Callum & Harper (16 page)

I gave up the chase and fell to the ground, my back on the floor, and covered my face in utter embarrassment. “You did it. You told her.”

“
And the worst part is someone had their camera out and caught it all on film,” Cherry finished, sucking in a labored breath.

Harper was laughing so hard, she couldn’t breathe.
    “Why is my life so hard?” I asked the ceiling.
    “Oh my God, Callum. That is the best and worst story I’ve ever heard!” Harper said, falling to her back on the sofa in amusement. She sighed loudly, like she’d just caught her breath.
    “I’m going to die of embarrassment,” I said.

Cherry started to rummage through the bags, chuckling to herself. Harper stood up and laid down next to me. She wound her arm with mine and I let my hands slide off my beet red face to the floor. I turned my head to stare at her.

    “
You can’t die of embarrassment, trust me.”
    “Can I die of humiliation?”
    “No,” she said, taking in my flushed face. “Well, maybe,” she teased.
I elbowed her, then stood up before taking her hands and bringing her to her feet. Her body came dangerously close to mine as she stood and I had to shake my head to regain composure. All I wanted to do was attack her face and neck with my lips.
    I walked over to the bag. “I’m going to kill you, Cherry.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” she said, plopping herself on the sofa and taking a long swig from her coffee. “Ah, the nectar of the gods.”
    “You know,” I said, removing my own coffee from the carton and setting in next to Cherry, “Harper doesn’t drink coffee.”
    “
What
?” Cherry asked. “Get out of my house.”
I laughed. By this time, Harper had started going through the bag.
    “You got me strawberry jam? Oh! And extra sugar! I think I’m in love with you, Callum!”

Customarily, a statement like this would be passed over as exaggerated but an uncomfortable silence filled the room and Cherry took it as some sort of hint. Harper just stood with her back turned toward me, pretending to fiddle with the lid to her tea.

    “
I’m gonna’ hop in the shower,” Cherry said, winking at me and making me blush.
    As Cherry, left the room, the silence grew so thick I could almost reach out and grip it in my hands.   
    “Harper,” I said, clearing my throat. “I, uh, wanted to...”
A loud knock came at the door.
Damn it!
    “I’ll get it,” Harper said, setting down her tea but I realized who it might be and jumped up quickly.
    “No, um, let me get it,” I said, practically cutting her off.
When I swung open the door, Sam stood there again and Harper came to stand behind me.
    “Oh, hi, Sam,” she said, leaving the door way. I turned to see her attending to that darn lid.
    “What’s up, Sam?”
    “Oh, nothing,” she lied. “I just needed to talk to Cherry about tonight is all.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and clenched my teeth but opened the door anyway. It wasn’t my home to kick her out of and she was in the band with Cherry. I walked to the coffee table and picked up the bag. I watched Harper through the corner of my eye as Sam came in and closed the door behind her. Sam swung her arms as she sauntered toward the sofa and plopped down on top.

    “
It’s so freaking hot outside,” she said, removing her short jacket, revealing only a tank top underneath.

I rolled my eyes but Harper didn’t catch it. She was too busy watching Sam. Before long, Harper’s gaze flitted back to me, then back to Sam one more time. I sat in Cherry’s arm chair, hoping Harper would make eye contact so I could tell her to squeeze in next to me but she wasn’t paying attention and sat on the opposite side of the sofa from Sam. Another awkward silence filled the room. Cherry came out from the bathroom dressed but her hair wrapped in a towel.

    “
What’s up, Sam?”
    “Nothing really. I wanted to go over the set list.”
    “Oh, yeah. Cool. Let me grab my bag. I think I left it on the washer,” Cherry said before leaving the room for the small kitchen.
    Sam turns toward Harper without missing a beat, revealing the true reason she came. “So, Cherry tells me that you and Callum are getting an apartment together?”
Harper turned the palest shade of white and gulped audibly. She looked at me, tears welling in her eyes.
    “Yes, we are,” I told Sam but looking intently at Harper. “We had a slight hiccup. It’s not a big deal but we will eventually get an apartment together.”
    “Isn’t that a little weird? I mean you guys barely know one another. Are you, like,
that
kind of girl?” Sam asked Harper with more acid than I felt necessary.
She wasn’t even pretending to be nice and she was implying that Harper was not classy or something. I couldn’t stand for that.

“
No, Sam!” I said. “We’ll have two separate rooms. We’ll be proper roommates.” I sat back in my chair, feeling satisfied that I defended Harper’s honor.
   
Harper

Any doubt I had that Callum may have liked me, completely vanished the instant he insisted to Sam that we were strictly roommates. I felt like such a complete fool. He liked Sam. And who wouldn’t? Sam was gorgeous.

She was tall, well taller than me, with bright beautiful blonde straight hair that tapered down her back. She had light blue eyes and a body that could rival Brooklyn Decker’s. Who, by the way, I finally realized she looked exactly like. I believe I was close to the exact opposite of Sam. Bigger hips, bigger eyes, bigger lips, bigger hair. Everything about me was bigger than her except for my height,
of course
. I had coppery hair and gold eyes which I’d always thought were sort of my best features until, that is, I met Sam, now I wasn’t so sure.

Yeah, she was prettier than I was, maybe, but that didn’t bother me. It never really bothered me to meet girls prettier than I was. I was jealous of Sam for a completely different reason. She had Callum’s attention. I thought, at first, that he was getting annoyed at her but then I realized that he was probably annoyed
with
her. She belonged to Charlie and she was untouchable. That would be enough to drive anyone insane.

“
Harper?” I heard but Cherry said it in such a way that it made me think she’d been trying to get my attention for awhile.

“
What? I’m sorry. Did you need me?”

“
I was asking if you wanted to borrow any clothes for the concert tonight.”

“
That’s really nice of you to offer but you’re like six foot tall, Cherry. I doubt anything would fit.”

At that, Cherry only laughed. “Come on, girl. Just check out my closet. I think I may have a few mini’s in there that would fit you. Any of them would look chic with a pair of combats,” Cherry said, winking at me.

She picked me up by my arm and dragged me to a closet set deep within the wall. She opened the doors and an unbelievably amount of clothing practically burst out.
    “Oh. My. Gosh.” I said, in shock. “How do you even close the doors?”
Cherry laughed out loud just as Sam came to stand beside her.
    “It is ridiculous, Cherry,” Sam laughed.
    “You say ridiculous, I  say magnificent,” she chimed in. “Alright, so let’s see.”
She dug around in her closet and pulled out  ten or fifteen different miniskirts that looked more like tube tops to me and threw them at my feet. I bent to pick them up, examining each one as I checked them over. I held up a dark silver sequin one and thought it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
    “I think that would look amazing with your hair,” she said. “Here, I have this awesome fitted grey Led Zeppelin v-neck that would look great with this. It’s too small for me so I’m certain it’d fit you like a glove.” She turned toward her closet and I stood up. Just then, I noticed Callum casually leaning against the wall, his arms crossed across his chest.
    “What?” I asked him, trying very hard not to let him effect me.

“
Are...are, are you going to try those on?” He asked, gulping down hard.

Hmm
.
Chapter Eight

6 Underground
Callum

   
Cherry and Sam had left hours ago to ready for the show, leaving Harper and I to get ready on our own. When they left, Harper had been exceedingly quiet, barely speaking a word to me and I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. I was lounging on the sofa, watching television, when she came out of the bathroom wearing the outfit Cherry let her borrow. My eyes literally bugged from my head. I stood, my palms beginning to sweat. I was forced to lock my knees to keep from falling forward.

“
Harper, you look
amazing
.”
    “Thank you,” she said and walked toward her bag, stuffing all its contents inside.

I watched the muscles in her exposed legs flex with every movement as the t-shirt clung to her flat stomach, making my head swim.

“
You can leave that here, Harper. Cherry will let us come back for it.”
    “Oh, okay,” she said, leaning against the sofa arm and crossing her legs at the ankles. I gulped down how sexy I thought that was.

“
Uh, are you ready?”
    “Yup,” she said, shortly, refusing to look at me as she stood.

   
I started walking toward the door and heard her follow. “Are you excited to see Barcelona?”
    “Of course,” she answered.
She was so short with me.
    “Is, I mean, did I do something wrong, Harper?” I asked as we descended the narrow stairs.
    “Um, no, of course not,” she said too softly.
    “Well, you aren’t acting yourself. What’s up?”
    “Seriously, nothing.”
I didn’t say anything back. There was nothing
to
say. She was obviously ticked off. I decided I’d just have to let it come out on its own.
    We rode the subway there in complete silence and she barely looked at me the entire time. I put my hand around her shoulder to let her know that I didn’t care if she was mad at me or not, I wanted to be near her and to my surprise, she didn’t shove me off. Instead, she laid her head on my shoulder like she couldn’t get close enough yet still refused to look at me.
    “I thought we’d get off here,” I said a few blocks from the concert.
    “What for?”
    “Charlie said I could park my motorcycle where all the bands buses are. I need to pick it up.”
    “Alright,” she conceded easily.
    The concert was held in Central Park and was more like a summer festival.  There was a main stage and several side stages, where The Ivories were supposed to be playing. We rode right up the path behind the main stage and were stopped at the fenced in gate.

“
Whoa!” A security guard said. “What are you doing?”

The guy didn’t say a word, opening the make-shift gate and letting us through. I slowly brought my bike toward the rear where Charlie said he’d be. I spotted Cherry first and stopped by their trailer. When I got off my bike, I helped Harper slide off the seat so her skirt wouldn’t show anything. I got a small smile for that and breathed a slight sigh of relief. She stood beside me, letting me unbuckle her helmet for her and I could feel the eyes of the band and Charlie watching us. I got the helmet off and hung it on my handle bar but when I turned around, I saw Harper shaking out her hair. The scent assaulted me, a fragrant punch to the chest, and my fingers itched to run through every single strand, to feel its silk. I caught myself and turned toward my friends and was taken completely back. The girls were talking amongst themselves, laughing and joking...but the guys. The guys were apparently struck as dumb as I had been when they caught a glimpse of Harper. Instinctively, I reached for Harper but she had already headed for Cherry, doing a little turn to show how her outfit looked on her.

I strode over to the guys and punched Josiah in the shoulder.

“
What the hell, dude?” He asked, rubbing his arm.

“
Can you all pick your jaws off the floor?” I asked, a little bit peeved. “Charlie?
Charlie
?” I snapped my fingers in his face to grab his attention.

“
What? Yes?” He asked and the others laughed.

“
Can you, maybe, not stare at Harper?”

He shook his head to clear it. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Callum. She’s extraordinary.”

“
I know,” I said, sighing at the typical direction our conversations usually went. That’s when I realized that Harper was one girl Charlie couldn’t have. “Listen, Charlie. I know you and Sam are over or whatever but I’d appreciate it if you could not go after Harper. She’s....She’s...”

“
Yours?” He asked, a twinkle in his eye.

The others had walked off at this point to visit with Harper, leaving us alone. “She’s not mine. No.”

“
But you want her to be,” Charlie said, stating it more as a fact than posing it as a question. He leaned against The Ivories’ sleek black trailer they bought for the previous summer’s tour.