Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
EVE
H arlow breezes through the front door while I’m staring at my sketchbook. “Hey!”
“Hey!” I call back.
She’s home early.
Except, I check the time on my phone and realize she’s not. I’ve been sitting on the couch, memorizing Hunter’s phone number, for hours. How ironic that I teased him last night for admitting he didn’t know what to text me. Now, I’m facing the same dilemma.
This morning’s drive from his house to mine wasn’t awkward. We stopped for donuts—Hunter ran in since I wasn’t exactly dressed for breakfast—and then he dropped me off before continuing to the rink. It felt normal. Natural, like a routine.
Routines take time to form, though. And I—we—don’t have a lot of time.
Now that Conor and Aidan know about us, I need to tell Harlow. And she’s going to have questions—questions I seriously fumbled with Hunter this morning.
“How was your weekend?” Harlow plops down on the opposite end of the couch, tucking her feet up under her.
“Uh, good. How was yours?”
She nods enthusiastically. “Really nice. Allison and I got our nails done.” She waves her pale blue fingernails in my direction. “And Landon’s gig went great. The band’s really improving.”
“That’s great.”
Harlow reaches out and snags one of the donuts out of the box I carried over to the couch.
My best friend hums happily as she chews. “They’d better have donuts as good as Holey Moley’s wherever the hell I end up moving next month.”
“They definitely have donuts this good in New York, so you’ll have to come visit me,” I say.
“You know I will,” she replies, licking some chocolate frosting off her finger.
“Any updates on when wherever the hell is getting figured out?”
Harlow shakes her head. “I’ve applied for a few positions, but haven’t heard back from any of them. The Garrisons said I can stay with them whenever, for however long I want. But… I’m really waiting on Conor.”
“When is the draft?”
That detail didn’t come up during Hunter’s hockey explanation.
“End of June,” Harlow answers.
“And…if he doesn’t get drafted?” I ask tentatively.
She exhales. “No clue. It’s his big dream, you know? Like New York for you. I’m not worried he won’t be able to find a job doing something else. But I am worried what not making it might do to him. To us. I did decide—I’m going to follow him.”
“You are?” I’m surprised, and I know it comes through in my voice.
Harlow’s independent and opinionated and passionate about marine biology. I assumed she’d prioritize her career, and they’d do long distance.
“Yeah. Wherever he gets drafted, I’ll go. If he doesn’t get drafted, we’ll figure it out then.”
“Wow.”
“You think I’m crazy,” she surmises.
“No, I don’t.” I’m a little envious of her certainty, actually. Of how certain she is, even in the midst of uncertainty. That’s a scary leap of faith, no matter how much you love someone. “I think it’s romantic. But I figured you’d go on some crazy expedition to see seals in Antarctica or survey salmon in Alaska.”
Harlow half smiles. “Maybe I will, one day. But right now, this is what it feels like I should do.”
“Maybe Conor will get drafted to the Rangers or the Islanders, and we’ll end up in the same city.”
She applauds. “Look at you, knowing the team names. Part of your New York research?”
“Sort of,” I say.
Truthfully, I looked up tickets yesterday morning, after Hunter left, as part of some fantasy he might visit me in the city and we could go see a hockey game together. He pays attention to my art. Listens to the podcast I recommended. I wanted to reciprocate in some way, to show interest in something that’s important to him.
“I haven’t mentioned it to the Garrisons,” Harlow says, playing with a tassel on the corner of one of the pillows. “They’re supportive of our relationship—well, supportive-ish, counting Landon—but it’s still weird. Talking about Conor with them, discussing them with Conor, it’s like being the negotiator between two countries at war. That’s dramatic, I know, but being stuck in the middle is—” She stops talking and pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Speaking of Conor. One sec, I’m just going to let him know I’m?—”
Shocking both of us, I reach out and pluck Harlow’s phone out of her hand.
She stares at me, arm and eyebrows both raised.
“I had sex with Hunter. Two—no three—times. More, if you count oral.”
Silence.
“You heard me, right?” I don’t see how she possibly couldn’t have, she’s sitting two feet away, but the quiet is making me twitchy.
Harlow stares at me for thirty seconds—I start counting—before saying, “Hunter Morgan ?”
“Do you know any other guys named Hunter?” I ask dryly.
“Well, no. But I thought maybe you did.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“I—wow. I’m—how? When? How?”
“How, like positions? Because we tried some I don’t know the names for.”
Harlow laughs. “No, I mean how did it happen. Did you run into him at a party or?—”
“No. He was at the library on Friday night. I went to work on that awful poetry essay, and he showed up, and he asked to sit with me, and then it just…happened.”
“In the library?”
“ In the library? No! People—people do that?”
Harlow nods, smiling, and the blowjob in the car no longer seems quite as adventurous.
“Um, well, no. We did it here?”
“ Here , here? Like on this couch?”
“No. In my bedroom. Have you had sex—actually, never mind. I don’t want to know. We had sex in my bedroom.”
“You and Hunter.”
“Yeah. Me and Hunter.”
“Wow. That’s big, Eve. I mean, you hadn’t since…”
I know what she’s alluding to while trying to avoid saying Ben’s name.
“It was big,” I agree. “Because it was Hunter.”
Harlow’s forehead wrinkles. “What do you mean?”
“Do you remember where you went, the first night of college?”
She looks even more confused, but she answers, “Yeah. Some party off campus. I think it was on Fore Street.”
“Do you remember where I went, the first night of college?”
“One of the Freshman Week events, right? You went to a bunch of those.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I went to all of them, because I met a guy the first night and I was hoping to run into him again. Instead, I kept seeing Ben. And the next time I saw Hunter, he was with half the hockey team and I was dating Ben.”
“Wait.” Harlow leans closer. “You met Hunter Morgan the first night at Holt?”
I nod.
“And you’ve?—”
“Had a secret crush on him ever since? Pretty much.”
“Holy shit. Why did you never tell me?”
I play with the spiral of my sketchbook. “I thought it was silly. Who has one conversation with a guy and then gets butterflies around him for the next four years? It was like admiring a movie star. The chance of it ever happening seemed so unrealistic. It was just a fun fantasy to think about sometimes. But then, you and Conor started dating, and Ben and I broke up, and he was there over spring break, and?—”
“Did something happen over spring break?”
“No. But I said something about freshman year and then he told me he remembered it too and then there was this moment in the hot tub when he told me he wasn’t dating Holly and?—”
“Wait, wait.” Harlow flaps her hands at me. “When were you guys in the hot tub? I thought you forgot a suit?”
I sink down on the couch and cover my face with my hands. “It was late at night. And forget the hot tub. Now I?—”
Harlow’s phone starts buzzing in its spot on the coffee table where I set it after stealing it. Conor, again.
She glances at her vibrating phone, then at me. “You don’t want me to tell Conor about you and Hunter?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Uh, not exactly. I didn’t want Conor to tell you about me and Hunter. Not before I did, at least.”
She lifts her eyebrows again, waiting for more of an explanation.
“He, uh, saw me walk out of the bathroom this morning.”
Harlow tilts her head. “I thought you said this happened Friday night.”
“Yeah. It did. And then it happened again last night.”
She smirks. “Get it, girl.”
I smile, then admit, “I don’t know what to do now.”
Instantly, Harlow’s expression shifts to her protective, pissed-off one. “Did he do something?”
“ No . It’s what I did. Or didn’t do, maybe. I don’t know.”
She frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“After Conor and Aidan saw us this morning, it was a little weird. No one else knew about us, before, and it was…I don’t know. I could just enjoy it, and not think about what anything meant. But then I started thinking, and I… I don’t know. I freaked out a little. It feels like this thing with Hunter has been coming for a long time, but it also feels like this whirlwind and graduation is coming and I’m just…overwhelmed. He’s very overwhelming. When I’m with him, everything else matters less.”
“That’s not a bad thing, E.”
“I know it’s not. It’s just…scary.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know how he feels. If he wants a relationship.”
I think I finally understand why it’s called falling in love . Because a lot of it is outside of your control, governed by conjectural forces like chemistry and chance. But there’s also a moment when you jump , I’m learning. When you make a conscious choice to pursue love and risk heartbreak. I’m standing at those crossroads now, realizing I’ve never jumped before.
“Ask him,” Harlow suggests, sounding like she’s trying very hard not to add a duh at the end.
I roll my eyes. “You know that’s easier said than done.”
“Yeah, I do. But I also promise you it’s better than not knowing.” She nudges my knee. “I’m going to make some dinner, because I have a feeling all you’ve eaten today is donuts. And then, we’re getting dressed and going out.”
Harlow stands and heads for the kitchen.
“Going out where?” I call after her.
“You’ll see!” she shouts back.
I glance at Hunter’s number again. I’d rather talk to him in person.
After Harlow’s mysterious destination, I’ll ask her to drop me at his house, I decide.