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This didn’t feel like me, like timid Destelle who gave polite smiles and idle chitchat. Stella burned in my blood now, in a way she never had before.
It was official: Ilovedthat Harry lived alone. Nothing would interrupt this moment.
Except his cell phone, which started to ring, a loud buzz that cut into the air. With a groan against my mouth, he broke away. “Sorry, let me turn it off,” he said, his voice rough and beautiful, and it made me want to kiss him again.
The breath I drew in sounded ragged in my ears, mind still spinning and pulse still pounding, and I accidentally glimpsed the name when he took his cell from his pocket.Lily Santiago. “Who’s Lily?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.
Harry launched from the bed as if something caught fire, springing away from me. His hair was tousled and his lips looked a little swollen. “I—I have to take this,” he rushed to say, heading for his door. He hesitated on the threshold as his cell continued to vibrate. “I’m—I’ll be out on the back porch. Give me two minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, digging my elbows into the bed to push myself up, but he was already gone.
The room fell quiet with his absence, the bed not as warm or comfortable. My heart rallied to break free from my chest, but with each passing second, the frantic beat quieted.
In all our conversations, I couldn’t recall Harry ever mentioning a Lily. Lily Santiago.
After waiting a few minutes, I pushed from the bed, figuring I would do a little more snooping. I couldn’t help but be curious about the kind of food he had in his cupboards, the drinks he kept in the fridge. Would he have any beer? He didn’t strike me as an underage drinker, but I was nosy.
As I passed into the kitchen, I could see Harry out of one of the back windows, pacing back and forth. In the quick glimpses, I could see his hand pressed to his throat.
His fridge was clean of anything suspicious. It could’ve used more groceries, though, and his freezer held a plethora of frozen pizzas. Stuck to the side of the fridge with a magnet hung a monthly calendar, his boyish scrawl written in a few boxes. It was quickly clear that most of the dates were labeled with his work schedule—LPB 11-7—but there were a few other labels that I didn’t recognize, all holding the initialsCSand a fewLS.
I trailed my finger along them for a moment before moving on.
I roamed through the house a bit more, but there wasn’t a lot to snoop through. One door I opened was a hallway closet, and I found a small pile of clothes stuffed inside. By the crumpled quality of them, I had an inkling that they were dirty clothes.Don’t look in any closets, he’d said. Oh, Harry.
“Sorry about that.” Harry’s voice suddenly cut through the house, the back door clicking shut behind him. “I had to take—hey, where’d you go?”
“In the kitchen,” I called, shutting the closet door as quietly as I could.
It only took a second for his voice to come again, though this time it sounded much closer. “Exploring, huh?” When I turned around, I saw his gaze trail to the door. “Find any dirty laundry?”
“Literally,” I said with a smirk, backing away while raising my eyebrows. “How was your phone call? You’ve never mentioned a Lily before.”
And just like that, the shadow reappeared. “Oh, I haven’t? She’s—she’s a family friend.”
“It seemed…urgent.”
“I have to pick up when she calls,” he said with a quick nod, jerking his thumb toward the living room. “Want to watch a movie before you have to go back home?”
Cuddle on the couch with him? Yes, please. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to let go of the subject just yet. “Was Lily a friend of your parents, or does she know your cousin?”
“Cousin,” he said, leading me toward the living room.
“Do you talk to him much? Or his kids?”
Harry didn’t look at me as I sat on the couch, and he walked to his DVD collection, analyzing the titles. “Once in a while. What are you in the mood to watch? I don’t have much in the way of comedy, but I’ve got this one scary movie Addy let me borrow—”
“Nothing scary,” I said at once, folding my legs underneath me. Harry swiped up a DVD case, satisfied with the new choice. “Are they someone you’d ever introduce me to?”
That seemed to grab Harry’s attention and hold it. He straightened from the DVDs, a vaguely surprised tilt clinging to his lips as he faced me. “My cousins?”
“I—I don’t know.” My voice quivered, and a strange shyness suddenly rushed over me. “We’ve established I don’t have a lot of experience in relationships. I don’t know when people typically meet the family. It’s been a month since we’ve been official.”
“Well, when do you want me to meetyourfamily?” His fingers lifted, as if he were about to touch his throat, but he forced his hand down. “Am I someone you’d introduce your parents to? You mentioned you were afraid they’d be controlling of a relationship.”
Something about his expression seemed vulnerable, boyish. Uncertain. It pinched at my heart. I tried to imagine Mom and Dad meeting him. His auburn hair, long enough to curl around his ears. His ripped jeans—almost every pair he owned had the same tears in his knees. The tattoo, a loosely outlined inky hand wrapped around his throat.
With what they were normally exposed to, with all the diamonds and silks, I had no idea how they’d react to Harry.
