Page 62 of Love on Ice

Felix: Maybe I should stay here.

Sam: No. You cannot leave me on a plane for ten hours with those two. You said you always help your friends.

Asshole.

Felix: Fine. I’ll be there in ten.

Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at the private airport and am greeted warmly by the staff. When I walk up the stairs, I hear the girls chatting away happily and then they stop, noticing me.

“Felix, you’re here. Thank fuck. They have already started on a bottle of champagne. They are going to giggle the entire way,” Sam states dramatically.

“What are you doing here?” Harper says, looking me up and down.

“I invited him,” Sam states.

“You didn’t tell me,” Harper bites back.

“I only found out twenty minutes ago that you were coming,” Sam says. Harper rolls her eyes and goes back to talking to Kimberly. “Ignore her. She’s been in a mood all week.” I look over at Harper and notice the tension in her shoulders.

“Sit back, relax, when we wake up, we are going to be in Paradise. Well, nottheParadise but a potential Paradise,” Sam says, clinking his whisky glass to my beer can.

I must fall asleep at some stage because I wake up needing a leak. I head to the back where the bathroom is and run smack bang into Harper coming out of the toilet, she jumps.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say, reaching out and steadying her. Harper pulls her arms away from me. “Is everything okay between us?” I ask because I feel like we have gone from fucking like rabbits to mortal enemies.

“Sure.”

“You seem tense.”

“Do I? Everything’s fine,” she answers quickly. Yeah, everything isn’t fine.

“Harper, I’m worried about you,” I whisper as I cup her face.

Tears well in her eyes as if she can’t hold it in any longer, and the next thing I know, she is hugging me tightly as she breaks down.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, slowly stroking her hair. “Whatever is bothering you, you can tell me.” She looks up at me and I wipe her tears.

“You seem to do that a lot for me lately. I’m not normally this teary-eyed.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” I wipe another tear from her cheek. “Is everything okay? Please tell me it’s not Josh?” She stiffens. I take that as a yes. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

She places her hand on mine. “Felix, please,” she begs.

“Harper,” I say sternly.

“Please,” she begs again, and the anguish in how she looks at me breaks me.

“What’s going on?” I ask softly, trying to hold back my anger and worry.

“You were right,” she whispers.

My brows pull together. “Right about what?”

“That I couldn’t handle Josh,” she says quietly as if she is ashamed.

“Princess, I never said that. I didn’t trust that motherfucker. What’s he doing?”

“I can’t be sure, but it’s like out of the corner of my eyes, wherever I’m going, I think he’s there. But I never quite see him. It’s nothing tangible. Just I can feel him. It’s freaking me out. I’m jumping at every shadow, any noise. This is New York. There is always noise.”

---