Page 270 of Untouchable

"This whole fucking night is just... God," Harp says, blinking hard and trying to find the right way to put it into words. He'd love to be able to communicate it to Parker, but how are you supposed to say, “I want to put my head down and go to sleep because everything is way too much right now and I feel like I'm going to implode into an impossibly dense, dark point that will suck Capriccio's, Mink Creek, Storm Mountain, and everything else into it like a dying star—but I probably just had too much whiskey too fast..."

He wants to tell Parker that he's sorry for his asshole brother, that he's sorry this whole night is such a disaster, but then again there's some part of Harp that thinks Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way about it. There have been so many situations that everyone found tolerable but Harp. There are so many things that kill Harp inside, that break him down but don't seem to bother anyone else.

You're not normal,he reminds himself, for the first time in a long time. And as soon as he thinks it, it's etched like scar tissue.

Harp is smart and he is strong in some ways, but he knows that he's neurotic, that he's awkward, that he's been known to tell himself one truth for years before realizing that it's a lie he's concocted.

What if Gil is right?he thinks, bleakly. What if Harp really has projected more onto Parker than is there?

Harp had managed to talk himself into thinking that cheating on Cherry with a string of strangers over the course of years was the right thing to do for her—the best thing for her, the thing that would give her the marriage she wanted to the man she wanted, even if he would never in a million years be able to return the love that she gave him in the same way.

He'd managed to live in a reality where blatant infidelity—where closeting himself—had been something he thought was victimless, was sustainable, was a good compromise.

This wouldn't be the first house of cards Harp had ever constructed for himself.

Harp can't bring himself to look at Parker.

* * *

“Do you want to go?”Parker asks, his brow furrowed.

"No," Harp says, snapping back. "No, I'm sorry. I had too much to drink, I think."

"Me too," Parker says. "And you don't have to apologize. I just... want you to know it's okay if you need a break."

Parker finds Harp's hand under the bar again and squeezes it. The night is more tolerable if he slips into the role of Harp’s caretaker, as though he’s been hired to check in with Harp and make sure everything is okay.

Even when things are clearly notokay.

Even when Parker has no idea how to fix them.

Even when, at every turn of the conversation, Parker feels like he’s fucked up somehow.

He musters up a weak smile, his thoughts slurry from too much alcohol too fast. It will get better once they’re seated, he tells himself. They’ll have something to talk about, something to do, and at the very least Parker figures he can just shove food in his mouth whenever it seems like Gil is about to ask him another slightly barbed question.

* * *

Part of Harpsays to stop thinking, to just make it through this night and to get Parker dropped off and start over again on Thursday.

A bigger part of Harp is drunk and miserable and doesn't know how to handle himself in public like this. A bigger part of Harp says that he's been doing so much work to make other people happy lately that maybe—just maybe—it's okay for him to shut down for a little while without falling all over himself to communicate every last thought to Parker about how he's fine, yes, totally okay, definitely not having a huge panic attack.

It's only been a few weeks of this and Harp already has a nagging feeling that his anxiety—his fear of being outside his home in general—is a burden on Parker, that they'll never truly be happy out in public, that eventually this will be a dealbreaker for Parker.

"Hey," Parker says gently, rubbing Harp's knuckle. "Seriously, are you having a stroke?" he teases. "I have training for that."

Harp finds himself smiling. It brings him out of himself, out of the spiral of doubt.

"See, why can't you be like that with Gil?" he asks, pivoting to pick up a conversation that Harp had been having with himself the whole time he was silent. The whiskey is slowing down his mind and speeding up his mouth.

"What do you mean?"

"When you talk to Gil, every other word is like, I mean, like youknowwhatImean?"

* * *

Parker blanches.

“Huh?” he says, his mouth hanging open. Surely he misheard or misunderstood—

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