But then, in typical Harper James fashion, the next evening he chooses a seat away from me on the plane. He jokes that he wants to be closer to the bar, but that doesn’t fly with me. Especially when he spends the whole flight in his seat, minus a bathroom break, and doesn’t take a single drop of alcohol.
Just like in the moment of the crash, I still can’t get my mind off of him and his feelings towards me. Even when he acts like this.
It’s the famous hot-and-cold routine we’ve settled into and I feel utterly deflated. From the highest high to the lowest low.
I pull out my phone, itching to text Elise for advice, but what would I even say? How would I put into words the situationship I’m in? How can I explain how I feel about him when I’m on such an emotional roller coaster.
At this point, with how shit I feel right now, we might as well be nothing.
And that’s the most heartbreaking thing of all.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Harper
The first week in Singapore feels different. I can’t quite explain why, but it’s like Kian and I are dancing around each other.
Being back in a hotel, having separate rooms at opposite ends of the corridor, puts space back between us, because now, for us to spend time together, we actually have to make the effort. There’s no more motorhome enclosing us in a bubble; it’s a choice not the default and that gives everything a complicated layer of significance.
The first day, we spend more time apart than together. He’s obviously still resting and recovering so he can be fighting fit for the following weekend, and I’m trying to stop worrying about him. If he wasn’t okay the doctors wouldn’t have allowed him to fly.
The second day, he texts me in the morning and we head to the gym together. He’s quieter than normal, focuses on his workout, and doesn’t make any digs at mine. It’s eerie when he finishes up on the treadmill and leaves me to it.
Days three and four we don’t have a choice but to spend all day together. We’re both in the same photo shoot for Hendersohm merch and some of the pictures require us to pose together. I wouldn’t say it’s strained, but the banter we have feels forced and no real laughter is shared between the two of us.
By the end of day five I’ve had enough and I take matters into my own hands. I miss him. I hate that I do, but that doesn’t stop it. Every night, falling asleep alone in my hotel bed, I think about going over to his hotel room in a nice shirt and asking if he wants to go for dinner. Or if I can spend the night – whatever he wants.
I don’t even care if we have sex, I just miss how his body engulfs mine when we’re sleeping and how I wake up to a tangle of his limbs and mine.
So I do it. I shower and put on a fresh shirt and I go over to his room.
The second I’m outside his door, I feel so nervous that my throat goes dry and I can’t swallow. My lungs don’t seem to want to work, either, and apparently I can no longer make a fist to knock on the door. What the hell’s going on with me?
Forcing myself to do some of the breathing exercises I’ve been working on with my therapist, I stand there in the corridor like a lemon, visualising calm seas, warm winds and sandy beaches in the hope it’ll stop the light-headedness and the panic attack in their tracks.
It’s just Kian. It’s just dinner. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Before I can back out, I knock, and for a heart-stopping moment I’m met with silence. But then, in a quick second – almost like he’s been standing on the other side of the door for a while – Kian pulls open the door.
He’s fresh from the shower, water droplets cascading down his bare chest and getting tangled in the array of body hair I love to nuzzle. His hair’s a wild, wet mess and even though his skin is still mottled with yellowing bruises from the crash I want to abandon the dinner plans I’ve made and climb him like a tree.
‘Um, hi.’ The words stumble clumsily out of my mouth and I can’t find a way to recall everything I planned to say to him. Dinner. Staying over. Missing him. My brain’s screaming at me to say it but I just open and close my mouth like a fish flopping on a river bank.
‘You going somewhere?’ Kian asks, eying my outfit and the bag I’m clinging to like it’s my lifeline here.
Come on, brain.
‘Um, yeah. Out. Or not. Or we could just go to bed right now.’
No, no, no!This isn’t what I planned. Tell him about the dinner reservation you’ve made. Tell him you miss him.
‘Fuck, you look so hot. Do you answer the door like that to everyone?’ This is not going well.
‘No, but I could see it was you and?—’
‘You wanted to tempt me inside? I see your game, Mr Walker.’ The words don’t come out in the teasing way I intend, making this conversation feel even more awkward.
‘No, but I could hear you pacing outside and I watched you stand there being weird, so I thought it would be best to find out what’s going on before you bolted.’
