I eventually wrangled the girls back to their parents after apologizing about the chocolate and making small talk. Harrison made himself scarce at pickup as he had at drop-off. We hadn’t discussed it, but I assumed he didn’t want a mom or dad recognizing him and spilling the details to any news source that would listen.
It was moments like that which acted like reminders of who he really was and how this was all just a hiatus in his reality.
When I returned to the sitting room, Joey was leaning into Harrison, talking in a low voice, close enough that Collette wouldn’t even fit between them. She snapped back when she saw me.
“Harrison and I were just talking shop,” Joey said. “I’m sure you’d disapprove.”
“Not at all,” I lied.
“Frankie abhors the industry,” Joey said. I don’t know that I’d ever heard her use the word “abhor” before today. Especially not with such emphasis.
Harrison, for his part, was still uncharacteristically quiet. I worried about him. He hadn’t seemed upset when I told him things weren’t going to work out, but he hadn’t been his normal silly self either. If anybody knew what it was to keep things locked down, it was me. I never thought about his effervescent mood, taking it for granted, but it was notably absent now.
Letting him free had been the right thing to do. He had to see that things weren’t working, and this was all too much for him. I thought he’d have been more relieved, but with the sudden arrival of Joey, I was glad we hadn’t determined when he would leave. I found a shocking amount of solace in his closeness.
I felt myself longing to stand next to him, like two soldiers in battle, a united front.
“So,” Joey said, turning around the room, “it looks exactly the same.” She nudged a stack of old papers, dusty on top of a bookshelf. “I thought you werehiredto clean up this place.” I tensed on the strange emphasis she put on “hired.” As though I was somehow taking advantage of George.
“I’m archiving. I’m working mostly in the extra office and attic for now. It’s been slow going.” I bit my tongue from over-explaining. Joey always made me feel defensive in one way or another.
She wasn’t even listening anymore.
“What should we do tomorrow?” she asked Collette. Looking again at Harrison, she said, “Are you visiting long or …”
She was seconds from rubbing herself against him like a cat. She’d always been an unapologetic flirt. With my boyfriends. With the fathers of our friends. She’d flirted with every guy who she could somehow wield power over. Her internalized misogyny kept her victim to the patriarchal lie that women only had power if they were sexually desirable. It didn’t anger me as much as I got older. I pitied her more often than not.
I rationally knew all this, yet never had her flirtation caused this reaction in me. There was a strong urge to tackle her to get her away from Harrison. She was probably the exact type Harrison went for in his industry. Leggy. Blonde. He had a history, if Brooks was to be believed.
Harrison looked at me, a furrow between his brows. “I’m actually about to—”
“He’s here for the weekend,” I said quickly.
Joey was the last person I wanted to know about any of this setup. And anyway, it hadn’t worked out, so she didn’t need to know the details. But it also didn’t mean I wanted him to go.
Not just yet.
“I’m so glad I got to catch you on a break. I know how the demands of our work can really tie us down. Good timing. You’ll have to join Collette and me on our outing tomorrow.”
“He can’t.” I said it so fast that Harrison didn’t even have a chance to open his mouth. “We have to go into town to …” My mind raced, trying to come up with an excuse to keep him out of her clutches. I wasn’t exactly eager to spend the day with Harrison after I basically asked him to leave, but the thought of him spending the day with Collette and Joey without me caused an uncomfortable feeling all over my body, like rubbing Styrofoam together.
As Joey crossed her arms, waiting for my excuse, a smile started to spread on Harrison’s features. It’d been the first smile since I came home and ruined all their piratic adventures.
I didn’t trust it.
Too late to backtrack, I saw the moment the idea formed in his mind.
“Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers as he spoke. “Frankie promised to go to the Watermelon Wine Fest with me.”
My smile twitched. My relief at him helping find an excuse dissolved into panic. It was spending time mingling with townspeople in the hot sun, drinking wine with this beautiful man, or freeing him up to spend the day with Joey. My options were that. And he knew it. His smile grew.
“Yes. That is the thing I agreed to do,” I said.
“Since when does Frowny Frankie like wine,” Joey said with a skeptical look.
“I … I like some wine. It’s grown on me since I’ve been staying here. But Brooks is going to have a stand there, and I told her we would help.”
Harrison frowned in appreciation of my quick lie.
