Chapter 15
Shall We Ruin the Friendship?
TIA
If I had a confession booth, it’d need to fit three bodies: Harper, me and Sexual Tension.
It doesn’t matter that Kiran glares at us as we stumble into the prep room, or that Niko whispers, ‘Teacup, is that Harper’s hoodie?’
The problem is that Harper drops by my booth as a stylist braids my hair, tossing a pair of sunglasses into my lap with a casual, ‘Take these. I stole them from the make-up artists.’
She must have done her make-up first, because her eyes already sport her characteristic feline wings, lips glossed dark pink.
I take the sunglasses and slip them on, sighing in the dark reprieve from the stabbing studio lights.
Then Harper says, ‘What do you remember from last night?’
I laugh. ‘Does your poor alcohol tolerance count?’
And thank God I’m not actually in a confession booth, because that’s a blatant lie.
I remember a lot of things about last night, and I make a speed list of extra bodies I’m mentally hiding:
Soft lips against my own, eager but delicate, fumbling and messy, until we’d found a rhythm that had set my head aflame.
Harper’s face flushed with wine and desperation, moonlight brushed over her like heaven’s spotlight on the only person who could reach into my chest and hold my heart in her hand.
The way she’d looked as she shot me a stupid grin and said, ‘I’m not even going to remember this.’
It’s the last one that strikes me like one of Raven’s daggers, except this one is made of fleeting fear. ‘Do you remember anything from last night?’
Harper blinks. Her pretty mouth twists into a snicker. ‘Only that you mixed alcohols. I can taste sound now, asshole.’ Her lipstick makes her lips look kiss-bruised, glossy under the light.
I swallow. My skin prickles with heat, and I have to pull at my collar to breathe.
You kissed her.
Worse: you kissed her and she doesn’t remember it.
‘I, uh . . .’ My gut twists violently. ‘You should probably get back to memorizing your lines for the pre-event conference. I know I’m not done with mine.’
The burning light overhead can’t hide the extinguished twinkle in Harper’s eyes at the bland reaction.
She leaves with a frown and a lingering glance over her shoulder.
If I feel Harper’s gaze burn into the back of my neck for the rest of the preparation time, I pretend I don’t.
How does Harper not remember the kiss? It’s my first. Our first.
And only. It won’t happen again. A kiss of drunken, misguided lust is less than nothing when lost to the haze of alcohol. An event exists only as long as its memory. If I want it gone forever, which of course I do, all I have to do is forget, and deny.
So I avoid Harper as we take the lift down to the car park, and jerk my hand away when it brushes against hers because we go for the car door-handle at the same time.
Singapore’s trees tower over us, our sedan chasing the glaring red trails of rush-hour traffic over highways and streets.
Bougainvillea twines through overhead bridges, dozens of purple petals peering down at the speeding cars and watching in disapproval as I struggle to keep my feelings shut away, passion stitched closed in my heart lest I open my mouth and accidentally let it all out.
The air gets a little colder. Cold leaches into my pearly silk slip dress and my shoulders are freezing, so I rub my goosebumps with a desperate hand.
‘You’re cold,’ Harper says.
Jesus, give me strength. ‘It’s none of your business.’
Harper’s mouth snaps shut with a click, and she turns away. Hurt strains the ticking muscle of her jaw, tense in the wrinkles of her furrowed brow, but if she’s offended she doesn’t say it.
Hopefully, the silence lasts. I’m not ready to be amicable when I’m still on the losing side of a kiss I remember too vividly.
We’re ushered into a cavernous lobby on arrival. Journalists clamour around me with shouted questions, pushing past each other like ants to get a better angle. Camera flashes pound into my head, and when I glance to my right, all I see is Harper’s weary face, eyes glazed over.
Clearly, last night hasn’t completely worn off on either of us – in more ways than one. The urge to reach over and check if she’s okay overwhelms me.
I dig my nails into my palm. When did I begin worrying?
Yesterday? Last week? Before that? Maybe a month ago, or longer – maybe even since the gala.
It’s been months that being around Harper sends my heart beating viciously quick, that much I’ve already shamefully processed, but how long have I been subconsciously making sure she’s never alone, always safe, never too far, and oh . . .
Oh.
We’re seated together.
Just the two of us, of course, just for the irony of it all. The conference dinner has passed swiftly with minimal eye contact, my thumb sore from working it over my pendant.
Harper tried to speak multiple times through the different courses, but silence is a third attendant at our table, sullenly looming and dominant.
Yet even silence shifts restlessly when a comment rises above the bustle of the crowd:
‘Okay, but Lune looks like such a bitch. I just know she is.’
Instinctively, I whip my head round to find the source of conversation.
A young man lounges at the corner of the room with the rest of his friends, rolling his eyes as he stuffs a fry in his mouth.
He’s wearing a purple lanyard – a journalist. ‘She’s literally the worst Sentinel. Why do they still have her?’
Over the last two years, I’ve become used to the vitriol of the public.
It’s impossible to please everyone, and I wouldn’t have survived this gig if I took every comment to heart, especially from people who I know don’t matter.
It doesn’t help the stirring insecurity in my chest, though, so I try to tune it out and turn back to Harper.
Except she isn’t looking at me.
Harper does a thing when she’s trying very hard not to deck someone.
I’ve seen it in classes when she argues with professors, and across tables when she argues with me.
I doubt she even knows she does it, because she probably thinks she’s being sneaky: one arm slung over an armrest, one ankle curled around the chair leg, eyes flicking lazily towards the man as he talks about my alter ego.
But she has a hand on her cup, and every three sentences, she sips.
‘No, seriously,’ he’s saying. ‘She’s practically useless to the group.’
Frankly, I couldn’t care less. Harper, on the other hand . . .
I have to fight down a laugh as Harper sets the cup down with a quiet clink. There’s anger in her tight jaw, a restrained frown across her dark eyebrows.
I have a deep desire to do something incredibly unholy.
Harper sips. Glances towards me. ‘Bunny—’
‘I literally do not care,’ I assure her.
‘Okay,’ Harper says, with a restraint she rarely possesses. She takes another sip, but this time her grip is white-knuckled and she doesn’t let go of the cup after she puts it down. It looks like she’s swallowing glass, and I begin to wonder if I should try to distract her.
‘Did you hear the rumours they’re finding another Sentinel for the team?’ someone else says. ‘Honestly, they should just replace her at this p—’ They’re cut off, and I watch as the waiter returns their credit card and they pick their bags up to leave.
The grip round Harper’s cup goes deathly white as the group passes her on the way out.
Silence settles back in, mollified by their departure. But Harper doesn’t rest as easily, and she runs her hand through her hair, messing it up as she stares after the journalists.
‘It’s not too late to report them,’ she says.
That’s it. I stand, slinging my bag over my shoulder, and pushing my chair in.
The movement draws Harper’s attention immediately. ‘Wait – you’re leaving?’
I rest my hand on the table between us, leaning in. ‘I have something to settle.’
Harper stares at my hand. ‘Are you going after them? Because I throw a pretty good punch.’
‘No. Follow me.’ I straighten and head out of the dining hall without a glance back; Harper follows.
‘Hey!’ she calls from behind, and I hear the rapid click of heels behind me as I head down a deserted corridor and into a break room. ‘What’s going on?’
I lock the door behind us and turn to face Harper. ‘I need to talk to you.’
The surprise on Harper’s face morphs into irritation. She scoffs. ‘Actually, me too. Why have you been so cold all day?’
The upper hand slips away from me. Have I been so obvious? ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘You’re not subtle!’ Harper runs a hand through her hair. ‘What did I do wrong?’
It’s so hard to put into words the battle ripping my chest apart, a war that’s only worsened since the pre-event conference.
Instead, I say, ‘You’re hot when you’re mad.’
Harper’s jaw goes slack. ‘You brought me all the way here to tell me I’m hot when I’m mad?’
‘Yes. No. Maybe.’ My fingers tug at my pendant as if that will somehow help. I don’t have the same charm as Harper when I speak, and my tongue twists at the very thought of trying to explain the jitters in my gut. ‘Why are you so mad on my behalf?’
Harper frowns. Her golden dagger earrings tinkle as she moves. ‘You care so much about helping and saving everyone. Those assholes know nothing. Of course I’m mad, you deserve better.’
‘I just—’ I raise my hands as if hand gestures might help me explain. They fail me. ‘It means a lot to me, okay?’
Harper’s face softens. ‘I’m glad, bunny.’
I feel like a child in a confessional, my secret knotted tight in my throat as my time winds to an end and we slowly slip back into the regular dynamic we’ve grown so used to. But I don’t want that now. It doesn’t feel enough any more.
‘What you just said - no one says things like that about me,’ I say before I can stop myself. ‘People see me, but they don’t see me as much as they see who they want me to be. You make me feel seen.’
Harper swallows and nods in acknowledgement. The air between us thickens. The chain around Harper’s neck glints in the dim light as her chest rises and falls gently under her maroon turtleneck.
Harper breaks the silence first. ‘You have something else to say.’ A statement, not a question.
I nod.
Maybe Harper gets it, because she scrutinizes me with dark eyes and a wary stare. ‘Use your words,’ she whispers.
Okay. ‘I’ve spent the day avoiding you.’ I take a step towards her, winding the distance between us down from a metre to an arm’s length. ‘But it’s a fruitless battle, because a mind can’t fight a heart and win.’
‘What are you saying?’
I level my gaze at Harper as I take another step. We’re nearly as close as we were a few nights ago, back in Harper’s room. ‘I think you know.’
Harper’s jaw clenches. Her eyes drop to my lips.
‘Spell it out,’ Harper says, and there’s a smirk in her voice, but uncertainty in her piercing stare.
I can work with uncertainty. I’ve always been good at assurance, so I do it like this: a step forward, a finger to tip Harper’s face up so the light spills over her dark gaze, and, softly, reverently, I murmur my confession – about the turmoil in my heart, about the kiss so sinful I can barely breathe thinking of it, and the hellish battle of restraint I’m about to lose.
Harper’s breath hitches. ‘You remember.’
‘All of it. You?’
‘All of it.’ It’s just an echo of my words, but it twists my gut with a pleasurable pain, like a masseuse’s unforgiving mercy on sore muscles. I relish the way it hangs in the air for a second as I take in the adorable wings on Harper’s eyes and the curve of her lips.
‘I really like you,’ I confess before the moment ends, before it’s too late, the words riding on the wave of desire crashing low in my gut. ‘As in, I’d-really-like-to-kiss-you-now-if-you’d-let-me like you.’
‘Good, because I’ve been holding back all evening,’ Harper says, and I unravel.
Harper’s lips taste of strawberry gloss. My thumb skims her jaw, and my other hand runs the length of her soft, warm back as I pull her in.
A bustling outside snaps me back to reality. I pull away, chest heaving, as a horde of journalists pass by outside. Fear and lust are the Jekyll and Hyde of a pounding heart and short breath, and it’s too easy for the cold fingers of dread to reach down my back.
‘You okay?’ Harper frowns up at me. ‘Don’t worry. The door’s locked.’
‘I know. I—’ If the press finds out about this, I’m dead.
It’d been a national scandal when Niko and Kiran came out as a couple – they’d been dating before they were Sentinels, but the press caught wind of it a year into their service.
Vicious rumour mills had also started up when my sexuality had come into question.
I’d dated a boy at school to dispel them, but now .
. . ‘We can’t let anyone find out about this. ’
‘Have you seen me?’ Harper tilts her head. ‘I’m a Fox descendant. We can dupe anyone.’
I ease and pull her back in. My anxiety roils nervously for the future, but I ignore it. Not today. ‘Okay, miscreant.’
Harper snickers. The heat of her body radiates through my thin dress. As she stares up at me, her smile fades. ‘I really like you too, for the record.’
I’ve witnessed Harper’s many conquests over the course of our rivalry, and maybe that’s why the kiss might swallow air from my lungs and send me swooning, but it’s still nothing compared to the rapture of hearing the confession from Harper herself.
I dip down to kiss her again, as if I can capture her words with my lips and hold it with me forever.
This time, Harper pulls away. ‘Wait. So the person you liked was . . . ?’
My cheeks burn. ‘You.’
A languid grin spreads over Harper’s face. ‘Knew it.’
‘Shut up.’
Harper opens her mouth to directly disobey me, so I peck her on the lips again, then again, and again.