CHAPTER 27
“Want to come over for dinner tonight? Junior told me you wanted to hang out. His words, by the way,” Aggie said.
Larissa had the phone she’d just answered on speaker, and it was lying on her bed, as were the three possible outfits for her date with Harlow tonight.
“Um… I can’t.”
“Are you busy? You’re never busy.”
“I just told him he could come over here sometime. He wanted to ride his bike.”
“Fourteen miles?”
“I know.” Larissa laughed. “And I am busy tonight, so I can’t, but another time.”
“Tomorrow night? Henry has a work thing, so it would just be you, me, and the boys.”
“I… don’t know. Maybe. Can I let you know?”
“Why are you being so weird right now?”
“I’m not being weird.”
“Yes, you are. You’re being cagey.”
“Cagey? I’m not cagey.”
“Yes, you are,” Aggie argued. “Larissa Louise, what are you doing tonight that you are barely able to focus on this not-at-all-important phone call with your sister?”
“I’m trying to get ready for… a date.”
“A date? With that Janine woman from your work?”
“No, it’s with someone else,” she said and couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
“Larissa Louise Hanson, you better not be messing with me right now. Are you going on a date with her? I mean a real date, where one of you asked the other using the word date, and there will be a real meal out somewhere, hand-holding, and maybe more?”
Larissa smiled wider and said, “Yes.”
“You told her? You really told her? When?”
“Not exactly. Last night.”
“Not exactly?”
“She asked me out after the interview we did last night. I think that one really got to both of us.”
“Why?”
“Two friends. They knew each other for a long time before they finally admitted how they felt, and they’ve been together for a while now. I know it got to me. I was thinking about Harlow and me the whole time, and after they left, she just asked me out.”
“That’s it?” Aggie asked. “Nothing else? No declaration of undying love?”
“We were talking about Janine because of… reasons, but I told her that I didn’t want to date Janine. Harlow asked if I wanted to date her, and I said yes. We’re going on our first date tonight. She should be on her way home from work, but we’re not supposed to see each other.”
“What?”
“She said she wanted to pick me up, but she lives with me right now, and I didn’t want to wait until she moved out to have our date.
When we were leaving the office space, I suggested that since we were driving separately, she could get home before me, and we could try not to see each other until the date.
It would’ve been like that if she weren’t staying here, anyway, so when she gets home from work, she’ll just go to her room to get dressed.
She wants to go outside and ring the doorbell like she just got here and is picking me up. ”
“Oh, my God. That’s so cute,” Aggie said. “Nathan, get that out of your nose!”
Larissa stood still, waiting to hear her sister give her an update on the toddler-with-something-up-his-nose situation.
“He put one of Junior’s crayons up his nose. Why do kids do that?”
“Didn’t mom tell me you swallowed a penny when you were four?”
“I wanted to know what it tasted like.”
“You could’ve just licked it. Either way, still gross, and he clearly gets this behavior from you.”
“I was four,” Aggie argued.
“And he’s two. Anyway, I need help.”
“Yes, a lot of it. But what about, specifically?”
Larissa rolled her eyes and said, “Clothes.”
“Oh, you’re picking out your date stuff. That’s why you sound like you’re in a tunnel,” Aggie said.
“You’re on speaker.”
“FaceTime me,” Aggie told her. “Show me what we’re working with here.”
Seconds later, Larissa had her sister’s face on the screen and had her phone aimed down at the outfits she’d chosen.
“One, you’re not a nun. Lose the turtleneck and blazer combo. God, Larissa. You’re not defending your dissertation in a room with a bunch of stuffy doctors.”
“It was supposed to make me look elegant.”
“It wouldn’t,” Aggie replied. “The second one is fine. Jeans say casual, but skinny jeans with some nice heels or decent flats elevate it to casual-dressy. The top is fine, but do you have to wear a button-down tonight? What about a nice sweater or something?”
“I mostly have hoodies. I’ve got a few sweaters in the closet. One might work.”
“Find a good one. And do your hair, Larissa. Don’t just toss it back into its usual working-from-home ponytail. Show the girl that you really care about tonight.”
“I do care about tonight.”
“Good. Show her that by doing your hair.”
“If I don’t get started on it now, it won’t be done by the time she gets here.”
“I’ll let you go, then. Good luck tonight.”
“Thanks. I need it.”
“You really don’t. She’s already crazy about you. Just be yourself and don’t drink too much. Maybe one glass of wine at dinner. Keep your low tolerance in check.”
“I will,” she said, laughing, and heard the door to the guest room open. “She’s here,” she whispered.
“She’s not a horror movie villain. Just hang up on me and get dressed. Let the girl pick you up. Go on your date.”
“Bye.”
Larissa hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed.
After finding a suitable sweater in red, because Harlow’s favorite color was red, she dressed and tried to do something with her hair, leaving it down to frame her face.
Harlow was in the next room. Well, she could be in the bathroom, Larissa supposed, but she was in the house, and they were going on a date tonight.
When they had left the office last night, she had driven home slowly to allow Harlow to get home first and tuck herself away inside her bedroom.
Then, she’d done the same in her own room, but with every second that had passed, she’d felt like she missed her and wanted to talk to her.
She talked to Harlow every single day, in one way or another, and had for years, but she had smiled and stared at her phone, typing and not sending text messages where she would tell Harlow that she was happy that they were finally doing this and that she was excited.
She’d resisted actually sending anything and had put her phone away eventually, needing to get some work done and get some sleep, too.
That morning, she’d stayed in her room until after Harlow had to leave for work, as per their agreement, but it had taken everything in her not to go out to the kitchen and make Harlow coffee, breakfast, and maybe lunch.
She’d only resisted because it had been important to Harlow to pick her up like it was a real date, which it was, of course, and if they weren’t living together right now, Larissa wouldn’t have been able to wake up and make her coffee anyway.
She heard Harlow’s bedroom door open and close, and then, seconds later, she heard footsteps moving farther away from her.
Larissa checked herself one more time in the mirror, slipped on her shoes, and grabbed her purse before she opened the door, checked that Harlow wasn’t in the hallway, and slowly made her way to the living room.
Making sure that Harlow wasn’t there, either, she stood and waited nervously.
When the doorbell rang, Larissa smiled, dropped the smile, and turned around in the middle of the room for no reason before she finally remembered that she had to actually open the door for their date to begin.
“Okay. Don’t be nervous. It’s just Harlow.
You’ve seen her hungover, with a Kleenex stuffed up her nose after she ran into the wall and nearly broke the thing.
It’s good. It’s all good.” She took a deep breath, walked to the door, took another breath for good measure, and pulled it open. “Hi,” she greeted with a wide smile.
“Hey,” Harlow said back.
They stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds and then both started laughing.
“Wow! We’re doing great so far.” Harlow chuckled.
“Yeah. Why is this so weird?”
“I don’t know, but my hands are clammy as hell, and I have been sweating profusely all day. I had to take a quick shower just now because I’m sure I smelled bad, and that would’ve been the worst way to start a date. Here.” Harlow held up a single red rose. “For you.”
“Thank you. Do you want to come in so that I can put it in water?”
“I just left.” Harlow laughed again.
“I know. Just… come back in for a second. I’ll put it in a glass, and we can go.”
When Harlow walked in, Larissa looked down because Harlow had also taken her hand and was now holding it with both of hers, looking down at them linked.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Do what?” Larissa asked.
“Take your hand like I had the right to. I mean, like we were doing this. Dating or more, or–”
“I get it,” she said, hopefully helping the nervous Harlow. “You’re cute when you’re nervous, you know?”
“I’ve never been so nervous in my life, not even when I was on that road trip around the country, and the car broke down in the middle of nowhere. The only one who stopped to help was a trucker named Earl, and I was terrified that he was a serial killer, and I was about to die.”
“You’re more nervous about this than that?”
Harlow looked back up at her and nodded.
“Earl was nice. He had some antifreeze with him to get us back on the road, so that worked out, and we didn’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere. Oh, never tell my mother that story. She’ll kill me herself if she hears it.”
Larissa laughed and said, “I won’t. I’m going to put the flower in water now, but you can hold my hand after that, if you want.”
“Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Harlow laughed nervously.
Larissa hurried to the kitchen, where she ran some water from the faucet into a glass and set the rose inside it. Then, she just stared down at it for a moment and decided that no matter how it went with Harlow, she’d keep that flower forever.
“Okay. I’m ready,” she said.
“I made a reservation. I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure. Where?”
“Um… I don’t know if you’ll like this. It’s not exactly a fancy place, but I took a chance.”
Larissa made her way back around to Harlow and said, “I don’t like fancy places.”
“I know. But it’s a date, Larissa.”
“It’s us,” she replied with a shoulder shrug.
“We once sat around on a Saturday and watched three movies back-to-back, eating bags and bags of popcorn and wearing footie pajamas because we wanted to be comfortable and warm. You spilled the melted butter on yours when you pulled it out of the microwave.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. God, that was a while ago.”
“You’d just gotten back from that trip where you were almost murdered by a serial killer,” Larissa replied.
Harlow laughed and said, “Earl was great. He did hit on Kacey, though. She made it clear that we were together, and instead of asking us if he could join us in bed, he surprisingly just left.”
Larissa’s face fell.
“Whoa! What just happened?” Harlow asked her. “You look sad now.”
“I’m okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “It’s just that you were with Kacey, Laurel, Samantha, Alicia, and, well, others. I had a weird reaction just now when you mentioned Kacey and in bed in the same sentence. That’s all.”
“You did?” Harlow asked, smiling a little.
“Yes. Why are you smiling?”
“You don’t like that I was with her?”
“Is it bad if I say that I kind of hate that you were with anyone, even though I have no right to say that, and it’s only our first date?”
“No, it’s good to know,” Harlow stated. “I hated that you told me you’d been with three people not all that long ago.
I won’t lie: I was thinking about how they, apparently, all told you that you were good at sex and wondering if we’d be good at it together for the millionth time, but I also hated that they got to touch you. ”
“Does it bother you that I’ve been so oblivious about this and just figured it out?”
“No,” Harlow said, shaking her head. “Does it bother you that I’ve wanted this for a very long time?”
“How long, exactly?”
Harlow took Larissa’s hand in hers again and replied, “From the moment I first saw you at that party and definitely when I saw you again as my TA.”
“What? Harlow…”
“We can get into this later. We don’t have to talk about it now.
I don’t want us to be late for dinner. I just…
I don’t want to put any pressure on you or this, but you should still know that, even though it might not have always seemed that way because I had a lot of girlfriends, it has always been you for me, Larissa.
Hearing Kit and Matilda talk last night about what they might have missed, and– God, just doing all these interviews with you where people tell us how they fell in love – it’s been driving me crazy because I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, and I never could.
I didn’t want to ruin what we had. I never wanted to risk losing you as my best friend.
Hell, you’re my only friend most of the time, but I couldn’t not tell you anymore.
I just couldn’t go another day without asking you to do this with me. ”
“I’m glad you did,” she replied and squeezed Harlow’s hand.
“Me too. Want to go to dinner with me now?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“Can I hold your hand in the car?”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Just, like, all night? Can I hold your hand all night? I’ve never been able to hold your hand like this before.”
“Yes, you can hold my hand all night. Well, with some exceptions.”
“Exceptions?” Harlow asked with a quirked eyebrow.
“Yeah, when I have to go to the bathroom or something.”
“Oh, so we’re not at that stage of the relationship yet where we watch each other pee?” Harlow joked.
“No, not yet,” Larissa replied and entwined their fingers. “Lead the way, Harlow.”