Page 10 of Harper

“What do you mean?”

“When did you get all these muscles, usguq?”

He offers me the flask, but I shake my head no. My mother would kill me if she smelled liquor on my breath.

“Probably working on your boat all summer, angaq.”

“How’re you at axe throwing?” he asks me with a twinkle in his eye.

“Not bad.”

He digs into his back pocket, pulls out his wallet and gives me a ten-dollar bill. “Teach these qat’sqaq kids a lesson, huh?”

“Yeah?”

“Why not? You got the build for it,” he says, clapping me on the back.

As I make my way over to the entry desk, I see that people have started to drift over from the parade on Main Street. My mother hovers over the entry table, fanning out a handful of brochures about the Native peoples of Alaska.

“Hey, Mama!” I say, waving at her. “How was the parade?”

“Same as always. Good turn out.” She smiles at me. “Where’s your shirt?”

“I’ve been setting up all morning, and it’s hot.” I hold out my uncle’s ten dollars. “Uncle Cody’s sponsoring me for axe throwing.”

“Cody, huh? Wants you to beat out the white boys, I guess?”

I nod. “He said something about that.”

She takes the money and hands me a printed number and safety pin. “Where are you going to put this, huh?”

“On my jeans.”

I’m in the process of pinning it when I turn away from the table…

…and slam into Harper Stewart.

Violently in love.

The words streak through my mind like a bright-white star hurtling through the December sky.

She reaches for my shoulders to steady herself, and I reach for her waist in an attempt to do the same. She looks up into my eyes before letting her gaze drop to my bare chest. Without really meaning to, I flex my muscles and watch as her lips part and eyes widen.

“Oh,” she murmurs, her voice low and soft. “Joe.”

“Hey, Harp,” I murmur.

“Yeah. Hey. Um.” Her eyes flick up to lock with mine. Twin spots of pink appear high on her cheeks. She shakes her head as though whisking away the remnants of a dream. “Sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was—”

“No! It was me. Sorry—uh, h-hi,” I stutter, my fingers tightening around her waist. “I—I just signed up for the, um—Sorry.”

She giggles, sliding her hands from my shoulders. My skin cries out for her to touch me again, but she takes a step away, so that my hands drop from her waist.

“It’s okay,” she says. Her eyes land on the number three that I’ve just pinned to my jeans. “Lucky number three, huh?”

Her soft blonde hair is pulled back in a loose braid, and her eyes sparkle under blue-glitter eyeshadow. Her lips are pink and glossy and look like they’d taste of bubblegum. Harper’s only been wearing makeup since we started high school, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It makes her look older, which I kind of like, but she’s beautiful without it, too. She’s the prettiest, nicest girl in Skagway, and I’ve been quietly in love with her since I was in third grade.

“Three. Yeah.”

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