Page 123 of Untouchable

The passenger door handle is cold against Harp's bare skin and Parker's heater hasn't kicked in all the way yet when Harp sits heavily down and closes the door behind him.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, Harp thinks as he interrupts Parker, as he does the rough thing, the wrong thing, dragging him into a kiss that is as much a plea as it is a farewell.

* * *

Parker doesn’t expecthis passenger door to fly open. He doesn’t expect Harp to climb in and slam it shut behind him. And he certainly doesn’t expect Harp to pull him across the center console for a kiss that’s urgent and almost anguished. Parker stiffens—not because he doesn’t want to be kissed, but simply because he’s in shock.

Harp releases him and Parker sags back into his seat, his eyes wide. He realizes his hands are still gripping the steering wheel at ten and two, just like he’d learned in driver’s ed.

“Um—” Parker squeaks. Harp turns the music down. He seems to shrink in the passenger seat as he looks down at his hands, clearly working up the nerve to say something.

“I cheated on my wife,” Harp says, the words tumbling out. “I’ve never dated a man—only hookups, only while I was married. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with a man, but I ruined the life of the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

“Er—what?”

He’s barely aware that his mouth is hanging open as he looks at Harp. Harp’s posture is tense and guarded, and he’s still angled almost away from Parker. The entire morning has been so unlikely, so unpredictable, that Parker is beginning to think, at any moment, he’ll wake up on the couch and discover the last eighteen hours have been some kind of fever dream.

"It was years. It went on for years. I did it for years," Harp says hoarsely. "It wasn't something that happened to me. It was something I planned and chose over and over again. And I justified it to myself, and I told myself it wasn't really sex because it was with other men, and I told myself it didn't really mean anything."

The revelation sinks in slowly, in layers, like sediment settling to the bottom of a riverbed. He knows it’s the cheating part he should focus on, but instead Parker finds himself latching on to the mental image of a younger Harp, trapped and desperate and alone.

Parker’s heart aches. It aches for himself, for being foolish enough to want someone, something, so ill-fated. It aches for the loss of whatever intimacy they’d found last night, whatever peace Parker had felt last night in Harp’s bed, his face buried in Harp’s chest. It aches, though, most of all, for Harp, for the pain of being trapped in a marriage with someone he loved but wasn’t in love with. It makes him so sad, Parker thinks, to imagine Harp watching himself become someone he hated, furtively seeking out the affection and contact he craved.

And it aches, too, to think that Harp has gone forty-four years without ever being in love.

“Why—why are you telling me this?” Parker asks, as gently as he can.

"Because you know me, I think. On some level you've... seen who I am. But you don't know this. And you deserve to know what I've done," Harp says. “I didn’t want to leave Cherry. I really did love her, but I was so deeply in the closet because of my family, because of where I lived—but there’s not an excuse for it. And when she found out, it ruined her."

Parker can’t tell if he’s being asked to absolve Harp, or simply being asked to listen. He’s not even sure where this is all coming from—it seems like there’s not a connection between whatever had triggered Harp’s panic attack earlier, and it hardly seems related to anything between the two of them.

There’s a lump in Parker’s throat now as he realizes just how much Harp must have hated himself—and how much he clearly still hates himself now. He doesn’t know what to do with this information, though, or how to move forward. He’s unable to reconcile the Harp he knows and cares about with his mental image of who a cheater is—someone who’s callous and careless and evil.

The world, though, is never as black and white as he wishes it were.

"So that's the kind of person I am,” Harp says. “That's where I'm coming from with this. I've never had an honest relationship in my life—I haven't even kissed someone since before my divorce. I should've told you all of this first, but I didn't realize how far this would go—I didn't mean for you to be here. But I'm glad you were."

Harp takes a deep inhale.

"Get down the mountain safe. Please, Parker."

And then he’s gone, and Parker is left alone in the quiet, warm carapace of his car, wondering what the hell just happened.

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