And if that person isn’t honest from the beginning, what are my odds then?
There are too many variables that say my luck is precarious when it comes to Harper.
I turn my head to the side and study her. We’ve only been in the sunshine for half an hour, but she’s dry and I am, too. Still, I can’t bring myself to wake her.
A butterfly lands on the swell of her breast, opening and closing its wings in a colorful display. She wrinkles her nose and her eyelids flutter open.
I shut my eyes.
“Hey,” she says, her voice croaky from sleep. “Are you awake?”
“Hm?” I pretend to wake and lean up on one elbow. “I am now.”
“I think I’m getting too much sun.” She pulls the fabric of her bra away to see the pink tan line.
I quickly look away. She’s killing me. Slowly. “We should go. I need to get back to do some things anyway.”
By the time we leave the lake to head back home, I’m exhausted from the effort of keeping my gaze and hands to myself. Harper’s a mess with her tangled hair, wrinkled clothes, and sunburned nose. Absolutely gorgeous.
It’s all I can do to stay focused on the road. I put the cruise control on and glance over at her again.
“I saw you staring at me when you thought I wasn’t looking.” Harper appears to be napping and you wouldn’t even know she’d said anything. Her head rolls my direction her lips curve into a smile.
“You want to know the truth?” I click the car blinker once and change lanes.
“No. Lie to me.” She cracks one eye open and peers at me.
“I was counting your freckles. Watching to make sure you didn’t burn. Of course, I failed at that.” I pause dramatically. “OK. I’ve been caught. I’m a guy. Of course I looked.”
She laughs. “I don’t have freckles in the places you were looking.”
I click the button on my steering wheel to turn some music on. A pop song comes on and I sing along with the parts I know.
Harper’s lips curve into a smile. She sits quietly with her eyes closed for several miles. I think she’s fallen asleep until she mutters something.
“What was that?” I turn the music down.
She sighs. “Thanks for bringing me. Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Ask.”
“About Tori.”
My hand tightens on the steering wheel. I flex my fingers to relax. “OK.”
“Is Tori the outdoors type? Did you go fishing and stuff with her?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I throw her a sidelong glance.
“What was your favorite thing about her?”
On the list of possible questions she could ask, this doesn’t even make the list. “I don’t know.”
“Sure, you do. You were attracted to her because she was smart or something.”
I laugh at this. “Um, no. That wasn’t it. Why do you want to know?”
“She doesn’t seem like your type.” Harper stretches her arms above her head, cat-like in her movement. “I’m surprised you went for her.”
“Me, too.” I drop my shoulders and try to relax. Harper’s tone is conversational, and I can tell she’s not picking a fight. Not like Josie does when we talk about Tori.
“She’s hot, if you like that high-priced call-girl kind of thing.” Harper’s tone drips acid.
Maybe I was wrong about the fight. I laugh anyway. “She works hard for it.”
Harper sits up and turns to me, drawing one leg underneath the other in the seat. She grins. “Oh, you’re going to have to explain that.”
It feels so good to be talking with Harper. I shouldn’t be talking badly about Tori. I hate it when people are malicious about their exes. Two people make a relationship work and two people ruin one. I understand I was to blame for some things.
But for once, it’s like I’m lifting a thousand pound burden to say the things I’ve never voiced aloud.
“She works in a salon. I’d bet she clocks a hundred hours a month purely on her appearance. Hair, color, nails, tan, some other shit I can’t even remember.” I keep my tone flat, so I don’t sound bitter. These things aren’t really what would keep me from loving someone.
“And you didn’t like that?” Harper asks.
“I ignored it. I mean—don’t get me wrong—I appreciated the result at the time. But looking back, it’s crazy. That is her focus in life. Looking the way she does.”
“So, how’d you not know she was married?”
And now we get to the crux of the relationship problems. Harper doesn’t mess around. I look at her and back to the road. “I should have. All the clues were there if I’d paid any attention at all.” I pause. “It’s like a mystery novel where you see all the details you missed because you were distracted by the wrong things.”
“Tell me the clues.” Her voice coaxes me with its softness.
“She always came to my place. Never me to hers. She said she had a roommate that I never met. She said she lived in Germantown but wasn’t familiar with a bookstore there I mentioned. One day, I kept trying to call her and it would go straight to voicemail. I was out in Green Hills picking up something. It was around lunchtime. And there she was, holding hands with some guy.”
“I’m so sorry,” Harper says in a commiserate tone.
I have no doubt she understands the feeling of being duped. “I’m not. She was a liar and a cheat—two things I won’t tolerate.”
She’s not laughing. “Sorry.”
I grin humorlessly. “Yeah, well, I’m glad I found out. She was never going to tell me.”
“She wasn’t worried her husband would find out?”
“He already knew. They have an understanding. She dates other people. He does, too. They have an open marriage.”
“That’s twisted.”
“Like a snake.”
She takes a deep gulp of air and sits straighter in her seat. “Wesley and I weren’t really married. I found out he already had a wife. That doesn’t work unless you live in Utah.”
I nearly swerve off the road trying to look at her. The tires make squealing sounds when I take a curve too quickly. I’ve known about her husband ever since I looked up the postcard I was missing. The image scan told me why she’d want it back.
“Hey, don’t kill us!” She yanks on her seatbelt like she’s checking it. Then, she’s silent for several seconds.
I pull over to the side of the road and turn to her. “Why haven’t you told me this before?”
Why couldn’t she tell me this in the beginning? Why hide the truth until now? My desire to forgive her for everything wars deep inside me. I switch back and forth between wanting to start all over and needing to run.
“Because I felt stupid.” She traces a pattern of freckles on her thigh, then looks up at me. Hurt and anger radiates from her gaze. “Can you imagine how it feels to know you’ve ignored all the clues—clues like you talk about. Things I should’ve seen. The police came to our house, because the wreck was in Tacoma. I was asked to identify the body. That’s when everything got weird, because he had another wallet in the glove compartment of his truck. Another set of identification and another place of residence.”
I shake my head. “You couldn’t know. Who would guess something like that? It’s insane.”
“I didn’t tell you because it’s embarrassing. What kind of loser doesn’t catch on to something that huge? Husband gone for weeks on end. No visit to meet his parents. No old friends calling him. So much was missing. I should’ve known.”
“No. You couldn’t. Don’t ever call yourself a loser. You’re the sweetest, kindest person I know.” I’m so pissed about her admission, I can barely contain my anger. Anger at him. Anger at myself for not seeing she’s as messed up as I am when it comes to relationships.
I grip the steering wheel until my fingers hurt. I relax my hold and flex my fingers of my right hand and then my left. “If I hadn’t caught you rifling through my things in the bookshelf, would you’ve told me everything?”