Singled Out

Chapter 9

Coming outside to make sure Harper was okay was a dumb move.

I knew it the second she stood up in water that reached her lower thighs, treating me to one hell of a moonlit view of her soaking-wet shirt clinging to her generous, tempting-as-fuck breasts.

She was obviously fine, and now I’d have that image of her permanently burned into my brain.

And a reaction in my sweatpants that was hard to hide as I stood here on the dock for the world and God to see.

I walked back to the end of the dock, baby monitor in hand, and stepped down to the sand. “What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said. Her voice was lower than usual, a little rough.

“I saw someone in the water and had to make sure it wasn’t a troublemaker or someone in distress.” It’d been drilled into my head at a young age that swimming alone wasn’t safe. Swimming alone at night? Bad idea times two.

“I’m not in distress,” she said quietly, her usual animation missing from her voice. She folded her arms over her chest as if she’d just noticed the wet shirt effect. “I just needed”—she turned partway around and waved her hand toward the middle of the lake—“this, I guess.” Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath, her arms crossed over it again.

Trying to see her face better, I stepped to the edge of the water. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She answered too fast, looking down into her chest instead of meeting my gaze.

I knew tonight had been difficult, but she’d seemed okay when I showed her to her room. She didn’t seem okay now, regardless of what she said.

Harper walked a few paces toward me. I waited on the sand, anticipating her nearness—and the chance to get a better look into her eyes.

I didn’t get that chance, as she stopped several feet out, the water hitting a few inches above her ankles. She turned away and lowered herself to sit on the lake bottom in the shallow water. It felt like a dismissal. I was sure that’s how she intended it.

I stared at the back of her head, her dark hair slicked down her back, glistening from the water. If I went back inside now, I was pretty confident she’d be safe. She’d proven she knew how to swim, and I suspected she wouldn’t stay out here much longer since she’d been on her way in.

The smart choice would be to go back inside, ignore the pull I felt toward her, and mind my own business.

I glanced at the silent baby monitor. Looked up at my darkened bedroom window. It was no contest between heading up to that quiet, lonely room and sitting out here with Harper, convincing her to talk to me, trying to help her feel better somehow. I was intimately familiar with the heartache of losing someone. I couldn’t fix that for Harper, but I could try to be a friend.

After turning up the volume on the monitor so I wouldn’t miss a peep from Danny, I strode over and set it on the paved walkway, pointing it in Harper’s direction, then slipped off my flip-flops and waded into the water. I sat down next to her, trying not to think about my pants getting soaked. They would dry.

Harper looked at me with a startled expression, which confirmed she’d thought I’d do anything but join her.

Now that I was so close, I could tell her eyes were swollen. With her makeup gone, she looked younger. Sad.

“I’m sorry you had a tough night,” I said. “Tough couple of months, probably.”

“Thanks. I’ve kept busy trying to focus on the tasks I had to do to honor her. Everything’s done now. It just…hit me hard.”

“I get that. More than you know.”

“Yeah?”

I let out a self-derisive scoff, thinking back to the early days with Danny. “I was in robot mode for the first few weeks after my cousin and his wife died. I put all my energy into Danny. Figuring out how to take care of an infant. Giving him what he needed.”

“Ignoring deep thoughts as much as you could. Because deep thoughts are excruciating.” She was hugging her knees to her chest, peering out at the dark lake.

“Exactly.” I pulled my soaked knees up to rest my forearms on them. “Everyone kept telling me I needed to grieve, needed to process my feelings, but I couldn’t make time for feelings. Not when I had this little guy who needed everything from me.”

“I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like. I wouldn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby.”

“I didn’t either. Jamie—that’s my cousin—and his wife lived in San Diego. I went there to meet Daniel a few days after he was born. I saw him when they came back for a visit, but I’d never even changed his diaper. Didn’t know when he napped or what he liked to eat.”

“That’s a crash course. Way more than I had to figure out with Naomi’s studio.”

“It sort of saved me.” My voice had gone thick with emotion as I remembered those first months after Jamie and Shay died. This was stuff I hadn’t talked about to anyone. It seemed like maybe Harper would be able to relate. “I think I needed something to keep me from facing my loss all at once. I don’t know if that makes sense. It sounds fucked up when I say it out loud.”

A soft, sympathetic laugh came from Harper. “It does sound fucked up, and I can relate to it completely.” Her tone went back to serious. “So has the hard stuff hit you yet?”

I nodded, thinking of a single night when all the walls had crumbled, and I couldn’t hold my bone-deep grief at bay anymore. “It…was ugly.”

“Sounds about right,” Harper said.

We both went silent. The insect chorus played on behind us. A fish splashed over by the pilings on the opposite side of the dock. I did my best not to let the details sneak in about that night when I’d been bowled over by grief.

“I underwater ugly cried enough to raise the water level of the lake by at least an inch from all the tears,” Harper said a little flippantly. I knew that was to cover her self-consciousness. “Can you beat that?”

“Oh, I think so,” I said without hesitation. I did pause before saying more. This story wouldn’t paint me in a good light. If it ever got out to anyone else, I’d be mortified. It was the opposite of what this town expected from me. A true example of how much the real Max didn’t have his shit together in the least. “I’ve never told anyone this story.”

“I won’t breathe a word of it.”

I closed my eyes. Was I really going to own up to one of the most shameful, awful moments of my life? Yes, I was. I realized I trusted Harper with it.

“Back in February, I had to go to Nashville for a two-day seminar for math educators. My brother, Levi, was watching Danny at his house.” I took a deep breath, feeling the tightening in my chest, the thickening of sadness balling up in my throat. “It was two days before Daniel’s first birthday. That was at the top of my mind even though I’d be home in time for it.”

Unable to stay still anymore, I stuck my hand in the water, splashing, swirling it around as I continued. “After the evening session at the end of the first day, I went back to my hotel room. It was quiet, peaceful. Ironically, I’d originally considered driving back that night to stay in my own bed and be home for Danny, but my mom and brother convinced me that getting away would be good for me.”

“Not so much, I’m guessing?” Harper asked.

“Not so much. It was so quiet I couldn’t escape from my thoughts. It was like all that hard-core shit had just been hovering, waiting for a quiet minute when I didn’t have anything else to do, and it all swooped in. Wouldn’t let go of me. That was the night when it really sank in that Danny was mine. Forever. He was turning one—a big deal for every child—but his parents wouldn’t be there to celebrate it or any other birthdays. I was the one responsible for that now. For birthdays, for sicknesses, for preschool and high school and…everything. His whole life. Boom. Hit me like a boulder fell on my head.”

“That’s a lot,” she said.

“Before that, I don’t know, I just…took care of him. Like I was a long-term babysitter or something. I didn’t consciously think of it that way, but that night, in the ‘peaceful’ hotel room, reality bore down, and it was almost like Jamie had just died that day, the way the emotions knocked me on my ass.”

Harper reached over and grasped my hand that was still resting on my knee. She squeezed it, silently telling me she understood.

“And?” she asked in a whisper. “What did you do?”

“Well.” I sat up straighter, attempting to be as matter-of-fact as possible, trying to disconnect from any emotions it dislodged. “I left and drove home, not for any reason other than I couldn’t be in that hotel for another second.”

“That’s how I felt when I was lying in bed earlier. Nothing against your guest room,” she said in a rush. “It wouldn’t have mattered where I was. I just needed to get out.”

I nodded. That was it exactly. “I probably shouldn’t have been driving. Definitely not all the way home. I don’t really remember the drive, just the pain.” I swallowed hard. “When I pulled into my garage, I was a mess. I saw my bicycle. I hadn’t touched it for years, but it was in plain view, just sitting there. Jamie and I used to ride bikes together, whenever he came to town to visit, back when we were too young to drive.”

Harper squeezed my hand again, as if she sensed the hard part was coming.

“I took a sledgehammer to my bike,” I said. “Just…lost my ever-loving shit and beat the hell out of it until it was mangled and in pieces, and then I hammered it some more. I was out of my mind. I can’t explain it or defend it. I was just so fucking upset.”

When I thought Harper would’ve decided I was insane and put distance between us, she leaned her head against my shoulder, still holding on to my hand.

“Then what?” she said.

“Then I drank a bottle of whiskey. I woke up the next afternoon on my kitchen floor. I don’t know why I was there instead of bed or what time I finished that bottle. I blacked out. Eventually, I got up, took acetaminophen, tried to shower all the shame and the sadness off me—didn’t work, in case you’re wondering—and drove out to my brother’s that evening as if I’d been at the seminar all day. Never told a soul I wasn’t.”

For the next few minutes, neither of us spoke. She kept her head resting on me as if what I’d just told her was the most normal thing in the world. I let myself soak up her touch, her support. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t such calm acceptance.

I freed my hand from hers and wrapped my arm around her, pulling her into my side, taking comfort in her companionship. Breathing in her scent.

“You definitely win for drama,” she finally said.

I chuckled. “Told you. I’m not proud of any of that. I can’t believe I told you.”

“I’m glad you did. It’s very un-Coach-Dawson-like. It makes you seem almost human.”

“I’m so fucking human.”

“So after the hangover, did anything get any easier?”

“No.”

“Thanks for shattering any hope I had,” she said dryly, drawing a smile from me.

“I guess it has gotten a little easier. I haven’t felt that horrible rage since then. But I still miss my cousin like crazy. Still worry every minute of the day I’m going to fuck up his kid.”

“You’re not going to fuck up his kid.”

She had no way of knowing that, but I didn’t argue. “Do you feel any better after underwater ugly crying?”

“No.” She straightened, removing her head from my shoulder, then dipping her hand in the water and trailing it back and forth. “I mean, that physical pressure that builds up in your chest and your throat?”

I nodded, very damn familiar with it.

“That feels less. A lot less. But other yucky thoughts surfaced.”

“Like what?” I asked, trying not to miss the weight of her head on my shoulder. Her closeness.

She kept moving her hand back and forth, back and forth. I watched it, mesmerized by the rhythm, the little bubbles that caught the moonlight.

“Naomi was so focused. Dedicated. She had goals and passions, and she was living those out. She literally died from doing something she loved, and though I don’t think she wanted to die in her thirties, I think—” Her voice cracked. She took her hand out of the water, pressed her fist to her mouth. “I think she’d not have regrets. She lived a life bursting with purpose, you know?”

“I understood that very well from your acceptance speech tonight.”

Harper nodded, her eyes closing. “She did so much. And I’ve been doing my best to take care of everything she left hanging. The auction. Her studio. The recognition tonight.”

“Even though I didn’t know her, I feel confident saying you did her proud, Harper.”

“I hope so.” She pressed her lips together, looking even more troubled. “But it occurred to me that, if I died tomorrow, there’d be nothing for anyone to take care of for me. Not. A. Thing. Because I don’t do anything meaningful. I’m just drifting along.”

“You can’t compare yourself to Naomi.”

“No. No one compares to Naomi. But I don’t have anything that drives me, that makes me excited to wake up in the morning. Like…coaching or teaching might be for you? Or maybe math?” She made a face.

“I do like all of those. I’m not sure I’d call myself excited to wake up in the morning because of them?—”

“You know what I mean. They give you purpose.”

“They do.”

“If you died tonight, God forbid, someone would have to teach your classes. Someone would have to coach your team. Someone would have to take care of your son.”

The last part was like a stab to my chest, but I merely nodded.

“I don’t have that. Someone would have to take my shifts at the diner, but anyone could do that.” She bit down on her lip, visibly struggling. It was my turn to take her hand. “I’ve been so adamantly against settling down, but this Naomi thing…” She shook her head. “It’s kind of flipping my life on its head.”

“Traumatic events can do that.”

She whipped her gaze toward me. “This must sound stupid compared to becoming a dad all of a sudden.”

“It’s not stupid. Maybe less tangible but no less significant. Sometimes less tangible can be even harder to figure out.”

“Harder than a baby?” The tips of her lips flirted with a smile. “I don’t think so.”

“Harder to acknowledge, maybe. But you just acknowledged it.” I thought about our conversation in the car, about her refusal to choose a path. I knew better than to use that P-word, but it seemed that’s what she was lacking. “Out of all the things you told me you enjoy earlier, which ones do you like best? What could you see getting up in the morning to do every day?”

She peered at me for several seconds, but I couldn’t read her expression. I was starting to think I’d pushed too much.

Before I could decide whether I should back down, Harper put her hand on the back of my head and pulled me toward her until our mouths collided in an ungentle kiss.

Her lips pressed against mine. Then, before I could register the taste of her, she pulled back, leaving half an inch of space between us as our gazes met and we took each other in.

I could pull away. I knew I could end this, but I wasn’t thinking so much as reacting. I wanted a better taste of her.

I reached for her, ran my hand through her hair to grasp her head and bring her soft, alluring mouth back to mine. She met me halfway, our breaths mingling as we kissed, our lips lingering, tasting. When our tongues touched, a groan escaped from me. Our connection exploded as our tongues twisted and probed at each other.

My body was all on board in mere seconds, aching for more of her. She ran her hand up my bare chest. All I could think about was more skin-to-skin contact. Our positions were awkward though. Moving would mean breaking contact, and I couldn’t get enough of her sweet taste, her confident kiss.

Before I could think past that need, she ended the kiss, ducking her chin, both of us catching our breath.

She took her hand back and faced straight ahead again, not looking at me.

“I don’t want to talk about what might drive me,” she said quietly, “and I definitely don’t want to talk about kissing you.”

Harper stood, the water pouring off her lower body. I sat there in the shallow water, my brain still trying to catch up, torn between wanting to follow her to the guest room and knowing damn well it was smarter to let her walk away.

“I’m sorry, Max. I’m going to dry off and try to sleep.”

Before I could figure out what to say, she pivoted, waded out of the lake, and headed to her room.

I sat there, my pulse still pounding blood down to my dick, as I tried to figure out what the fuck had just happened.