Page 14 of Unleashed
With every moment that passes, I get more embarrassed about my choices, and it makes my stomach sink.
So I don't reply. And it kills me every time.
I pass the phone to Emma. She reads through the thread, scrolling slowly.
"He probably felt guilty for taking another woman home, Harper."
I shrug. Maybe. Or maybe it was his birthday, and he was drunk and lonely, and he wanted the only person who's ever really known him. The same way I do on every one of mine.
She hands the phone back and blows out a breath.
"Running from him doesn't seem to be fixing the issue, does it?" She tucks her black hair behind her ear. "What about closure? What if he's meant to be in your life as a friend or something? I don't know. I've never seen someone so attached to a man she broke up with."
I laugh. Not because it's funny. Because it's absurd. I broke up with him to save him. To set him free so he could become the champion I knew he was. And it worked, he's everything I always believed he'd be.
"If you really love him and think he's it…" Emma trails off. "Your other option is to try? I'm lost here, Harps."
I pause. For a split second, I think she’s right. But the same issues spring up. If I reach out, it’s a cycle. We can’t cope with long distance, and now I’m deep into investigating his family to cover that mess up. I know what they’re involved in isn't safe. So it’s best if I stick to my guns and I let him live his life.
"So am I, Emma. So am I."
She holds my gaze, then stands, crosses the room, and throws open my wardrobe doors with a dramatic flourish.
"Shall we pick a dress for your date, hmm?"
She starts flipping through hangers, pulling things out, holding them up, putting them back with increasing disapproval, and then she spots it on the top shelf. My cowgirl hat.
She grabs it and tosses it at me.
"You think Hudson's into cowgirls?" She grins.
I catch it and turn it over in my hands. The inside still has a faint scent of sunscreen and dust. I bought this at the same shop where I got Ace his Stetson, the same afternoon, with birthday money from my grandmother.
"Jeans, boots, and a hat." I set it on my head and look at her. "That'll impress a man trying to steal his dying father's company, right?"
She laughs, and I catch my reflection in the mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. For a second, I don't see a twenty-six-year-old journalist in an Echo Park apartment. I see a girl from New Falls, Arizona. The girl who rode horses before she could read and fell in love with a boy.
I smile. Because it feels like home.
But then I pull myself back to reality. LA is home. And they don't wear these here.
I pull the hat off and set it gently on the bed.
"It's a gala. So, no hats allowed." I touch the silver ring in my nose. "Or nose rings, apparently."
Emma rolls her eyes. "Please tell me you're keeping the nose ring."
"Obviously."
She pulls a black dress from the back of my wardrobe that I forgot existed. It’s simple and floor-length, with a slit up the thigh.
She holds it up against me and says, "Wear this. Be polite. Smile at his dying father. Come home. And then we're done with Hudson Blake and his bullshit favors. Deal?"
I look at the dress. I think about Hudson's green eyes scanning my body. About the cold flash behind his smile when I told him no about the nose ring. One night. That's all this is. One night, and then my debt is clear.
"Deal."
Emma tosses the dress on the bed and heads for the door, pausing in the frame. "Come and eat the pancakes, Harper."
