Chapter 38
Harper
Ihalf want to crawl into my bed and sleep, and half want to corner Luke and force him to explain why he’d dedicate a love song to me if he didn’t have feelings for me.
When we were walking back to the hotel, I was trying to work up the nerve to ask Luke about the song, but then he saw a VW bug, playfully punched me in the arm, and it was like he reset the friendship. It was his way of reminding me where we stood.
So why sing me a love song?
I was set on ending the night by taking a long, hot shower until the steam got so thick, I felt like the rest of the world didn’t exist. When Luke asked me if I wanted to search for the northern lights, I decided I was going to force him to give me answers, one way or the other.
My mind keeps going back to that song and then to that text message.
That text message was a joke.
Luke is running around the hotel room, packing up most of our things and all the blankets and pillows he can find.
“What are we doing exactly?” I ask, happy that at least I have something else to focus on besides whatever’s going on between us.
“We’re going to drive out to somewhere with no lights and clear sky and stay out until we see the northern lights.” He says the words confidently, like there’s no other option of anything else happening.
We’ve been trying to see the northern lights since we got here. Why would tonight be any different?
“Where are we going?” I ask, grabbing my hat from where I’d left it on the nightstand. I also go through my suitcase and pull out my extra sweater. I don’t know what exactly Luke has in mind, but I feel like it will end with me being cold.
“Closer to the coast. Outside the city. I figured we’d just drive until we found a place that lets us park overnight. There’s a cliff nearby that I think will be good.”
I blink a few times. “Overnight?” I ask, looking at his pile of belongings differently now. Is that why he was packing everything?
“We might have to be out all night to try to see them.”
“We have a flight tomorrow,” I remind him.
“It’s not until three. Which means we can sleep in or just sleep on the plane.” He looks up at me. “What?”
I shake my head, but I feel my face shift into a grin. It feels good to be playful with Luke again. “I think you’ve officially lost it, but if it means I get to see the northern lights, then let’s do it.”
Luke’s face lights up with a huge, genuine smile that makes me go a little weak in the knees. Maybe going out with each other in the middle of the night, cuddled up under the stars, isn’t my best move of self-preservation, but oh well.
He hands me a stack of blankets. “We’ll have to go out the back door. I don’t think the hotel will appreciate us taking all their blankets and pillows.”
I blink. “What?”
“We’ll bring it all back in the morning. We’re just borrowing it all.” He starts walking out the door, his arms full of all the pillows. When I linger, he gives me a wink. I move along, a little more eager to walk into my heart’s demise.
§
We pull up to a dirt parking lot. We’re not the only ones here.
There’s a camper van that makes me cringe until I remember that Cassie’s already flown home.
The van is closed up for the night with its lights off, and they’re probably already asleep, seeing as it is almost midnight by the time we get there.
Luke parks the rental car on the other side of the lot from the camper van.
Supposedly this place has a view of a massive cliff, but in the dark, it just looks like we’re sitting in an abyss of black. The sound of the ocean crashes around us, water slamming into the cliffs surrounding the parking lot.
Luke gets out of the car first, moving to the back to open the hatchback on the trunk, and starts messing with the blankets and pillows. He pulls the back seats down until they’re flat so we can both lie side by side in the back.
“Ready?” Luke asks, peeking up at me. I’m still sitting in the front seat, turned around to watch him.
He motions for me to climb forward, so I do.
I stretch across the center console until I’m on the large bed he’s made for us.
He pulls one side of the covers up, and I climb under, clothes and all.
It feels a little silly to be bundled up, but when the ocean breeze cuts through, I’m thankful for the excessive blankets.
Once I’m lying down, Luke tucks me in, making me feel like a little kid at bedtime. He climbs in beside me, the car moving a little as he struggles to get under the blankets.
I laugh, watching his shoes get caught on the fabric.
In hindsight, we probably should’ve taken our shoes off, but I didn’t want to struggle with cold feet all night.
It takes him another minute to get situated.
On our backs, we look up at the sky through the hatchback’s open trunk. Not ideal, but it works.
“Comfy?” Luke asks, turning to me. He’s so engulfed in blankets that he looks ridiculous. He has them pulled up all the way to his chin. Between that and the beanie he’s wearing, the only exposed bit of skin I can see is his face.
I have to stifle my giggle.
“Sure,” I agree. For making a bed in the back of a car without a mattress, it isn’t too bad. I’m caught between wanting to go back into the warm hotel and wanting to stay out here with Luke, pretending that this situation that feels very romantic actually is.
Luke is satisfied with my answer and looks up to the sky, which is just stars.
Now that we have settled in, the awkwardness from the events of the past couple hours hovers in the air between us.
“Harper?” Luke says, his voice calling out in the darkness. We’re both lying on our backs, a lump of blankets between us. I can see Luke’s breath in the air. “I’m sorry about the song if it made things awkward.”
There’s a sadness in his eyes as he speaks, and his words stir everything inside me even more.
“Why that song?” I say, the words from the song and the words from our conversation at the canyon jumbling together.
He shifts onto his side until he’s facing me. It’s like we’re on the beach again, just the two of us. His eyes are soft, and he keeps his eyes on me as he speaks.
“I just wanted you to know how I feel about you and that. . . there’s sparks.” He smiles awkwardly, quoting the song. “But if you don’t feel that way, I can let it go. I can be just friends. But I needed to ask, or I’d always wonder if there was more.”
I open my mouth to speak, but I’m like a fish out of water, gasping for air. “I’m confused,” I finally say, because what he’s saying can’t be true.
Why go out with Cassie then?
And then I feel stupid. I’m the reason he went out with Cassie. I made him go out with her. It was some point between Cassie and Tom that I realized I needed Luke in a way that was more than just friends.
“Wait.” I’m re-sorting everything in my head, trying to view things as if Luke had liked me as more than just a friend the entire time. “The text was real?” Though I think I know the answer, I’m afraid to hear it confirmed, just in case I’m wrong.
“Yes,” he says finally.
There’s breathless relief, releasing tension that I didn’t realize I’ve been holding.
“I didn’t think you felt the same way, so I said it was a joke because the last thing I wanted to do was to lose you,” he says. “Even if we’d only ever be friends, I wanted you in my life.”
I bring my hands up to my face, running them down my cheeks. I start laughing into my hands because the emotion that breaks free is so dramatic, I feel giddy.
I feel Luke’s hand tug on mine, pulling them away so he can see my face. “Just to be clear, this is a good reaction, right?”
I start laughing harder now, just because his response is so.
. . Luke. And I love him for that. Because that’s what all this is, isn’t it?
It’s not just a protective sense of someone I’ve known my entire life.
It’s love, a feeling we’ve created for each other because we’ve so effectively wrapped ourselves around each other as we’ve grown up, never knowing that one day, it would be more.
“Yes.” I nod.
His smile widens, and it takes everything in me not to throw myself at him. Luke must have the same thought as me, but he doesn’t resist it like I do. He closes the distance between us, moving the blankets out of the way and pulling himself forward until he’s leaning over me.
Twenty-two years together, and it’s like I’ve been holding my breath the entire time. He closes the distance between us, his lips touching mine, eager and so blissfully soft.
His hand cups my cheek and then wraps his fingers in my hair, pulling me closer. I fall into him, one hand resting against his chest while the other curls around his neck, skimming the hair sticking out from under his hat. The motion is so familiar, yet so shockingly different.
Kissing Luke should be awkward and new, but it feels familiar, like home.
Too soon, Luke pulls away, his face still inches from mine, smiling at me like he’s trying to memorize my face the same way I’m trying to learn his in this moment. He’s not Luke, the boy I’ve grown up with. He’s Luke, the guy I could spend the rest of my life with.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he says, brushing his thumb over my cheek.
I’m absolutely giddy, feeling his skin brush over mine. But in the darkness, I notice a bright strip of green in the sky.
“Luke!” I almost squeal.
He almost jumps off me in surprise, but when I point to the sky, his face shifts from shock to mirror the same delight that’s on my face.
I push away the blankets and jump out of the car.
The aurora borealis is above our heads. The thick, green stripe of color soaks across the sky, moving so slowly it’s hard to catch unless you stare at it long enough.
Luke’s still sitting in the car, staring at the sky, so I grasp his hand and pull him out to stand beside me. The air is freezing, especially without the piles of blankets on us.
Once Luke is standing, he doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around me, pulling me to his chest. I follow suit, wrapping my arms around him and resting my head against his chest. The way the two of us wrap around each other feels like the most natural place to be, and I wonder how I’ve gone my entire life without this type of closeness with Luke.
I keep my chin pointed to the sky, watching the green strips move slowly across the expanse. Luke shifts, kissing the top of my head before resting his chin on the hat I’m wearing, his arms wrapping tighter around me.
I shift my face into his chest, the smell of him so familiar and safe that if I closed my eyes, I’d assume I was in the living room of his parents’ house, playing like we used to every Friday night.
“Luke?” I ask. He loosens his grip just enough to look at me.
I almost get distracted by his proximity, seeing his face so close, so familiar, but also new.
I’d never seen this gaze of adoration painted across his features.
I unwrap my arm from around his back and reach out to touch his face, moving slowly, trying to soak it all in.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the faint glow of the northern lights, but I don’t let my eyes stray from his. That is, until my lips meet his.
I can feel him smile as I kiss him. I kiss him deeply, like I can translate exactly how I feel in this moment.
His grip is tight around me, like he’s afraid that if he lets go, I’ll run off.
The winds picks up, nipping at our skin, making us hold onto each other tighter.
When I finally pull away, I keep my eyes on him.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to figure this all out,” I tell him.
He shakes his head like it doesn’t matter. “I’m just happy to be here now.”
There’s a broad smile on my face as I nestle back against his chest, feeling like I could live in his arms forever. I’m not sure how long we stand there, snuggled into each other for warmth.
Eventually the bright stripes of green begin to disperse, growing wider, taking up more of the sky. They stretch and morph, the light getting dimmer as time goes on, until it’s hard to make them out any longer. Even then, we stand and watch the stars speckle the sky.