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I clear my throat. “It’s fine. Right, Harrison?”
He nods. “Did you know that dark roast actually has the lightest caffeine content?”
“I don’t think that’s true,” my mother says. “But we’ll find out when we’re all bouncing off the walls, won’t we?”
She gets the coffee going and then leans against the counter, looking at Harrison. Specifically at his arms. “Why do you have those tattoos?” she asks, not hiding her disapproval.
“Mom,” I chide her. I look at Harrison with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, she hates tattoos.”
He chuckles. “I’m used to it. But the reason I have them is because they all tell a story. They remind me of moments in my life. They remind me of who I was then, and they tell me to keep trying to be the man I’m supposed to be.”
“That’s sweet,” she says hesitantly. “What does your mother think about them?”
Oof. So nosy.
But Harrison takes it in stride. “My mother has tattoos herself.”
“Oh?”
He nods, running his hand through his hair. “Yeah. I may look like I come from the well-bred portion of British society, but I assure you I’ve come from the bottom. My mother raised me alone, after my dad fucked off somewhere. I had to help her raise my siblings, and then I got into the mean shite on the streets. It wasn’t a pretty life for me back then. I got tattoos to remember those moments. Of course, some of those moments are just me high as a bloody kite and getting a friend to ink me, but most of these tattoos serve a purpose. I suppose even the ugly ones do, just like the ugly moments in life remind us of where we’re headed.”
My mother blinks, stares. I know for a fact she’s never heard him talk this much before, not to mention the fact that he’s let out something that I know he keeps tucked away, whether out of shame or guilt. I have to say, I’m shocked too that he would let my mother in like this. Shocked but grateful.
My heart swells, feeling warm and impossibly full that he trusts her like he trusts me.
“My goodness,” my mother says after a moment. “I had no idea.”
He lifts up a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t talk about it. Even the media doesn’t know, which I’m grateful for. I know I’m just their PPO, but in the UK, they’ll go digging up dirt on absolutely everyone who even says hello to them. I’ve always been able to spare my mother and my brother and sister that intrusion.”
“Well, you can trust me,” my mother says, making a show of crossing her heart. “I swear it. I won’t tell a soul.”
“I know you won’t.” He gives her a sweet, beautiful smile. “That’s why I told you.”
Oh fuck. I am falling so hard for him, so fast. I swear if I’m not careful, I’m going to blurt out something really stupid.
I clear my throat and nod at the coffeepot. “Coffee is ready.”
My mother turns around and pours the coffee into two mugs, and I briefly reach out and touch Harrison’s pinky with mine, trying to convey with my eyes how much that whole exchange meant to me.
Then she pivots toward us and gives us both a mug.
She grins at him, clearly as happy as I am that he was so honest, and then clears her throat. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she says, “nature calls.” She walks off to the bathroom and closes the door.
The fact that we’re alone weighs so heavily on me that I think I might just crash through the floor.
I swallow, staring at Harrison, wanting to say so much, do so much.
He rubs his lips together and stares right back at me.
“I should probably head back,” he says after a moment, having a sip of coffee.
“Do you have to?” I whisper. I nod at his mug. “At least finish your drink.”
Something in his eyes softens, the lines on his brow deepening. “It’s not coffee that I want.”
He puts the mug down and comes around the island and places a hand at my waist, holding me there firmly, his other hand going to my face. He gently brushes his thumb over the tip of my nose and smiles.
“You’ve had flour there this entire time.”
I blush, my cheeks burning.
He runs his fingers under my chin, holding my face up to meet his. “It took everything in me not to kiss it off.”
Oh boy. Here come the swoons. Here come my hormones.
He leans in and whispers in my ear, his breath tickling my skin, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I’ve been going mad.”
He places a kiss beside my ear, then my cheekbone, then . . .
The sound of the toilet flushing in the washroom causes him to pull back abruptly, his hand dropping away.
