24. Harlow
CHAPTER 24
HARLOW
“So I’ve been thinking about the adoption thing,” Jefferson says as we dance. “How will that work? You’ll adopt them? And then later, I will?”
I look up at him with a smile. This whole night has been so great. He wasn’t lying when he said he was claiming all my dances. Not only have I not danced with anyone else, he and I have barely sat down since the street dance started. We’ve had a couple of drinks, but mostly have just been soaking up the night and the celebratory feel in the air underneath the twinkle lights that are strung over Main Street. A local band has set up on one end and people ages eight to eighty-eight are dancing on the cobblestones.
“You don’t have to officially do anything. Unless you want to. I can adopt them all. Or I can adopt a couple and you can adopt one. Whatever works.”
He frowns as if confused. “I would adopt one and you would adopt two?”
I shrug. “We could do it that way.”
“I was thinking it would be great to get married in the Square like Carver and Kaelyn did.”
I blink at his sudden change of topic. But then I grin. “You of all people were made to get married in the gazebo in the heart of Sapphire Falls.”
“Yeah?”
I laugh. “Carver and Kaelyn did it because it was practical. Everyone they wanted at the wedding was already going to be home for the festival. And this way they didn’t have to find a venue big enough and didn’t have to decorate. Plus they just agreed to pay for the band for the dance that was already going to happen. And that definitely made the festival committee happy. But as far as nostalgia and theme, getting married during the festival is way more a you thing.”
He smiles as if that pleases him, then sighs. “I was thinking we would do it next year.”
My heart thumps. Is he actually going to propose like this? Here? Now?
“Oh,” I say, not really sure if that’s the right reaction.
“But that’s a year away,” he points out, unnecessarily.
“Right.”
“But it seems that you’re talking about adoption right now.”
I frown. “Yes…”
“It seems like it would be a lot easier for everyone if we were married when we did it, right?”
I frown. “Why would we need to be married to adopt the cats?”
He stares at me for three heartbeats. “Cats,” he repeats.
“Yeah. The foster cats.” Then suddenly everything makes sense. I start to laugh. “You thought I was talking about adopting kids ?”
His eyes are wide, and I realize we’ve stopped moving, even though everyone around us is still dancing, and the music is still playing.
“Of course I thought you were talking about kids.”
Oh my God. I said I could adopt two and he could adopt one. I laugh even harder. “Why would you think that?” I ask.
“Because adopting kids is exactly something you would do. Even three at a time.”
That makes my heart melt a little. And he’s not wrong. I’m still grinning, but I admit, “It is. But I would definitely talk to you about it first. I wouldn’t just spring that on you in a text.”
He pulls me closer. “You could, you know.” His voice is soft and husky. “I want whatever makes you happy.”
And I do know I could. My heart melts further. I reach up and put my hands on either side of his face, just looking at him. “Yeah, I guess I do. Wow.”
“So, I guess it’s safe to say, I am open to adoption.”
I smile. “If someone had asked me that, I would’ve already known the answer.”
His return smile is soft. “But it would be easier on everyone if we were married right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Good to know.”
And it’s good for me to know that he wants to get married in the town square at next year’s festival.
“You know, a week ago, I didn’t even like you,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “A week ago, you didn’t admit you liked me.”
“The gazebo might not be big enough for you, me, and your ego to stand in.”
He just laughs.
“Let’s go sit for a minute,” I say.
“How much longer do you want to stay?”
“Shouldn’t we stay until Kaelyn and Carver leave?” I ask.
“Probably. But they went to ride the Ferris wheel, then I saw them over by the ring toss game. I know Carver will want funnel cakes before they leave, but they could have been gone for thirty minutes by now and no one would have noticed.”
I laugh, looking around and not spotting the bride or groom. “Another pro for having a wedding during the festival. Makes sneaking off easier.”
He grins a mischievous grin that makes my stomach flip.“Exactly.”
Those grins of his…I like them too much.
Hand in hand we head for the table where our parents are sitting with some of their friends. All of the couples have been out on the dance floor—can you call the street a dance floor?—but Jefferson’s parents have been out there the most.
One thing I really love about knowing my parents’ friends so well is knowing lots of stories about them from before all of us kids came along.
I know that Adrianne and Mason first met when Mason bid on dancing with her at a fundraising auction. He’d only been back in town for an hour or so and had no intention of getting involved in what the town had going on, but he’d taken one look at Adrianne and immediately offered an amount that no one else in town could possibly outbid.
I think of the story and smile every time I see them dance at any event.
The group is technically taking up four tables in the beer garden area at the opposite end of the street from the band, but they’ve more or less arranged their chairs so they’re in one big huddle.
We start to take two empty chairs near Jefferson's parents, but a voice says, “Hey, Harlow, come sit by me.”
I arch my brows at TJ Bennett, Margot’s dad.
He grins and pats the seat of the chair he’s just pulled up between him and his wife, Hope.
“Oh boy,” I say as I sit down. “What’s this about?”
“Just wondering what you all had for breakfast this morning, that’s all,” TJ says.
I look from TJ to Jefferson, confused. “I had peanut butter toast. Why do you ask?”
“Huh. Margot doesn’t usually eat a lot in the morning before a run.”
“O-k-a-y.”
“She did the 5k race this morning. So did she have peanut butter toast?” TJ asks.
I look at him with wide eyes. I’m supposed to know what Margot had for breakfast. I get that. But why?
“Um…I didn’t see her this morning,” I hedge. Honestly, if she did the 5k that was way before I was awake.
“Since she spent the night at your house, I was just curious,” TJ says, draping an arm along the back of my chair.
Right. Margot was watching movies at my house last night before I had to leave to pick Jefferson up. Apparently, she told her parents she spent the night with me. Or they're just assuming that because she didn’t go home last night.
Yeah, now I want to know about where she spent her night and what she had for breakfast too. Kind of. Except for the part about how she probably spent the night with my best friend who’s like a brother to me. I don’t really want to know too much about what Margot and Graham do when they’re naked together.
I grin at TJ. He is a big guy who has the reputation for being a major grump. Then I smile at Hope, his sunshiny, sweet wife. I love the fact that Margot is not only a perfect mix of the two of them in looks, but also in personality.
“Aren’t we a little old for you to be checking up on where Margot sleeps, TJ? Especially by asking her friends instead of just asking her?” I tease.
TJ shakes his head. “We did ask her.”
“Well then my answer is whatever Margot said,” I say with a laugh.
“Come on,” TJ says. “Tell us what you know about Margot and Graham.”
I notice how Adrianne leans in slightly.
“What makes you think I know anything?”
“You’re best friends with both of them,” Hope says, her eyes bright. “You know we would be thrilled if they’re dating. Just tell us a little bit. Is there something going on?”
“I’m not saying a word,” I tell them. “Margot will tell you when there’s something you need to know.”
“That’s not a no there’s nothing going on,” TJ points out.
I laugh and quickly get up and claim a new chair next to Jefferson and closer to my mom.
“But you do know something right?” Adrianne asks.
“I know that this has been a really fun festival week for a lot of us,” I say diplomatically.
“Not for Zach Nelson,” Mason comments.
His dry sense of humor is so much like Jefferson’s, I laugh out loud.
“I didn’t say it’s been fun for everyone ,” I tell him with a grin.
“If you want someone to spill their guts, buy this guy a few tequila shots,” my dad tells TJ, pointing at Jefferson. “Maybe he knows something about his brother and your daughter.”
Jefferson groans. “Scott, give me a break.”
My dad laughs. “You’ve been around all of us long enough to know that it’s very hard to live things down.”
“Shots? That Scott knows about?” Mason asks his son. “What happened?”
I jump in. “He just had some fun down at the Come Again with the guys last night. I had to go pick him up and drive him home.”
“Typically seeing the sheriff after too many tequila shots isn’t a great thing,” TJ says.
“Oh, it was a great thing,” my dad says. “Tequila is like truth serum with this guy.”
Jefferson just groans again, then turns to me. “You ready to go yet?”
I laugh and start to reply, but Mason asks my dad, “What was he so truthful about?”
“That he wants to marry Harlow.”
He just says it. Just like that. Out loud to all of his friends. Including Jefferson’s parents. Like they’re discussing the weather.
And they all take the news with about the same level of surprise as they would if my dad had said it’s going to be sunny and ninety tomorrow: they nod and smile as if the information is exactly what they expected to hear.
Jefferson sighs. I sigh.
Then we look at each other and grin.
“I heard Harlow finally punched Zach,” Phoebe says.
They all look at me with more surprise at that statement.
“Good for you,” Hope says.
“Don’t encourage her,” my dad says, but then adds, “In front of me anyway.”
Everyone chuckles. They know very well that my dad is fine with me defending myself, it just helps him have plausible deniability if he’s not the one encouraging it out loud with witnesses.
That doesn’t mean that he’s never given me a private pep talk about not taking shit from anyone, how to throw a punch, and that he always has my back.
“I also heard a rumor that he was going to press charges,” Phoebe adds. “The little shit.”
“That’s all been dropped,” my dad says.
Phoebe is looking at my mother with a smile. “Oh, I heard that part too.”
“Tell us what happened there, Peyton,” Hope says.
Everyone seems as surprised that my mother had some words for Zach as they are to find out that it’s going to be ninety degrees in June in Nebraska.
“I’m going to get drink refills,” my dad says. He looks at my mom. “Tell the story quick.”
Again, he would rather not hear whatever threats my mother made to Zach. Not because he’s upset she made them, simply because it’s better for the cop to not be included.
He moves toward the bar and my mom looks around the group. “Zach and I have a previous understanding that I simply needed to remind him of.”
Hope, Phoebe, and Adrianne share a look, but TJ, Joe, and Mason all look puzzled.
“What am I missing?” I ask.
My mom shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s all taken care of.”
I lean in. “Mom, how can you and Zach have a previous understanding?” I don’t mind having personal conversations in front of the rest of these people. I consider them all aunts and uncles. They’ve known me, and loved me, my entire life. It’s almost impossible for me to be embarrassed with any of them.
Studying my mother right now, it hits me she knows more about what happened with me and Zach than I realized.
“Mom,” I say, reaching out and touching her arm. “What did you and Zach talk about in the past?”
My mom is one of the most honest and open people I know. She is also fiercely protective of the people she loves.
As our eyes meet, I realize with a jolt that she knows everything that went down with Zach and me.
“I just reminded him that I saved his college career. I am the reason that he is…anything. I could’ve ruined him, but I didn’t, and for that I expect him to leave you the fuck alone for the rest of your life.”
I look at Jefferson, but he looks as stunned as I am.
“You know what happened that night? In high school?” I ask.
“You mean the night that he drugged your drink?”
My mom looks around the table and I realize that Adrianne, Hope, and Phoebe also know. This is part of my mom’s girl squad. She told them. Hell, they might’ve been the ones that kept her out of jail after she found out Zach had drugged her daughter.
But it’s also clear the men did not know. They all look stunned. And pissed.
I can only guess that my father doesn’t know either.
The women clearly had decided how to take care of it and had just done it.
“You went and talked to him?”
She takes a breath, and nods. “I did. I threatened to press charges. The only reason that I even considered not going to your father, or other law enforcement, was because Graham and Jefferson got you away from him.” She straightens and looks at me. “It was also too late to really prove anything by the time I found out. I was afraid he’d get a slap on the wrist, if even that. It would have killed your father to know what had happened and not be able to really do anything about it through the system. He might have…” She swallows. “He might have actually done something really out of line and ruined his career.”
Basically she’s saying if she’d told my father, he would have found Zach and beat the hell out of him. Or worse.
Adrianne reaches out and takes my mom’s hand. My mom smiles at her and goes on. “Thanks to Graham and Jefferson, you were okay. You had a hell of a hangover, but nothing worse happened. So…I decided to just let Zach know that I knew everything and hope that the threat that I could expose him at any time would keep him in line.” Her eyes get a little shiny. “And that it would keep him from doing that to you or anyone else again.”
I look at Jefferson. He’s staring at our mothers.I turn back to her. “But how did you really find out? How did you know I wasn’t just hung over from the beer?”
She looks at Adrianne again. “Graham was beside himself after he brought you home.”
I frown. “He left after he dropped me off.” I had gone upstairs to shower.
My mom shakes her head. “He did. He tried to. But he was so upset, he came back. He felt awful for not calling me the night before. There’s only a small window where the drugs are still present in your system and we were past that. You weren’t sexually assaulted?—”
I hear a rumble, almost a growl, from Jefferson and his arm comes around me and he pulls me closer.
“ Thank God ,” my mom adds. “But the drug would have still shown up in your urine for a few hours. It was too late by the time you got home.” She takes a deep breath. “Graham told me what happened and…I went to find Zach, but—” She looks at Jefferson. “Jefferson had already been there. Zach was in really bad shape.”
I suck in a breath and look up at Jefferson. His jaw is tense, and he doesn’t meet my eyes, but I feel his hand on my shoulder tighten.
“That actually helped me get my shit together,” my mom says. “Seeing there had already been some consequences for Zach’s behavior, knowing others knew what happened, helped me gather my emotions a little. He was a very stupid, selfish young guy. But Jefferson showed him that he couldn’t get away with everything. I realized that I wanted to scare him, hurt him, but…” She sighs. “Not ruin his whole life.” She looks at me with a small sad smile. “Trust me, if he had actually hurt you in any other way, I would’ve ruined him.”
“There wouldn’t have been anything left of him to ruin,” Jefferson says from beside me, his voice low and tight.
My mom looks at him again and nods.
“I told Zach that I was going to watch him. Keep tabs. That if he ever thought of making a woman do something she didn’t want to do, I would come forward with the story. Even if it was too late to do anything legally to him, I could ruin his reputation, ruin his family’s reputation here in town, make things very difficult for him.”
I nod, my thoughts spinning.
One thing about small towns like Sapphire Falls—people will have your back, but they’ll also hold you accountable.
My parents are upstanding parts of this community. People like them, respect them, and trust them. The town would have believed my mom if she’d made public what Zach had done.
Zach would have never been able to come back to Sapphire Falls if this story had gotten out. His dad’s heating and air conditioning business would have suffered. His mom’s job at the school would have been very difficult. Their friends would have thought of them differently.Their social connections and simply life as they knew it would have changed.
Sure, jail would have been a huge threat, but honestly? Upending his family’s happy, content life here in their hometown was a pretty big ultimatum to give him.
“As far as I know, he’s still been a jerk, but he didn’t mess around with drugs, not himself or with anyone else the entire time he was in college, and he had good relationships with the girls he dated.”
I nod, all of these revelations swirling.
“And I didn’t worry about you,” my mom says with a smile. “I knew you had the Riley boys looking out for you. And all your friends. And all of us.” She looks around the table again and all of the women nod.
I take a deep breath. “I…wow. I just…didn’t know that you knew.”
“I wanted you to tell me when you were ready. If you ever were.”
“I’m sorry I never did,” I say quietly. My mom is the best. Both of my parents are. I know I could have told them about this.
But I realize…I didn’t need to. I was okay. Even immediately following the incident. I was hurt by Zach. I was angry. I’d felt betrayed. But I’d always known I was okay . I’d felt supported and taken care of by Graham and my friends.
But I didn’t know that Jefferson was a part of it and that is what I regret more than anything.
I look at him now. “I had guardian angels I wasn’t even aware of, I guess.”
My mom smiles at Jefferson. “I was aware of them.”
I take a deep breath, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders. Nothing that happened with Zach was my fault. I’ve always known that. But I’d kept it from my parents because I didn’t want them to worry. I never should have doubted how they’d respond.
I give my mom a smile and tease her, so she knows I’m okay. “Yeah, yeah, none of you are surprised that Jefferson and I got together. Whatever.”
“Yeah, when he was that in love with you that long ago, I knew it was only a matter of time.” My mom sits back in her chair and smiles as my dad rejoins the group.
“Okay, now you’re being dramatic,” I say. I reach over and take Jefferson's hand, squeezing. “We are in love now. For real. But this hasn’t been ever since high school or anything.”
My mom looks at me as if I just said something ridiculous. “Of course it has been.”
“Maybe you thought he had a crush,” I tell her. “But he’s just a good guy.”
“For fuck’s sake, Harlow, it wasn’t a crush,” Jefferson says.
I look up at him and he’s looking at me with a mix of affection and heat and a touch of exasperation that I’m pretty sure is just always going to be there.
“I suppose we’re going to argue for the rest of our lives about you being smart enough to realize how great we’d be together first?”
He shrugs. “Well, obviously.”
“But you actually had a crush on him first,” my mom says.
I look over at her quickly. “What? No, I didn’t.”
“When you were nine, I distinctly remember you and Margot and Mia and Graham playing wedding. You were the bride and Graham was the groom, but you made Graham go by the name Jefferson.”
I’m staring at her. Not because I don’t remember that—it’s all flooding back to me now as a matter of fact—but because she’s talking about this in front of Jefferson.
But of course she is.
“That was only because Graham and I were best friends, and that was weird,” I say. “He just needed a different name.”
My mom nods. “That makes total sense,” she says. “Obviously he couldn’t have a name like Tom or Wyatt or any other name at all. Jefferson was really the only option.”
“ Now it’s time for us to go,” I say to Jefferson, standing.
He chuckles. “I don’t know. I’m really enjoying the conversation now.”
“It’s really time to go,” I insist, tugging on his hand.
“Also of note, she always wanted to get married in the gazebo in the center of town during the festival,” my mom says.
I gasp. “Not always .”
“Well, as a little girl that’s what you would pretend when you played wedding.”
“ Very interesting conversation,” Jefferson repeats.
“Jefferson,” I say calmly.
“Yes, Harlow?”
“If you ever want to stand in the gazebo with me ever again for any reason, you will get up and take me home right now.”
He immediately gets to his feet, but he and everyone else laughs the entire time we walk to the car.