Chapter 27 – Harper
TWENTY-SEVEN
HARPER
“Hey, you ready to go?” Wes asks, standing in the doorway of my design room in a pair of dark jeans and a maroon-colored sweater. We’re going on a lunch date in Hudson City, fully planned by Wes.
“Yeah, sorry! I had an idea,” I say, sketch pad in hand, as I sit on the cushioned bench near the window. The idea came to me while I was getting ready, and I rushed through my makeup to run over here and get it down before I lost it. Ever since I told Wes, Ava, and Jules everything, my mind has been freed, that creative block gone, and I couldn’t be more grateful. “I’ll be done in a second.”
“No need. It can wait. Everything can wait for the creative genius,” he says, and I roll my eyes.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.” I furrow my brows, confused by him standing in the doorway of the room still like he’s a vampire who needs to be invited in. “You can come in, you know.”
“This is your sanctuary, Harper. I won’t come in if you don’t want me to.”
“That’s silly,” I say, waving him in. “Come in. Sit. Keep me company. I’ll just be another minute, and then we can head out.”
He steps in as I finish the silhouette of a gown, and from the corner of my eye, I watch him taking in the small changes I’ve made to the space, a few photos here and there, supplies reorganized, and a few new additions to the cork inspiration board.
“Wow,” he breathes, seeing the finished design for what would have been the centerpiece of my first line, the only design Jeremy doesn’t have. I finally gave in the morning after I told Wes everything and started to sketch it out, needing to just get it out of my system and hoping it would help my creative block. It worked, inspiring a brand new line, the basics of which are pinned next to that first design. It’s outlined on a large piece of poster paper with New Line on top. Words are scribbled on it, textures and vibes, and emotions I want the wearer to feel. There are a few inspirational photos pasted there as well as a few swatches of colors.
I’m incredibly excited about it, and I’m sketching what I think could be the focal point of the collection. “I finally got past my creative block,” I tell him proudly.
“I see that,” he says, staring in awe at my work.
Warmth blooms in my chest at this incredibly talented man speaking like that about something I made, knowing in my heart he’s not just saying it to be nice. I’ve never had that before, and even though a small part of it makes me feel uncomfortable, like I shouldn’t be accepting his praise, another part realizes it’s just residual conditioning from Jeremy to make me question everything he said.
I add the last line to the base of my sketch, an off-the-shoulder gown with a snake-like pattern, before I stand and walk over to him.
“Can I put this on my socials?” he asks, pointing to my board and the original design. I can feel a blush roll down my cheeks and neck to my collarbone at the mere idea he’d want to do that.
“You want to put that on your social media?”
Finally, he looks at me, his brows together in confusion. “Well, yeah. Harper, I want to scream about you from the mountaintops. And this? This is amazing. People should know how talented you are, Harper.”
“Oh. I, uh. Okay,” I say with a small smile on my lips.
He leans forward, pressing a kiss to my temple before sliding his phone out and taking a photo. “Okay, I’m done. You ready?”
I nod, letting him lead me to the car.
By the time we get to Hudson City, that post already has nearly half a million likes.
“Hey, we’re going to head out as planned, okay?” Wes tells the waiter at the high-end restaurant in Hudson City he brought me to.
A couple of paparazzi talked to us as we walked the four blocks from the parking garage to the front door. The entire walk, Wes held my hand and told me jokes, clearly trying to make me forget there were people around us, and it felt…easy. When we arrived, we stopped for a few photos and answered a few questions before heading in, as Leo instructed us to. Then we were ushered into a quiet, secluded room of the dark, romantic restaurant where we had the most amazing meal and even better conversation.
After we were served dessert, Wes looked at his watch, grabbed my hand and whispered that we had to go. Now he’s grabbing a few bills from his wallet and handing them over. “Remember, if anyone asks, we were here all afternoon, okay?”
She smiles wide and bites her lip. “Of course, Mr. Holden. Anything you need. The kitchen staff has been prepped, you can go out the back door. There are no cameras there.”
“Perfect,” he says with a smile. “We’ll be back soon.”
She shrugs as if it doesn’t matter to her, then Wes grabs my hand and leads me through the restaurant and to the staff door of the kitchen. He waves at an employee he somehow knows by name but doesn’t stop as we leave through a back entrance.
“Do you do this often?” I ask with a laugh as we walk through an alleyway behind buildings.
“Escape a restaurant when there are paparazzi? I mean, not too often, but when things were crazy with Stella and Riggs, yeah, we had to do it a bit. It’s a fine balance between Leo having us make appearances and living life. That’s why we live in small towns like Ashford and Evergreen Park. It makes it easy since no other big celebrities live there, so the paparazzi aren’t typically there twenty-four seven.”
“Got it,” I say, and even though I have about a million more questions, I shut my mouth as we walk in the brisk cold, clearly on a mission.
“What are we doing here?” I ask five minutes later when we step foot into a familiar-looking parking garage.
“Number seven.” He turns to me, laughing at what must be a look of utter confusion on my face before he pulls out a piece of paper. The paper we worked on a few nights ago. “Fuck with his super precious car.” Suddenly, it clicks, and I look at him astonished. “This is just for fun. He’ll get his real payback soon enough, but I thought you should get the chance to check some things off,” he says, the words cryptic.
“What does that mean? And why are we at Jeremy’s office building?”
Wes smiles wider but continues to walk further into the garage before turning to me.
“Which one is his?” he asks.
“Which what?”
“Which car is his?” The words echo slightly in the cold cement building, and suddenly, a hint of panic runs through me at the realization that Wes is being serious.
“We shouldn’t be doing this. There are cameras in this parking garage,” I whisper as we continue to walk through the garage. I learned my lesson the last time I tried to prank Jeremy.
“It doesn’t matter. Which car is his, baby?” he says, hand squeezing mine.
“Wes, this isn’t?—”
He stops walking, putting his cool hands on my cheeks and forcing me to look at him. “Turns out, your ex makes enemies everywhere he goes. It didn’t take much at all to convince the person in charge of the security room to accidentally turn off the cameras from twelve to one.”
My mouth drops open, and his lips tip in a smile. “You’re kidding me.”
He shakes his head, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone reverently. “I wouldn’t do anything to get either of us in trouble outright, Harper,” he says, pulling me into his arms fully. “I just want you to get even. This guy is clearly an ass and, at the very least, deserves his life to get a little harder. I’ve got Leo working on countering the shit he was whispering behind closed doors, but in the meantime, which is his car?”
I stare for a long moment, knowing time is of the essence but wanting to soak in this moment, the moment where someone goes so far out of their way just because he thinks I deserve to enjoy this silly revenge. I smile finally, then point to Jeremy’s obnoxious and, in my opinion, ugly classic car that he constantly bragged to everyone about. We move in that direction until we’re next to the car, parked as far as possible without any other cars nearby in two spots, like the asshole he is.
Then Wes shifts the bag he brought with him and sets it down before removing a heavy-looking box. I stare at the industrial-sized roll of plastic wrap in his hands.
“What is that?”
“Plastic wrap,” he says simply.
“And…what are we going to do with it?”
He looks at me like I’m being silly before answering. “Wrap his car, obviously,” he says, but sets it aside before continuing to dig in the bag, pulling out a bag of candy. I watch as he meticulously opens the package and then unwraps one of the hard candies. He steps closer to me and holds it out.
“Lick this,” he says, and my eyes go wide, moving to his crotch without even meaning to.
“Excuse me?”
He grins. “The candy, Harper. Though, another time, another place…” I grab the candy from his hand, and he laughs as a blush burns over my cheeks. “Now stick it to the glass.”
“Wes, what the?—”
“When he tries to pull it off, it’ll shatter the glass.” My eyes go wide.
“ Shatter it ?”
“It’s cold as fuck in here. The glass is already brittle.” He pulls something out of his bag and moves to the gas cap, fiddling to open it and succeeding before he tips a bottle of liquid sugar into it.
“Oh my god, you’re insane,” I whisper. “I thought we said nothing permanent!”
“I may have lied, though this isn’t permanent . It’s all fixable. It’ll just be incredibly inconvenient and cost a bit.”
My heart starts pounding at the mere thought. “Wes, this isn’t a good?—”
He steps closer to me, putting the empty bottle back into his bag and putting his hands to my cheeks, forcing me to look at him. “Would I put you in danger at all?”
I think about that, really, then answer honestly. “No,” I say softly.
“Would I do this if I thought there was any chance we’d get caught?”
I shake my head again, because I saw the look of determination on his face the other night, the look that told me Jeremy would never be able to harm me again.
“He left with one of the account executives to New York for the day,” he says, and I open my mouth to argue, to tell him I thought he would be out of town last time, but he speaks. “I know this for sure. I have connections. Leo has connections. I did the grunt work for this, Harper.”
I stare at him and he smiles at me.
“Okay,” I say finally, and he smiles wider.
“Get to licking, little wife.” I watch as he grabs one of the candies, licks the back, and presses it to a window. It sticks easily, the cold window adhering to his warm spit. He throws one at my head, and I catch it before it hits the ground
“So this will shatter his windshield?” He nods, and I think of all the times he told me we couldn’t take his car out when there was salt on the roads or when he yelled at an old man for walking too close to it.
“If he tugs on it, yeah,” Wes says. “He can get them off without shattering it, of course. The biggest pain is going to be this.” He lifts the giant roll of plastic wrap and begins opening it.
I press the last candy to the side window, feeling it freeze almost instantly to the window while Wes sticks one end of the plastic wrap to the hood of the car, then pulls, carefully tugging and then wrapping it around the side mirror to get it started.
“Take this,” he says, handing me the roll over the hood, and I do as he asks. “Now pull and push it under the car.”
I struggle a bit, pressing the wrap to the side before pushing it under. Wes grabs it and makes our first complete wrap. I stare at our handiwork and giggle a bit. Wes’s smile is wide as he hands it to me, and I feel like we’re some devious, childish version of Bonnie and Clyde, plastic wrapping a car in petty revenge.
We do this for a while until the roll is nearly gone and the entire car is nearly white, looking absolutely ridiculous when we hear it.
The clicking of heels echoes through the freezing parking garage, and I tip my head, the roll of plastic wrap midair as Wes passes it to me. Our eyes go wide, and I fight a laugh as he tips his head to the side exaggeratedly, ripping the plastic wrap. He grabs his bag and my hand as we make a break for it.
The sneakers I’m grateful he told me to wear don’t make a noise as we move out of sight, hiding in a dark corner. Our breaths come in white clouds as I shiver, and Wes pulls me close to his body, the clacking of the heels getting louder as we stand, our bodies close, the bag at our feet. Wes’s arm is around my back, his lips not far from mine when we hear it.
“Fuck, is that Jeremy Vaughn’s car?” a woman’s voice asks.
“Yeah, I think so. That’s where he always parks,” a man says. They’re maybe fifty feet away, but with my back to them, I can’t see them.
“Must have made someone angry,” the woman says.
“Are you surprised? The guy’s an ass to everyone except Mr. Astor and Clarissa.”
“I heard he’s cheating on her,” the woman says, and I give wide eyes to Wes, who smiles at me.
“And again, I ask, are you surprised?”
“Do you think we should do something?” the woman asks as her heels click past us, walking away from the scene of our crime.
“No. He deserves it,” the man says. “Come on, I’m starving.”
My attention goes back to Wes as they walk off, his breath playing on my lips before his hand moves to my jaw, tipping my face up. He stares at me for moments that seem to stretch through an eternity. My heart races, waiting for him to kiss me as if this is the first time.
But that’s how it feels. Every time Wes Holden kisses me, it feels like the first time, something new and exciting and fun, the world shifting just a bit. And each time, he takes a piece of my heart in a way no one ever has, in a way I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.
The scariest part is I don’t think I want it back. I know Wes will keep all of the pieces I give him safe.
My hand moves up to his cheek as the echoes of heels drift into the distance, and I shift to my tiptoes, pressing my lips to his, unable to stop myself.
I want him. I need him.
His hand moves to my hip, pulling me in close, deepening the kiss and taking over it as he tends to do, as I love him to do. His lips move along mine, his tongue pressing to the seam of mine until I open for him, and then he slides it in. He tastes like green apple from one of the candies he stole from the bag, and I smile against his lips. He nips at my lip playfully, and a soft sigh leaves me, the move shooting straight to my belly and spreading warmth there.
“We should get out of here,” he whispers when we break the kiss, a smile on his lips. “Cameras will be turned back on soon, and I’d like to be long gone before they are.”
I nod, and Wes grabs my hand, twining his fingers with mine. We move quickly through the garage, heads down and unspeaking as we walk the few blocks back to the restaurant. We move through the back door again, then walk through the front door where paparazzi take our photos again, and I get it then: our alibi.
“Hey, Wes?” I say when we’re back in his car, making our way to the house.
“Yeah, baby,” he says, reaching over and grabbing my hand absentmindedly like it’s normal, something casual and ordinary even though it makes my pulse pound.
“Thank you. For today. Well, for the past month. For…everything. You didn’t have to do that. Any of it.”
He stops at a red light and looks over at me, eyes sincere and warm. “When are you going to realize you deserve the moon, Harper?”
“I don’t know about the moon, but I’m starting to believe I might deserve more than I’ve let myself have,” I admit without realizing I’m doing it.
“I hope that more includes a future with me,” he whispers, squeezing my hand as the light turns green and he starts driving again.
“I’m starting to think it might,” I whisper.