Page 43 of Seeing Harper

“Alright.”

“Why don’t you use the rest of that water and wash yourself up a little so it won’t be so obvious to your father when you go in the house,” Clay suggested.

“Oh, yeah. Good idea,” she said, accepting the water from him as she stood.

He wasted no time putting his clothes back on, and was waiting for her with hers in hand when she finished washing as best she could and turned to face him. He handed her items one at a time until she dressed, giving her the impression that he wanted this over as soon as possible.

“Why are you in such a rush?” she asked, looking at him suspiciously.

“I just don’t want anyone else seeing you like this. Nobody has that right.”

“Oh, okay. So, you’re not ashamed then?”

“Ashamed? Are you kidding me? You’ve just given me the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. I’m ready to shout it to the stars. But quietly, so that nobody sees what we’ve done but us.” He reached out and pulled her closer, kissing her again. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she said, flashing a smile before she stepped away and started putting everything from their lunch into his picnic basket, then looking around to make sure that there was nothing left behind after he folded up their blanket and tucked it under his arm. She hadn’t missed the fact that he was saying he was happy, but still wanted to hide what they’d done.

“Let’s go,” he said, taking the basket in hand, then tucking the blanket under that arm instead, and using his free hand to hold her hand as they walked back to her car.

They loaded everything inside, then got in and drove slowly down the driveway before turning out onto the highway. They were quiet for only a few short minutes before he broke the silence. “I feel like I need to tell you something, but I’m a little nervous to share it.”

“If it’s about anything that’s going to upset me, please don’t. This night is a beautiful memory to me. Don’t ruin it.”

“But it’s kind of a confession, from when we were in school.”

She looked toward him briefly before looking at the road again. “That was a while ago. Does it really matter?”

“Yeah. But I’m hoping it won’t make you too angry with me.”

She side-eyed him a time or two. “If you’re worried about it, then you probably already know the answer to that, but since you’re so insistent… go ahead.”

He sighed, but then spoke quickly. “You know how we were just talking about how you were upset that no one showed any interest in you in high school?”

“Mmhmm,” with more side-eye.

“That was kind of, definitely, because of me. It was nothing about you at all and I don’t want you to think that it was anything having to do with you personally.”

“That makes zero sense. How could it be because of you when we barely even spoke in school, and you were always popular? And I was two years behind you! We didn’t even move in the same circles,” Harper said, looking back and forth between him and the road several times as she drove.

“Every male that participated in sports, Freshmen to Seniors, were together in the locker room during practices, no matter what the sport was. And I hated that the guys in the locker room would talk about you.”

“Talk about me? Nobody talked about me…” she said doubtfully.

“They did. How you looked on any particular day. What they wanted to do with you. Who was going to ask you out first. Crap like that. So, I kinda threatened to kick all their asses if they so much as looked in your direction.”

“You did what?!”

“Yeah. And I did it often just to make sure that no one would ask you out.”

“Do you have any idea how miserable my life was because I was home alone when all our friends were out being teenagers?!”

“I’m sorry! It drove me insane listening to them, and even more so when I thought about what might happen if you actually agreed to go out with one of them. And you weren’t alone. Summer was home with you.”

“Let me ask you something, Clay. Did they talk about just me, or were girls in general more a general topic of discussion in the locker room?”

“That’s not the point. When they talked about you in particular, I lost my shit every time. I had to make them stop. And then I added Summer to the same threat.”

“Because it drove you insane when they talked about Summer, too,” she said, shaking her head.