What You Leave Behind (7 page)

“He’s not here,” Harper counters, her voice barely loud enough to cover the ticking of the clock, but even at the faintest volume, the depth of her sadness is apparent. “I can’t blame a ghost.”

“But that doesn’t stop the ghost from haunting you.” Austin can’t help but think of his father, of thick fists and leather belts, and the jagged scars that litter his body begin to ache. “Doesn’t stop the pain.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she agrees solemnly.

“That fucking bastard,” he seethes quietly as something starts to swell in his chest, tighten against his ribcage, and no matter how firmly his arms wrap around his torso, he can no longer hold himself back. His boots strike the tile roughly as he moves to the sliding glass door and heaves it open. His shaking hands fumble a soft pack of cigarettes and a book of matches from the pocket of his jeans. The pack is crushed from the hour he’s spent seated on it in the chair, and with his dexterity rattled, he struggles to remove a cigarette. When his fingers fail him, he shakes the pack until he gives up and pitches it viciously against the wall where the living room meets the kitchen. His anger is coming to a head, showing in his impatience and need, and he can’t stop himself from erupting. “I can’t—” He stalks across the room and back again, his hands clenching into tense fists at his sides. He knows the feeling in his chest is his heart trying to force its way to the surface, beating so hard up against his ribs that he thinks his skin will be bruised from it. “To you—of all people—I can’t—that fucking piece of shit—” He sputters and rants incoherencies and expletives until he runs out of steam and sees the worried look that has etched itself onto Harper’s face as she takes it all in. “Harper—Harper, I—fuck. I’m sorry. I just—”

“You’re angry.” She nods acceptingly, calmly, and then adds with a humorless laugh, “I get it. Trust me. If anyone gets it, it’s me.”

Austin bends at the waist to snatch a cigarette from where they’ve scattered themselves across the floor and focuses hard to light it as he moves toward her. He takes one heavy drag and then another as the spent match falls from his fingers and he kneels in front of her on the tile, his palms flattened against the leather on either side of her thighs. “Harper,” he sighs, the anger gone and replaced with something akin to longing and regret, “I never could have—” He stops himself there, unable to really put into words what he would or wouldn’t, should or shouldn’t. He hangs his head, his hair just barely brushing over Harper’s knees, and takes another drag from his cigarette, the ashes drifting carelessly onto the floor, and mixing with the first drops of his tears. He cries silently, a skill he perfected as a child, and smokes the rest of his cigarette furiously, stubbing it out in the tear-formed rill in the grout.

“I saw Sly,” she explains after some time. She finds herself wanting to explain the state he found her in, like she owes it to him. “I was fighting with my mom. And then I saw Sly. And it was like staring right into Liam’s eyes. And I just…”

“And you miss that,” he fills in the blank, his voice thick with emotion.

“No.” Harper is quiet for a moment, unspoken words lingering on her tongue. “It just—his eyes were the first thing I ever noticed about him. And I don’t know how we got from the glimmer in them when he said,
Hey, new girl, come eat with us
, to the deadened look in them when he told me,
I don’t think that this is best for us anymore
. He was the only guy I ever dated, and I thought he was it for me, you know? I thought I would be looking into those eyes forever. But seeing Sly, seeing those blues, it all just—it felt like a lie.”

“What did?”

“Loving him.”

“Oh, Harp,” he nearly whimpers with pure empathy. “We’ve got to fix you.” The words are muted, spoken to her shins and the floor, but she hears the way they come out, weighted with poignancy. She stares at him in wait until he finally looks up at her again, his eyes full of something so devastatingly broken that to stare into them stops her breath. “You deserve so much more than a broken heart—so much more.”

He hangs his head again and Harper slowly moves a hand from the sofa, tenderly brushes aside the windblown golden strands that fall haphazardly in Austin’s grey-green eyes. She feels it then, the same heat she felt at the pub, and a shiver cuts right through her, giving her justification to touch him and feel that warmth again. She strokes her hand slowly along his temple and feels herself ignite.

As much as it kills him to do so, Austin reaches up and stills her hand against his hair and through the rough hold lust has around his throat, he manages to choke out her name.

“I’m sorry—”

“I’m not,” he tells her gravely. His whole body pulses with pain, old and new. Her hands seem to stem the ache, but he knows when they go, the comfort will leave with them, and he’ll be worse off. “But I will be.”

“Why?”

“Because if you touch me like that—” Her fingers slide from beneath where they’re tucked under his palm, and rake across his scalp, down behind his ear. “Yes, like that,” he says with a low grunt as his eyes fall closed. “I can’t—you can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“I can’t let myself…”

“Is this about Liam?”

“No, it’s about you.” Austin’s words are chosen carefully, deliberately ambiguous, and as her nails trail through the short, wispy hairs at the base of his neck, he pulls his lower lip into his mouth to keep himself from expounding on them with a lustful cry. His eyes flicker up to hers and he pulls her hand away, traps it beneath his on the sofa, and this time she surrenders, the pains of rejection clear in her eyes. “Harper—it’s just that you—you can’t do that, touch me like that, and…”

“And…”

“And not expect me to like it,” Austin admits starkly, all ambiguity gone.

“You like it, but you don’t want me to?”

“No, I do,” he confesses, his gaze steady on hers as he lays himself bare. He never imagined outing himself like this, or at all, really, but now that he’s started, he can’t stop. And he knows he needs to stop. But his need for her drowns out all reason and logic. “That’s the problem. I always want you to touch me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.
Oh
.” The word is a solemn echo, and Austin regrets having said anything at all. “I’m such an asshole, and this is all so out of nowhere, so sudden—”

“Is it?”

“It’s wrong of me to even—”

“Austin, I want to—I want to touch you,” Harper admits, wholly bold and honest, and he heaves out a breath as the words stun him. She waits for a reaction from him that doesn’t come. He’s frozen in place, afraid that if he moves and doesn’t somehow end up inside of her, he’ll break. He’s sure of it, when she murmurs, “Let me.”

Harper slips her hand from beneath Austin’s, who watches her with wide eyes and a decided lack of resistance, and strokes her fingers determinedly through his hair, from widow’s peak to nape. Austin’s lips part and his eyes fall shut, fingers pressing into the leather as he grips it roughly, and he’s consciously aware of the sound that comes from his mouth—something halfway between a grunt and a purr—as he leans into her touch.

“Come up here,” she tells him. Her fingers pulling at his strands in gentle instruction as she scoots over on the cushions to make room for his long limbs, but Austin can’t move. The feel of her tugging against his scalp is too much and somehow, not enough, and through heavily hooded eyes, he stares in awe at the woman doing this to him. He watches as she readjusts herself on the sofa, and shapes the blanket he pulled across her lap into a makeshift pillow. He closes his eyes and presses out a jagged breath at the thought of laying his head in her lap. “Come on,” she coaxes, her voice a throaty whisper, “someone’s got to fix you, too.”

Slowly, Austin rises and folds himself onto the couch, the warmth of her drawing him near. He settles his cheek against the blanket and shifts slightly to stare up at her. Tumbling waves of copper hair hover above him, masking wide brown eyes and full lips, porcelain skin, and he wants to brush it aside, as she does to his, and fit his hands to the back of her neck, pull her down to meet him. Instead, he curls into himself and closes his eyes as her fingers trail through his hair, letting the feeling welcome him gently into a slumber he doesn’t intend to fall into.

Harper watches as he drifts, the twitch of his thick lashes against his cheeks, and waits for his breathing to even out. As it does, she untangles her hand from his hair and swipes the backs of her fingers down his stubble-covered cheek, following the line of his jaw. The skin there is different than Liam’s, a shade or two darker with a scar or two and thicker hair, and the scratch of it against her hand feels foreign, but familiar. The want she feels to touch him has mounted within her since she awoke, the memory of his arms braced strongly around her in the alleyway, but she can’t place if it’s a want for his skin or just skin in general—a need to be needed, to touch and be touched. Some small part of her wonders if she’s lonely somewhere buried beneath the rubble Liam has made of her, or if she wants to spite Liam, get back at him in some way. She wonders if Austin is doing the same, consciously or not, and if she’s an awful person for thinking so. But something shifts alive in her chest when she touches him, her phantom heart contracting tightly as her fingers skim the surface of his neck and across the bare sliver of his exposed collarbone, and for now, she can’t find it in her to care what the reasons may be. She just wants the tingle his skin leaves on the tips of her fingers, and while he is there, asleep in her lap, and her hands are on him, she has it. Slowly, she strokes down his cheek again, pausing slightly when she nears his mouth, before trailing back up again. With every brush of her fingertips, tiny pinpricks of sparks fire beneath her skin, and while he sleeps, she stocks up on the feeling, brushing her hands across his forearms, his hands, his face and neck.

“Austin,” Harper whispers hours later, after her legs have gone numb and the room has grown cold from the night leaching warmth through the open door. Her hands are dormant now, resting on the thigh Austin isn’t fully draped across, and he feels the absence of them as he awakens and brushes his own hands across her lower leg. Harper cannot help herself—she smoothes a hand down his cheek once more as his eyes open to meet hers. “Hi,” she says softly.

“Hi,” Austin returns, his voice winding gruffly around the small word. Getting his bearings, he cannot find the motivation to move from her lap, from the comfort of her touch, and he reaches up to place one of her hands back in his hair. She smiles kindly as their hands tangle in it together and he smiles languidly in response as he says, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I guess we’re even now. Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure,” Harper counters, honest to a fault. She scratches her fingers through the honeyed strands as he stretches his legs at the other end of the sofa, and feels a pitting in her stomach as she notices the darkness that has overtaken Austin’s backyard through the open patio door. A rush of wind sneaks in through the gap and they both shiver and draw nearer to each other as it hits them. “It’s getting late.”

“Want to go?” Austin asks, trying to mask the want to ask her to stay. She nods above him after a bare moment of hesitation. “I can drive you. Just let me wake up a bit more first.”

Austin moves off of her and gets to his feet, instantly feeling empty at the lack of her touch. He grabs another cigarette from the floor and lights it, stretching his limbs again as it dangles from between his lips and the smoke curls into his eyes. Harper watches him, the ripple of muscle in his back beneath his shirt, the tiny line of skin exposed where the hem hitches at his waist, and wants the feel of it under the pads of her fingers once more, but fights it, knowing it’s wrong to use someone in such a way, that the comfort isn’t worth the consequence.

“Your truck’s broken,” she tells him. “And I kind of want to walk it, anyway.” Alone on the darkened streets of Ashland, his skin will not be there for her to fist between her fingers, to lie to her with its call of want. “It’s not that far.”

“It’s far enough. And it’s freezing out there,” Austin replies, tossing the butt of his cigarette into a planter on the patio and pulling the door shut. “Let me take you. It’s the least I can do.”

“You’ve done much more than the least, already,” Harper sighs, standing and moving near to him. She reaches across the space between them and lays her hand against his arm, her fingers pressing into his skin just a bit. It’s meant to be a sincere gesture, but the selfishness of it isn’t lost on Harper. She touches him to soothe herself as much as, if not more so than, she does to comfort and reassure him. “When I’m with you, I don’t—I don’t think about—I feel better when I’m with you.”

“I’m sorry if I overstepped or anything by bringing you here, if any of this made you uncomfortable or—”

“Austin, don’t. I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do.” Her grip tightens just slightly, as if to accentuate her point. “And I know this outsider routine has been an ongoing thing for you and I get it, I do, but you’re not always unwanted, Aus. I’m thankful you’re here and to be here with you—that we have each other right now.”

Austin hangs his head, and stares at the place where their skin meets. “He’s such a fool,” he says sadly, his eyes trained on the faint pressure of her fingertips. She brushes her thumb along his forearm, moving it back and forth through wispy blonde hair, and he uses his opposite hand to cover hers. There is a jolt and they both feel it, but pretend they don’t. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

“I will,” she assures him, her hand slipping from underneath his. She gathers her things and he walks her to the door, his hand itching to place itself on the small of her back to guide her out. She turns before she exits and stares up at him, at the somber half-smile there, and shakes her head. “You don’t have to worry about me, you know.”

“It’s a little too late for that,” he laughs. He reaches around her to open the door, relishes the tiny brush of his arm against hers. It’s something that’s happened thousands of times over the years, but it is the first time he sees her openly recognize the touch. She stares at the bare skin of her arm where it still tingles from the contact, until he bends at the waist to press his lips so softly against the apple of her cheek. Harper blushes beneath the feel of it, a kindling fire, and all of her attention lingers on that spot as he whispers, “Get home safe,” against her skin.