Colton
“Give me another,” I say to Tessa across the expansive bar top.
She braces her hands on her hips and gives me what I’m sure is meant to be a scathing glare.
It’s like when you see videos of little kids getting angry, scrunching her nose up that doesn’t look even remotely intimidating, only serving to make the rest of her features look pinched.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough. I highly doubt Ms. Mathers would be happy with you abusing the bar like this,” she bites back. There is no real malice in her tone, just pretend annoyance that will soon turn into quippy banter. It’s become our thing.
“Just one more, and then I will leave you alone I promise. I need it to get through the night,” I plead, holding my hands together in front of me, praying to the keeper of the bar.
“Fine, but this is the last one, the cotton candy is meant to be used as garnish for drinks, not for you to eat your feelings,” Tessa hands over a fresh pink cotton candy cone before she saunters away to the other end of the bar.
I turn around, bright pink sugar in hand, to watch Harper emerge for the evening to walk through the guests and network with patrons on the main floor.
She’s wearing a navy pinstripe suit tonight, a single button holding the center closed with nothing underneath to shield her should it decide to pop free.
That button is now my greatest ally and enemy number one.
I pluck a piece from the top of the pink fluff and shove it into my mouth, trying to sooth the ache for something sweet.
It’s been three days since I tasted her, three days since I laid my confession at her feet, and three days that I’ve been aching to touch her.
All my energy has gone into giving her space, giving her a chance to miss me, to realize this draw between us goes beyond the physical pull. I severely underestimated my lack of control and Harper’s enjoyment at my torture. Or generally stubbornness.
I had started off very reasonable in my pursuit. No kissing, no intimate touches and no inappropriate comments.
Easy.
No problem.
This is my place of work.
I hadn’t anticipated was how accustomed to that contact I had become in such a short time. Knowing what it felt like to touch her freely, and then physically restrain myself was worse than never knowing the feeling at all.
So, what was my brilliant solution? Shoving cotton candy in my mouth every time I want to touch her. So now I’m suffering in a different way. Sugar rushes every hour, feeling slightly sick, definitely a cavity, and my tongue alternates throughout the day between blue or pink staining.
As Harper makes her way over to where I wait at the bar, she eyes the candy in my hand but makes no comment.
She stops next to me, leaning her elbows back against the edge of the bar casually, eyes fixed on the stage.
The jacket, already fighting for its life, pulls taut across her chest. I lean my head back and dramatically moan, shoving the entire cotton ball into my mouth, it’s the only thing standing between me and begging.
“Tessa and Marcus will be taking over the main duties tonight. You and I have somewhere to be, offsite. Sadie is monitoring everything from home and will be keeping me informed as the night moves along if something comes up.” She finally looks up, eyeing me cautiously.
This isn’t the first time I’ve accompanied her to offsite meetings, but usually something is in the books or set up ahead of time.
I move to open my tablet, afraid maybe I missed something on the schedule for this evening, but Harper stops me, placing a hand over the tablet.
“This isn’t something that was planned, b—but it’s something I want to do. With you.” She’s looking at me so earnestly, worrying her bottom lip like she thinks I would ever say no to her.
“Of course, should I get Wade as well?” Please say no. Please, please say no.
She smiles at this. “No, Colton, this is just for us.”
“You didn’t bring me out here to kill me, did you?
” I joke, stretching my legs after the hour drive as I step out of the town car onto the gravel parking lot.
We are standing in front of a worn-down brick building with enough flickering neon beer signs in the window to induce seizures.
There is a small sign hanging above the door that reads Day’s End.
It’s rusted with a dent in the bottom center that looks suspiciously like the outline of a forehead.
The light above it is either busted or needs a new bulb, but based on the cobwebs that drape around it, it’s been home to a family of spiders for quite some time.
I help Harper out of the car and check my watch, “Are you sure this is the right address?” It’s eerily quiet in the parking lot, deserted, save for a single car and a few motorcycles farther towards the back of the building. Maybe we should have brought Wade.
Harper takes a deep breath, “It’s the right place, come on.” And off she goes, striding up to the door with the same confidence she approaches everything with.
The door opens and I’m throttled with raucous laughter, bets and threats being shouted from the opposing ends of a pool table. Glasses clink together as drinks are poured and downed in a practiced dance.
It isn’t all at once, the silence that descends.
It’s a slow trickle effect that that sweeps from one end of the dingy bar to the other.
The silence only holds for a beat before the shouts and clapping pick back up, now all directed at the entrance where a handful of people have abandoned their partners or games to greet Harper with excited hands or hugs as we walk in.
Other than with Sadie, I have never seen anyone be openly affectionate with Harper, and even that is few and far between in public. But these people lift her up in their arms and clap her on the back like she’s a soldier home from the front lines.
“Where the fuck are we?” I whisper to myself, feet stuck in the sand while Harper is getting swept away by the tide of admirers.
She turns around then, realizing I’ve fallen behind. For the first time in my life, I am utterly speechless. She is wearing the most beautiful smile I have ever seen, beaming ear to ear.
This is Harper.
Maskless and breathtaking. My Sunshine.
Fuck the cotton candy. I reach for her, as a giant burly hand comes between us, swatting my hand down and holding me back with a giant paw to the chest.
“Who is the pretty boy, Harper? He follow you in?” he hollers over his shoulder, eyes never shifting away from me.
He blocks my path to Harper, a dangerous place to be right now.
I’m prepared to tell him I follow wherever she leads, only to realize a friend has joined his side.
Fine, whatever I can take them both. I workout.
Then another slithers to his other side, standing a beat behind.
Hmm, three might be a little harder. Two more join the blockade.
Well fuck. My ego is flattered, but my patience is fraying.
“He’s with me Gus, he’s fine I promise, now get back over here.
The drinks don’t pour themselves,” Harper calls over from behind the bodies and immediately the sea of bodies parts.
Gus, apparently, gives me a last once over before he removes his hand from my chest and he stalks back to his post as barman, allowing me passage to join Harper at the stools.
I slide into the seat next to hers at the bar, the metal groaning as I sit on the worn, and slightly torn leather.
“Did you hear that, Gus thinks I’m pretty.
” I whisper into Harper’s ear as I sit down, wagging my brows at her.
Clearly, we are somewhere she knows well and trusts, but I’ll use the excuse of protection as I lean down, gripping the bottom lip of her seat, and pull her a few inches closer.
She tracks the movement and smiles, “Stop flirting with Gus, you’re spoken for.”
“Is that why you brought me here, to use Gus as bait to test my loyalty? I get it, Gus is a catch,” I wink at Gus and he grumbles, taking this as his cue to walk away and prepare drinks we hadn’t yet ordered.
What started out as harmless banter had caused a ripple of tension in the air. Is that why we are here, is this some kind of test? I suppose murder is still an option, Gus seems like he would be happy to take the opening shot.
Gus returns a minute later, dropping two glasses with an amber liquid sitting amongst a single ice cube.
I don’t get a chance to ask him what the drink is before he looks at Harper, nods once and leaves to the other end of the bar.
I look around then and realize that there is no one lingering near our end, the few tables behind us have cleared out and the bar stools that bracket our seats have been abandoned.
Harper takes a big swig of her drink, seeing a small tremor in her hand as the glass clunks back to the bar top and she turns to face me, sliding her legs between my own.
“Harper, are you—” I start to ask the same time she starts speaking.
“My dad used to work here,” she says it quickly, the words tumbling out as a single syllable.
“Sadie and I practically grew up here. Sitting at the table in the corner coloring and then doing homework when we got older,” she nods towards a table to our left, its seats worn and top slanting a little to the left.
“Well, Sadie did homework, I preferred to play pool and hustle the idiots who stumbled in looking pretty,” Harper smiles at that, her hand gently squeezing my thigh at the little barb.
I smile with her, just enjoying that she’s so relaxed here, with me.
“My dad was a good dad, he really was. He tried so hard to give us everything. Our mom took off when Sadie was five and I was seven, we barely remembered her, but I guess we never really knew her,” she straightens up a little as she speaks.
“We didn’t need her, we had my dad, and he was everything.
Sam, that’s him, in the picture with Gus behind the bar. ” She tips her head towards the bar.
I look up behind the bottles of Gin and Vodka to see the array of photos pinned up.
I don’t need her to tell me which picture is her dad, I can see him clearly, a perfect blend of Harper and Sadie, the darker hair of Harper, but the rounder cheeks of Sadie.
Two little dark-haired girls sitting at the bar and making faces for the camera, a man carrying both girls, one on each shoulder with ice cream cones dripping from their hands to land on his shirt and in his hair.
Amongst the pictures is a napkin with a crude drawing I recognize.
“Is that - ” I point to the napkin hanging down and Harper smiles, a little blush rising to her cheeks.
“It was the first time I drew the logo for Cirque, sitting at the bar, doodling on napkins. Gus said it would be worth something one day and pinned it up there like a declaration of success,” she scoffs at the end, “He said dad would have wanted it up there, the beginning of his little girl’s big hustle. ”
“Your dad wasn’t around anymore to put it up himself, to see what Cirque became?” I ask her, already knowing the answer just from the way she speaks about him. Not that he is a good dad, that he was a good dad.
“No, he passed away when Sadie was almost done high school. He died in a drug deal gone bad, a casualty of some turf war.” She takes a deep breath, pausing to gear up for a defense.
She doesn’t need to, not with me. “He never did anything bad, you know? He tried so hard. We didn’t realize what was happening until we were older, and he couldn’t hide it like he could when we didn’t know better.
Gus would come by often to check on him and check on us, try to get him into a program or go to meetings, but he never did.
It’s ironic, you know, he would tell us over and over how bad drugs were and would make us promise him we would never follow,” her voice gets softer, like she’s relaying the memory of this vow.
“Always lead, never follow. Now I think about those words, and I don’t think he ever worried about us giving in to peer pressure or trying to be like the cool kids or idols.
The normal kid stuff, you know? He meant him, he didn’t want us to follow in his footsteps, a legacy that would die with him. ”
I want to tell her I’m here, that I’m with her, that I’m not going anywhere, but I don’t want to interrupt.
I don’t want her to stop, not when she needs to tell this story as badly as I need to hear it.
I lean over and take one of her hands in mine, trying to provide comfort without being an intruder to her memories.
She shakes herself, lifting her other hand to swipe at the single tear that escaped, leaving her other hand entwined with my own.
“I was over at the community college, so I took some time off to help get Sadie through the end of high school and worked to make sure she would be able to cover some of the expenses for whatever fancy university begged for her. And I was right, she got in everywhere she applied, smart thing,” she laughs.
“She left for Cal Tech after high school and I stayed here, working and doodling. She was doing so well. She seemed like she was doing so well.”