Perfect Couple (17 page)

That was my plan.

My dad was shouting. I blinked at my computer screen and glanced at my bedroom window. Night had fallen. My heart sped as fast as it had when he’d reprimanded me on the phone. He was yelling at Mom. He said she wasn’t giving them a chance. She was going through with this ridiculous divorce to punish him. No, he would not shut up just because he was disturbing the guests at her Goddamned bed and breakfast.

He’d come over and shouted like this every time my parents got close to finalizing the divorce. Mom said he did it because the best way to hurt her was to make her B & B look bad. He wasn’t just shouting at
her
. He was alienating the guests at the B & B, leading them to think the house wasn’t safe, and ruining their peaceful vacation. He was trying, in this small way, to destroy her business, which she saw as the one good thing that had come out of their separation.

I did what I always did in this situation. After a few deep breaths so I no longer felt like I was about to faint, I opened my door and walked into our tiny living room. My dad was standing and pointing and shouting at Mom, who sat on the couch with her head turned away, as if he was about to hit her. He wasn’t, but that’s what it looked like.

I had defused this sort of argument between my parents
plenty of times before. Throughout childhood, I’d convinced my dad to stand down by crawling into his lap. Recently when he’d loomed here in the living room and shouted, I’d given him a hug and told him I’d missed him.

This time was harder to stomach. I wasn’t sure what the difference was—that I was tired of my own boyfriend dismissing my projects as worthless, or that I knew now how good it felt to start a business independent of everyone—but I had to stop this. He was still yelling at Mom. But I was immune because he never yelled at me. I walked toward him with my arms open for a hug. “Hey, Dad! I—”

He whirled to face me. His eyebrows shot up, and he gave me a quick look from head to toe. I took people aback now that I’d removed my glasses.

Then he said, “That shit doesn’t work on me anymore, young lady. I know exactly what you’re doing, and so do you. If you want to act like an adult now, you can do that by staying out of your parents’ business. If you want to keep acting like a child, you can
go to your room
!” He was yelling louder than I’d ever heard him, and the finger that had been pointed in Mom’s face was now pointed in mine.

I turned, hurried for my room, and closed the door.

The shouting continued.

Panting, I lay down on my bed, pulled the phone and
earbuds from my nightstand, and turned on one of my deep-breathing relaxation recordings.
Try to clear your mind
, the lady said.
If you have an intrusive thought, that’s fine. Just let it go.
But I couldn’t let it go. Now that the initial wave of panic had passed, I couldn’t believe I’d done exactly what my dad had told me to do. Just like Granddad, I’d abandoned my mom.

One deep breath. I could call 911. But my dad wasn’t breaking any laws, except disturbing the peace. If Mom’s guests in the B & B were listening to the commotion, the one thing worse for business than my dad yelling would be for the police to come.

Two deep breaths. I could call some friends to hang out. They could knock on the front door and interlope, making my dad see he was affecting real people when he flew off the handle like this. But Kaye and Tia had been popping in since we were in third grade. They might be so familiar that he wouldn’t stop yelling. He might shout at
them
.

Three deep breaths. I took out my earbuds, thumbed through the school’s student directory on my phone, and called Brody.

He answered right away. I said breathlessly, “It’s Harper. Can you come over?”

“So, you finally got another idea for a Superlatives
photo?” My dad’s shouting grew louder, and Brody must have heard it through the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

Brody knew exactly what kind of nothing I meant. “I’ll be right there.”

I clicked my phone off and lay on my bed, waiting. I wanted to put my earbuds back in and play the relaxation program to block out my dad’s voice, but I didn’t dare. My dad had already shouted at me, personally. That
never
happened. I listened to make sure my parents’ fight didn’t escalate. If it did, I would call the police after all. And I listened for Brody ringing the doorbell.

In the meantime, I stared across my tiny bedroom wallpapered with photographs and art I’d cut from magazines. It had seemed cozy in the past, a great place to hide from the world and work on my photos. Now it seemed claustrophobic. I was trapped here, suffocating on what my dad hollered at Mom, and her silence in response.

The doorbell rang.

I opened my bedroom door too quickly. I needed to cool it or my dad would know I’d called Brody to intervene. I waited in the short hallway until I heard Brody’s voice. Then I walked into the living room.

“—Larson. I’m here to see Harper,” he was telling my
dad, who had answered the door as if he lived here. Mom stood behind him, looking lost rather than pissed.

“Brody!” I said in my best impression of pleased astonishment. “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Brody Larson. He’s the quarterback on my high school’s football team.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Brody said. He stepped forward and extended his hand, grinning like he wanted to impress, even though he was wearing his usual athletic shirt and gym shorts. A drop of sweat slid down his temple.

The interruption had the desired effect. My dad changed from a monster back into a reasonably friendly guy with a toned, muscular body and a military haircut. “Brody,” he said quietly, shaking Brody’s hand.

“Not sure you remember my mom,” I said.

“Nice to see you, ma’am,” Brody said, shaking her hand too.

“Pleasure,” she said. I half expected her to widen her eyes at me, wondering why I hadn’t told her about my new boyfriend, and what had happened to Kennedy. But my dad had been shouting at her for quite a while. I suspected all she could hear was the ringing in her ears.

Taking Brody’s hand and pulling him toward my bedroom, I made small talk so his appearance would seem casual. “Did you get all your homework done?”

“Not quite,” he said. “I still have maybe eight calculus
problems left.” He stepped into my room and closed the door behind him.

I hugged him.

He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me gently.

I’d only meant to thank him. But now that I was in his arms, I didn’t want to leave. I settled my ear against his chest and listened to his heartbeat: slow, steady.

Finally I let him out of my death grip and stepped back. “Thank you so much,” I whispered.

“No problem,” he said solemnly.

“I’m sorry about the boyfriend thing,” I said. “I was trying to make it seem normal that you’d pop in.” Belatedly I was realizing that Kennedy did not pop in. Not once had he crossed my mind when I was considering which friend to call.

“Can you stay for a few minutes?” I meant until my dad left. I swept my hand around the small room, offering him a beanbag chair or my desk chair or . . . the bed seemed a little forward.

“Sure.” He kicked off his flip-flops and scooted back on the bed until he sat propped up against my pillows. He seemed comfortable.

I crawled onto the bed and settled beside him. Our arms touched from our shoulders to our elbows. I racked my brain for something to say to the guy I’d fallen for, who was
someone else’s boyfriend but was pretending to be mine. I glanced at him and was shocked all over again at how green his eyes were.

He watched me intently and opened his mouth to say something. Then he grimaced, shifted on the bed, knocked me with his elbow, and pulled my phone out from under him.

“Sorry,” I said. “Remember you asked me how I could just take a deep breath and relax? I was listening to a relaxation program. It’s a directed meditation.”

“On a recording? I can think of a better way to relax.”

“If you can think of a better way, why don’t you do it before games, instead of worrying?” Then it hit me. “Oh, you’re making a sex joke.”

He gaped at me.

“A blow-job joke?” I suggested meekly.

“Harper Davis!” he exclaimed. “Would I make a joke like that while I’m sitting on your bed? I had no idea your mind was so dirty.”

“Uh.” In my mind I backpedaled through what he’d said, trying to remember what had sent my thoughts in that direction. “Sorry, I—”

“It was a hand-job joke,” he said. “I mean, my gosh, a blow-job joke? You have a
boyfriend
.”

I burst into laughter—because what he’d said was funny,
and because he excited me to the point of giddiness. I swallowed the last remnants of my giggle and said, “You’re so different from the guys I usually hang out with. I can’t tell when you’re kidding.”

“I’m always kidding,” he said. “And it’s always dirty.”

“Ha ha, okay,” I said.

“Harper!” he said, astonished all over again. “You didn’t believe that, did you? I was not making a hand-job joke. It might have been a kissing joke.” He was blushing.

I took one of the deep, calming breaths I was famous for. “Sorry. I feel kind of”—I was talking with my hands, but my hands were not forming any shape that was remotely related to what I was trying to say—“deprived sometimes. I haven’t done a lot of kissing or . . . anything. And then I talk about it and go overboard, sounding like I’m starving to death.”

“You don’t,” he said firmly, turning on my phone and thumbing through the list of recordings.

“You could download some of these programs and listen to them in the locker room before a game,” I suggested. “Or is that not allowed?”

“It’s allowed,” he said, “but only kickers do superstitious shit like that.”

“Well, if you’re still feeling anxious, maybe you should start hedging your bets like a kicker.” I put my head close to his,
peering at the phone, and cued up one of the programs. “Want to try?”

He gave a shrug, meaning he would try anything once. He put the earbuds in. I started the recording.

He laughed. The meditation lady had a British accent. I smiled at him.

He sank down on one forearm on the bed, watching me. I remembered that the program’s first instruction was to lie down. I patted my thigh.

He rolled over with his head in my lap. His hair was a lot softer than I’d imagined. Half the time I saw him, his locks hung in clumps, wet from sweat or a shower or the ocean. His hair was clean and dry now, and baby fine, only a whisper against my skin.

Brody Larson’s head was in my lap.

Something told me we were not just friends anymore.

But even as I thought this and felt my face flush hot, Brody seemed oblivious.
Relaxed
, even. He crossed his ankles—the meditation lady was telling him to make sure all parts of his body were comfortable. He rotated his throwing shoulder—the lady said he should work out kinks in any joint that hurt.

I lowered my hand to his shoulder and circled my fingers on his shirt, rubbing gently. This was not part of the relaxation
technique, having his not-just-friend-anymore rub his kink. I was probably unrelaxing him.

Maybe I didn’t care.

He lifted his opposite hand and put it over mine, as if to tell me he approved.

His breathing deepened. He’d moved on to the part of the program in which he inhaled slowly and visualized his body growing heavy and sinking into the mattress. So I wouldn’t distract him, I stopped rubbing his shoulder. He kept his hand on mine.

I gazed down his long body stretched to the end of my bed in the dim lamplight. When I looked at him from this angle, free to let my eyes roam across the whole of him, he seemed taller, but thinner, as he had when I photographed him at the 5K without his football shoulder pads. His crossed ankles were slender, and his feet were long, not wide, almost elegant.

After listening to a few more of his slow breaths, I started to feel ridiculous that I was still so tense, hovering over him like a buzzard about to swoop down on dead meat. I eased my shoulders back against the pillows, careful not to disturb him, and tried to practice what I’d been preaching, letting myself relax.

Without warning, the door opened. Mom was silhouetted in the bright light from the hallway.

It was like her to walk into my room without knocking. She wasn’t trying to catch me doing something wrong—she just thought of herself rather than me. It didn’t occur to her that she might startle me. I went out of my way not to startle her, but she didn’t do the same.

Now, though, her unannounced entrance felt like an intrusion. I wanted to snatch my hand off Brody’s, but that would alarm him and ruin everything. I left my hand where it was and lifted my chin.

Taking just enough steps into the room for her face to appear in the lamplight, Mom mouthed, “Thank you.” She knew why I’d called Brody, and she wasn’t mad. She was grateful.

I gave her the smallest nod.

She walked her fingers in the air and pointed behind her. She meant my dad had left and she was going over to the B & B for a while. She backed out of the room and closed the door as silently as she’d come in.

Brody moved anyway. We’d disturbed him. But no, he was rolling on his side, as the meditation lady told him. Sitting up was next, and a stretch and a yawn.

Then he pulled out the earbuds and scooted up to sit beside me against the pillows again.

I raised my eyebrows. “Well? Do you feel calmer?”

“I did,” he said softly, looking at my lips. “But not now.”

Our eyes locked. He moved toward me. We’d shared a moment like this before, with my face on fire and my heart speeding, but it had ended in disappointment. This one would likely end the same way. I waited for Mom to burst back in or for Brody to tell me he’d been kidding.

He reached up to cradle my cheek. His thumb traced my lower lip, sending chills shooting up my arms.

His lips met mine.

He kissed me hard for a second, then opened his mouth. This was a kiss. Quinn and then Noah had faked it pretty well with me in crowded movie theaters when lots of our classmates were around to see. But Kennedy, despite all his sarcasm directed at people who were less worldly than him, had zero idea how to kiss. I kept trying to show him. He obstinately refused to learn.