“This is great news!” Karen says and claps her hands.
“It’s nothing,” Hardin grumbles. I move to sit next to him and put my hand over his under the table. I never thought I could get him to agree to the wedding, let alone actually talk about it in front of Ken and Karen.
“I love you,” I whisper in his ear when Karen and Ken aren’t paying attention.
He smiles and squeezes my hand. “I love you,” he whispers back.
“So, Hardin, how are your classes going?” Ken asks.
“Good.”
“I noticed you moved your classes around again.”
“Yeah, and?”
“You’re still majoring in English, right?” Ken goes on, unwittingly pressing his luck; I can see that Hardin is getting annoyed.
“Yep.”
“That’s great! I remember when you were ten and you would recite passages from The Great Gatsby all day, every day. I knew you were a literature whiz then,” his father says.
“Do you? Do you remember that?” Hardin’s tone is harsh. I squeeze his hand, trying to signal him to calm down.
“Yeah, of course I do,” Ken says calmly.
Hardin’s nostrils flare and he rolls his eyes. “I find that hard to believe since you were constantly drunk, and, if I remember correctly, which I do, you tore that book to pieces because I bumped your scotch and spilled it. So don’t try to take a stroll down memory lane with me unless you know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He stands up as Karen and I both gasp.
“Hardin!” Ken says as he leaves the room.
I scurry after him and hear Karen yelling at Ken. “You shouldn’t have gone that far with him, Ken! He just agreed to come to our wedding. I thought we agreed on baby steps! Then you go and say something like that. You should have left it alone!”
Although she sounds mad, I can tell from the breaks in her voice that Karen is really already crying.
chapter seventy-two
Hardin slams his bedroom door as I reach the top of the stairs. I turn the knob, half-expecting it to be locked, but it opens.
“Hardin, are you okay?” I ask, unsure what else to say.
He answers me by grabbing the lamp off the nightstand and slamming it against the wall. The glass base shatters from the impact. I jump back and a small shriek comes out against my will. He paces over to the desk, grabs the small keyboard, and rips it out of the desktop computer, tossing it behind him.
“Hardin, please stop!” I yell.
He doesn’t look at me, but knocks the monitor to the ground and starts yelling, “Why? Why, Tessa? It’s not like he can’t afford to buy a new fucking computer!”
“You’re right,” I say and step on top of the keyboard, crushing it further.
“What? What are you doing?” he asks as I pick it up and drop it back on the ground. I’m not really sure what I am doing but the keyboard’s already broken, and this seems like the best idea at the moment.
“I’m helping you,” I tell him, and confusion flashes in his angry eyes before humor takes over. I pick up the monitor and throw it against the floor. He walks over with a small smile on his lips as I pick it up again, but his hands stop mine and he takes the monitor out of my hands and sits it on the desk.
“You’re not mad at me for yelling at my dad like that?” he asks, and cups my cheeks, his thumbs gently caressing them as his green eyes bore into mine.
“No, you have every right to express yourself. I would never be mad about that.” He just had a fight with his dad but he is worried about me being mad at him? “Unless of course you’re being mean for no reason, which in this case you weren’t.”
“Wow . . .” he says.
But the small gap between our lips is too tempting. I lean forward and press mine against his, and he immediately opens his mouth, deepening the kiss. My fingers twist into his hair and he groans as I put more force into it. His anger rolls off him like a tidal wave. I push him back a little and he turns me around so the bottom of my back hits the desk. His hands attach to my hips and he lifts me onto the desk. I am his distraction. The thought of me being what Hardin needs makes me feel needed in a way I wasn’t aware of. I feel more solid now,