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“Always,” I say, fighting off tears. “The same goes for you.”
“I love you, sis.”
“I love you too.”
Maybe he needed somebody to talk to, a voice in the night since he was used to Eva sleeping beside him. It must be quiet and lonely, especially since they never had kids, a medical issue they rarely discussed.
They were talking about adopting. Then the accident happened.
Maybe it’s that…
I can’t stop wondering if he somehow knows what I just did, and whom I was thinking about when I did it.
CHAPTERSIX
Bryson
It’s early morning as I drive across the city to meet with one of Adam’s suppliers. The traffic is light, so I will make good time. However, my mind absently slips to thinking of Harper while I listen to her podcast.
It’s been a week since the funeral, and I’ve done everything I can to stay as far away from Harper as possible. Even with the memory of what happened in the car hounding me from sunup to sundown, I stay away.
Adam’s grief has got him on limited duties. Since he’s a dedicated worker and likes to maintain control, he hasn’t trained a second-in-command who can take over the stuff he normally handles.
He’s got several construction units who work independently, but nobody to handle the day-to-day stuff on the top level. That’s where I come in since he trusts me.
I should turn the podcast off, but I’m hungry for the sound of my woman’s voice. ForHarper’svoice. I keep doing that, thinking of her as something she can never be.
“But sometimes it’s impossible,” Harper responds, sounding clear and confident over the speaker. “If you’re in deep, sometimes it can feel like… like agony to simply say,Right now, I’m going to stop thinking about this person, stop wanting them.”
There’s emotion in her voice. I wonder who she’s talking about. Most likely a man her own age, a man who still might have acne, a man far more appropriate for her. He’s a man—this imagined person—I want to hurt just for my woman wanting him. It’s not a fair response. It might mean there’s something monstrous in me.
My protective instincts run deep, and my possessive impulses run deeper—things I have no control over.
“People can spend their whole lives wanting somebody who will never want them back,” Tiffany counters. “They’ll lose the chance at a relationship that would actually work, waiting for one they think would be perfect… but is doomed to fail.”
“But you can’t just switch off your feelings like a switch,” Harper says passionately.
I nod along with her, knowing how right she is. I’ve tried. For a year, I stifled the feelings, tried to think about anything else, and tried to pretend there wasn’t a Harper-shaped hole in my life that needed filling.
I’ve tried to guide my mind away from thoughts of Harper all week and what could’ve happened in the car if I’d kissed her. Would she have told me to stop? Would she have said, “No, there’s somebody else. It may be unrequited, but it’s real”?
“What if you have to?” Tiffany responds firmly. “For survival?”
I get the sense they’re drawing on personal experience. Perhaps Tiffany knows about Harper’s would-be lover. It’s a mistake to let myself think about Harper’s potential lover for even a second. It floods me with an unfair rage and makes me want to find whomever it is and make them pay.
Make them pay for what, though? For dating a beautiful, clever, kind, and interesting woman?
“Find somebody else,”I imagine myself roaring, standing over them with all the agony of my unrequited want surging through me, turning me savage.“She is not yours, and she never will be.”
Harper takes a moment to respond to Tiffany’s question.
“Sometimes it’s not a question of if youhaveto. It’s a question if youcan. What if you can’t let somebody go? What if the idea of letting them go makes you so miserable you’re afraid you won’t ever be happy again?”
“Jeez,” Tiffany responds with a light chuckle. “I thought this was supposed to be an upbeat podcast. Sorry, folks.”
Harper laughs along with her, but I can sense the tragedy in her voice, the unashamed need to be with this man, whoever he is—to give herself to him fully, without question, to spend the rest of her life with him.
To part her thick, gorgeous legs and show her young, ready sex, already soaked in anticipation, waiting for her man’s cock to slip between her folds and…
