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“True crime documentaries,” she reminds him, shaking her head. “Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through this.”
“Hey, if you ever need an answer to that question, look no further. I’ll remind you.” Soren is grinning as he lifts a soup dumpling to his lips. He makes a face after sipping some of the broth. “Don’t you love it when they squirt at you?”
“Oh, smooth.” Harlow rolls her eyes but giggles, too. “Did you sit around this past couple of weeks and make a list of all the dirty things you wanted to say to me?”
“And if I did?” He’s not joking anymore as he lowers the spoon.
“Don’t be unfair, please. I’m serious.”
“To be fair, nobody needs to know.” Soren looks at me like he’s hoping for an assist – and while I see what he’s saying, I’m not trying to make this any harder on any of us. Ash remains silent, too, chewing on an egg roll while his gaze bounces back-and-forth like he’s watching a tennis match.
“All I’m saying is, every time we have a setback like this, we learn how to be more careful next time.” In other words, the guy is horny as hell, and looking for any excuse. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I can’t relate to the feeling.
Harlow sets down her chopsticks and folds her hands on the table. “Look. I’m only going to say this once. I love you guys – that hasn’t changed, and it won’t. But I want to do this the right way. I got a second chance, and I’m not going to waste it. That means no more lying. No more going behind anybody’s back. I want to be honest. I want to be able to look my reflection in the eye every day. And let’s be honest: isn’t it nice when there isn’t, like, guilt hanging over you? Everything’s out in the open now, and I feel much better about it. I made a promise. I’m going to keep it. No sex. No kissing, no fooling around.”
She’s stern when she looks at Soren. “And if we can’t hang out without it turning into flirting, then we can’t hang out. Maybe it would be for the best if we didn’t. Understood? Do you see how much this means to me?”
“Yes, yes, of course I do.” He’s still wearing a lopsided grin when he shrugs. “Hey. You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
20
HARLOW
“It’s not like this is easy for me, you know.”
Although I mean that with all my heart, I can imagine my words coming off a little empty and meaningless. It’s easy to say something like that, isn’t it? Like a parent punishing their kid. This hurts me more than it hurts you. What kid in the history of time has ever actually believed that was true?
And that’s the look they’re giving me now, all three of them. Like I can’t possibly relate to their frustration.
Sometimes I think they forget I’m human, too. And if I weren’t human, with all the needs and wants they have, I wouldn’t be with them in the first place.
But I am with them — at least, I was, and I want to be again. This wasn’t some no-strings-attached good time. It’s not like I got them out of my system while I was at home, stewing in misery and wondering what the rest of my life was going to look like. If anything, I needed them more than ever.
I need them now. It’s frustrating enough, knowing we shouldn’t be together if we want life to go smoothly for all of us. It’s another thing to have to be the strong one. The voice of reason. It gets a little boring after a while.
Especially when I want more than anything to forget my promise. When the three of them are around, I want to forget everything I know to be true about principles and character and promises. Ethics, too. I want more than anything to abandon all of it.
I can’t.
“So, things looked a little rocky out there tonight.” Like magic, the three of them groan in unison. At least I got them off the subject of our bodies and what we could be doing with them right now. I couldn’t have been more successful if I’d shoved the three of them under a cold shower.
“I was distracted.” Ash’s jaw ticks while he stares at the table, shaking his head. The grim, determined look he wears shouldn’t be a turn on, but his intensity does something to me. Geez, I need help. There I was, trying to get them off the topic of what we can’t do, and now I’m practically drooling on myself.
“You can’t take all that responsibility on your shoulders.” Ryder elbows him until Ash looks his way. “For real. I shouldn’t have told you guys about Pete right before the game. That was a mistake.”
“Why did you?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I felt so guilty. And I didn’t want anybody thinking it was somebody else on the team, either. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Your heart was in the right place,” I offer.
“Yeah. It’s a shame my brain wasn’t.”
I can’t shake the longing in my heart when I see them like this. Even Soren — Mr. Personality, Mr. Sarcasm — looks grim and glum, and nobody seems particularly interested in their Chinese food anymore. I want to fall into their arms and help them forget everything that happened tonight. It’s the one thing that might make everything feel better, at least for a little while.
No, that would be the easy way out. Instead, I gesture around the table with my chopsticks. “Let it go. Leave it behind you. You can’t do anything about a game that’s in the past now. And you can’t carry that blame into the next game, either. All you can do is move forward. And you will. You all will.”
I snag one of Soren’s soup dumplings, winking at him as I do. “I mean, if you could come back from a miserable season like the one you had last year, you can do anything. Right? And now you have your therapist back. Things are looking up.”
