Stealing Harper(77)

When we first arrived I remember it felt like walking into a sauna, it was hot and humid; of course the first thing Candice said was, “What am I going to do with my hair?!” Her hair had already begun frizzing, and not more than five minutes later she was rocking a fro. We got used to the humidity and crazy weather changes soon enough though, and to my surprise, I love Texas. I had been expecting dirt roads, tumbleweeds and cowboys – let me tell you I have never been so happy to be wrong. Downtown Austin’s buildings reminded me of Los Angeles, it was unbelievably green everywhere and had lakes and rivers perfect for hanging out with friends. Oh, and I’ve only seen a couple of cowboys in the almost three years we’ve been here, not that I was complaining when I did. I had also worried with Candice’s recent burnt orange fetish, people were going to be able to spot us like Asian tourists at Disneyland. Thankfully, the majority of Austin is packed with UT Longhorn gear, and its common to see a burnt orange truck on the road.

Now we were a little less than two weeks away from finishing our junior year and I couldn’t wait for the time off. Normally we go to California to see Candice’s family during the winter and summer breaks, but she was working at a cheer camp for elementary-aged girls this summer so we were getting an apartment that we planned to keep as we finished our senior year.

That is, if we ever got Candice to pass this damn final.

Before I could even ask my first question, Candice gasped loudly, “Oh my God, the pores on my nose are huge.”

Grabbing the pillow under me, I launched it at her and failed miserably at hitting anything, including her. At least it got her attention. Her mouth snapped shut, she turned to look at the pillow laying a few feet from her, then turned around with a huff to walk back to her desk.

Finally. “Okay, what is—”

“So are you ever going to go on a date with Blake?”

“Candice!”

“What?” She shot me an innocent look. “He’s been asking you out for a year!”

“This—you need—forget it.” I slammed the book shut and rolled off my bed, stretching quickly before going to drop the heavy book on my desk. “Forget it, we’ll just see if we can get our deposit on the apartment back. I swear to God, it’s like trying to study with a five-year-old.”

“You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Are you going to go on a date with Blake?”

I sighed and fell into the chair at my desk. “One, he’s your cousin. Two, he works for UT now, that’s just . . . kinda weird. Three, no.”

“It’s not like he’s your professor! He isn’t even a professor, period. And do you realize that if you marry him, we’ll actually be family?”

“Marry? Candice—wait . . . how do you even jump from me going on a date with him, to marrying him? I’m not going to marry your cousin, sorry. And I don’t care if he’s a professor or not, it doesn’t change the fact that he works for the school. Besides, he’s not even my type.”

“Not your type?” She deadpanned and one perfectly blonde eyebrow shot straight up. “I seem to remember you having the biggest crush on him when we were growing up. And I know he’s family, but I can still say that he’s gorgeous. I’m pretty sure he’s everyone’s type.”

I had to agree with her on that. Blake West was tall, blond, blue-eyed and had a body like a god. One of these days he was going to show up on a Calvin Klein billboard. “I had a crush on him when we were thirteen. That was eight years ago.”

“But you’d had a crush on him for years. Years. You were devastated when he moved away.”

“And like I said, I was thirteen. I was ridiculous.”

Blake is five years older than Candice and me, but even so, all of my childhood memories included him. He was always at Candice’s house to hang out with her older brother, Eli, and we followed them everywhere. I’d viewed both Eli and Blake like awesome, older brothers until the day Blake saved my life.

Okay, that’s a little dramatic. He didn’t actually save my life.

I was nine at the time, we’d been playing on a rope swing and jumping into a little lake not far from our houses. When I’d gone to jump, my foot slipped into the foot hole and I ended up swinging back toward land headfirst, screaming the whole way. Blake had still been standing on the bank and caught me, swinging me into his arms before I could make the trip back toward the water.

In that moment, he became my hero, and I fell in love. Or, at least, my nine-year-old version of love. My infatuation for him grew over the next few years, but he never saw me as anything other than his “little cousin’s best friend”. I’m sure if I’d been older, that would have been a blow to my ego, but I just kept following him around like I’d always done. When he graduated from high school, he immediately joined the Air Force and moved away from me. I remember throwing a few “my life is over” fits to Candice, but then I got boobs and hips and the other boys my age started noticing me. And then it was something along the lines of, “Blake, who?”