Chapter 11 – Wes
ELEVEN
WES
“First class,” Harper says with a smile as she looks at the boarding pass I hand her. “Very fancy.”
“Honestly, it’s more of a safety thing. I’m not Riggins or Willa, so the recognition isn’t crazy, but it happens,” I say with a shrug. Although I’m grateful that I’m not as well-known of a face, because I’ve seen what happens when either of them goes out and does get recognized. Sometimes, it’s nice to have the option to just be .
We move to the boarding gate in relative quiet, not uncomfortable but silent all the same. Harper is wearing in-ear headphones, and occasionally, she hums, then catches herself and stops.
“What are you listening to?” I finally ask an hour into our flight, leaning into Harper's space, unable to resist the temptation to ask. I want to be further in her space, all the way, but I’m terrified of scaring my wife off.
She doesn’t lean away, but she does quickly move her phone, sliding it into her bag and avoiding my question. “Nothing.”
If her frantic moves didn’t give her away, the bright blush on her cheeks does, and I smile wide. “Oh, no, no, little wife, now you have to tell me,” I say. “We agreed to no lies.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs, and I think I’ll have to push more, but then she answers, and I’m taken aback.
“‘All At Once.’” She whispers the name of an Atlas Oaks song from the EP we released before we were even signed, and I sit back, unable to hide my smile.
“Oh damn, an old one.”
She sighs and then reaches for her phone once more. “It’s just a playlist I listen to,” she explains. “When I’m anxious.”
“Anxious?” I ask, suddenly worried about what is making her feel this way.
“I don’t like flying,” she admits. “So I distract myself to not think about the millions of ways this plane could come crashing down.” She lets out a nervous laugh, and I immediately want to make her feel more at ease.
“What else is on your playlist?” I ask, hoping that maybe the conversation will divert her attention. And I’m desperate to know more about her, even if it’s something as mundane as what’s on the playlist she listens to when she’s anxious.
“What?”
“What songs are on your playlist?” Before she can move away or change the subject, I reach for her phone, grabbing it before eagerly scrolling.
“Wes, this is kind of embarrassing—” she starts but stops when I pause my scrolling, open an app on my own phone, and hand it to her.
“This is mine.”
“Yours?”
“My favorite songs. Or you can look at my other playlists. They’re all labeled.”
She sits there with my phone in her hands, looking from it to me and back again before giving in with a small sigh and starting to scroll. Almost instantly, she lets out a small laugh.
“Spice Girls? You have the Spice Girls on your playlist?”
“The start of girl power? Hell yeah. ‘Wannabe’ is amazing,” I say, sitting back with a smile. The smile is mostly because I just learned my wife has amazing taste in music, similar to mine but with a bunch of bands and artists I’ve never heard of. She listens to songs from every genre, every decade, and it’s fascinating to see how she pairs them into different playlists for different moods.
“Why did you give me this?” she asks, still holding my phone in her hands like it might bite her.
“Because turnabout is fair play, and I believe it’s the best way to get to know someone. Their favorite songs, their taste in music. It’s like a glimpse into who they are.”
“I guess…I guess that makes sense,” she concedes with a small smile, and I feel like I won. “I guess you can find out a lot about someone that way.” Her eyes drift to the phone in her hands. “And I could use all the help I can get when it comes to you.”
The irony is, if she just asked, I’d tell her everything. Anything.
I see an opening to learn more about my elusive wife and leap for it.
“Want to play a game?” I ask, reaching into the carry-on and pulling out some headphones.
Her brows furrow. “A game?”
I lift the armrest between us, and then pull her closer to me. She squeals with the movement but doesn’t shift away, which I’m calling a win. Flipping open the case to my Bluetooth headphones, I slide one in one of my ears, then hand the other to her. She takes out her own headphones and puts mine in.
“Give me a topic,” I say, and she looks at me confused. “We’re playing musical memories.”
“Musical memories?”
“Songs hold memories,” I tell her, as if it's common sense, which, to me, it is. “The quickest way to get to know someone is by their memories.” I half expect her to roll her eyes or shift away, but instead, she shifts closer, looking at me, then at my phone.
“Okay. How do we play?”
My blood races in my veins with the thrill of her proximity, and I smile at her eagerness to indulge me.
“One of us picks a topic—I’ll go first to give you an example—and we both pick a song that reminds us of that. Then we listen to it.”
“Oh…okay?” she says, still confused. It’s a game Reed and I used to play all the time on the tour bus, and I’m excited to learn about my new wife in this new medium.
“Your first concert,” I say and grab my phone, scrolling until I find “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys and pressing play.
“You saw the Beach Boys live?” she asks, incredulous.
“A bunch of times when I was a kid,” I say with a nod. “My parents were big fans. I can sing most of their discography by heart.”
She smiles at me, and my heart pounds a bit, like I’m a kid with my first crush.
“Very cool,” she says gently.
“Your turn.”
Her face screws up in an adorable look before she grabs my phone and scrolls until she hits “Bye Bye Bye” by *NSYNC. I laugh out loud.
“Your first concert was *NSYNC?” She nods. “That’s kind of iconic.”
She just shrugs without elaborating and eagerly says, “My turn now?”
I smile back and give her the phone, moving along with our little game.
“Okay, a song that reminds you of your childhood summers,” she says, tapping on my phone a few times before the opening strains of a familiar song fill my ears. “American Pie” by Don McLean.
“That feels like a cop-out,” I say with a laugh.
“I have this memory of my parents throwing a Fourth of July party when I was, I don’t know, four? Five? And this song played, and we all sang it. The grown-ups were definitely a little tipsy and goofing around, and we all had sparklers. I was on my uncle’s shoulders, and they were all singing loudly and…I don’t know. It just reminds me of summer.”
I smile at her, loving this small insight into her life.
“Are you close with your family?”
She shakes her head. “My parents got divorced soon after that summer, so it’s even more bittersweet of a memory, I guess. It was probably the last time they were together. They’re good parents, but I’m pretty sure I was a save-the-marriage baby. Once I was out of high school, I think they were relieved to be rid of the responsibility of raising me.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It’s probably why I don’t want kids. I’m sure a therapist would have a field day with that.”
“You don’t want kids?” I ask, not judging, but because I’ve seen how good she is with Jules’s stepdaughter.
She shakes her head. “I’d much rather travel and live my life. I love kids, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want one of my own.” She bites her lip before looking at me, and I force myself not to make too big of a deal, to tell her we’re on the same page with this too, something I don’t find often. I love kids, but I’ve never felt the urge to have one of my own. I’m more than fulfilled with my friends, my chosen family, and my career. More and more, Harper is proving we’re a perfect match. “What about you?”
I shake my head, playing it casually. “Not for me.”
She nods, accepting my answer without further question, then silence falls between us. I reach over, grabbing the phone, pulling up a song, and showing it to her.
“‘We Found Love’?” she asks, confused.
“It was playing the night we met.”
She smiles, her eyes wide in surprise. “Really?” I nod. “How do you remember that?”
I shrug, then lie. “Music is my job.”
She takes me in, reading me, and I think she’s not going to let it go before she reaches for the phone.
“My turn, give me a prompt,” she says, breaking the moment, and I hand it to her, slightly relieved she didn’t dig more. We continue like that, passing the phone back and forth, and slowly, I watch her melt, her discomfort and self-consciousness drift off, if only temporarily, and I make my choice.
It’s not a hard one, and it’s not one that I hadn’t already been pondering since I met her, but that flight to our honeymoon cements it for me.
I’m going to make Harper Holden mine in a permanent way.
Now I just need to convince her of it.