague, much less one only five years his junior. I guess when you think about it like that, I’m not so happy either.

  But Dermot is a very different man from my father. He’s young at heart, adventurous, and so incredibly sexy. He is also late, but I am too. Dermot has booked a table at a French restaurant in the Bay area thirty minutes after his flight lands from LA, and I am running so late that I’ve only just sent Izzy and Ginger home. He was due to arrive ten minutes ago and I still haven’t showered or freshened up my hair and makeup, not to mention found something to wear.

  I duck into the cool room and return a bucket of roses to the ledge, and then I lean against the metal shelving unit and breathe. Like all businesses, the lead up to Thanksgiving and Christmas is chaotic. Izzy, Ginger and I haven’t stopped running all day.