Page 94 of Seeing Harper

“Harper, everything you’re feeling, if he’s feeling the same, he already does. Especially if he’s really felt this way all long.”

“He’s still got finals, though. I don’t want to shake him up if it is going to shake him up, until after his finals.”

“Okay, good point. So, send him a text. Maybe just say that you’re home and that you really need to talk to him, so when he gets home next weekend and gets settled maybe you could meet for lunch or something.”

“You know, that’s not bad.”

“I know. I’m pretty good at peopling. And at observing. But nobody gives me any credit.”

“It’s probably all the rich, fashion conscious, BMW driving, lounging by the pool every day while you sip fruity drinks thing.”

Summer shrugged. “Probably. But, it’s so nice, isn’t it?”

“It really is,” Harper agreed and sipped her drink again as she finished off the steak Summer’s mom had brought her to enjoy by the pool.

“Can you hand me my phone?”

“Yes,” Summer said, picking up the phone that was on her side of the outside table.

“I wonder if he texted me again. It’s been a few days, but we were texting and then, nothing,” Harper said, holding her hand out to take the phone from Summer.

But before she handed it to Harper, she swiped the screen and woke it up so she could scroll through messages and look for Clay’s name.

“Oh, well, let’s see,” Summer said, waking up the phone and going to Harper’s messaging app.

“Hey!”

“What? You’re going to tell me anyway.”

Harper shrugged. Summer wasn’t wrong.

“Last thing is some messages you deleted.”

“No, last thing is some messages he deleted.”

Summer looked at the phone again, then at Harper. “You deleted these. These were sent to you from Clay, and now they’re missing. It says deleted by IPhone 17. That’s you.”

Harper’s face was suddenly furious. “Let me see that!”

Summer handed it to her.

Harper looked at the message trail, realized Summer was right and got angry all over again. “That Sonofabitch!”

“What Sonofabitch? You deleted them.”

“No! I sent a message to Clay the first morning I was having breakfast with crapwad before we went to the trade show. I put my phone down on the table when I went to the bathroom, because phones in a public bathroom… eww, the germs… I didn’t even think to check it again when I came back. He must have deleted them!”

“Or maybe you did it by accident. Once your screen goes dark it’s locked.”

Harper looked at Summer over the rim of her sunglasses.

“You have a screen lock on, don’t you?”

“I have it set for five minutes. I hate having to unlock the damn thing every time I just want to go get something out of the kitchen.”

“Harper…”

“I know. I need to change it. Obviously, now. But it had to be him, nobody else has been alone with my phone since I got Clay’s message.”