Chapter 23 Harper #3
For the next hour and a half, I typed while Orion paced behind me, dictating his term paper on the impact of Cuneiform, and how writing transformed Mesopotamian government as a tool for the elites, but not the ordinary people.
When it was finished, I did a quick sweep for typos and hit print. I handed him the paper. “Callister is going to love it.”
Orion shook his head, scanning the paper, then tossed it onto his desk and hauled me to him. “You saved my arse. Twice in one night. How can I ever repay you?”
“Not sure,” I said, and disentangled myself to sit on his bed. “But this feels infinitely softer than the floor of the piano room.”
He grinned. “Can you imagine class on Monday?” he said as he went to close his bedroom door. “I feel like Wolfe is going to see right through us.”
“Probably,” I said, pulling Orion to me by the lapels of his shirt. “But I think it’s just the sort of thing he would appreciate.”
Orion lay over me, taking me down to his bed. “I think it’s just the sort of thing he would find exceedingly hilarious.”
***
An hour later, I lay curled against Orion under the covers, satiated and heavy, humming from being touched in a thousand ways.
Being naked with him, pressed against his big, warm body felt perfectly easy and good.
I hadn’t a shred of self-consciousness but loved how we fit together—my pale skin to his golden brown, my softer curves to his hard lines and muscles.
He gazed at me as if I were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen when he’d been with plenty, and all of them more polished than I ever would be.
He loves me anyway. This poor, stressed-out girl, barely hanging on.
But Orion made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my fight, and I hoped I did the same for him. As if he’d read my mind, he planted a kiss on my temple, then shifted to look at me, his expression serious.
“Thank you. Thank you for braving a fucking shitstorm to help me see the truth. No one has ever done something like that for me.”
I glanced up at him, my eyes suddenly full. “No one has ever done what you did for me either. When I woke up in the middle of that awful night and found you on the floor in Dash’s room… That was the best thing I’d ever seen in my entire life.”
“Oh, love.”
Orion kissed me softly, kissed the tears that slipped down my cheeks. “Tonight, you gave it back to me a thousand times over.”
“Not just me,” I said. “Wolfe helped, and he’s going to make sure you have proper accommodations. And I’m so sorry for the way I brought it up at my house the other morning. That was horrible of me.”
“It wasn’t. I threw your stuff in your face, so you threw mine back at me.”
“You were trying to help.”
“I was being an arsehole. I just wanted to put everything broken back together and move on.” Orion brushed his knuckles over my cheek. “I hated seeing you so hurt. Can’t bloody stand it.”
He pressed his forehead to mine, and we stayed that way for a long moment. Then he inhaled a breath.
“Well. This was a lot for a Thursday.”
I laughed a little. “I know. And though I don’t want to move ever again, I should get back home before it gets too late. My mother…she came back early from her field trip with the dentist. He dumped her, so she’s a mess. I need to make sure she stays sober. For Dash, mostly.”
“God, love. I wish it wasn’t so hard for you.”
I clung to him, reveling in the safety of his protective embrace. “I’ll manage. It’s what we do, right?”
With effort, I pulled myself away from Orion, we dressed, and I shouldered my bag.
“Hold on,” he said.
He rummaged in the top drawer of his desk and pressed something into my hand.
I opened my palm, and in the dim light found a heavy brass coin about the size of a silver dollar. On it was etched the Orion constellation.
“Odin gave it to me when I first left for CHA,” he said. “I kept it in my pocket and held it like a talisman or touchstone whenever I got overwhelmed or homesick.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Why—?”
He closed my fingers around it. “In case things get rough again and I’m not there.”
I whipped my head up. “No, Orion. I can’t take this—”
“I’ve never been serious with a girl before.
Never loved a girl before. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.
I might mess up again. In fact, I’m quite sure I will.
But I want you to know that I’m going to try my best, and this coin is my promise to you.
” He brushed the back of his hand down my cheek.
“My very best, Harper. Because I love you.”
My eyes fell shut, sending tears down my cheeks. The coin felt heavier in my hand, weighted with his intention, and a hundred times more precious because of it.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered. “Except that I’ll do the same. My very best. And I love you too.”
He kissed me then, soft and deep, sparing me from fumbling for more words I didn’t have. Except that I vowed to protect his heart as fiercely as the coin in my hand, because he’d entrusted both to me as surely as I’d entrusted mine to him.
And instead of feeling weaker or more stretched thin, I left Atlas Hall, empowered as much by him trusting me as I was by trusting him.
With everything yet to come, we were going to need it.