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“I know! And poor Masey really was broken up about losing T-Rex. So we got her plowed and rigged up the funeral to give her closure. She aced her finals after that. And her boyfriend said she started putting out again. So the girls and I considered it something close to a public service.” She winks. “Probably not as crazy as things you’ve done. Aren’t you professional athletes all ridiculous party animals? Booze and drugs and girls everywhere?”
I shrug. “There was a time. I was no saint in college. I went from being the hero of my high school football team to the starting quarterback of my college team. So yeah, we partied hard. But we were a team in the middle of rebuilding. In four years, we managed to turn the program around and ended our senior season ranked number four in the nation. If we’d had a defense, we might have won it all. But sports were easy then. The NFL was much harder. Everyone was bigger and faster and smarter. Football went from being the sport guys played because it got them a free ride through college and got them laid to being the career they took very seriously. I almost wiped out my rookie season because I didn’t get that. But after having my ass sacked over and over that year, I starting hitting the gym, working on drills, and paying attention to film a lot more. I devoted more effort to practices and mental preparation out of self-preservation and it paid off.”
That rookie season also saw two of my concussions, one of them the most serious. I was unconscious for nearly twenty minutes. One moment I had a Detroit defensive back in my face, plowing me to the turf. The next I woke up in one of the Motor City’s ERs with a member of the team’s medical staff trying to calm my mother over the phone. In the last few months I’ve wondered if I had started taking my job and my health seriously a few months sooner, would I have saved myself that concussion and some of the crap I’m going through now?
Harlow props her chin on her palm and stares at me across the table. “That’s amazing. I can’t imagine my job being that physical. The craziest thing I do now is crouch down to find the right toy or exercise to help speech-impaired kids learn whatever I’m trying to teach them. It has to be daunting to be on the field with a bunch of well-trained maniacs bent on your destruction.”
“When you put it like that, what was I thinking?” I laugh. “Actually, I’m grateful to football. It kept me out of trouble as a kid and gave me a future I never imagined growing up in Honolulu’s poor neighborhoods. You wouldn’t get it, being one of those rich kids.”
She tsks at me. “Why would you think I grew up wealthy?”
I snort. “Are you kidding? Privilege drips off you. You have this easy air of assurance about the world, like you’ve never wondered where your next meal would come from, like you could take or leave money. But I’ll bet you’ve never been without it. You’re accustomed to nice houses and fancy cars. Not in the ‘I could get used to this’ sort of way, but as if having them is completely normal in your world.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s not a bad thing,” I assure her. “But I know because I was a kid who didn’t have air conditioning until I went off to college. We had one old TV. I didn’t even have a cell phone until after I signed my first pro contract. When I bought my first house in Dallas with my signing bonus, I kept walking in and staring in awe because I couldn’t believe I had a place with marble floors and didn’t have squawking chickens in the backyard I was waiting to get fat enough to eat. The way you look at the world is different. I want to hear more about your past.”
That’s what started this discussion. So far, Harlow has regaled me with tales about her sorority sisters and the hamster funeral, along with a couple of stories about her brothers’ childhood antics. Nothing about her parents, her childhood, or her romantic history. She’s only sharing the pleasant parts of her life. Because she’s giving me only the easy-breezy bits she wants to think about?
She cocks her head as she swishes the wine. “Not much to tell that you don’t know. My dad is a workaholic, and he was always good at making money. My mom pushed me into group activities the other kids did, forever sucking me into this dance studio or signing me up for that beauty pageant. I think she lived vicariously through me sometimes and never wanted to hear that I wasn’t interested in cheerleading or modeling or whatever she thought I should be for appearance’s sake.”
“She must be proud of you now. A master’s in a degree that can really help people, and especially if you’re focusing on children who really need you…”
Her smile turns stilted. “I think she would rather me make something of those acting classes she dragged me to. Or at least marry well. Since I’m disinclined to do either, I’m pretty sure she’s disappointed. What about you? Your parents must be extremely proud of all you’ve accomplished. And your siblings. What do they say at family gatherings?”
“They treat me like they always did. Trace tries to be bigger and badder, so he gets into these mock wrestling matches with me. Samaria still rolls her eyes at me and tells me to make myself useful. When we had Christmas dinner at her house last year, that meant doing a mountain of dishes. Mom clucks around me, like always. Still protective, as if I’m nine, not thirty-four. Dad passed away a couple years back. He always struggled with asthma. He had an attack when no one was home and he couldn’t get to a phone.”
Compassion softens her face. “I’m sorry. That must have been heartbreaking for you and your family.”
Harlow means that genuinely. And I realize that’s the dichotomy about her I don’t understand. She can be so warm and genuine and easy to be with. But when I ask her about herself, she dodges and deflects. If I get too direct, she shuts down. She’s not cold…but she’s also not forthcoming.
Suddenly, I’m actually looking forward to having dinner with Maxon and Griff and their brides. Maybe I’ll get some answers. Because as much as Harlow and I have sex—and we had a whole afternoon of it today—she’s let me have full access to her body, no problem. But I don’t feel as if she’s let me any closer to the woman beneath all that gorgeous glowing skin.
It’s bugging the hell out of me. Normally, I’d be high-fiving all the awesome, no-strings nookie. Not now. Not with Harlow.
I’m not even sure why. Maybe I’m bored and I have time on my hands?
“Thanks. Holidays are hard, for sure. I regret that none of us gave him the grandchildren he really wanted before he died, but I was too busy playing football to get domestic. Trace was too immature. Samaria was just finishing college. But now that my sister is married, I’m sure she’ll make up for her deadbeat older brothers. That will make Mom happy, and I’m sure Dad will be smiling down on her, too.”
“Don’t you want kids someday?”
I haven’t actually given it much thought. “I suppose.” But the tone of her question makes me pause. “I take it you do?”
“Yeah. I’ve wanted them forever. A bunch of my girlfriends are already married and have babies. They all say motherhood is the purest, most enduring form of love.”
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I wish I had a camera so I could snap her face right now and capture that look of longing. I don’t know if she’s interested in romance or marriage or she simply wants a baby. But clearly standoffish Harlow craves love.
I never would have guessed.
I’m still turning the startling realization over when the waiter comes by to inquire about dessert. I pass. So does Harlow. Within two minutes, I’ve paid the check and we’re heading out the front of the restaurant to wait for the valet.
As the trade winds blow gently and the sun takes a graceful bow over the horizon before disappearing, I take her hand in mine, liking how good it feels to just have this simple connection with her. Nothing about her tells me she’s disappointed or lonely, but I sense she’s troubled.
“You’ll make a great mom someday,” I tell her.
I think of her filling out and rounding with our child. My desire for Harlow, which is always hot, blazes to something shocking and scalding and insistent. I actually…like the idea of her being pregnant? Whoa, that’s totally a new development for me.
“Thanks. I’d hoped to be one sooner rather than later. But…” She shrugs. “That’s life, right? Unpredictable.”
