Chapter Sixteen
Nolan
I stare at the unmarked door in front of me.
While I don’t have the best awareness of passing time, I do know that I’ve been sitting in this heinous, gold-patterned chair long enough for one of my legs to go numb, an uncomfortable tingling up the back of my calf every time I so much as think about shifting.
It’s another novel development in my ever-changing existence.
I lift my leg and drop it, a shock of itchy discomfort exploding beneath my skin.
One of the sales associates wanders by with a faintly amused look on her face, a bundle of silk and wool in her arms. Harriet has been locked in the changing area for close to twenty-five minutes trying on dresses for her parent’s gala, while I remain marooned on this torture device masquerading as a chair.
She agreed to help me, but she’s been distant ever since.
She was tight-lipped about her plans for the day when I met her on the sidewalk in front of her home, only caving when I bribed her with a blueberry Danish I picked up on a whim.
She had stared at it for an uncomfortably long time.
I thought I had made a mistake, but then she gave me a half-hearted smile and inhaled it in three bites, reluctantly inviting me to join her for her morning errands.
But she’s not making eye contact. Her smiles are harder to earn. I’ve made a misstep, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know where to start.
I thought she’d be pleased. Smug doesn’t suit Harriet, but I thought she’d at least be cheery about being right.
There’s a ruckus behind the closed door and another navy blue dress flies over the back of it, draped haphazardly with the others. A carnage of heavy, starchy material. I drag my hand over the back of my head and sigh.
“This was your idea.” Harriett’s voice snaps beneath the door. “No one said you had to come dress shopping with me.”
I thought I’d have a front-row seat for Harriet in evening wear, but all I’ve seen is the flecked white paint of the changing room door, Harriet fighting with various materials on the other side.
I dreamed about her again last night. She was wearing one of her matching pajama sets, one I’ve never seen before.
An oversize flannel shirt that hit mid-thigh, the creamy expanse of her legs bare beneath.
I was wearing the matching pants as she crawled onto my lap, setting her elbows on my shoulders and her knees at my hips.
I slid my hands up the back of her shirt and traced her warm skin with my palms, just looking at her.
When I woke up, I could have sworn I smelled peppermint. “Could you get me this one in another size?” Harriet’s arm emerges from behind the door, holding a dress. She wiggles it back and forth while I try to clear the cobwebs of my fantasy.
I stand with a grunt and grab the garment, wedging my boot between the door when she immediately tries to close it again. One wide brown eye peers back at me, a haphazard collection of curls over half of her face.
“You haven’t let me see a single dress,” I say.
“No one said you’d get to see the dresses.”
“It was implied.”
“By who?”
By me, I think wistfully, and this ache in my chest. This … longing I can’t seem to get rid of.
I haven’t wanted anything in decades, but I think I want you.
I study one of the discarded dresses with a frown. “Why are you wearing this color?”
“Because that’s the dress code for this event.” A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows. I gently poke at it. She swats my hand away. “And I don’t deviate from instructions.”
I know she doesn’t. It’s probably the most endearing and frustrating thing about her. Harriet does exactly what she says she will, no matter the cost to herself. No matter how she’s treated in return.
“I think you should wear red,” I tell her. She belongs in something vibrant. Something that makes her glow.
“And I think you should get me a different size,” she singsongs back, nudging me away from the door. I roll my eyes to the ceiling and gather the smooth material of her dress, retreating to the aisle she pulled it from.
I hook the dress on the right rack, flicking through the options. I can’t make sense of the tiny tags, so I abandon them, meandering to a completely different section instead. A garment catches my eye and I smirk as I grab it, wandering back to Harriet’s fortress of solitude and knocking twice.
The door opens. Her hand reaches out. I give her the new dress. “Nolan,” she says immediately. “This isn’t what I asked for.”
“You’re right. It’s better.” I reclaim the chair and stretch out my legs. The numbness has receded, replaced by giddy anticipation instead. “Go on. Try it.”
She pokes her head out of the changing room. Her shoulders are bare, her hair pulled to one side. I grip the back of the awful chair until the wood creaks in protest.
“I can’t wear this.”
I stop trying to count the freckles across the slope of her shoulder. “Says who?”
Her nose wrinkles. “My mother. And the previously mentioned dress code.”
“Do you always do as she says?”
“Yes,” Harriet replies simply. “I do as everyone says. It’s a defining character trait.”
“You don’t do as I say.” I gesture to the dress at her side. “Case in point.”
“Well, you’re you.”
I grin. I like being the exception to Harriet’s rules, even if it results in my frustration. “I seem to remember a little girl who delighted in stealing a boat.”
An answering smile flirts with the corners of her mouth. “That was a long time ago. I’ve learned a lesson or two since then.” The smile fades away, replaced by a thoughtful frown. “It’s easier this way.”
“For you or for everyone else?”
She doesn’t respond, but the downcast look on her face says enough.
I bite my tongue against a sigh. Harriet hides so much of the person she wants to be behind the person she thinks she needs to be.
It’s clear her mother has played a heavy role in making her think she’s not allowed to be anything outside perfect and reasonable, but it’s also evident that Harriet feels the need to make up for something. I wish I knew what that was.
“Perhaps you need a nudge in the right direction.” I nod at the plum-colored silk in her hand. “Humor me.”
She gives me a long look, then disappears back into the dressing room without another word. I sit there and stare at the door and let myself imagine it.
The smooth glide of the dress over her body.
The thin straps against her shoulders. Her hair, flirting with the tops of her breasts.
The press of her nipples against the delicate fabric.
The tiny zipper at the back and how the bite of the metal would feel between my fingers.
My mouth at her neck and my nose in her hair.
I wonder how far down her blush would go.
If I could gather the silky, smooth material of her skirt in my fists and press her up against the mirror.
If she would watch me drop to my knees behind her in the reflection, or if she’d turn around.
Sink her fingers into my hair while I pressed my face between her thighs and—
“After I finish up here, we can get on the road,” she calls through the door. I’m jolted so forcefully from my daydream that I drive my knee into the tiny, ineffectual marble table next to the chair. The sales clerk drifts past with a smug snort, a knowing look shot in my direction.
I stretch out my knee with a scowl. “On the road?”
“Traveling,” she says slowly, with all the subtlety of a fog horn. “You know. To places we’ve visited in the past.”
Amusement settles in the middle of my chest. “Yes, I follow.” I pause, still busy trying to tug my brain back from flashes of bare skin and smooth silk. I click my tongue. “We can get on the road, or we could grab some lunch first. Whatever you prefer.”
“Lunch?”
“I’m told that’s a thing people do.”
She’s quiet for the stretch of three heartbeats. “It’s a thing people do,” she finally says.
I laugh into my fist. “I’d like to be a person with you, Harriet.”
Harriet hums on the other side of the door. The hum quickly turns into a grunt. There’s a sharp exhale of breath and then a thud. It sounds like she’s wrestling a badger in there.
“All right?” I ask.
“I think I’m stuck.”
“In the dress?”
“Yes, in the dress.” She mutters something under her breath that I don’t quite catch. “The zipper is twisted or … something. I’m not sure you got me the right size.”
I’m almost certain I didn’t. I only gave the tag a quick look, choosing instead to eyeball the stretch of the material and imagine it over the curve of Harriet’s ass. It was not a logical decision.
I’m at the door in two quick strides, both arms braced against the frame.
“Open up.”
The sound she makes is offended. “Absolutely not.”
“Harriet.” I drop my forehead to the door and tap it there twice.
This woman. “Don’t be proud.”
“It’s not a matter of pride.” She pauses for a long minute. “It’s a matter of decency.”
Something tight and aching catches me by the throat. I clear it once, then clear it again. I’m imagining plum silk and alabaster skin. The pink of her blush and the honey blond of her hair. “I’ll close my eyes,” I tell her, my voice like gravel.
“No, thank you. I’ll figure it out.” I wait, patient, listening to the sounds of her struggle. “Okay. I think I need to be cut out of this dress. Can you get that sales lady?”
I peek over my shoulder. The sales associate is nowhere to be found.
“Sure,” I lie. I don’t move an inch.
“I can see your feet beneath the door, Nolan.”
Damn it. “I don’t know where she’s gone off to. If you let me in, I’ll make quick work of it.” I wince. I couldn’t sound more like an eager, green boy if I tried. “I just meant—”
The door unlatches. Her face looks like—she looks the same as she did when we spun through her past, that first time. Pink-cheeked and a little thrown off. Frazzled, but brave.
Beautiful.