Chapter 40
Micah
“I meant the dimples—”
“No.” I take a step toward her, and I’m close enough now to see exactly what’s happening on her face, which means she can see exactly what’s happening on mine too. “No, Harper. I don’t think you did.”
She opens her mouth.
Closes it.
Harper Mitchell, who has never once in her life been at a loss for words, is standing here with nothing.
So I say it.
“I’ve been in love with you for two years.
” It comes out steady, which surprises me a little.
Like something that’s been under pressure for a long time finally finding a clean release.
“Long before you asked me to do any of this.” I pause.
“I thought I was doing a good job of keeping it contained, but in the interest of communication…”
Something flickers across her face at that word. Like she knows exactly where it came from.
“There it is,” I finish.
She stares at me. “Two years?”
“Two years.”
“And you didn’t—you never said—”
“You were in love with someone else.” No bitterness in it.
Just the truth. “And then you weren’t, but I didn’t know for certain, and then the whole arrangement made it impossible to tell what was real and what was performance, and I—” I stop.
Look at her directly. “I didn’t want to be one more person making things about himself when you were already carrying enough. ”
The expression on her face does something I’ve been hoping for for two years.
“Dimples,” she says.
“Freckles.”
“You are the most aggravating person I have ever met.”
“I know.”
“I mean it. You are genuinely, deeply, specifically aggravating.”
“I know that too.”
And I can feel it happening, the smile pulling at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it, and I watch her eyes drop to exactly that spot and then lift back to mine with an expression that looks a lot like surrender.
“You’re doing it,” she says.
“I’m just standing here.”
“You’re doing the dimple on purpose.”
“I have no control over the dimple, Harper. I’ve told you this.”
“It’s not fair.” Her voice has gone softer. “It’s genuinely not fair that you can just do that.”
I lean forward slightly. “Say it again.”
“I’m not saying it again.”
“Harper.”
She looks at me for a long moment, and the park is quiet around us, the little boy with the pigeons has moved on, a jogger passes on the far path, and Harper Mitchell is looking at me like she’s finally decided to stop running from something.
“People are staring at us,” she says.
She glances past my shoulder, and I can see it in her face, the flicker of self-consciousness. Old instinct. The worry about being too much, taking up too much space, making a scene.
“I don’t care,” I say.
She looks back at me. “I’m chaotic.”
“Yes.”
“And loud. And a complete mess half the time.”
I take another step toward her.
“Micah, I’m being serious—”
“I know you are.” I stop in front of her, close enough that she has to look up at me, and I reach down and take her hand, and now there’s almost no space between us, and she’s looking up at me with those green eyes.
“Harper. I know you’re chaotic. I know you’re loud.
I know you are, on any given day, a magnificent, beautiful disaster. ”
“That’s not—”
“And I love that about you.” The words come out quiet and sure.
“I love that you rearrange furniture when you’re anxious and that you made a color-coded itinerary for a Bible study, and that you cry at kindergarten art showcases.
” I watch her face, the way her breath has gone uneven.
“And I love that you filled out my background check out of spite.” A beat, just for that one.
“I love all of it, Harper. All of you. Even the parts that drive me absolutely crazy.”
“Micah,” she whispers.
“I’ve loved you since the day you stormed into that hallway at church.
” My hand finds her face, thumb brushing her cheek.
“Hair everywhere, fire in your eyes, ready to argue with a complete stranger at nine in the morning because a kid needed help. I didn’t stand a chance.
” I pause. “That was almost two years ago.”
Something in her expression breaks open. “You’ve been fighting it the whole time?”
“The whole time,” I confirm. “And when you asked me to be your fake date, I thought…” My heart aches at the memory, but I let it show, because she deserves the whole truth.
“I thought that would be my only chance to ever stand next to you like I mattered. My only shot at being in that space, even if none of it was real.”
Her eyes are bright now.
“But it turns out,” I say, and I lower my forehead slowly until it rests against hers, her warmth finding mine, her breath catching in a way that does something irreversible to my ability to think clearly, “that I don’t have to pretend anymore.”
She makes a small sound, almost a laugh, almost something else. “I don’t like you.”
“I know,” I say. “You love me.”
And she does the most Harper thing she has ever done.
She rolls her eyes.
I go still and observe the way she looks at me like she’s done fighting the inevitable.
She rises onto her toes, wraps her hands in my hair, and brings her lips to mine.
And I kiss Harper Mitchell. For real. For the first time.
She kisses me back like she’s been waiting just as long as I have, and I wrap one arm around her waist and pull her in, and I think, oh.
So that’s what it was supposed to feel like.
All those times I stood next to her and kept my hands to myself and called it enough.
It was never enough. It was just all I had.
This is what it feels like to kiss her for real.
When we finally pull back, she keeps her hands around my neck, and I keep mine around her waist, and she’s smiling up at me in a way I’ve never actually seen before—the full version, no performance in it, nothing held back.
“Hi,” she says, a little breathless.
“Hi.”
She bites her lip, trying to contain the smile and failing spectacularly. “So, this whole thing started with a dare.”
“It did.”
“Ivy dared me to find a fake boyfriend. Which led to you. Which led to—” she gestures vaguely between us with one hand, “all of this.”
“Technically it led to a lot of unnecessary suffering that could have been avoided if either of us had just communicated.”
She points at me. “Do not be reasonable right now.”
“Sorry.”
She settles back against my chest and I rest my chin on top of her head, and the park is very nice, actually. Very peaceful. I understand why she came here.
“Micah.”
“Yeah.”
“I dare you.” She tilts her head up to look at me, and her eyes are bright, and her hair is a mess from the wind and she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. “I dare you to stop fake dating me.”
“And start dating you for real.”
“And start dating me for real,” she confirms.
“Harper Mitchell,” I say, “that is the easiest dare I have ever accepted in my life.”
She smiles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I press a kiss to her forehead. Then one to her cheek.
Then I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes, and for a moment I just breathe her in, and I think about two years of standing in hallways and sitting across tables and watching her laugh from the other end of a room, and how none of it was ever going to be enough.
“I would have said yes to anything you ever asked me,” I say quietly. “You know that, right?”
She’s quiet for a second.
Then, soft enough I almost miss it. “I know. I just finally asked the right thing.”