What You Leave Behind (13 page)

“Ponies don’t remind me of Liam.”

“You missed the point,” Clare says disappointedly, tapping her fingernails against each other to check their dryness. Dry enough, she reaches into her purse, where it sits beside her equally well-manicured feet, and pulls out a wad of cash. She leaves half on each manicure station before beckoning Harper to follow her. Once they’re standing outside of the spa, their freshly lacquered nails shining in the afternoon sun, Clare turns to Harper and says, “Look, I’m not asking out of morbid curiosity or anything. I really do—I had fun with you today and I want to be friends. Like,
really
be friends, not just because your mom forced you to call me. I mean, I always knew you were a cool chick, but we never, you know—you always had the boys. And you don’t now. Not that you need reminding.”

“Alright. And thanks,” Harper says gently, squinting down Water Street toward Main, briefly weighing her options. “To Rhodes?”

“To Rhodes.”

The main bar at Rhodes is closed for a private party, but the back patio is always open to the girlfriend of the owner, even if it’s normally closed in the wintertime. That’s where Harper and Clare sit, shivering beneath a few inefficient space heaters, as they drink beer after beer at Clare’s urging, “It’ll help you stay warm!” Dylan, not having a bar to tend, joins them and keeps the beers coming, until both girls are giggly and slurring their words just a tad, at which point he cuts them off and goes to fetch them a pizza from Martolli’s.

“Thank you, baby!” Clare calls after Dylan, blatantly ogling him as he walks off. Harper notices this—she really can’t not notice it with the way Clare is making obscene
mmm
-ing sounds—and reflexively groans in distaste. At the sound, Clare’s attention returns to Harper, to whom she offers a sheepish, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just bitter.”

“Don’t be bitter. You’re beautiful.” Clare grants an
mmm
pointed solely in her direction, which Harper waves off glumly. “If you don’t believe me, we can always ask Austin. Oh, wait, he’d probably just lie about—”

“Clare—”

Before Harper ventured into drunken territory, she gave Clare and Dylan a basic rundown of the events that transpired over the last three months. Liam leaving, her downward spiral, reconnecting with Austin, connecting with Austin in a different way, her desires conflicting with her instincts, giving in and then giving up—the whole mess of it. Dylan, with all of his gentlemanly knowledge, determined and told Harper that Austin was likely terrified and emotional, that he probably meant well, while Clare, with her woman’s intuition, wondered aloud what else Austin had lied to her about and why all men are scum—present company excluded. Harper sided with Clare, of course.

“You need to call him out on his shit,” Clare instructs, not for the first time, but now Dylan couldn’t chime in with a rebuttal. “I mean it.”

“One manicure does not a found woman make… or something like that,” Harper laments. “I can’t talk to him yet.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Shouldn’t.”

“If you’re doing it for you, to help you in some way, then it’s still a Harper-centric event on the road to attaining independent Harper-dom.” Clare nods convincingly and queues up Austin’s number on her phone. “Just fucking yell at him. It’ll make you feel better. Trust me. I’m getting a goddamn Masters in Mental Health Counseling. And, you know, if I’m wrong and that doesn’t work, we can send Dylan to kick his ass. Because,
mmm
-muscles.” She sets the phone down on the table between them and pushes it slowly toward Harper. “It’s your call—literally.”

Harper bites her lower lip contemplatively as she reaches for the phone, and before she can think about it any further, Clare leans over and dials the call, deciding for her. Harper looks at Clare wide-eyed, horrified, but presses the phone to her ear when it starts ringing—decision officially made.

“Clare?”

“No,” Harper says quietly, remaining oddly composed for being drunk and upset. “It’s me.”

“Harper.” Her name falls from Austin’s mouth like it’s the answer to all of his prayers, and in a way, it is. “How—how are you? I’ve been so worried about you.”

“I’ve been better,” she answers steadily, as if the conversation were going in a civil direction. It isn’t, and Clare leans back in her chair and silently applauds as Harper continues, “How about you? Talk to Liam lately?”

“You’re still angry,” Austin notes solemnly. “Harper, I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can prove it to you, but I really am very—”

“You’re goddamn right I’m angry. And disappointed. And betrayed. What else have you lied to me about, Austin?” she throws at him over his apology, looking to Clare, who gives her a nod and an encouraging thumbs-up. “I mean, if you lied about loving me for a whole fucking decade, how can I trust that anything you say is true? I thought you were my
friend
and all along you just—”

“I never lied to you about anything—ever.”

“Except about Liam?”

“Other than Liam.”

“Well, don’t you think that’s a big fucking lie to tell?”

“Harper, the things I said—the things you heard me say—”

“They’re things I should have said to him—not you. If you wanted to yell at him about hurting you, fine. But you should have left me out of it.”

“Is that what this is about?” Austin asks, sounding weary. “You’re mad because I got to yell at him and you didn’t?”

“I’m mad because you lied to me and because—” Harper hangs up the phone without finishing, losing her train of thought and wanting to say things like,
I didn’t mean it
, and
I’m not mad
, and
I need you
, at the end of the sentence. Slowly, she puts the phone down and slides it back across the table to Clare, who looks at her as if she’s trying to read a foreign language.

“I’m sorry, Harp,” Clare says softly, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.

“It’s okay. I—I just feel bad for—I don’t want to hurt him. Even if he hurt me, I—” Harper takes in a giant breath and lets out an equally large sigh as she looks toward the small, abandoned patio bar. “Just help me find the vodka before Dilly gets back.”

***

The main bar reopens at a quarter to ten and is pretty well packed by a quarter after. Austin, however, barely notices the crowd as he walks straight across the space, up to where Dylan stands drying glasses behind the bar, and asks, “Where is she?”

“Well, hello to you, too, Hayward.” Dylan grins widely at him. “What can I get ya?”

“Come on, man. You can’t possibly hate me this much.”

“I don’t hate you.” Dylan shakes his head and picks up another glass, runs his rag around the rim. “All I said was hello. Jesus Christ, Hayward. So dramatic.” Dylan puts down the glass and grabs Austin’s standard order from the cooler behind him, pops off the top and sets it on the bar between them. Austin quirks a brow at the bottle and Dylan raises both of his in reply. “What? You don’t want a drink? On the house, man. Because that’s what I do for people I don’t hate.” Dylan leans forward and his voice drops to a low whisper as he says, “And for people who I’ve been forbidden by beautiful women to disclose their location to.”

“Dylan, please, I need to see her.”

Austin’s tough façade fades and is replaced with a pleading glance, which cracks Dylan open. He’s known Austin for quite some time and not once has he ever witnessed the vulnerability Austin is showing now, and Dylan knows he was right about Austin’s intentions.

“I defended you, you know,” Dylan tells him, taking the beer from where it sits and swallowing down a gulp. “I get you, man. I’ve
been
you.” Austin says nothing, only hangs his head. He’s heard the story before, seen the scars that mirror his own, and he knows where this is going. “My dad used to beat the crap out of me and it fucked up a lot between me and Clare for a really long time. I did a lot of dumb shit to that girl, thinking I was doing right by her, because what other example did I have to follow? I wasn’t any good to her.” Austin won’t look at Dylan, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t listening. He nods his head slowly, solemnly, and Dylan reaches across the bar to clap a heavy hand on Austin’s shoulder. “Look, I don’t want to lecture you, man. You don’t need it, I know. But it took me a lot of mistakes and years of therapy to learn that at some point, you have to stop being your past and start being all the things your past doesn’t want you to be. Otherwise, you’ll end up a sad and lonely bastard, just like him.”

“I know I fucked up, man,” Austin sighs, fisting a hand in his disheveled hair. “I knew it the second it happened.”

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“Because I love her,” Austin says, finally meeting Dylan’s eyes as raw emotion nearly overtakes his ability to speak. “I did it because I’m an idiot and I fucking love her.”

“Right answer.” Dylan hooks a thumb toward the staircase at the opposite end of the bar. “Third door on the left. Go get ‘er.”

“Thank you,” he sighs, relieved, as he bolts for the staircase, nearly knocking over a handful of stools and patrons in the process. He apologizes hastily, but doesn’t stop moving. When he reaches the stairs, he shouts, “Thank you so much,” across the bar to Dylan, who only smiles in return as Austin takes the steps two at a time.

The third door on the left is closed, but light and shadows stream out from beneath the door, and he thinks that he can almost tell Harper just by her projected, skewed shape, but it’s only when he hears her laugh that he is sure he’s found her. Without knocking, he turns the handle and presses the door open, the hinge creaking loudly enough to announce his presence.

“What the fuck, Austin?” Clare asks sharply, getting to her feet from where she sits on Dylan’s bed and puts her five-foot, ten-inch frame in his away. “Get out.”

“Clare, I just need to talk to—” Austin shifts to glance around Clare, locking his eyes with Harper’s. She’s seated on a trunk at the foot of the bed, her knees held tight to her chest as she sways softly from side to side. “I just need to talk to you, Harp. Let me explain.”

“Did you somehow not understand from your phone call earlier that she, I don’t know, doesn’t want to talk to you?”

“Clare, you don’t even fucking know what—”

“After confessing your undying love for Harper, playing the wounded, loyal puppy, and then fingerbanging her, you talked to Liam, really laid into him about her, going so far as to tell him he did the right thing and that she’s moved on, and then lied right to her face about it even happening no more than a minute or two after it happened. Am I missing anything?” As she asks the question, she nears him until they’re nearly toe to toe. “I think that about covers it, Austin. Now get the fuck out.”

“I don’t give up that easily, Clare,” he tells her levelly as he pushes past her. He doesn’t make it even halfway to Harper before Clare is hauling him back with both hands around his forearm.

“Clare, don’t,” Harper says abruptly at the sight of Clare’s hands on him. No matter how mad she is, at the sight of his skin being touched by another, there is no denying her feelings for him are still very much there. Her anger starts to slip away at the memory of his touch and it begins a battle within her. The spark that ignites in her chest decides the victor and she says, “It’s okay. He can—he can stay.”

“Harper, are you sure—”

“It’s okay, really,” Harper tells her, nodding, and Clare’s hands fall away. “Would you—could you maybe go grab me some water? From downstairs? The bottled kind?” Clare eyes Harper warily, but she only nods. “Thank you, friend.”

“No problem, friend.” Clare’s voice is soft, defeated. “I’ll be right back.”

Clare goes, pointedly leaving the door open in her wake, and silence quickly covers the room.

“She’s a mean drunk, huh?” Austin asks, trying to ease the tension.

“She’s a good friend,” Harper corrects him.

“I didn’t know you two were—”

“I didn’t either,” she admits with a shrug. “She’s good, though. Means well. And she’s not drunk. We stopped drinking hours ago.”

“Oh.”

Silence encroaches again and Austin shifts from one foot to the other, not at all attempting to close the distance between them. Harper thinks it might be for the best, and hugs her knees closer to her chest to keep her hands occupied. The broken look in his eyes and the way he chews his lip and breathes heavily makes her want so badly to press him to her chest, instead.

“So, you wanted to talk…”

He’s silent for a moment, eyes trained on the floor, and when he tries her name on his tongue, his voice cracks. He coughs around it and clears his throat, choking down the emotion like he’s had to do so many times before. He wants to meet her eyes, but they’re too much—too immense and forlorn—so he looks at the idea of her instead, the whole of her, as he admits, “I wish I could say there’s a good reason for what I did. I don’t deal with things the way I should. I never have and I don’t know why.” He looks beyond her to a trio of paintings above Dylan’s headboard—stares absently at the brushstrokes while he composes himself once more. “I think it’s because of how I was brought up, you know? It’s in my blood to fuck things up, to break things.”

He’s being so honest and repentant and this isn’t a side of him she’s seen—this self-effacing persona. She thinks it might be the truest he’s ever been with her, but it’s all a lie, one she calls him on when she says, “You had to have known better—you know right from wrong, Austin.”

“I do—I knew better the second it happened—but in the moment…” He moves with long, purposeful strides and drops to his knees in front of where she sits. He’s been here before, bent over her legs, his hands on either side of her thighs, but this time it isn’t because he’s broken—he’s done the breaking. “I heard his voice and lost it. And then you were there and I just—I just lost myself in the moment.”

“Unless you want this to just be a moment, you can’t—”

“I know,” he says plainly—excuses gone.

“Then why did you do it?”

“He can’t come back,” Austin declares, his voice wavering. “If he comes back, I’ll lose you and I—I can’t—”