“Time to get the cornbread out, right?” she said, her voice unsteady. “I’m starving. How long will it take to cool?”
His brain was short-circuiting, his skin still burning everywhere she’d touched. “Um, cornbread in a cast-iron skillet?” Christ, he could barely string words together. “Not long.” His eyes locked onto her mouth as she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. The simple gesture punched the air from his lungs.
“Okay, I’ll try to be patient. No promises, though.” Her smile played at casual, but there was nothing casual about the heat in her eyes that made his throat close up. This was Harriet. The woman who’d spent half her college years passed out on their lumpy couch, who’d brought him gas station hot chocolate the night Katie Sherman humiliated him at the Sadie Hawkins dance. Who’d been there for every milestone, every disaster. But they’d never been alone like this, never had this crackling tension between them with no buffer of family or friends.
“I should probably finish cleaning this up,” he said, gesturing to the mess on the counter. “But maybe you’d like to watch a movie while eating?”
“A movie?” The way her voice dipped low made his skin prickle. “Like...Candyman?”
Her playful smirk sent his stomach into free fall. Of course she’d bring up the time they watched that horror movie with Brooke. He’d been sixteen, trying to act tough while white-knuckling a throw pillow “for comfort.” Then that mirror scene hit and he’d yelped so loud their dog started howling. Instead of making fun of him, she’d just shared her blanket and passed him extra popcorn, even though he could see her biting back a smile.
“Let’s not relive my finest moment.” He tried and failed to smother an answering grin at her teasing, warmth spreading through his chest even as he remembered that night. God, he’d been hopeless. “I was thinking we could compromise. You like scary movies that give me nightmares, I like comedies that make you roll your eyes. What if we just watch...” He ran a hand through his hair, his stomach doing that weird flip thing it always did when she looked at him like that. “I dunno... just a regular movie. Amoviemovie, you know? Something in between chain saws and people falling down stairs. We could doThe Princess Bride?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s my favorite.”
“I know.” The words came out soft, almost shy.
She went quiet for a moment, studying him with an expression that made him forget how to breathe.
Soon they were settled on his couch with steaming bowls of chili, cornbread, and fresh glasses of rosé. His couch was big, but somehow they’d ended up in the middle, their thighs almost touching.
“So tell me something,” he asked, finally giving voice to a question that kept poking at him, “how are you alone on Valentine’s Day? Any Westleys on the horizon?”
Harriet tensed slightly. “Oh, you know, nothing quite as romantic as true love and pirates.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s just my dating history is a bit demoralizing. You met Zach before,” Harriet began, her smile brittle. “We’d been together off and on since I was like twenty-five. Not great, but not terrible either. Just comfortable, I guess. Until it wasn’t. Anyway, one day I get this email from him. Subject line:Relationship Analysis: Q4 Review.”
“No,” Gale breathed, his eyes wide. “Fuck. No way.”
She twisted her mouth into a rueful smile. “Oh, he fucking did. Apparently, our ‘synergy’ wasn’t optimal, and he saw better ‘growth potential’ elsewhere. Complete with SWOT analysis and an exit strategy timeline for dividing our shared assets.” She took another sip of wine. “Assets? We had an espresso machine and some wine from Napa.”
“That is... total fucking shit.”
Harriet shrugged, but he caught how her mouth tightened at the corners. “Looking back, I’m actually grateful he showed his true colors. I wish it didn’t take so long for me to wise up and see what was always there lurking around the edges. Lesson learned.I want someone who sees me as a person, not a line item in their five-year plan.”
“Who breaks up with someone as awesome as you like that?” Gale leaned over, refilling her wineglass. “His loss.”
Harriet caught his gaze across the couch and held it. Maybe it was seeing her like this—soft and open, sharing her heartbreak over that idiot who’d never deserved her. Maybe it was how the wine had painted roses on her cheeks, or how the flicker from the TV caught the gold flecks in her eyes. Or maybe it was just that he’d spent half his life wanting this moment.
“The guy’s an idiot,” he said softly. His hand found hers on the couch between them, thumb brushing over her knuckles. “He never deserved you.”
She turned her hand over in his, their fingers intertwining. “Gale...” The way she said his name made his heart stutter.
“I mean it.” He shifted closer, drawn into her orbit. Her knee brushed his thigh and he nearly forgot how to breathe. “You deserve someone who sees how incredible you are. Someone who knows they’re lucky to have you.”
Her gaze searched his face, and the moment stretched between them like honey. “Someone like who?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He couldn’t look away from her mouth. Her free hand came up to rest against his chest, right over his thundering heart.
“Harriet...” He reached down, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, fingers lingering on her jaw. The rest of the world fell away until there was nothing but this moment, nothing buther.
When their lips finally met, the world narrowed to just this moment. She tasted like wine and spice and something sweet he couldn’t place. The soft sound that escaped her throat vibrated through him, unlocking something fierce and protective.
She pulled back just enough to breathe. “We shouldn’t...” But her fingers were still curled in his shirt, holding him close.
“Probably not,” he agreed, his voice a low rasp. But even as the words left his mouth, his fingers were already threading deeper into her soft hair, cradling the back of her head as he drew her back in. With her lips a little swollen and color blooming across her cheeks, he realized he’d never seen anything more beautiful than Harriet Smythe looking at him this way—her eyes dark with desire, breath uneven—and never wanted to deserve something more.
