Twenty-eight
The suite had settled into that quiet that only came after a long day—heat humming softly through the vents, the faint creak of the inn shifting as the night cooled around its bones.
Harper’s arm was draped across her, warm and steady, her fingers tracing absent patterns just below London’s ribs. Lavender mist escaped the diffuser in a thin, pale ribbon and the room was—them.
“You know,” she said after a while, her voice low against the back of London’s shoulder, “Sebastian’s going to be insufferable tomorrow.”
“He already is.”
“Mm. But now he’ll feel justified.”
“Let him have it,” London said, eyes closed. The day was done, the hard conversation had been had, and they were warm and full and exactly where they should be. Heaven.
“So… I can’t convince you to show me this list?”
Harper, apparently, wasn’t finished.
“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“It’s embarrassing,” London said. “We’ve come so far.”
“All the more reason.” Harper kissed London’s neck, small at first, working her way deliberately upward.
“I don’t know—it’s—”
Harper continued to do what only she could. With great power comes great responsibility.
“Oh, all right,” London relented. “The minute you get to my ear you know I’m going to give in.”
Harper laughed softly against her skin, but didn't stop, her mouth lingering just long enough to make her point. “Good to know,” she said. Then, “List.”
London groaned, as if she were under duress, when in fact, she was enjoying every moment of this tease. “You’re relentless.”
“I’m curious.”
“Goddamn you and your simple seduction.”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s easy.” Harper was dangerously close to her ear.
“Alright. It’s in the nightstand, but I can’t look.”
Harper rolled over, and her hand was in the nightstand before London finished her sentence.
“Fifty in Fifty,” she said, louder than necessary.
She was going to make London listen. “Things I will do this year.” She landed with crossed legs up against the headboard, shaking the paper for effect.
She cleared her throat. Presumably also for effect.
“Fix the Colchuck,” she started. “I thought you said you didn’t get to any of them.”
London squirmed. That one was respectable. Neutral. “Maybe I forgot what’s on there.”
“You did not.”
“Okay, I didn’t. But that one—it’s not embarrassing.”
“Sign the divorce papers.”
London felt the heat rise on the back of her neck. “That one is embarrassing.”
“We’re only on number two.”
“It gets worse.”
Harper read silently for a moment, before narrating. “Learn to sail. A new country every month. Take a pottery class.”
London pressed her face into the pillow, as if that might somehow muffle the experience of being perceived this thoroughly. She remembered writing those—the sailing, the new country every month—convincing herself that if she could just become someone else fast enough, it might hurt less.
“Some of these are ambitious,” Harper said.
“Or delusional,” London murmured through the feathers and fluff that covered her face.
Each item landed a little differently. Some softened as they were read aloud, stripped of the urgency they’d carried when she wrote them. Others landed deep in her belly—shame, mixed with a quiet recognition of how far she’d been willing to go.
“Hmm,” Harper said after a moment that stretched just long enough to make London regret every life choice that had led her here. She may as well have been reading London’s journal.
“Kiss someone new, huh?”
There it was. Number seven: Kiss Someone New. Harper skipped over number eight, Mean It. She was either purposely sparing London or reading between the lines.
“Yeah,” she said. “That one.”
“Did you?” Harper asked, not sharp—just curious.
London rolled onto her back, and stared at the ceiling. This was beyond embarrassing. She could divert. She could plead the fifth. Or, she could tell the truth.
“I did.” The truth. She waited for devastation. For the shift in Harper's expression, the careful withdrawal she knew by heart. It didn't come.
Harper held her gaze, steady as ever. “And?”
London couldn’t contain the grin. Cheeky, as her mom would say. “Turns out, it’s possible to kiss someone new and have it be someone you’ve known for years.”
“That right?”
“Yeah,” London said, pushing herself up and leaning against headboard as well. “When you take the time to get to know that someone again—it can feel like the first time all over. Without the tourists in a golf cart.”
“Then there’s only one thing I have to know.” Harper turned to face London, expression carefully composed, holding something back.
“Anything.”
“Did you mean it?”
“More than you’ll ever know.”
“Good,” Harper said. “That would’ve been awkward otherwise.”
When they kissed, it wasn’t old. It wasn’t new, either. It was theirs.