Falling for Mr. Wrong(5)
Damn, life was so much simpler when you screwed up but had such an amazing explanation, the person you hurt couldn’t remain mad. Shame he couldn’t fabricate one right now. Fact was, he’d had four years to figure out the best way to explain it to Harper, and he’d not bothered to. Maybe in some ways, he hadn’t delved deep enough into it. Maybe he’d been running so much he hadn’t bothered with enough introspection. He knew he owed that to her. But how?
“I was hoping we could sit down and talk a little bit at some point in time?” He ended the sentence on an up-tone, attempting to be hopeful in the face of the undeniably pessimistic reality that she was more than likely about to go home and have sex with the douchebag next to her. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
He ducked his head enough to catch her vigorously shaking her head in his mirror. “Oh, no,” she said. “The only catching that was attempted was me trying to find you to figure out why you did what you did. Too little too late to try to make things nice now. My boyfriend and I are quite happy, thank you.” To emphasize the point, she leaned in and kissed the bastard: her lips over his, mouth wide open. He clenched his jaw and squeezed hard on the steering wheel. It made him nuts to see her do that to such an undeserving character. Not that he knew a thing about him, but nevertheless that guy—and anyone after him—would always be the wrong man for Harper.
But what if the right guy had played his cards all wrong and blown it?
Chapter Four
Harper used to wonder how she’d react if and when Noah came back. She’d rehearsed a hundred different responses, some of which might have involved a level of moderate yet uncharacteristic violence. For instance, there was that little fantasy about rewarding him for his betrayal with a solid left hook to his snout, which she could argue wasn’t particularly mean under the circumstances; it would be practically well-deserved. It’s not as if she’d thought about whipping out a stiletto blade and slicing his throat or anything. But then again, an appropriately placed kick with a stiletto heel? Well, maybe she hadn’t quite ruled that out.
She wasn’t one to hold grudges, but damn. Noah’s near evaporation into thin air four years ago, only days after their college graduation, had left Harper desperate for answers she’d never have and so riddled with self-doubt that, well, she could barely figure out how to be in a relationship with another man if the opportunity arose. To date, it hadn’t, and as a result, she hadn’t truly faced her demons—she wasn’t sure how she could ever trust a man again.
And then all of a sudden, right here, right now, the guy shows up? Talk about bad timing. She’d had a lovely evening with Danny Greevy and she’d enjoyed getting to know him a bit, until that was all eclipsed when, out of nowhere, Noah appeared and inserted himself into her little momentary happy bubble, sticking a sharp needle in to pop it. What the hell? Who died and gave him permission to do that to her?
On second thought, perhaps that wasn’t delicately phrased, considering his mother had died not long ago. Or at least that’s what Harper had heard through the grapevine. Even all these years later, people loved to keep her informed when someone had a bead on anything that might involve Noah.
Most often she politely explained that she no more wanted to hear about Noah than she wanted to be told she had an incurable disease. Usually that shut people up. Though plenty of folks had made certain she was aware that his mama had passed. Which was a shame—she thought highly of Millie Gunderson, who’d tried to stay in touch with Harper at first when her son pulled his runner. She’d sort of taken it personally herself, so Harper couldn’t even be mad at her by extension. After all what mama would want her son to up and disappear like that? But still, it rankled Harper enough that she didn’t want to deal with anything that had even the slightest DNA connection to Noah, so she quickly let slide that tenuous relationship. She stopped answering Millie’s calls, and pretty soon Millie gave up reaching out altogether.
Harper always wondered if it was the legacy of Noah’s father that drove him to skip town so unceremoniously. This was something Noah would never discuss, except to say that his dad had chosen early on to shun fatherhood—something about him being allergic to it. She figured if Noah ever wanted to discuss it, he would, so she let it be. Allergic. Perhaps it was more like there was a runaway gene that threaded through Noah’s lineage, and he was only following the family mandate. Well, to hell with that. She had no obligation to be victimized yet again by that nonsense; she would simply avoid Noah Gunderson like the plague now that he was back in town. Driving Uber, of all things. Super weird since he was always planning to go to law school. Why on earth would he become a glorified cabbie instead?
She had even more unanswered questions about him, but she wasn’t going to let that interfere with her lovely date. Danny was handsome and charming and thoughtful and funny, and she could show Noah what she thought about his dropping a precision-guided emotional bomb into her unwilling lap.
That’s why she decided now was as good a time as any to make it abundantly clear where her allegiances lay—with the cute dirty blond whose thighs were pressed against hers in the backseat of her former boyfriend’s car. Perhaps it was a little premature, but at least the message would be sent loud and clear: stay the hell out of my life, Noah Gunderson.
When she pressed her lips to Danny’s, she presumed there would be the usual fireworks. Wasn’t that always what happened when you kissed a guy? Inquiring minds wanted to know because to date, Harper’s only experience with kissing a boy had been Noah. They’d dated all through middle and high school and even survived four years at Chapel Hill. He was her first—and last—kiss. After Noah, for a long time she’d had no interest. And then came everyone insisting it was time to get back on that horse, and with that came the succession of loser dates, and she sure as hell wasn’t gonna waste the time and effort to swap spit with those guys. But she did assume that kissing led to the tingly feeling in your stomach, the swoony bit that made your head dizzy with excitement. When two peoples’ lips locked, and their bodies were pressed to one another, the electricity that was generated… Wow. She’d completely given up on that after Noah.