After Ever Happy (After #4) (39 page)

“Three, all dancers.”

I laugh.

Tessa smiles a forced smile. “Oh, wow.”

“Oh gosh! Ballet dancers, not strippers.” Sarah bursts into laughter, and I join her, only to laugh at Tessa’s relief and embarrassed expression.

Tessa carries most of the conversation, asking random shit about the woman, and I zone them both out, only focusing on the curve of Tessa’s lips as she talks. I love the way she stops every few bites and primly rubs a napkin against her lips, just in case she’s got something on her.

Dinner continues this way until I’m bored, nearly to death, and Landon’s face is only a little red.

“Hardin, have you decided on graduation? I know you declined to walk, but have you given it further thought?” Ken asks while Karen, Tessa, and Sarah clear the table.

“Nope, haven’t changed my mind.” I pick at my teeth with my fingernail. He keeps doing this, bringing this shit up in front of Tessa to bully me into walking across the stuffy auditorium where thousands of people will be crammed into bleachers, sweating profusely and howling like wild animals.

“You haven’t?” Tessa asks. I look back and forth between her and my father. “I thought maybe you would reconsider?” She knows exactly what she’s doing.

Landon is grinning like the asshole he is, and Karen and the S-girl are chatting away in the kitchen.

“I . . .” I begin.
Fucking hell
. Tessa’s eyes are hopeful yet edgy, almost daring me to deny the idea. “Yeah, sure, fine. I’ll fucking walk for graduation,” I huff. This is such bullshit.

“Thank you,” Ken says. As I’m about to tell him that he’s fucking welcome, I realize that he’s thanking Tessa, not me.

“You two are so . . .” I begin, but am silenced by the warning in Tessa’s expression. “You two are so wonderful,” I say instead.

You two are conniving little shits,
I repeat in my head, over and over, as they share a smug grin.

E
very single time Sophia talked about New York during dinner, I began to panic. I’m the one who brought it up, I know. But I was only trying to take the attention away from Landon. I knew he was embarrassed, and I said the first thing that came to my mind. It just so happened to be the one topic that I shouldn’t have mentioned in front of Hardin.

I need to tell him tonight. I’m being a ridiculous, immature coward by keeping this from him. The progress he has made within himself will either help him handle the news well, or he will explode. I never know what to expect from him; it could go either way. But I do know both that I’m not personally responsible for his emotional reactions to things and that I owe it to him to tell him myself.

Leaning against the doorway of the dining room, standing in the hallway, I watch Karen wipe the top of the stove with a wet cloth. Ken has moved to the chair in the living room and is now asleep. Landon and Sophia are sitting at the dining-room table in silence. Landon attempts to sneak a glance at the woman, and when she looks up at him, she catches his eyes on hers and shows him her beautiful smile.

I’m not sure how I feel about this, with him so fresh out of a long-term relationship and already on to someone else. Then again, who am I to have any opinions on the relationships of others? I clearly have no freaking clue how to navigate my own.

From my vantage point here in the passway that connects the living room, dining room, and kitchen, I have the most perfect picture of the people who mean the most to me in the world. This includes the most important, Hardin, who sits quietly on the couch in the living room, staring blankly at the wall.

I smile at the idea of his walking during his graduation in June. I can’t imagine him in a cap and gown, but it’s certainly something that I am looking forward to seeing, and I know that it meant so much to Ken that he agreed to do it. Ken has made it clear on multiple occasions that he never expected Hardin to graduate from college, and now that the truth of their past is out in the open, I’m sure that Ken never expected Hardin to change his mind and go along with the typical graduation ritual. Hardin Scott is anything but typical.

I press my fingers to my forehead, willing my brain to function properly.
How should I bring it up now? What if he offers to come along to New York? Would he do that? If he does offer, should I agree?

Suddenly I can feel his eyes on me from where he sits in the living room, and sure enough, when I look over at him, he’s studying me, his green eyes curious, his soft mouth pressed into a soft line. I give him my best “I’m okay, just thinking” smile and watch as he frowns and gets up. In a few long strides, he’s across the room and leaning with one of his palms pressed against the wall for support while he hovers over me.

“What is it?” he asks.

Landon’s head lifts from his focus on Sophia at the sound of Hardin’s loud voice.

“I need to talk to you about something,” I quietly admit. He doesn’t look concerned—not as concerned as he should be.

“Okay, what is it?” He leans closer, too close, and I try to step away, only to be reminded that he has me cornered against the wall. Hardin raises his other arm to completely block me in, and when my eyes meet his, an obvious smirk covers his face. “Well?” he presses.

I stare at him in silence. My mouth is dry now, and when I open it to speak, I begin to cough. It’s always that way it seems, in a quiet movie theater, in church, or while having a conversation with someone important. Basically in situations where coughs don’t fit in. Like right now for example, I’m having an inner rambling session about coughing, while coughing, and while Hardin stares at me like I’m dying in front of him.

He pulls back and walks into the kitchen with purpose. He moves around Karen and returns to me with a glass of water for what feels like the thirtieth time in the last two weeks. I take it, and I’m relieved when the cool water calms my itchy throat.

I’m aware that even my body is trying to back out of breaking this news to Hardin, and I want to pat myself on the back and kick myself in the chin at the same time. If I did that, I assume Hardin would feel a little sorry for me due to my insane behavior and possibly change the subject.

“What is going on? Your mind is moving a mile a minute.” He looks down at me, holding his hand out for the empty glass. When I begin to shake my head, he insists, “No, no, I can tell.”

“Can we go outside?” I turn toward the patio door, trying to make it clear that we shouldn’t talk in front of an audience. Heck, we should probably drive back to Seattle to discuss this mess. Or farther. Farther is good.

“Outside? Why?”

“I want to talk to you about something. In private.”

“Fine, sure.”

I take a step in front of him to keep the balance. If I lead the way outside, then I may have a better chance to lead the conversation. If I lead the conversation, then I may have a better chance of not allowing Hardin to steamroll the entire thing. Maybe.

I don’t pull my hand from Hardin’s when I feel his fingers lace into mine. It’s so quiet—only the soft sound of the voices from the crime show Ken fell asleep watching, and the low rumbling of the dishwasher in the kitchen.

When we step onto the deck, those sounds dissolve, and I’m left alone with the sound of my chaotic thoughts and Hardin’s low humming. I’m grateful for whatever song he’s quietly filling the air with, but it’s distracting and helps me focus on something outside of the blowup that is sure to come. If I’m lucky, I will have a few minutes to explain myself and my decision before he goes nova.

“Spill,” Hardin says as he drags one of the patio chairs across the wood of the deck.

There goes my chance at having him calm for a few minutes; he’s not in a waiting mood. He sits down and rests his elbows on the table between us. I scramble to sit across from him and struggle with where to place my hands. I move them from the top of the table to my lap, to my knees, and back to the table before he reaches across and flattens his palm across my fidgeting fingers.

“Relax,” he softly says. His hand is warm, and it completely covers mine, giving me a sliver of clarity, if only for a moment.

“I have been keeping something from you, and it’s driving me insane. I need to tell you now, and I know this isn’t the time, but you have to know before you find out another way.”

He lifts his hand from mine and leans against the back of the chair. “What did you do?” I can hear the anxiety in his tone, the suspicion in his controlled breath.

“Nothing,” I hastily remark. “Nothing like what you are assuming.”

“You haven’t . . .” He blinks a few times. “You weren’t . . . with anyone else, were you?”

“No!” My voice squeaks, and I shake my head to prove my point. “No, nothing like that. I’ve just made a decision about something and have kept it from you. It doesn’t involve me being with anyone else.”

I’m not sure if I am relieved or offended that this was his first thought. In a way, I’m relieved, because moving to New York couldn’t possibly be as painful for him as my being with another man, but I’m slightly offended, because he should know me better than that by now. I’ve done my share of irresponsible, hurtful things to him, involving Zed mostly, but I would never sleep with someone else.

“Okay.” He rubs his hand over his hair and rests his curved palm over the back of his neck, massaging the muscles there. “It couldn’t be that bad, then.”

I take a breath, deciding to just throw it onto the table, no more dancing around the subject. “Well—”

He holds a hand up to stop me. “Wait. How about before you tell me what it is, you tell me why.”

“Why what?” I tilt my head in confusion.

He raises a brow to me. “Why you made whatever choice you’re pissing yourself over about.”

“Okay.” I nod. I sift through my thoughts while he watches me with patient eyes. Where should I begin? This is much harder than simply telling him that I’m moving, but it’s a much better way to communicate the news to him.

Now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve ever done this. Anytime some big, dramatic thing was happening, we always found out from other sources in that same big, dramatic way.

I glance at him one last time before I begin to speak. I want to take in every inch of his face, remember and study the way his green eyes can appear so patient at times. I notice the way the soft pink of his lips appears so inviting now, but I also remember the times when they were split open on one side, straight down the middle, blood pouring from the gashes from fighting. I remember his piercing there, and how it grew on me so quickly.

I relive the way it felt when the cool metal would brush across my lip. I focus on thinking back to the way he would pull it between his own lips whenever he was deep in thought, and how it just looked so tempting.

I think back to the night when he took me ice-skating in his attempt to prove that he could be a “normal” boyfriend to me. He was nervous and playful and had taken out both of his piercings. He claimed that he did it because he wanted to, but still, to this day, I think he removed them to prove something to himself and to me. I missed them for a while—I still do sometimes—but I sort of loved what their absence represented, no matter how undeniably sexy they looked on him.

“Hardin to Tessa: Care to share?” he teases, and leans up and rests his chin in the palm of one hand.

“Yes.” I smile nervously. “Well, I made the decision because we need time apart, and it seemed like the only way to be sure that actually happens.”

“Time apart, huh? Still?” His eyes set on mine, pressuring me to back down.

“Yes, time apart. Everything is such a mess between us, and I needed to put distance between us—really this time. I know we say that all the time, we do this little song and dance around everything, and we drive back and forth from Seattle to here, and then London got thrown into the mix; we are basically spreading our mess of a relationship across the globe.” I pause for his reaction, and receiving only an indecipherable expression, I finally tear my eyes from his.

“Is it really that much of a mess?” Hardin’s voice is soft.

“We fight more than we get along.”

“That isn’t true.” He tugs at the collar of his black T-shirt. “Technically and literally, that isn’t true, Tess. It may feel that way, but when you think back over all the bullshit we’ve gone through, we’ve spent more time laughing and talking, reading, teasing, and in bed, of course. I mean, I take a
long
time in bed.” He smiles a small smile, and I can feel my resolve weakening.

“We solve everything with sex, and that’s not healthy,” I say, pushing my next point.

“Sex isn’t healthy?” he scoffs. “We are having consensual sex, full of love and full of fucking trust.” He looks at me with intensity. “Yeah, it also doubles as amazing, mind-blowing fucking sex, but don’t forget why we do it. I don’t fuck you just to get off. I do it because I love you, and I love the trust you place in me when you allow me to touch you in that way.”

Everything he is saying is making sense, despite that it shouldn’t. I agree with him, no matter how cautious I try to be.

I feel New York City slipping farther and farther away, so I decide to drop the bomb sooner rather than later: “Have you ever looked into the signs of an abusive relationship?”

“Abusive?”
He sounds as if he’s gasping for air. “You find me
abusive
? I’ve never laid a hand on you, and I never would!”

I stare down at my hands and press forward with the honesty. “No, that’s not what I meant. I was referring to both of us and the way we do things to purposely hurt each other. I wasn’t accusing you of being physically abusive.”

He sighs and runs both hands over his hair, a sure sign he’s starting to panic. “Okay, so this is obviously much more than some stupid decision to not live with me in Seattle or something.” Then he stops and looks at me with a deathly seriousness. “Tessa, I’m going to ask you something, and I want your real honest answer—no bullshit, no thinking about it. Just say what comes to your mind when I ask, okay?”