Chapter 45 #2
Carol hugs Harper at the door—longer than I expected, long enough that I notice Harper doesn’t know what to do with her hands at first, and then figures it out and holds on.
Bill shakes my hand then kisses Harper on the cheek. “Good dinner you two.”
Four words. From him, an essay.
And then they’re gone and the door clicks shut and it’s just us.
We clean up without discussing it, which tells me everything.
She washes, I dry, we move around each other like we have been doing this for years instead of this one time.
Every few minutes she glances at me over her shoulder and I look back and neither of us says anything because neither of us needs to.
This is what it is going to be like.
I think about that the whole time I’m drying dishes.
When the last dish is dried Harper hops up onto one of the bar stools at her kitchen counter and pats the one beside her.
I sit.
She leans her head against my shoulder and lets out a long slow breath, like she has been holding it since five o’clock and is only now remembering she doesn’t have to anymore.
I rest my cheek against the top of her head.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
The candles have burned low. The apartment smells like garlic and something warm and good.
“Thank you,” she says finally. Quietly. Into the comfortable nothing between us.
“No need to thank me Harper.”
She lifts her head and looks at me. “I mean it.”
“I know you mean it.”
She holds my gaze for one more second, then tucks back in, and I rest my cheek against her hair again, and neither of us moves.
This is the problem.
This is exactly the problem.
The apartment is quiet and the candles are low and her parents are gone and she fits here, beside me, in this specific way, and I am a man who made a commitment a long time ago and intends to keep it, which means I need to get my jacket.
I clear my throat.
“I should go.”
She tilts her head up. “It’s barely eight.”
“I know.”
“We won’t see each other until Wednesday.”
“I know that too.”
She studies me. “Are you okay?”
“Harper.” I exhale slowly. “I can’t be alone with you in this apartment.”
She sits up. Pulls back slightly. And I can see it immediately—the way she’s reading into what I just said.
“That’s not… ” I stop. Start over. “That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be here.” I turn to face her properly. “It’s the opposite. Which is exactly the problem.”
She blinks.
“I don’t trust myself,” I say simply. “Not because I don’t respect you. Because I do. More than I know how to say. But I made a decision a long time ago about how I want to do this, about waiting, and that decision gets harder to hold onto the longer I sit here alone with you.”
The room is quiet.
Harper looks at me for a long moment, the defensive edge coming down, replaced by something softer and more real.
“Micah.”
“Yeah.”
“I made that same decision.” Her voice is quiet.
“A long time ago. I’ve never, you know.” She stops, glances down.
“I’ve never been with anyone. And there were moments with Collin where I felt pressured and I held the line and he made me feel like that was wrong and I…
” She shakes her head. “I just want you to know that I’m not expecting anything. ”
“I know,” I say. “I know you’re not.”
“And I made that same commitment. So you don’t have to…”
“Harper.”
She stops.
“I know.” I hold her gaze. “I’m not going anywhere because I think you’d push me somewhere I don’t want to go.
I’m going because I think I might push myself.
And I would rather leave while everything is good than stay until it’s something I have to apologize for.
” I pause. “This matters too much. You matter too much.”
“I’ve never had someone leave because they were trying to protect something.” She whispers.
“You have now,” I say.
She looks down at her hands. I watch her process it—the thing she’s been handed, the shape of it. The fact that this is a man who is choosing the harder thing not because of rules but because of love, and that is possibly something she has never been offered before.
She looks up.
“Wednesday,” she says. “Bible study at Ivy and Gray’s.”
“Wednesday,” I confirm.
I get my jacket and she walks me to the door.
When I turn around she is right there, and I cup her face in both hands and kiss her the way I’ve been wanting to kiss her since somewhere around the salad course.
Slowly. Like neither of us is in a hurry, even though I am absolutely leaving right now.
Her hands find my jacket and hold on and I feel her exhale into it and I think, not for the first time, that this woman is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
I make myself pull back.
“Wednesday,” I say again. Slightly less steadily than before.
“Wednesday,” she says. Eyes still closed.
I open the door. Step out. She leans against the doorframe and watches me go, and I make it approximately six steps down the hall before I stop.
I turn around.
She’s still there, watching me with that expression—the fond, certain one, slightly amused. Like she knew.
“One more,” I say.
She raises her eyebrows. “One more what?”
“You know what.”
She pushes off the doorframe, walks the three steps between us, and goes up on her toes, and I meet her there, and it’s just one more, just one, which somehow takes a significant amount of time.
When we finally separate she is smiling in the way she does when she’s too happy to manage her face, which is my favorite version of her.
“Wednesday,” I say.
“Go home, Micah.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I wink.