Chapter 17 #2
“So, I don’t really have any stuff,” she said. “I thought I should put that out there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, curling my arm under my head so I could see her better.
“Well, I’ve been living out of suitcases since I got out of college. My apartments were always furnished.”
“So, you’re not bringin’ any furniture when you move in.”
“I am not.”
“Yeah,” I frowned. “This isn’t gonna work.”
“Shut up,” she said with a chuckle, pinching my side.
“We can buy new shit if you don’t like mine,” I assured her. “I didn’t get with you for your stuff. I was hopin’ for a kitchen table, though.”
Harper shrugged. “I don’t mind eating on the couch.” She smiled. “Did I tell you that I hung out with pretty much all of my cousins while you were gone?”
“You haven’t said much beyond tellin’ me to take my pants off.”
“Well, I hung out with my cousins while you were gone.”
“How’d that go?”
“Great. Me and Frankie hung out a bunch, too, obviously. She apologized for keeping her distance. She was caught in the middle, so she tried to stay out of it.”
“I can see that. Myla and Lou are her best friends, but you’re Gray’s sister.”
“Exactly.”
“You see Lou at all?” I asked.
Harper shook her head. “Do you think—” She grimaced. “I know it wasn’t romantic for you, but do you think it might’ve been for Lou?”
“Not that I know of,” I replied, thinking back to the first and only kiss. “I thought we’d both agreed it was weird.”
“Or did you say that it was weird, and she agreed because she didn’t want you to know that it wasn’t for her?” Harper said carefully.
“Shit, I don’t know.” I replied. “She’s dating and shit, though. I don’t think she was waiting for me to change my mind or anything.”
“Well, I haven’t seen her,” Harper said. “And if she’s one of your best friends, that seems kind of weird.”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t seen Lou much either, and she hadn’t texted like she normally would. I hadn’t thought much of it because I’d been so wrapped up in Harper and the shit up in Portland, but it was strange she hadn’t reached out.
“Maybe you should talk to her,” Harper said, leaning over to kiss the side of my chest.
“Yeah, I will,” I agreed, though I wasn’t sure what the hell I’d say to her. I didn’t want to call her out and embarrass her if she’d been carrying some kind of torch, but I also didn’t want to ignore her if I’d accidentally hurt her.
“It’ll work out,” Harper assured me. “You guys have been friends for a long time.”
“Yeah.” I had a feeling that Harper and I wouldn’t be hanging with Lou any time soon, but I hoped eventually we could.
“Speaking of facing things,” Harper said leadingly. “Since they won’t have to move me in here, maybe we should ask the boys to help you go through your mom’s house.”
I stiffened. “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna go now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before, you didn’t have an opinion on what I did with the house or when I did it, but now you’re pushin’.”
“Well, before I didn’t know that you loved me and we were building a life together,” she replied logically. “Now, I get a say.”
“Funny how that works.”
“Don’t try to act like you’re mad,” she said, patting my side.
“Not mad,” I grumbled. “Not ready yet.”
“That’s fine.” She kissed my chest again.
“But the longer you put it off, the harder it’s going to be.
You’ve already broken the seal. We were just there.
If you let it go months or even years—which would be dumb because even if it’s paid off, you’ll still be paying taxes on a house you’re not living in—it’s going to be even harder to go back. ”
“I hear you. Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure.” She paused. “I think you should reach out to your foster brothers.”
“Fuck’s sake,” I groaned, rolling on top of her as she shrieked in surprise.
Needless to say, the conversation ended there. At least for a while.
Three weeks later, Harper’s suitcases were unpacked and stored in the back of my closet, and we were sitting on the couch talking about the car I’d been working on for days and still couldn’t figure out what the hell was wrong with it when her phone began to ring and her face lit up.
“It’s Bird,” she said incredulously. “Hello?”
She paused for a few moments, listening.
“Oh, my god, that’s genius,” she said with a little laugh. “Hold on, I’m going to put you on speaker so Bas can hear this.”
“Hey, Bird,” I said as she sat the phone between us.
“What’s up, Bas?” he replied. “How you been, man?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Tell him about the app,” Harper ordered.
“I developed an app that connects seniors to other seniors in their area—”
“Like a dating app?” I asked, grimacing.
“Works like that, yeah,” Bird replied. “But it’s not for dating.
I noticed that my grandma didn’t have a good way to meet other people.
Older folks are just sitting at home waiting for their kids to visit, especially if they’re not hooked up with the community for whatever reason and aren’t taking advantage of community centers and shit. They’re lonely, man.”
“So, he made a friend app for old people!” Harper said excitedly.
“Basically, yeah.” Bird chuckled. “They enter their personal information, which the company then does a free background check on, and they have to be older than sixty-five, much like a retirement community, and once it all checks out, they’re on the app.
It’s got location tracking and it’s insanely easy to navigate.
Plus, authorized users can also sign in to keep track of their elderly user whenever they want, see the messages sent, look at who they’ve met up with, that kind of thing—just in case they think that’s necessary. ”
“Fucking brilliant,” Harper said.
“You’re good for my ego, Harp.”
“It’s a good idea!”
“Thanks.” Bird paused. “I called you because I’ve gotten the financing, and the app is going to launch soon, and I think it’s going to be big. We’ve used a beta version here in the Seattle area, and it’s going really well. Nova mentioned that you’re between jobs right now.”
“I don’t know anything about apps,” Harper said quickly.
“I can teach you anything you need to know about this one,” he replied calmly. “I want you to be my CFO.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I’m not.”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Excellent.”
I watched as emotions raced across Harper’s face. Excitement, joy, nervousness, and eventually disappointment.
“Bird, I can’t move to Seattle,” she said apologetically. “Bas and I just moved in together, and I want to stick around Eugene.”
“Fully remote,” Bird replied. “I’m not an idiot. I know you’re settled in down there—congratulations by the way.”
“Thanks,” Harper said, her eyes filling with excitement again.
“We’ll video chat for meetings a few times a week in the beginning and then probably less as we get into a rhythm.”
They continued on with the discussion, throwing different shit back and forth that I didn’t understand a bit—but I did understand the salary he offered, and I felt like my eyes were going to bug out of my head.
Harper grinned at me and did a little dance in her seat.
It was five times what I made, and the Aces paid us well.
“You still there, Bas?” Bird asked as the conversation wound down.
“Yep, just lettin’ Harp do her thing.”
“You guys should come up and visit soon,” he said. “I’ll take you to all the touristy shit.”
“Sounds good, man.”
“Harp, call me Monday, and we’ll start your intake.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for thinking of me!” Harper said happily.
“Shit,” Bird said, a smile in his voice. “Like I would’ve offered it to anyone else. I just got lucky I didn’t have to steal you from whatever company you were working at.”
They hung up, and Harper and I sat in silence for a few moments, staring at each other.
“It’s fucking perfect!” she screeched, diving across the couch. She peppered my face with kisses as she straddled me. “Remote! Fucking fantastic pay! And I’ll be working with BIRD!”
I laughed as she squealed. “Remember all those times I told you it would all work out?”
“No one likes a know-it-all, Sebastian,” she sang, wrinkling her nose. “This is literally the best-case scenario.”
“You think it’ll take off?” I asked.
“Oh, no doubt,” she replied, sitting back on my knees. “I’ll have to take a look at the numbers to know for positive, but from what he just told me, they’re in an excellent position. Bird’s going to be a millionaire.”
“No shit,” I breathed.
“I fucking knew he’d do something big,” she said, smiling huge as she shook her head from side to side. “I knew.”
She climbed off my lap and picked up her phone. “I’m going to call my mom.” She pumped her arms in the air and grinned a huge cheesy grin. “And we need to start looking for a house. Big one. On property? Do you want property? It’s a lot of work, and I’m not interested in mowing, so that’s on you.”
“Property sounds good,” I called as she started up the stairs.
“Perfect! I’ll ask Uncle Tommy if he has anything, and if not, we can start looking online.” Her voice faded away as she disappeared at the top of the stairs.
Well, fuck me. In less than an hour, Harper had been offered her dream job and had decided we should buy a house.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Harper was full steam ahead—always.
It was only in relationships that she struggled being assertive.
More than once since we’d moved in together, she’d spent all night wondering if she should ask one of her cousins to hang out.
Even after she’d been blatantly welcomed into the fold and convinced that she’d never been out of it in the first place, she was cautious.
I should probably take a little of that confidence and do some shit that I’d been putting off.
Glancing at the stairs, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found Lou in my contacts. We still hadn’t seen or heard from her even though we’d hung out with Myla and Frankie a few times.
“Hello?” she answered cautiously.
“Hey, Lou,” I said, getting nervously to my feet. “Where the hell have you been?”
She laughed quietly. “Oh, I’m around.”
“I haven’t heard from you in over a month.”
“Well, you’ve been busy,” she hedged. “I was letting you and Harper get all settled in and stuff.”
“We’ve seen Myla and Frankie,” I reminded her, unwilling to let it go.
“Yeah, I was busy those nights.”
I didn’t reply. Usually, if you waited long enough, people spoke. No one liked awkward silences.
“It’s just different now,” Lou said finally. “Which is fine. I’m happy for you. I just don’t think I really fit into your life anymore.”
“That’s bullshit,” I argued as Harper silently came back down the stairs. “We’re friends.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Bas, we were together all the time. Three or four nights a week. That’s not how it is now. You have Harper.”
“So, because I’m not hanging out as much, we can’t hang out ever?” I asked in frustration.
“We’ll hang out,” Lou said. “Okay? I’m sure I’ll see you at a party or whatever.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again, unsure what to say.
“Take care, Bas,” she said. Then she hung up.
“You okay?” Harper asked from the bottom step.
“Lou,” I replied, gesturing with the phone.
“Didn’t sound like it went well.”
“I don’t think I fuckin’ handled it right.”
“What did she say?”
“That she’d see me eventually and that things were different now because I’m with you.”
Harper nodded.
“It’s not like I could ask her if she was into me, and that’s why she fuckin’ disappeared when we got together.”
“Don’t do that,” Harper frowned.
“I wasn’t goin’ to,” I replied. “I don’t want to embarrass her or call her out.”
“She’ll come around eventually.”
I groaned as I walked toward her, wrapping my arms around her waist. Because she was standing on the stair, our heights were much closer than usual when I kissed her.
“I wasn’t tryin’ to fuckin’ hurt her,” I said, sighing. Guilt hit me hard when I remembered how Lou’s voice was all stiff and stilted. “I feel like shit.”
“It’ll all work out,” Harper whispered. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I brushed her hair out of her face and ran my thumb along her jaw. “So…you want a house?”
“Yes,” she said as I lifted her and started up the stairs. Her legs wrapped around my waist. “Two stories. At least four bedrooms. Do you think three acres are enough, or should we think bigger?”