Chapter 20 Orion
Orion
I woke the next morning to watery gold light streaming through Harper’s window. The storm had abated, the rain had stopped. She slept peacefully, wrapped in my arms, and thank God for that.
Jesus, last night…
While the minutes had ticked by at the country club, I’d started to think she was going to stand me up.
That she got cold feet about exposing herself to the vipers.
Not that I’d blame her. But Harper was brave and fierce, and my gut told me it was something worse.
Even so, the last thing I expected to find was her sobbing and bleeding, abandoned and broken.
The heavy scene had whacked me in the chest. That kind of pure, raw emotion—like a storm raging inside the house just as fiercely as the one without—was shocking.
Not something I’d ever witnessed, certainly not in my house.
My heart ached to see her so wrecked, and I had to fix it immediately.
Put it all back together. Put her back together.
To make right what had gone horribly wrong so that everything was okay again.
Now, I smiled with relief. The storm was over. The choppy seas had grown calm again.
From somewhere on the floor, Harper’s phone rang. She blinked sleepily, smiled to see me, then frowned as last night came rushing back.
“God, it all really happened, didn’t it?”
“Yes, love,” I said, brushing a dark curl from her pale cheek.
She sighed and bent to grab her phone.
“Emery? It’s early.” She listened, brows furrowed, then nodded.
“Of course I will. Tucker, that asshole. Jesus, Em, I’m sorry I missed your call last night.
” Harper shot me a loaded glance. “Are you okay?” More listening, and then she smirked.
“Thank God, and yes, I can hear you smile. Tell Xander I said hi, I told you so, and that I’m proud of him for finally getting his head out of his ass. ”
She ended the call and tossed her phone aside. “After the election party, Tucker drove Emery out into my neck of the woods and abandoned her when she refused to have sex with him.”
“Bloody arsehole,” I muttered. “Jesus, I might’ve driven right past her to get to you.”
“It’s all right. Xander came to her rescue, and they’re together now. As they should be.”
“That’s my boy.”
I kissed Harper’s shoulder and pulled her back to me, spooning her, reclaiming her from Emery’s crisis.
Her eyes were a bit puffy from crying, and her lips were swollen too, from my kisses.
I could kiss Harper for hours; she tasted like cherries, her mouth soft but biting too.
Everything about her was a contrasting sensation that drove me mad with want.
How she was beautifully soft and warm, but strong and fierce too.
Warm-hearted but keenly intelligent. Kind but sharp-tongued and witty.
And all of those traits had stirred me to heights of desire so that when she was naked beneath me, I’d felt something I’d never felt before with a girl.
Something more than just bodily lust. An attraction to every part of her that had made every kiss, every touch, heightened to a level I’d never experienced before.
And nerve-racking. I’d been handed something precious and fragile and entrusted not to drop it.
“You stayed.” Harper rolled over to face me and brushed her fingers over my cheek. “What about your curfew?”
“Atlas Hall blokes watch out for each other. We have a system if we need to get around the curfew. It’s how my vampiric roommate comes and goes as he pleases. Think nothing of it.”
She smiled faintly. “Wait, what time is it? What about school?”
“I was thinking of taking the day off,” I said. “You should too. And the little man. Let’s go to Newport. Have some fun. I think you both need it.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Dash needs to sleep, so I’ll take the day off, but only to study and get caught up.
I have too much work to do. We have that paper due for history on Friday.
I have a quiz in Calculus, a poem to write for English, and the Vivaldi that Wolfe assigned that I haven’t even looked at.
” She frowned at me. “Don’t you have a lot too? ”
“Well, yes, but…I figured after last night you’d want a breather. Let’s do something fun and forget all about last night.”
Her frown deepened. “I can’t forget. My roof is about to fall in.
And I can’t take a breather, either. Especially not now.
” Harper sat up, pulled on her sweatshirt, and rubbed her eyes.
“God, so much work to do, and my mother fucking left. She knows about the NoSci and how much academic pressure I’m under.
It’s why we came here. And she doesn’t care. She doesn’t think.”
I struggled for something to say that would comfort her that wasn’t a joke or jest, but jokes and jesting were all I had.
“And the fucking roof.” Harper scrubbed her hands through her hair. “I knew it. I knew when she bought this place and didn’t do a damn inspection, there’d be a problem. And of course, I was right. She’s like a child while I have to be the adult. Again.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she fought them back.
“No, I’m not going to break again. Not for her.” Anger colored her words and colored her cheeks. “I have too much shit to handle. Too much of her mess to clean up.”
“I’ll handle the roof,” I said, grateful to have something to do that would help. “It’s too much for you and…”
My words died at Harper’s incredulous stare.
“What?” I asked, feeling like I’d made a horrible mistake.
“Absolutely not.” She climbed out of the bed, pulling on her sleep pants.
“Why not?” I said. “You just said you have so much to handle. I can help. I’m happy to help.”
“I know you are, Orion, and I’m so grateful for what you did last night. Last night was everything. But I can’t let you do that. That’s too much.”
“It’s not too much,” I said. “Really.”
But the air had changed. Grown colder, and I distinctly felt I wasn’t welcome to loiter in her bed anymore. I put on my tuxedo pants, then stood on one side of the room, Harper on the other, the bed between us.
“I appreciate the offer, Orion, but you don’t understand addiction,” Harper said. “If you clean up my mother’s mess, then she won’t have to. As much as it sucks, I need this to wake her up.”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“Then it’s still my problem, not yours.” Harper’s voice hardened. “You paid for my car and that was plenty. That was already too much. There is no chance I’m letting you pay for this too.”
Images from last night flashed in my mind. Harper sobbing and sodden and bleeding…
“I don’t like seeing you hurt,” I said. “Not like how you were last night. Never again.”
“Neither do I,” Harper said. “But that’s not how life works.” She cocked her head. “Are you trying to keep me from being upset for my sake, or because it bothers you to see me upset?”
“Both.” I frowned. “I mean…what’s the difference?”
“The difference is you being there for me no matter what, and you being there for me in order to keep yourself comfortable.”
“That’s…ridiculous.” I drew on my shirt with a frustrated yank. “I don’t understand what the big deal is. This is a huge stress for you. Why not let me make it go away?”
She stared at me. “I just told you why not. Because my mother has to deal with the consequences of her actions. Otherwise, she’ll just take and take and fall deeper and deeper into her addiction.
Not to mention the small matter of us. How am I supposed to be in a relationship with you with thousands of dollars of debt hanging over my head? ”
“Because you won’t be in debt to me, for fuck’s sake,” I said. “You won’t owe me anything. I would never expect you to pay me back. Jesus, Harper.”
“But I’d feel it, Orion,” she cried. “An imbalance between us. All the time, every day. I already feel it. I’m already acutely conscious of how not enough I am every minute I walk down the halls of that fucking Academy. And you want to add to that?”
“I wouldn’t hold that over you and I never have,” I retorted. “It’s just dollars and cents anyway. Do you know how much money my family has? A roof is nothing to me—”
“It’s everything to me!” Harper shouted, then her hands flew to her throat, still raw.
She glanced at the door, listening for Dash, then inhaled deep, eyes closed.
When she opened them again, she spoke in a low, hard tone.
“Thank you for the offer. And thank you for everything you did last night. But the answer is no.”
I sighed. “Look, I know I’m not the best at this sort of thing, but I’m trying—”
“No, you’re great at this sort of thing. Last night, you were just here. That’s all I needed. That is all I still need. Not you throwing money at the problem.”
The words chafed me. I’d heard them a hundred times, and one triggering memory specifically, when I’d overheard a teacher of mine speaking to another in the hallway at Morton.
Orion’s parents don’t pay attention to his disability.
They just throw money at the problem and hope he doesn’t embarrass them.
I ground my teeth, the memory flashing through me like a lightning bolt.
“I’m not throwing anything. I’m trying to fix the problem. But apparently you’d rather live in a leaking house—and let Dash live in a leaking house—instead.”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, but it was too late to snatch them back. What little color Harper had in her cheeks drained away, and she glared at me.
“Bold of you to assume we don’t have the money to fix the roof ourselves,” she said, voice quivering. “The poor Bender without a pot to piss in, right?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean… I just want to help, and it makes no sense that you won’t let me.”
“Yeah?” Harper snapped. “Well, it makes no sense to me that your parents have abandoned you to an ADHD diagnosis when it’s so obvious that something else is going on.”