Chapter 15
“You’re suing the police department for a dog ?”
The chair wobbles slightly when I lean back. I can practically hear Harper scolding me, so I let it fall forward and stand.
“Tides isn’t just a dog, Caroline.” My sister should know this.
Her sigh is nearly palpable through the phone. “Riley…I get that, I really do. But…”
Internally, I cower. “You think it’s stupid.”
“I didn’t say that. You’re throwing a lot at me all at once here, just give me a second.” She sighs. “It’s a big undertaking, Riley.”
I lean my head back in frustration. We’re adults. I’m her older brother. And I know my sister well enough to know when she’s trying not to hurt my feelings. This is something that came with maturity. She never gave a rat’s ass when we were kids. The difference now that she’s older, Caroline tries to be nice when telling me one of my ideas is dumb.
I stare at the books I’ve brought from my apartment and put on the table. If I’m being honest with myself, the prep probably surpasses the work of filing the motion. I mean, sure I passed the Bar. But even trial attorneys start somewhere. They intern with the best litigating firms. They know their way in and out of a court room. They’ve built their confidence from the ground up. And me? It’s the same old story.
I’m intimidated by reading books. I’m intimidated by speaking in public.
Unfortunately for me, to pull this off, I need to do both of those things.
Eyeing the stack in front of me, I rub my forehead. “I’m not expecting a cake walk.”
More like a mud run, I contemplate adding, but if I’ve got to fake my way in the court room, I’ve got to start faking it now. But I do need a little help.
“Trust me. I hate that I’m about to ask you for help, but that’s what I’m going to do.” Caroline is silent over the phone for several long, drawn out seconds. “Are you still there?”
“I’m waiting,” she responds.
“Waiting for what?”
“For you to ask for my help.”
I put my ego aside. “I need your help.”
“Say please .”
“Caroline—”
“Fine, fine,” she cuts in. “But you do know you aren’t a member of the Bar until you’ve been sworn in.”
I’ll admit, I’ve been so focused on just passing the Bar, I haven’t given a single thought about what comes after.
“Where can I do that?”
“You’ll probably need a week or two to make an appointment with the county clerk,” Caroline tells me. “In the meantime, procedural courtesy is to notify the other party in writing before filing a complaint.”
I recall my conversation with Silas. “I complained enough already.”
Caroline snorts. “Welcome to the legal world—put everything that doesn’t incriminate you or your client in writing. Have it be addressed from Harper. But in the meantime, you’ve got some work to do. Get a pen. ”
I don’t have a pen or paper, but I do have one of Lucas's crayons and the cardboard top to the game Clue.
And write, I do—all of Caroline’s instructions, her reading suggestions. I toss the box beside the stack of state law code books and grab my keys, returning an hour later with pens, notepads, highlighters, post its, a whiteboard, and a Slurpee because I could use the energy.
Harper’s car is already in the driveway when I park and I find her standing over the dining room table.
“What’s this?” She holds the box of Clue up.
I plop the plastic bag and white board on the table. “The Cliff’s Notes for How to File a Lawsuit for Dummies ,” I joke, but she doesn’t look too amused. I reach into the bag, pulling out note pads and tap the yellow, lined paper. “Can’t be a lawyer without a legal pad. They teach you that in law school, I just forgot.”
Harper looks only a hair more amused.
“Caroline called, and I needed to pick her brain. I didn’t have anything in my immediate vicinity to write on.”
Harper steps back from the table as I sit down. “Does she know your plan?”
“She does.”
“What does she think?”
I know my sister is trying to be supportive, but that doesn’t mean she necessarily thinks it’s a good idea. I redirect. “I need to see a copy of Nate’s most recent contract. Do you have it?”
“I think so.” She disappears and returns a few minutes later with a folder. “This one?”
Taking the paper from her, I curse under my breath at the size of the font and peek at the last page, checking the date. “Yeah, this should be it. Thanks.”
With the paper in front of me, I grab the legal pad, using it to cover the majority of text. Slowly, word by word and line by line, I read the document, looking for the words ownership or property .
I find it minutes later on the third page .
“There was a cop who had a dog,” I sing. “And BINGO.” I reach into the plastic bag for the highlighters. I toss them to her. “Open these for me.”
“What is it?”
I take the yellow marker and stick it in my teeth, pulling it free from the cap.
“Our case.”
It only takes me an hour and a half to realize I’m either not cut out for a desk job, or a dining room chair really isn’t suited for more than a three-course meal. My back is stiff as shit.
I know what will fix it, but yet I won’t give my aching body what it craves. I can’t. Instead of surfing in the ocean, I’ll be swimming in the dry waters of purgatory.
I stand, stretching. My eyes sweep across the living room and land on one of the many framed photos on the bookshelf of Lucas, Harper and Nate. It takes me a minute to look away from the curated reminder of the perpetual hell I deserve to be in.
And—deserve it or not—I need a beer, even though it’s still early afternoon.
In the kitchen, I grab a bottle from the fridge before dumping the remnants of my melted Slurpee into the sink. It’s impossible to ignore the flowers. I reach up, touching a soft petal. I think of the hundreds—or maybe thousands—of flowers I’ve seen over the years in this very same spot. But my eyes cloud over with the vision of the loose petals floating in the water between Nate and me.
Until my last breath, I’ll keep tulips on this window where they belong.
But right now, my attention is stolen by what’s happening outside of the window. I cautiously step away from the sink, as if my movement inside the house will spook Harper. I creep to the door of the back porch, quietly opening it so the noise doesn’t startle her either.
“What are you doing?”
The speed and ease with which Harper turns as she stands on the railing of the landing outside of my apartment almost gives me a heart attack.
“Get down.” I don’t even think I’ve ever used a lecturing tone with Lucas, even that time when he was four and scaled the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and I was watching him while Harper and Nate were at a wedding.
Harper rolls her eyes so intensely it’s impossible to miss even from across the yard. She turns, continuing to balance along the unbelievably narrow railing. I start to sweat.
“Harper.”
Again, Harper stops. This time she puts her hands on her hips, not wavering with unbalance in the slightest, like it’s impossible to fall. It’s something, I imagine, someone would say about an angel if they believed in all that. And maybe it helps that when the sun hits Harper’s blonde hair it shines almost gold, like a crown or halo.
“Are you okay?” she asks me.
I point to myself. “You’re asking me that? Me, who has both feet not far from the actual ground? If I fall down these steps I’ll bruise an elbow, not break my neck.” With more unease, I watch Harper’s toes flex over the railing. “Can…can you get down ?”
Harper looks around and then sighs. She jumps onto the landing of my apartment with a nearly silent thud and walks barefoot down the stairs.
By the time Harper reaches the grass, I feel infinitely better and more at ease—almost normal.
Except, also kind of angry.
“What were you doing?”
Harper looks over her shoulder back at the garage. “I was…centering my thoughts,” she decides .
“Centering your thoughts?” I repeat. “There’s a safer way to do that. You teach yoga for god’s sake.”
She whips her head back to me, a look of annoyance plastered all across her face, like I’m the problem for having the audacity to care about her physical well-being.
“I’m not sure how much it will matter that your thoughts are centered when your brains are splattered on the floor after hitting it.”
“You surf.”
Technically, not at the moment, but I play along. “Surfing isn’t dangerous.”
Harper doesn’t waste a second cocking an eyebrow.
Okay, surfing can be dangerous. I’ve busted my nose, gotten a concussion, and yeah, the first time I ever went into the ocean on my own I almost drowned and Nate had to save me.
“Surfing isn’t half as dangerous as…” I’m not sure what to call it. “Whatever that hoopla you’re doing on a railing that very likely isn’t up to code. You hear the noise when I walk up those stairs.”
“Heavy feet sounds like a you problem, Riley.”
I drop my hands, looking at the railing. “Were you a gymnast or something?”
It’s a fair question because I know very little about Harper before Nate brought her out here from North Carolina.
Harper presses her lips together, looking like she’s weighing the pros and cons of answering my question. I can understand, to some extent. After all, I don’t walk around with a shirt that says Dyslexic on it with an arrow pointing at my face. But we’re talking about childhood hobbies. I’m not particularly proud of the Ant Farm I grew myself when I was nine, but if someone asked me if I ever dabbled in bug-breeding, I’d fess up to it. But not how I let some of its tenants loose in Caroline’s room one time.
She sighs and mumbles something I don’t make out.
“What was that?” I step closer .
With her gaze down, Harper fiddles with the hem of her white t-shirt. “Acrobat.”
“Acro- what ?”
“I was an acrobat.”
I tilt my head. “Like…an acrobat.”
“Yes.”
I rack my brain but all I remember is Nate telling me when he met Harper in North Carolina she worked as a bar tender and taught yoga during the day.
“Did…Did, Nate know?”
Once again, Harper looks at me like I’m crazy. “Did Nate know?”
“I know the question, I’m the one who asked it.”
Harper shakes her head. “It’s not the question you asked, it’s how you asked it, like did Nate know you were a stripper ?”
“What’s wrong with being a stripper?” I ask.
“Nothing. Only if you insinuate there is.”
Now I have this image in my mind of Harper being some sort of acrobatic stripper, and I won’t lie, it kind of makes my ears burn in a good way.
I shake my head, trying to push the thought away. It’s harder to do than I’d care to admit and that’s…bad.
Because she’s my best friend’s wife, even if he’s no longer around.
“But did he?”
Harper’s nose wrinkles as she snorts. “Of course he knew. Do you think he’d be bothered by it?”
“No, no. It’s just that, I don’t know, that’s kind of like the cool thing you drop at a party when you’re the new kid. Like never have I ever been an acrobat.” I pause.“And when were you an acrobat exactly?”
“You can be more than one thing, Riley. Look at you. You’re a surfer and a lawyer. It’s not that crazy.”
I still can’t quite wrap my mind around this. “Being an acrobat is kind of crazy. Can you like, fly through the air? ”
“If there’s someone to catch me.”
Color me curious, I’m not letting this one go.
“What else can you do? Beside balance like a cat.”
Harper shrugs. “I’m full of lots of tricks.”
“Yeah?” I fold my arms across my chest. “Prove it.”
Harper narrows her eyes at my challenge and then looks around the back yard, lifting a straight leg with a pointed foot and running it across the grass. Her chest rises and falls with a deep breath before she straightens, raising the bottom of her shirt, which I think for one minute she might remove in stripper-like fashion, but then she just ties it into a knot so it sits secure.
And then, she turns away from me, and does a handstand. But not just a handstand—she’s walking on her hands.
I have this immediate reaction to step forward in case she loses her balance, but Harper then turns, heading back in my direction, so I stand still. No more than a foot away, her legs fall forward, her bare feet landing softly between my own. When the rest of Harper’s body follows, she straightens, our middles pressing against each other.
Harper brushes a loose, blonde lock from her face. “Sorry.”
I grip the grass with my toes because even though, unlike Harper, I’ve remained right side up things look a little different now.
The flush spares no inch of her face, not even her parted lips. The previously mauvy pink has brightened from the blood flow, as if her mouth has been smeared by a ripe, juicy strawberry. Gravity loosened her hair and more strands fall free. My instinct is to tuck it behind her ear because it covers her face and it feels sinful to curtain off Harper’s kind of beauty.
But the only sin going on here is how I’m looking at my best friend’s wife.
I’m not sure if it’s her flush or me just caught by surprise, but Harper—Nate’s wife or not—has gone from being objectively pretty in my eyes to outright gorgeous.
“I’m kind of rusty. ”
“That’s you rusty ?”
Harper steps back and I’m left in a cloud of her, a dusting of something sweet like honeysuckle and crisp ocean air. She unties her shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Is this you giving me a complement?”
“Where…when…” I laugh. “How did I not know this about you?”
Harper shrugs. “It’s not something I go around telling people.”
“Nate should’ve told me.”
“I asked him not to.”
“Why? Were you afraid someone would think you were some sort of circus freak?”
Harper drops her hands to her hips. “What if I was?” she challenges.
I realize by Harper’s tone and defensive demeanor maybe my remark was flippant even though there wasn’t menace behind it. But maybe someone at some point told her it was, and I don’t really like the idea of that. It might actually be the most interesting thing about Harper.
“I think that’s kind of cool. I actually love the circus. Not really the clowns though, they’re kind of creepy.” I pause to think, watching a softness return to Harper’s jaw. “Or the animals. I don’t think they’re all that happy.”
“If you don’t like the clowns or the animals, what’s left at the circus to like?”
Raising my hand to scratch the back of my head, I smirk. “I guess the acrobats.”