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Harper’s head snaps toward me so fast I wouldn’t be surprised if she pulled a muscle. The grin on my face feels so big it’s borderline obnoxious.
“We-we are?”
I put my hand on her knee, feeling her soft skin poke through the ripped denim. I’m suddenly transported back in time to the day we brought her to the apartment when I sat next to her on the couch and put my hand on this very spot while trying to comfort her as everything she thought she knew came crashing down around her.
Even then, though, she felt like mine.
“Yeah, Pretty Girl, we are.”
She looks a mix of excited and anxious. But I can tell by how her lips are pulled back into a megawatt smile that excitement is winning out. I knew this was a good idea.
That smile on her face—I did that.
“Not that I’m complaining, but why are we going there?”
“We need to pick up the last of the money that’s there, and I figured it would put a smile on your face if I took you. Looks like I was right.”
She reaches across the car and runs her hand along my face. “You were so right. What do you mean the last of the money, though?”
“Oh. We’ve slowly been pulling the money out. We didn’t want to risk grabbing it all at once. Ronan has it all in a safe in our building. Honestly, it’s probably more secure there than at the bookstore, anyway. We just kept it there out of habit.”
“When did you start pulling it out?”
“Ronan made the call the morning after we took you to Kings the first time.”
“After we slept together?”
“Yeah. He realized how important the bookstore was to you. He knew it felt like the whole thing was tainted with this giant lie. I think this was his way of showing that he knew that and he wanted to fix it. It’s still not safe for you to open it back up, but at least this way, when you can go back, it will be just yours.”
Harper’s demeanor softens. “I-I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Mo Grá.”
We ride the rest of the way in silence, and I know it’s because she’s silently digesting what I just told her. It really was a smart move on Ronan’s part. The more we thought about it, the more we realized it didn’t make sense to keep all that cash in a building across town anymore. Especially when the three of us are the only ones who touch any of it, well, four now, including Harper. But that’s a discussion for a different day.
Once we get to the store, I park the car as close to the front door as possible. The less we’re out in the open, the better. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I grab the small duffle from the back seat, and instruct her to stay put.
As I climb out of the car, my training kicks in, and I quickly assess my surroundings. Happy with not seeing anything suspicious, I open Harper’s door and hold my hand out for her to grab. With her hand in mine, we walk up to the front door, and she stops. “I don’t have my keys. I didn’t know we were coming here.” I flash her an amused smile before sliding my copy of the key into the old lock. “Oh, right. Duh.”
I push the door open, and the musty, stagnant air fills my senses. Looking down at Harper, I watch as she takes a deep breath, and her face lights up. And we’re only a foot inside the door. Where I smell nothing but old books, she smells page after page of stories and dreams. Romance novels about star-crossed lovers, non-fiction books that memorialize our world’s history, and children’s books that are such a core part of her childhood. The walls of this building, regardless of whether or not she knew what was going inside them, have helped make her who she is. They’re part of her, woven into her very being.
I lock the door behind us and stand in place as I watch Harper run her hand along the dark mahogany wood that makes up the front counter. As she begins to walk down the aisles, she can’t help but touch every book she passes, making sure they’re tucked into their proper place.
She looks so at peace here.
The three of us need to make more of an effort to make her feel more comfortable at the apartment. More at home. More like this.
I’m sure I can speak for all of us when I say we don’t give a fuck how the apartment is decorated. We hired someone to do it for us because none of us wanted to do it in the first place. The interior designer took one look at the three of us and decided dark and modern was the look we were going for. None of us disagreed, so we let her do whatever she wanted with the space. But now, with Harper there, ready and willing to build a life with us, it’s important that the space also reflects her. I’ve seen her old apartment, and its style and feel is so far from ours that it isn’t even funny.
Letting Harper get lost in the moment, I move toward the back reading rooms and into room three. It’s the only one left that has any cash in the walls. I slide the oversized purple velvet couch out of the way, and tucked in the corner of the room at the bottom of the wall, is a register. Pulling the ornate gold cover off, I slip my hand inside the opening. Once my hand feels the familiar lever, I give it a good pull. The hidden passage pops open to my left. When it’s closed, no one can even tell that there’s anything amiss with the wall, but now there’s an opening the size of a standard door.
It’s not more than a foot deep, more of a shallow closet, really, but the opening is lined with shelves. Shelves that used to be filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars. And with all three rooms having one, we could keep millions tucked in these walls for a rainy day.
“All these years and I had no idea that was there.” I look over my shoulder to find Harper leaning against the door frame with her arms across her chest and a curious expression across her face.
I give her a soft smile. “That was kind of the point, Pretty Girl.”
Once I put the last stack of bills into the bag, I push the passage closed, replace the register cover, and slide the couch back to its rightful place.
