Walking down to his shop, Harper called out so as not to startle him. “Food’s here!”
“Wow, I didn’t realize it had been that long yet. Why didn’t you come and get me to receive it?”
“I gave them directions to the side door, so I didn’t have to go traipsing all the way up front. The lobby creeps me out at night. Too much red crushed velvet for my taste. It’s like something out of a slasher movie.”
“You should’ve been a writer and not a stage manager with that imagination.”
“Funny guy,” she said. “Hurry, I’d hate for you to only get half a spring roll.”
“Harper!”
Poor guy did end up with only half a spring roll, but he didn’t mind. Harper had planned to eat hunched over her laptop, but Lucas wouldn’t hear of it. He made her close it and give herself a real break. He pulled up one of their favorite comedians online, and they ate chow mein, spring rolls, fried rice, and vegetables in spicy garlic sauce like no time had passed.
Once they cleaned up, Lucas stayed at the desk going over his modified plans, and Harper laid on the ratty futon with her head to the door and her feet toward him. She was halfway through the brochure when she looked up to give her eyes some screen rest. He was staring at her, and she realized why her subconscious had her lie the way she had. They would work like that for hours during tech week, when they had both been freelancing and sharing the space, and every once in a while, one or the other looking up to check in.
“Was I mouthing the words out loud?” she said.
“Oh, you know, just a little. Like every other one. I don’t mind. Honestly, I hardly used to hear it anymore. I’m just out of practice.”
“I can go back to my office. You know, now that I have one.”
“You’re fine, Harper.”
Her witty comeback died on her tongue as they both heard what clearly sounded like keys dropping in front of his office door. Harper closed her computer and sat upright. Lucas turned down the volume on his computer and motioned for her not to say anything. They both listened intently, but didn’t hear anything else as distinct as the keys. Standing up, Lucas checked his pocket for his knife, which, as a TD, he always had on him, and cell phone.
He whispered, “Stay here, and I’ll go see if we imagined things or if one of our community friends is looking for shelter.”
“I locked the doors. If someone is in here, they broke in. I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not. Don’t even think about arguing with me. I mean it, Harper. You stay in this office.”
“Why?”
“Because I tell you to, and for once, do what I say and don’t argue.”
The second noise was just as clear, and they knew there was no way in hell they were both hearing the same imagined noise at the same time and in the same way.
“You have your phone?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to keep you on the phone while I make sure things are clear from here to the side door. Hopefully, whoever is in here will hear me and stay away to avoid being kicked out. I’ll come and get you when it’s clear.”
“No. Lucas, I don’t want to stay here by myself.”
“You are safe in here, behind this steel locked door.” Softening his voice, Lucas continued, “I’ll be on the phone with you, baby girl. I’m not looking to be a superhero, but I am getting you the hell out of this building, just in case it’s someone looking for something more sinister than a warm place to lay.”
“It’s spring in Arizona. The entire damn state is a warm place to lay.”
He dialed her number, still his auto dial number one, and looked at her when he heard it ring.
“Gonna need you to answer that, baby girl.”
As soon as she connected the call, he was out the door, and she heard the lock click.
He started talking, loud as hell, the moment he turned from the office. Harper’s heart was pounding, and she was mentally marking his steps from backstage to the side door, where actors came and went from. She wasn’t even offering him conversational feedback. There was too much else to listen for out there. Prayerfully, it was just their imaginations. Suddenly, she remembered not closing her office door. Shit. What if the person was now camped out in there?
All she heard him say was, “Yeah, I’ll grab it from my office and bring it out to you.”
She gave a little yelp when she heard the key in the lock.
“Okay, whatever or whoever it is isn’t on this side of the building now. Let’s go.”
“All my stuff is in my office, Lucas. I didn’t lock the door. I didn’t close the door.”
“Here, put this on. You got your phone and your laptop. We’ll worry about the rest later.”
“My bags. Lucas, my house keys, my license, I want my stuff. I’m not leaving my shit here for some vagrant or thief to riffle through. No chance in hell.”
“Harper. Put on the sweatshirt and get your laptop and let’s go. I’m not fooling around here. Those things are replaceable. You are not. Now, I haven’t smacked your ass in a long time, but I’m betting it’ll come back to me real quick.”
Glaring up at him, Harper snatched the sweatshirt and put it on.
“Thank you,” he said. “No theatrics. We head straight for the door, and if we see or hear anything headed our way, you run as fast as you can. No stopping and no waiting for me. Do you understand, Harper?”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Not an answer.”
“Yes, Lucas.”
Getting outside without incident, they headed toward the front of the main building. Lucas called the police and told Harper to call Riley. The arts center complex was a complicated maze of theatres, rehearsal rooms, dance studios, tech booths, a vast backstage, box office, and administrative offices. There were more doors to get in and out of than either of them had ever checked or seen, beyond their initial tours.
“She wants to talk to you.”
Harper handed the phone over and felt like she was watching herself do it. There was no way she would feel safe in there again. How the hell would they check every nook in the place and assure them no one was hiding out? Plus, there was the whole what if they’ve been through my stuff feeling. Turning toward the sirens headed their way, Harper felt a little sick to her stomach. Sure, it wasn’t her house, but this theatre had been a second home since she started working there. Backstage was her home, and it was being violated.
Officers stepped from both cars with two K-9 dogs in tow. On reflex, Harper grabbed Lucas’ hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze and pulled her toward them.
“You the one that called?”
“Yes, sir. Lucas Mason. I’m the technical director, and this is Harper Harrison, the production manager. We were working late backstage and heard several unusual sounds.”
“Did you check the space at all?”
“No. I wanted to get Harper out of the building safely. That was my priority.”
“Smart. Well, we’ll get started in the back and set the dogs sniffing for humans up front. Do you have a set of master keys on you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks. It saves having to rekey a place if all keys are accounted for, and we don’t have to break locks if we can just unlock them.”
“Ma’am, do you have your keys on you?”
Harper was visibly shaking at that point, and only nodded in response.
“We were in my office, and her things are up front in her office,” Lucas said. “It’s in the administrative hallway, and the door should be open.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it. We’re going through the entire space. This is going to take a while. Do you have somewhere to wait other than out here?”
“Here or my truck, which is parked in the loading dock.”
“I’ve got a couple of extra jackets in the back of my cruiser, if you want them.”
Lucas looked at Harper.
“You warm enough?”
He got more head nods.
“We’re good. Thanks, officer.”
The officers walked off and headed to the back of the building to enter through the side door Harper and Lucas had exited from.
“Let’s sit. Turns out these memorial donor stones are more functional than we thought.” He was trying to draw her out and hopefully shift her focus. Her lack of comment let him know it wasn’t working at all. “You know you should’ve just taken the jacket he offered.”
“What?” Harper looked to him for the first time in the last ten minutes, instead of past him.
“You’re shaking, Harper. It’s not that cold out here. What’s going on?”
“There’s some maniac roaming the theatre, and all my shit is in there, all kinds of exposed.”
“I see your time in New York did not cure your potty mouth or your flair for the dramatics.”
“Are you saying I’m overreacting?” She made a point of standing up and moving away from him.
Lucas walked over and simply picked her up off her feet and sat back on his stone with her in his lap. He actually expected her to put up more of a fight than she did, and it worried him more than a little when, instead of fussing and cussing, she leaned into him.
“I didn’t mean to treat this lightly, Harper, but we’re near a park, and folks like to come in from the too hot as much as they like taking shelter from the too cold. We had a couple random wanderers while you were gone.”
The horrified look she cast up at him made Lucas rethink that particular sharing. Harper wondered what else had happened while she was gone. What all had changed? Maybe there were more things Lucas was keeping from her, too.
“It was during the day and during one rehearsal,” he continued. “The building was full of people, and they were escorted out without incident.”
“Riley managed to leave that out of her sales pitch for the job. What the hell?”
“I don’t think she was deliberately hiding it. I should have sat you down and told you about it, and I’m sorry I didn’t. It’s been awhile since it happened, and it’s never been after hours. Are you sure the door closed after you opened it to get dinner?”
“This is my fault now?”
“What is, one hundred and one ways for Lucas to blow this, Alex?”
Harper smacked his chest and finally gave him a little smile. “Well, I know things are crazy when you start talking about yourself in the third person. So weird. You’re not blowing anything. I’m a little freaked because I wanted to fight you so hard about staying here to work by myself. Once again, it just reminds me that listening to you kind of, usually, almost always works out better. Seriously, I could not have handled this alone, just so you know.”
“Are you saying that listening to me was the right thing to do?”
“Gloating is very unattractive,” Harper said as she subconsciously snuggled in closer. In her real world, there was little she could think of that would make this man unattractive in her eyes. “Tell me what I’ve missed around here and don’t leave out the scary stuff. You know I do not do well with surprises.”
“So, one of the nearby shelters closed, lost funding or something. More and more folks decided to stay in the neighborhood, via the park benches, instead of moving to other shelters throughout the Valley. We had officers come in and brief us on being more vigilant, aware of our surroundings. You know, locking up, working late in pairs, locking our office doors when we aren’t in them, even if we’re in the building. Keeping our belongings locked up in our offices, instead of laying out everywhere. Honestly, common sense stuff that we all should be doing, anyway. We’ve been lucky and lax. They were kind enough to point it out to all of us. We can’t do that anymore.
“In the daytime, folks come in for water or the bathroom, and we can’t turn them away. It’s a city-funded building, sort of, but sometimes they wander in and linger. The ladies try to keep track, but sometimes they get busy. Riley found someone by her office, but luckily the place was full, and some of the actors escorted him out. The volunteers found someone near the shop a month or so ago. They really are just looking for shelter. Nothing has come up missing. That’s why I said I wouldn’t let you stay, but I didn’t have the right to issue edicts without explanation, so I’m sorry.”
Harper sat up straight and then stood and paced in front of him. Lucas wasn’t sure what to make of her behavior. She took a minute to stare at the building a bit.
“Is it stupid to feel so connected to a building? I turned down an offer to stay in New York, you know. I turned it down. No sane person in this business does that. I talk a good game about loving adventure and change, but I was homesick half the time I was there. Things spiraled too far and too fast, so I bolted, but I want you to know I regretted it.”
“Going to New York?”
“All of it, Lucas. You, this place, Riley, Mira, Maddy, and Mami are my home. You’re my stability. Your stability allows me to be free to go all the way to edge, because I know, in my heart, that if you don’t catch me before I go over, you’ll definitely be there to cushion the fall. I guess I just like that part a lot more than the part where you take me to task for edge dancing in the first place.”
Lucas wasn’t sure why she was suddenly spewing feelings she usually worked so hard to hide and keep buried, but he didn’t want to do anything to shut her down, so he stayed quiet. As close as they were, there were parts of Harper Harrison you didn’t get to see. He had learned that pushing her meant losing her and he didn’t want to go down that road again.
“Estoy aterrorizado de perder todo esto en términos que no sea el mío.”
“Yeah, that I’m gonna need translated.”
“Funny. You never need the cuss words translated.”
“Because you use them more.”
“I am petrified of losing any of this on terms other than my own.”
“What makes you think you’re going to lose anything?”
“A dead father at fifteen sort of leads you to believe that unexpected bad shit happens. I gave Mami and Cliff hell for a long time. The fact that I was a minor was likely the only reason I lived there as long as I did. When I demanded the money for my condo, they were more than ready to get rid of me. Mira has to put up with me, but she didn’t offer to let me live with her, either. Riley has wanted me here full time forever, and I kept saying no. I like to keep enough distance, so if it all goes to crap, I can do the walking away. It would kill me to lose this place.”
“There’s no chance of that happening, Harper.”
“Being a tornado isn’t as endearing as it sounds, Lucas. That is what you called me, right?”
“I also said this place wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“I can be—well, a lot. Too much time together tends to magnify my less than favorable ways. It’s best to leave the people wanting more, instead of them rooting for you to go.”
“Harper, where are you really going with all of this? No one here is even thinking about wanting you gone. Hell, I was miserable the entire time you were gone. I really did think Riley’s threat to take a plane and drag you home was serious, right around the third week. Around week five, I was tempted to call your sister and demand an update. I know Riley told you I jumped at her offering you this job. I didn’t much care if you gave me the silent treatment the entire time. You’re the other half of my heart, Harper Harrison.”
“I do not deserve you. Now I’m sure of it.”
Lucas walked to her to make sure he had her complete attention, “I don't know where this is coming from or what triggered it, but I promise you, I had and have no plans on going anywhere. Look, no one has control over life and death, but the people you named aren’t going out of your life by choice. Even you aren’t that much of a handful, smart mouth, brat, or daredevil.”
“Pep talk?”
“No, reality check.”
“I think you’re going to feel different after I tell you everything that happened in New Yo
rk.”
“I doubt it, but shoot.”
“Now, you have to remember all the sweet things you just said to me and the fact that you said you’re not even thinking about leaving me. Also, I’m pretty cute and kind of handy, sometimes.”
“Harper, you’re stalling. Talk.”
“We were over. I mean I said we were over, and you let me go.” At the look he gave her, Harper plowed through. “Jeff and I slept together. It wasn’t like we made deep passionate love or anything. It was, at best, a stupid regression to our equally stupid college days. We both regret it, a lot. I have been holding it in and avoiding you because I hated having this secret. Maybe it won’t even matter to you, but you tell me all these wonderful things you think about me and that you’ll always be there for me, and I feel like a selfish slut.”
Lucas turned her around so quickly, Harper felt like she might lose her footing. He gave her backside three rapid fire spanks that she had no problem feeling through the protective layers of her clothes.
“I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself a name like that again. That is not who you are or who you’ve ever been.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Yes. You slept with your ex-boyfriend, and you both regretted it immediately. Am I happy about it? Of course not, and I wish to God that I’d never given you a reason to turn to another man, but the reality is we were broken up. I might have hated it, and I sure as hell didn’t want it, but I did nothing to keep you here, either. I live with that every day.”
“Should I be expecting another, you know—”
“What, another spanking for sleeping with Jeff? Um, no. That’s not how this works. We both get to live with the role we played in it happening, and just so we’re clear, those spanks were for you calling yourself something so vile and degrading. I mean it; do not let me ever hear that again.”
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