Seven
The smell hit first. Plasticky, with a hint of pine. Dust hung in the morning light, suspended in a soft, floating haze.
“You started without me.” London tossed her coat onto a hook behind the front door.
“Had to.” Harper didn’t look up. “We lost a week with the drying out and inspections. I want to make sure you get open again before Christmas. Like you asked.”
Harper scooted forward a foot and clicked the next board into place. The sound of the mallet hitting the plank reverberated off hollow, open walls. Another board down. Three more taps. Harper was on autopilot. She checked the seam with her thumb and reached for another plank.
“How can I help?” London knelt and ran a hand over the new flooring. Already, the space was transforming from hollow shell to something with life. She could almost see guests dragging suitcases in. Snow boots thudding toward the stairs.
London had picked from what was available—engineered hardwood that looked rustic.
No discussion, no debate. Paid for and ready for Harper to pick up.
There had been a time when they’d have had a heated discussion about the color of the stain or the width of the planks.
There had been a time when Harper would have put her to work without being asked.
London had once stood in this exact spot, holding stain samples against the floor like eye charts. “One, or two. Two, or one? Or about the same?”
When had they refinished the floors? Eight, maybe nine years ago?
“They’re both too dark,” Harper had said back then. “You’ll see all the dust in the summer and water drops in winter.”
“But dark is sleek,” London had argued. “And dark is sexy.”
“We’re not running a brothel.” Harper hooked a finger through London’s belt loop and pulled her closer. By then, they’d stopped worrying that every argument was the end. The once raging wildfire had settled into something steady. Warm. Comfortable.
London blinked herself back to the present just as Harper moved a strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Run out to the truck and grab a few more boxes. And then you can hand them to me. It’ll be faster.”
London dropped the boxes a little harder than planned and Harper turned. For the first time since they’d reconnected—if that’s what this was—their eyes locked. Harper’s were tired. Guarded. Worn. How dare she look wounded. She’d cheated. She’d left.
“Are you sure it should be running in this direction?” London tore into a box of planks.
“I’m sure.”
“But—”
“London, I’m sure.” Harper didn’t look at her this time. “It ran this way before. Parallel to the fireplace.”
“I was just thinking, this is an opportunity for a change.”
“Doesn’t make sense to have all the short ends butt up against the hearth.”
Oof.
Harper was right.
Again.
That was so annoying. This time, there would be no laughs that led to them falling into bed after a silly non-argument. Just the methodical tap of the mallet. Seams and straight lines.
“Got it.” London brought the open box closer and kneeled beside her.
Harper reached for the next board, then paused, glancing at London’s hands on the floor.
“Hand me that one,” she said, like she hadn’t noticed at all.
As the song in the background changed, the opening guitar riff of All Apologies filled the room. Harper reached for the volume and turned it up.
“You still listen to this?”
“We’re in Washington. I thought it was required.” Harper shrugged and kept working.
That almost smile. That California-bred resistance to Washington that London knew was an act.
It was true she’d tried to convince Harper about Nirvana’s importance in the grunge era more than once. But it was also true that Harper had been receptive.
“I used to rewind that line.” London handed another board, Harper grabbed it. They were in rhythm.
Harper measured the last opening on the row. “Twenty-nine and a half,” she said under her breath. And louder, “I know. I was there for that.”
“What, you don’t think it’s cool they made everyone gay in this song?”
“I don’t think that’s what it’s really about.”
“Who cares. I’ll die on that hill. Kurt Cobain was an ally, and you know it,” London said.
“You always needed proof that you were allowed to take up space.” Harper stood. “Not everything is about gay rights. It can just be a song.”
Harper had grown up in Los Angeles, not a small town in the mountains of Washington.
They would never see eye-to-eye on the importance of that song being more than just a song.
Or any glimmer of queer representation, for that matter.
Harper hadn’t had to scour and search for any semblance of people who were like her the way London had.
“Well, that’s how I hear it—” London said.
“I’ve gotta cut this.” Harper was two steps away before London finished
The door slammed. “—and it’s important to me.”
When she returned, Harper slid her work into place. “Perfect.”
By then, the song had changed but the mood lingered. How London wished the music would change from the angsty soundtrack of her youth to something less charged.
She offered another board and accidentally brushed Harper’s hand. Instant zing. It was duller, but still electric. There was energy when their skin collided, even after all this time.
“Lon?”
Had Harper felt it, too?
“Yeah?”
“If we keep this pace, we won’t finish. The road’s supposed to ice over after dark.”
It was a fair observation. And they were in an inn. With lifted occupancy restrictions. They’d been working together for hours, and London didn’t know where her wife—her ex—was staying in town. Still didn’t know why she was there in the first place.
“You can stay here tonight if you want. I’ve got the space.” London looked around. She had plenty of space.
“It’s not about wanting.” Harper pulled the tape measure across a section of floor. “The road’ll be slick.” She let the tape wind back on itself. “I’ll take the back room.”
# # #
Dark settled in as it was wont to do in winter, leaving London alone in what used to be their suite. Her body ached from lifting and bending. Her mind ached from trying to decode Harper’s icy coolness punctuated with occasional flashes of warmth. It had been push and pull all day. Mostly push.
She reached for the phone, still warm from charging on the nightstand.
You up?
Laurie would most certainly be up. She always said she was a vampire trapped in a lawyer’s body.
Yep. Is this a booty call? Did you finally realize you want me?
That was permission enough. London hit dial.
“Hey. DUKE PLEASE!” Laurie didn’t bother to cover the mic. “Sorry, hi. How was today? You get a lot done?”
“I think?” London pulled the king-sized duvet snug against her chin. “You know she has her ways of doing things. I was just the gopher.”
“That’s good, right? Harper knows what she’s doing. You guys getting along okay?” Duke had calmed in the background. Maybe Laurie gave him a bone.
“Well enough. It’s just—” London stared at the ceiling. “She won’t let me in. At all. I keep trying. She’s all business. Barely looks at me.”
“What did you expect, babe? You bribed her to come fix the inn she lived in with you forever. She’s probably hurting. Harper never did feelings. You know that.”
Laurie had a point. Getting Harper to talk about her feelings was like trying to nail water to a wall. She avoided, deflected, or simply went quiet. Never too happy. Never too sad. And especially, never too angry.
“You’re right. I guess I hoped—”
A knock.
“Hang on a second.”
“Yeah?” She called, sitting up.
The bedroom door opened a crack, then more. Harper's head appeared around the door frame, hair still damp from the shower. “I don’t have anything to sleep in. Can I borrow—”
“Let me call you back.” London tossed the phone onto the pillow and hopped up without waiting for a reply. She’d apologize later.
Harper stepped into the room wearing the same clothes she’d worn all day. Her bare feet were rooted in the soft carpet, toenails painted a shimmering purple.
Harper painted her toenails?
London flipped through the contents of a bottom dresser drawer, very aware of the air between them.
“Thanks.” Harper reached for the T-shirt and shorts. “Oh, wow. You still have this.”
The top was a promo T-shirt for Juniper's Harbor, the TV show they'd worked on together all those years ago. Its graphic had a man and woman in a deep embrace, the tagline, “Find your home in the Harbor,” printed beneath them.
“It’s a classic,” London said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Must be worth a fortune by now.”
Harper sat next to her. “Hardly. That show was garbage.”
Here was the moment. Here was her chance to stretch this out. To get to something real.
“True. Your nails look nice. Good color.”
Harper glanced down at her feet, then back up.
The unease in London’s stomach spread, slow and insistent.
Say something. Anything.
“Thanks for helping me. You didn’t have to come, but I’m glad you did.”
Nothing.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“Finish the floors. Start building kitchen cabinets,” Harper said flatly.
London knew this Harper. The monotone replies. The refusal to engage. It must have taken everything she had to ask for clothes.
In their early days, they argued regularly about things that didn’t matter—toilet paper over or under, sheets tucked or untucked, whose turn it was to cook.
In their middle years, the disagreements were deeper, rooted in behaviors and triggers.
London’s tendency to make decisions without asking.
Harper’s my way is the only way approach to so many things.
By the later years, they didn’t argue at all, which made things easier but perhaps was more telling than London realized. This was the later years—continued.
Forced air heat rattled the ducts, and London let the silence stretch until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Why are you here?”
“At the inn?”
“No,” she held Harper’s gaze. “Here. Leavenworth.”
“A job. It’s temporary.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
There. She said it. Said the thing she most wanted to know.
No, not wanted.
Needed to know.