Page 140 of Untouchable

He can’t believe how lucky he is, that someone like Harp—intellectual, guarded, cultured—would take a chance on letting Parker of all people into his life.

But Harp has.

By the time he parks in his numbered space in the lot of his apartment building, Parker has run out of excuses to keep Harp on the phone, and they say goodbye. Sunday seems like a long way away, but, on the other hand, Parker has a lot of planning to do.

* * *

Sunday morning has…not gone the way Parker expected. He’d checked the weather on Friday, and it had predicted bad weather rolling in late Sunday evening. But the storm had been early—overeager, Parker thought, just like him—and the entire world had been turned to a slushy, muddy mess. It was hardly even snow, really, more like rain with ideas above its station, and Parker knew with one glance that the trail he’d planned for them to hike would be absolute soup.

Still, he could improvise—he had pulled on his winter coat and hauled himself to the grocery store, and from there everything continued to go downhill. The ingredients he wanted were out of stock, and the entire world seemed to be out grocery shopping at the exact same time.

By the time Parker makes it back to the apartment, he is overwhelmed and frustrated and dejected. Harp would be here any minute, and instead of a wonderful, carefully planned date tailored to Harp’s interests, Parker has… nothing except for a baguette and a few other fancy spreads and cheeses he’d bought for what he’d once hoped to be a picnic.

And then Mindy calls.

“Hey, Parker—” She sounds breathless.

“Hey, Mindy, what’s up?” he asks.

“I know you have your date thing today but—that’s not ‘til later, right? Can you help with something?”

“Er, what do you need?” he asks. Harp has just texted him that he’s out of the canyon and into town, but Mindy’s tone is panicked enough that Parker doesn’t want to mention it.

“I’m at Haven Home,” she says. “And last night a pipe like… froze and burst or something, they don’t even quite know what happened because this has never been an issue—but basically the animals are in, like, a foot of water so we are moving them and drying them off and also trying to fix everything and—It’s just a huge mess, Parker—I know you’re gonna be busy but is there any chance you could spare like, half an hour? I wouldn’t ask except we’re kind of desperate.”

Parker’s heart sinks. Yet another part of his plan has gotten completely fucked up, but he can’t exactly say no to that. Parker plots out a new itinerary in his mind—maybe Harp has errands in town he needs to run, and Parker can go help, and then they can meet up—

None of that sounds like a very good option.

“Yeah, sure,” Parker says, trying to keep his voice from sounding as heavy as he feels. “I—it might be like, a half hour before I get there, but—yeah. I’ll come.”

“Oh my god, thank you, Parker,” Mindy says, and the relief in her voice almost makes it worth it. “You’re a fucking life saver.”

* * *

Harp is predictablynervous as he climbs into his truck and heads down the winding road towards town. It's not that he doesn't trust Parker to have planned something appropriate for him—it's just that he's never really bothered to communicate his needs in that area. And although he felt brave when he originally committed to the idea and put himself into Parker's hands, on Sunday morning Harp feels somewhat less confident.

Still, he'd loaded the dogs up on food and water, warned them not to gorge themselves while he was gone, and unlocked the dog door on the first floor in case they got impatient without him, then made his way into town.

What if Parker wanted them to go somewhere crowded and loud, like a mall? Harp can imagine Parker thriving in an atmosphere like that, with so much stimulation around and noise bouncing off of every hard plane in the place. But Harp can also imagine how that would turn out as he retreated further inside of himself, overwhelmed, Parker watching him go taciturn and wondering if he'd done something wrong, the two of them shutting down. Harp's anxiety spirals.

Harp crosses his fingers and hopes against hope that Parker has planned something outdoors.

* * *

Parker is pullingon jeans and a hoodie he knows will end up splattered in mud when there’s a knock at the door. And even though he’s excited to see Harp, he’s worked himself into enough of a frenzy that all he feels right now is apprehension.

He throws open the door and finds Harp’s large frame filling the doorway. He steps back to let him in.

“I’m so sorry, Harp—I have to—there’s this thing I have to do—I’m sorry, I know it’s not, like—I know you came all the way down here, but I promise it’ll be really quick, you could even run errands and stuff if you want—I totally get if you wanted to reschedule, I’m sorry—”

"Hey, whoa, slow down," Harp says, laughing."Start from the beginning. What's up?"

Parker bites at a hangnail nervously as he explains.

“I wanted to do this hike but then the weather was shitty so I was like, oh, well, we can just see a movie or maybe even ice skating at the plaza downtown, but then I got a call from Mindy and there’s a burst pipe or something at Haven Home—it’s the animal shelter she volunteers at—and she asked if I could help—it’ll just be like, twenty minutes, tops, but I couldn’t say no to her, you know? And then they didn’t have the kind of brie I was supposed to get at the store and—everything just got really fucked up and I’m sorry and I really wanted today to be a good date as a surprise for you but—it just isn’t.”

Parker braces himself for the disappointment, the quiet, passive-aggressive disapproval, that has always come when he’s messed up something like this.

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