Page 44 of Where We Go From Here

She wets her bottom lip and suddenly I don’t care if she only wants me for my body. I don’t even care if I’m her rebound. For Harper, she can use me any way that she wants.

“You have, like, one minute to fill me in,” she says, hands sliding dangerously low in my lap.

I grunt, trying not to imaginefilling her inas I attempt to recall any details about my life before the past fifteen seconds.

“I’m a joiner,” I tell her simply. “I started my own company a while back after working for other guys my whole life. My old boss retired so I decided to build something on my own. Already had the tools, the skills, the clients. My brother Jason has a construction company so we’re often working different bits of the same gigs. Entered the workforce straight out of high school because–”

I stop myself short, unsure about how Harper will react to this particular piece of information. She doesn’t notice my pause, too distracted by my hand that’s now rhythmically kneading her ass.

I swallow hard and say a prayer that this won’t change how she feels.

“I have a kid,” I say gruffly, pausing my hand in case this is a deal breaker for her. “When I was in high school I was…” I shake my head, hating how cliché this is going to sound. “I was a jock. The stoic silent one who no-one dared get in a fight with.”

I look away from her and breathe out a laugh. I don’t usually travel down memory lane so this is weird as shit for me.

“Basically, I was a teenage kid with needs like any other, but I wasn’t the type to fuck around. That wasn’t my scene. I was close with this cheerleader – Pam – and we decided to just…” I pull my hands off of Harper because it feels inappropriate to touch her when I’m discussing another woman. A surge of relief courses through me when she keeps her leg crossed over mine. “It was essentially friends-with-benefits before the phrase friends-with-benefits existed. We were just two friends, experimenting, but I guess we experimented a little too well. I loved the idea of having a kid and Pam did too, but she wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. Didn’t matter – I knew what I needed to do anyway. I finished up high school and got a job straight away. I wanted to be the best dad ever – make sure that Tate and his mom had loads of money – but I didn’t get to see him the most during his earlier years. So I filled my time away from him with nothing but work, until I finally started my own company and, when he was old enough, he chose to live with me. Now we work together – you’ll have probably seen him at the site.”

I think for a moment and then say, “That pumpkin that got delivered to my house last month? It was from his fiancée. She has a…” I search for the right words to describe River. “An interesting sense of humour.”

I roll my lips into my mouth and rub my hands over both of my knees as I wait for Harper’s reaction. After ten silent anxious seconds I reach across the table and take another swig of the fake beer.

At last she says in a wispy voice, “Experimented too well.”

I almost snort my drink out of my nose, smirking as I turn to face her. “That’s the bit you’re honing in on?”

She shrugs, looking kind of shy. “I don’t mind that you have a son,” she says quietly. “And I guess a lot of kids don’t know about protection when they’re in high school.”

I shake my head, looking down at her as I take another drink. “We used protection,” I say, as I set the bottle back on the table.

She sputters on her milkshake. Blinks rapidly up at me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“We used protection,” I repeat.

“You used protection… and she still got pregnant?”

I shrug my shoulders and nod. “Yeah. That’s how it goes.”

She looks like she’s glitching, little pink and blue sparks flickering around her temples. “That is not how itgoes,” she hisses, eyes flashing around the bar behind me as if she’s suddenly learned dangerous information. “If you use protection you’re not supposed to get pregnant. What the hell kind of protection were you using?”

I’m trying not to smile now as I gauge her expression, a nice combination of mortified and impressed. “She was on the pill,” I admit.

Harper’s brain erupts. “Isn’t that thesafesttype of contraception?” she asks, horrified.

“Not for me.”

I can see what’s happening behind her eyes. She’s thinkingif I let this man bed me, am I sure-fire going to get pregnant?

I try to ease her concern, my voice low and quiet to keep this conversation private. “If I bag it, it should be fine. And, you know, trying to avoid your ovulation period might be beneficial too.”

Harper looks like she’s ten seconds from passing out. “Mitchell,” she says, like she’s not so sure.

I take this as my cue to get my hands back on her body, one massaging her ribs and the other reclaiming its place on her behind. “Does it bother you?” I ask her, dipping a little closer.

“Which part? The part about you making a baby with another woman, or the fact that you’re so virile you defy scientific intervention?”

I breathe out a laugh, pressing my forehead against hers. “Both,” I reply.

She swallows, her hands hesitantly finding their way up to my abs. Her fingers rest there for a nervous moment and then they begin roaming up across my chest.

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