“I don’t really know what the situation is,” I admit.
“You’d better find out tout de suite,” Dad says with a smile.
I shake my head at that, but he’s right.
“I’m going to go talk to her and see if we can figure it out,” I tell him.
“Just make sure you don’t screw up dinner tonight. Your mom is really looking forward to it, since it’s the capper to our anniversary week, and she wants it to be perfect right before you leave us again.”
I cringe at that, and stand. I need to hurry if I’m going to get into the woods before Harper gives up on the meeting.
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
“I know I don’t have to tell you to keep your head on straight,” Dad says, giving me another one of those looks.
I decide to leave before he thinks of more advice for me. I’ve already got enough going on in my head.
At least Dad has a better opinion of the situation than Nadine does, according to what little I was able to get out of Harper the day before. But as I finally get out of the house and start towards the woods, I don’t know whether that isn’t because he’s pretty sure I’m going to decide to reenlist.
I shake my head, finding the trail that leads to the treehouse, and thinking about what an incredible mess everything has suddenly become. Harper might still be pissed at me, and I’m not sure if I can blame her for that. Nadine is definitely pissed at me. I don’t know if she’s told my mom about it, but I’m pretty sure Mom will be at least a little upset about it.
We’re going to settle this and figure out what the hell we’re doing. Part of me wants to keep it casual with Harper, say that we did what we did, and it’s done and we should make a clean break of it. She’s in the city, I’m still in the army for at least the next couple of months. Besides, is a woman really a good reason to get out of the army if it’s doing right by me?
Wait until you talk to her and see what she has to say about this, and then figure it out.
I can see the tree house up ahead, and for a second I don’t see Harper. I expect to see her standing under it, waiting, but she’s nowhere to be seen. The old tree house actually still looks like it’s in good shape, the wood is weathered-looking, but the basic structure is metal and plastic, so it hasn’t fallen down.
“Zane?”
I look around at the sound of Harper’s voice.
“Up here!”
I look up, and there she is, standing in the tree house, peeking through the branches out of one of the windows.
CHAPTER THIRTY
HARPER POLSEN
“Good God, Harper, is it even safe for you to be up there?”
I grin and shrug. “It’s held my weight so far,” I point out. I’d been waiting for him under the tree for just long enough to get curious about the tree house itself, and to think that maybe, just maybe, it might be fun to climb, for old time’s sake.
“How did you even get up?” Zane looks for the rope ladder we used to have, but it rotted out a long time ago.
“I climbed,” I say simply. I feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I don’t know what I want to do. I have to admit that I have a tingle running all through my spine at the sight of Zane. He’s so gorgeous, and my body remembers how he felt inside of me so easily that I can’t think of anything else for a few dozen heartbeats.
“Maybe you should come down,” Zane says.
“Maybe you should come up,” I counter.
He looks up at me for a long moment.
“Is the big bad army man afraid?”
“Oh you bet your sweet ass I’m coming up,” Zane says, and that breaks at least some of the tension between us, but it reminds me in some other way of all the rest of it.
What are we even doing?
My heart pounds while I watch him climb, and I wonder if it’s a huge mistake to do this. Maybe I should leave well enough alone. Zane and I can pretend like nothing happened when dinner comes. But at the same time, I know I can’t.
Finally, Zane is standing only a few feet away from me. All I can think about is being in his parents’ bathroom, feeling him inside of me, feeling his hands all over my body. Is that really what I want? Asking the question brings up the fight we had the day before.
“I shouldn’t have gone off on you like I did yesterday,” I say quickly.
“I can kind of get why you did,” Zane tells me. “I mean, obviously, you were upset.”
It feels even more awkward between us than it did when we met in our usual spot the first night we arrived, and I’m dreading what dinner is going to be like if we can’t hash all this out.
“What are we doing?” I take a deep breath and meet Zane’s gaze, and he shrugs. That shrug lights a little jet of fire in me. How can he just shrug?