Charlie didn’t know what to say, so she placed her hand on top of Harper’s where it lay between them and simply waited.
After a couple of minutes, Harper mumbled, “I can’t believe I told you all that,” before saying in a normal voice, “So that’s my reason for being here, and I’ve been more candid with you than anyone else I’ve met since moving away. Fuck, anyone, period. Now, tell me why you came to Key West.”
Charlie watched the small waves whispering along the beach for a few minutes. After Harper’s confession, she knew she couldn’t be as evasive as she’d initially been planning. She certainly wasn’t going to tell her the exact circumstances of her departure from D. B. Graves, but she could tell her the rest. She closed her eyes. “After it became clear that my former company and I had to part ways, I was in shock and had no idea what to do. I hopped in my car and started driving. I didn’t know where I was going, just that I had to get the fuck away from New York. I ended up heading south on I-95 and decided that maybe I would use this opportunity of being unexpectedly unemployed to try to patch things up with my parents. We’d grown apart for…reasons that don’t seem nearly as important now as they did five or tenyears ago. But when the time came to get off the highway to head toward Gainesville, I couldn’t do it. Looking back, I think I had a mini panic attack in the car, so I kept driving for another eight or nine hours until I ended up in Key West. Where I stayed.”
Harper finally looked at her again. “So you just got in the car without grabbing clothes or a toothbrush or anything?”
An unexpected bubble of laughter burst out of Charlie. “Sounds wild, doesn’t it?” When Harper nodded, she said, “Not only did I not have any clothes, I barely had anything. I had a nearly empty briefcase because my former company kept my phone, laptop, and tablet. The only things I had with me were the suit I was wearing, my wallet and passport, a tin of mints, some ChapStick, and a few tampons. I bought clothes and flip-flops in the hotel’s gift shop, which was not well stocked.” Charlie started laughing hard as she remembered how she must have looked walking around Key West that first day.
Harper snickered. “That explains the mismatch of the watch and your clothes when you came into the bar.”
Charlie furrowed her brows. “Mismatch?”
“You don’t wear a Timex or a Casio.” Harper tapped her index finger against Charlie’s watch, and Charlie instinctively pulled her arm to her chest and covered the watch with her other hand. “Sorry,” Harper said. “I didn’t mean to…I don’t know, make you uncomfortable. I’m a bartender. I notice things. And I used to live a different life, where Rolexes weren’t out of place, so I knew that watch didn’t match your clothes.” She shrugged. “I didn’t mean to be offensive.”
Charlie felt silly holding her arm the way she was, so she released it. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I reacted that way. This is the only thing that I held on to from my previous life. This was a gift from my former boss and mentor. He took me under his wing when I was fresh out of grad school and really helped me advance my career when being a woman in that industrywas significantly less common than it is today. And to be clear, it isn’t common today, either. He gave me this to congratulate me for my first IPO with a market cap exceeding one billion dollars. It’s silly that I’m so attached to it. But he passed away a few years ago, a heart attack, probably because of all the stress in investment banking. So while I’ve divested myself of all the opulence from my previous life, I can’t bear to part with this.”
“To be honest, that was not the story I was expecting to hear from you,” Harper said, dragging her toe through the water and flicking a few droplets across the surface.
“Right back at you. We’re kind of a mess, huh?”
Harper laughed a full belly laugh. “It certainly seems like it. Have you tried reaching out to your parents since you’ve been here?”
“We’ve been texting. I know my mom wants me to commit to meeting somewhere, but I’m not sure if I’m ready.”
“What’s holding you back?” This time, it was Harper’s hand that landed on hers rather than the other way around.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid, I guess.”
“Of what?”
“Of not being enough. Of being too much. Of them seeing me and being happy we stopped talking. Of being embarrassed because I lost the job they never liked anyway, so it’s like I’m proving them right. Ugh, none of that makes any sense. I know they miss me, and I miss them, but…I don’t know. I’m hoping I’ll know inside when it’s time to set something up.”
“I think that’s fair,” Harper said and squeezed her hand. “But what I can tell you from experience is, don’t wait too long. Life has a tendency to be shorter than you think.”
Harper certainly had a point, given the loss of her wife. Which must have been horrific if she’d been willing to pick up her entire life and move a thousand miles away.
What was Charlie going to do about any of this? Includingthe hand that was too soft for a bartender’s and the thumb that was tracing a lazy path up and down her wrist.
Chapter Twelve
“Are you avoiding me?” Charlie said as she slid onto a stool directly in front of Harper.
“No, of course not. Why would you think that?” Harper tried to feign innocence when that was exactly what she’d been doing. Their chat on the pier after yoga had really freaked her out, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know why she’d been so open about Kelly. Andrew had been trying to get her to do just that, but she certainly hadn’t planned on it. It had to have been the high from the class. Otherwise, she never would have shared that much.
“Because it’s been two weeks, and I haven’t seen you take Franky for a walk when I’ve been on our balcony enjoying a cup of tea in the morning, and every time I’ve been in the bar in the afternoon, you’re always in the back doing paperwork and have asked to not be disturbed.” She pursed her lips as she stared, and Harper’s heart started pounding faster.
“H…how weird. I’ve just been busy.” Harper grabbed some glasses she’d already polished and wiped at imaginary water spots to keep her hands busy and her eyes averted.
“Hmm.” Charlie tapped a finger on the bar as she drew the word out. “But I just can’t figure outwhyyou’ve been avoiding me. We’re friends, right?”
“Yeah, I think we’re getting there. Friendly, at least.”
“So why is it that I’m catching you here when I came in extra early because I was eager for Taco Tuesday? I bet if I’d come in at my normal time, you would magically be ‘busy in the back.’”
“Taco Tuesday is a popular night at the bar.” It didn’t address the question, but Harper didn’t know what else to say. Charlie was right. She’d been planning to work in the office once Aiden got there. She desperately wished someone else would come in so she could walk away now without being rude. It was bad enough that Charlie had realized Harper had been avoiding her. Though she wasn’t surprised. She had been pretty obvious about it. She’d just been hoping Charlie would be oblivious. And she really wanted to change the subject.
Charlie ran a finger along the side of her neck, and Harper’s eyes traced its every movement. “I have a question for you. I always like my tacos a little spicy. Do you have any recommendations?”
