“Oh. Gotcha.” Something like disappointment flickered over Harper’s face but then it was gone again. Maybe I imagined it. She cleared her throat. “It must be hard, being so far away from your family for so long.”
“It was for years one and two, but I got used to it. Or numb to it. I go back every year for Christmas.”
“That’s it? Just Christmas?”
I nodded. “My father thought it would be a good way to build our moral character. Toughen us up. It was hardest for my middle brother, Octavian. He’s a genius. He did CHA when he was two years younger than Odin or me.”
“What’s your family like?” Harper asked.
“They’re good people. A little remote. Father’s busy running his empire. Mum is busy running her galleries. They’re kind but not effusive. I guess you could say they don’t like to get their hands messy with all that lovey-dovey stuff. It’s like being raised by benevolent strangers.”
“That’s odd, because you’re so…” Harper shook her head.
“I’m so…?”
“Warm. You’re very warm.” This time there was no mistaking her blush.
“I’mwarm,” I said with a chuckle. “Like a cozy mitten.”
“Come on,” she said, elbowing me in the side. “You know what I mean. You’re like Dean. Everybody loves you.”
“They don’t love me,” I said, sort of shocked at the words escaping my mouth from down below. “How could they? They don’t know me. They know the version of me that I show the world. I’m the guy that makes all the jokes. The guy who’s everybody’s friend.” I gave her a rueful smile. “Well.Almosteverybody.”
Harper frowned. “But that’s not the real you?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Wolfe… He’s going to try to play it out of me, I think. Because sometimes I feel like…”
“What?”
“I can draw and play, but my brain has turned my handwriting to shite, and I’m scattered and unfocused… I sometimes wonder if that’s like some weird metaphor for me. As if I can’t explain or decipher my own self.” I laughed and shook my head. “That makes no damn sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” she said. “You said your parents feel like strangers. So maybe it’s hard to know who you are without ever having had a deep bond? Without them reflecting you back to you. That’s a parent’s job, isn’t it? To validate their child’s feelings, help them name and understand emotions, and model emotional awareness.”
I stared with wide eyes. “Harper Bennett, casually forgetting to mention she has a degree in child psychology.”
She laughed. “Al-Anon meetings. Some of it stuck.”
“Al-Anon?”
Her laughter died a quick death. “That’s short for Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to the family meetings. My mom’s had some issues with alcohol. To say the least.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I mean, it’s notfine…” She waved a hand. “But anyway,I never knew my dad, so I feel that absence you’re talking about. Like there’s a part of me that will always be a huge mystery to me too.” Harper turned to me, her eyes liquid dark in the dimness. “Maybe you playing the piano is trying to… I don’t know. Feel into that absence and fill it with something beautiful.”
Bloody hell, her soft words slammed into my chest, and then sank into my heart, making it ache with grief for something I never had, and long for something I wanted at the same time.
I swallowed hard. “It’s just not in the cards for me,” I said gruffly. “My brothers and I are part of the company. That’s what we’re going to do.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
A silence fell, and I cleared my throat.
“Now that we’ve thoroughly exhausted the subject ofme,” I said, “we’re going to even things up and spend approximately fifteen hours talking about you.”
Harper puffed her cheeks. “I don’t know if the subject of me would fill up fifteen minutes, let alone fifteen hours.”
“Bollocks.”
