“Go watch your movie and get some sleep,” I suggest. “I’ll probably crash out in a bit.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart,” Mom says, finally leaving me alone.
I shake my head and stand up. I’m a little hungry, but I figure I’ll give Mom a chance to settle in and get into her movie before I head for the kitchen. By then she should be able to let me fix my own plate and heat it up without wanting to do everything for me.
I look around my room, feeling a little bored and restless. Compared to my place on-base, it’s cluttered. Posters on the walls, stuff barely contained in my closet, trophies and badges and stuff from high school on my dresser and desk. The TV and my old PlayStation take up almost an entire corner. Nothing is in regulation colors. It’s good to be back, but weird at the same time, the way it was the first time. I don’t think it will ever not really be weird.
I open the blinds and look out through my window. All the lights are off at the Polsens’ place across the yard except for the one in Harper’s old room, but her curtains are closed. I figure I’ll go over in the morning to say hello, maybe ask Mom if I should invite them all over for breakfast or whatever.
Just as I come up with this idea, I see the curtains rustling in the window across the way, and then I see her. She’s in a tank top and shorts, her hair down around her shoulders, obviously getting ready to go to bed. She looks up and spots me at the same time.
I tug open my window and grin at her. Harper’s actually looking pretty good these days, I think to myself as I wave. Harper returns the wave and grins at me. She bites her bottom lip, and opens her own window, leaning out a bit.
“Hey!” She does that shout-whisper thing, and I lean out through my window. “Just get into town?”
“Yeah, Mom said you were here,” I call back, as quietly as I can.
“How long are you here for?”
“A week. You?”
“Same,” Harper says. “Are you tired?”
I shake my head. I suddenly don’t want to let her go without chatting more.
Harper looks over her shoulder and says, “Let’s go to our place before we wake someone up!”
I nod. We have a couple of different spots, but I know what she means.
Hopefully Mom is already starting to doze off, so she won’t question me leaving the house after midnight, right after finally getting home. I close my window and pull the shades.
CHAPTER THREE
HARPER POLSEN
I close the door behind me as quietly as I can and pull my robe a little tighter around my shoulders. I probably should have put proper clothes on, but I’d only just taken a shower before I saw Zane in the window. Besides, Zane had seen me in pajamas before. It wasn’t like it was all that different.
I pad across the backyard to the spot where Zane and I used to meet when we were kids and then teenagers. I see him come out of the house, and my heart skips a beat, just for a second. Oh come on, it’s just Zane.
I take a quick, deep breath and shake my head slightly at myself for reacting like that to him, but I have to admit that in the time since I saw him last, Zane has become very hot. He’s put on some muscle that I can see beneath his T-shirt in the backyard lights. As he gets closer to me, I can see that he’s sporting some new ink — an army insignia on his right forearm — and the edge of another one that I can’t make out starts just below his shirt sleeve. The high-and-tight haircut looks good with his dark hair and sharp-featured face. I have to admit that altogether he’s damn good looking.
He hurries to me and before I can even think of what to say, Zane hugs me tightly. I wrap my arms around his big, broad shoulders and find myself pressing my cheek to his chest almost without knowing what I’m doing.
“I swear to God you’re taller,” I say.
Zane laughs. “You’re looking pretty good yourself,” he says, pulling back and looking me over. I feel my cheeks heating up with a blush and look away with a laugh.
“You’re just saying that because there’s a breeze,” I tell him. I pull my robe around me even tighter. When I feel like I can meet his gaze again, I look up into Zane’s eyes. “So, happy to be back in town?”
“It’s nice,” Zane says. “The flight was a pain in the ass, though.”
“Yeah, the drive was pretty tough too,” I respond. It feels so awkward, but I can’t say why. I can’t even think about why.
“You came back into town just for my parents’ anniversary?”
I shrug off Zane’s question. “Well, I mean, they’re practically my aunt and uncle,” I point out. “Almost a second set of parents.”