snap, hanging up.
It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain what I have to do: give up Harley. For now, maybe even for good.
Not just for the company’s sake, but for hers. The Star is half trashy gossip anyway, but if anyone else catches us together and decides to pick up the story and run with it… we’re both done for.
Plus, what kind of relationship could we have if we have to duck and hide for months, maybe even years? Take-out every day, movies every night… Harley deserves better than that. She deserves to be shown off like the prize she is. I won’t let her agree to something substandard just so we can be together a bit longer.
I go out onto my roof to call her up. Maybe the clear night air can clear my head. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So.”
She tries to laugh, but it’s not much of one. “So.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be sorry. This is for the best.”
“Let me explain. They’re running a story about us in the Star tomorrow. I don’t think we have much of a choice at this point… maybe at some point in a year or so…” I trail off.
“I get it,” she says. “You have to fire me too.”
“I don’t have to—”
“Yes, you do,” she says sadly.
Up above, the stars are nearly invisible from the light pollution. It seems like my night with Harley, looking at the stars, is years away.
“You won’t get a better reference than mine,” I find myself saying. “I have friends in the business who would love to work with you. I’m not going to have this screw up your career. I’m not going to rest until you get an even better position.”
Her voice is hushed, sad. “OK.”
“I’m so sorry.” My words fall flat. What the fuck good does my ‘sorry’ do her, really?
“Don’t be. We both knew this was over before it really started.”
“Still, I should’ve protected you better.”
“I’m sure you did your best.”
Her words slay me. Anger, blaming, all that I expected and could deal with. But this quiet, fair acceptance… I can’t take it.
“I tried to get the story pulled, but they won’t budge,” I find myself rambling. “And this is only the beginning, if we keep going on how we have—”
“I know how scandals work,” she cuts me off. “I know we have to do this.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier,” I say miserably. “If I could just see you one last time…”
We both let my words trail off. We know we can’t. The last time would invariably lead to the next, and then the next after that. Even now, it’s taking everything I have not to urge her to come here, now. To be with me.
“Thanks for everything,” Harley says quietly. “Goodbye.”
Seconds after she hangs up the phone, I realize it, what this foreign feeling inside me is.
“I love you,” I say into the silence.
Chapter 28
Harley
“Har?” Hannah says tentatively from outside the door.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t want you to take this the wrong way… But why are you sitting in the bathroom with the lights off?”
I blink. “Huh. So I am.”
“Can I come in? I need to brush my teeth.”
“Sure,” I say. “I’m just sitting on the edge of the tub anyway.”
I honestly can’t even remember coming in here in my sad stupor, but I’m not about to admit that.
“Is everything OK?” Hannah asks, flicking on the light and reaching for her purple toothbrush.
“I… Yeah?”
She pauses, gives her head a shake to throw her light brown bangs out of her face before shoving her toothbrush into her mouth. “You don’t sound very convinced. And didn’t you leave your date with Greyson way early?”
I clamp my lips closed firmly, but that doesn’t stop it from bursting out of me: “Greyson broke up with me.”
Hannah drops her toothbrush. “He what?”
“The press found out about us. Storm Inc. can’t afford any bad publicity right now.”
“But…” Hannah trails off, her mouth working soundlessly.
I rise, touching her arm. “It’s fine. Really. There’s no way this would’ve worked long-term anyway. He’s my boss.”
Hannah bites her lip, then, halfway to reaching for her toothbrush, gives it a kick instead. “You know what? Screw bedtime and tooth-brushing. We gonna party.”
At her last statement, uttered in a ‘gangsta’ voice, I giggle. “Oh yeah?”
Hannah grabs my hand and marches me out of there. “Hell yeah.”
In my room, she flips through my clothes until she gets to the tightest, shortest, reddest dress I own. “Let’s go, sister.”
I chuckle as I take it off the hangar. “As you say, cousin.”
She grins, giving