Page 96 of Shortcake
The next day, Enzo, Haylee, and I took Harper to the bookstore in a rare Conrad approved outing.
The moment Harper left us to browse the YA section, Enzo and Haylee pounced on me.
“He didn’t tell her?” Enzo hissed. “Why didn’t he tell her?”
“Shhhhh,” I snapped at them. Then, in a normal speaking voice, I said her name. “Harper,” waiting to see if she heard me. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look up from the back of the book she was reading.
I exhaled, then turned back to my friends, satisfied that she was out of earshot. “No, clearly he didn’t tell her.”
I was grumpy.
Grumpy. Frustrated. And annoyed at myself because I didn’t really have any right to feel either of those things.
This washisdaughter. He got to choose how he revealed our relationship to her and when. But I still couldn’t shake this feeling that it was wrong. That I was lying to a kid I really liked. Hell, I might even call Harper my friend, age gap aside.
And our date last night was nice. He was sweet, as he always is. Holding doors. Sharing dessert. He even had a rose waiting for me on the passenger seat of his car.
But my head had been a mess last night. First with him saying he loved me… sort of. Hesort ofsaid it. Then sort of took it back, leaving my mind reeling, and us in this weird limbo state.
Then by the time we got home from dinner, Harper was already back from her book club, curled up on the couch watching some new horror series on Shudder. So we barely got a chance to kiss, let alone be intimate in any other way.
“How long are you two going to keep sneaking around?” Haylee added.
“I don’t know,” I snapped back. “I don’t really get a lot of say in this.”
“Why not?” Haylee pushed. “You’re in this relationship, too.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a parent.”
My two friends shared a look that I pretended not to see. “How was the date?” Enzo asked. “Was it at least nice to get out and have something official in public.”
“I’m not sure that us sneaking across the border to another town qualifies as ‘taking our relationship public’ but… yeah. It was nice.”
“Uh oh,” Enzo said with an eye roll.
While at the same time, Haylee groaned, “Oh boy.”
“What? I said it was nice!”
“Yeah,” Enzo snorted. “And you don’t like nice. You like naughty nights and bad boys. For you, nice is the kiss of death.”
I strolled over to a table of TikTok viral books and ran my fingers across the smooth covers. “Maybe. But Conrad’s always been nice. And I’ve always liked him.” Literally since the moment I met him in a bar years ago… before I knew he was a cop.
“Don’t get mad at me when I say this…” Haylee said carefully and booped my nose with her finger.
It was annoyingly cute. But that was Haylee for you. She was adorable and what made it even worse? Half the time she didn’t realize how cute she was, which only made her sweeter and more endearing. “What?” I practically snarled. It was like snapping at a kitten.
“You liked Conrad when it was, I don’t know,wrongto like him. Your hook up in New York? Naughty. Him as the sheriff? Naughty. Sneaking around, banging it out behind people’s backs? Very naughty. So maybe it’s okay that a dinner out was nice. Not exciting, but sweet and romantic, you know?”
“I’mnot saying it wasn’t sweet and romantic.Enzois saying that.” Defensiveness hitched my voice higher than I intended.
“Yeah, but your tone—”
I cut Haylee off before she could finish speaking. “My tone is frustration because I thought we were done with sneaking around and now we’re not.”
I closed my eyes against the burning sensation in my sinuses.Allergies, I told myself. Then after gathering myself for a quick second, I opened them and said, “Truthfully, you guys, I was looking forward tosweet. And romantic. But a night out in the next town over because he couldn’t bring himself to tell his daughter about us isn’t all that sweet or romantic. It’s shady. And when Conrad and I finally hooked up, I guess… I don’t know. I thought I was done with shady.”
“Do you knowwhyhe didn’t tell her?” Enzo asked. “Maybe there’s a good reason.”
