Chapter 15
Travis
I put my hand on the doorknob to go outside when a phone starts ringing from downstairs. "That’s my phone," she says, clinging to the sheet in front of her.
"Can someone bring up the phone?" I shout down the steps and then go to walk outside. The sun makes me squint as I grab our clothes and walk back inside.
"Here," Clarabella says, handing Harlow her purse.
"Thank you," she mumbles and doesn’t even make eye contact with her. The phone stops ringing. I smile at Clarabella as she turns and walks back down the stairs. "Can this be any worse?"
I laugh. "It could have been my mother," I say, and she glares at me, and I laugh. "We are two consenting adults who can do what we want." I try to smooth it over with her. The last thing I wanted was to wake up with my sisters barging in. Not after the night I just had. The best night of my life, and of course, it would make sense that it was with Harlow.
The phone rings again from her purse, and she opens it and looks at me. "It’s Rachel." She closes her eyes and puts her head back. "Hello." She puts the phone to her ear. "Yeah, yeah, I’m fine," she says, looking at me. "Brunch sounds like a plan. I’ll be ready in about an hour." I don’t know what Rachel says, but two minutes later, she hangs up. "I need to get back to the hotel." She grabs her dress from my hand. "Where are my panties?"
"Outside on the front porch.” I hear Presley from downstairs. "We thought it was a joke."
"Well, the joke's on all of you," Harlow says and laughs as she stands up. "I’m guessing you aren’t going to turn around."
"You would be right," I say, getting up, and I hate that she is shy in front of me this morning. "But I will," I say, turning and dropping the towel from my waist as I put on my boxers. I hear the zipper from her dress at the same time as I zip up my own pants.
"How do I look?" she asks, and I turn around, and I can’t help but smile.
"Beautiful," I say softly, and then my eyes go to her neck, and I put my hand to my mouth. "Your neck," I say, and she walks over to the bathroom, and she looks in the mirror.
"Did you give me a hickey?" she shrieks out. "What is wrong with you?" Her head comes out from the bathroom.
"It’s not my fault." I hold up my hands. "I think it’s when you were sitting on." She walks out of the bathroom and holds up her hand.
"I don’t need a replay. I was there," she retorts, and I walk over to her and take her in my arms. She comes reluctantly. "This is crazy."
"Is it?" I ask her softly, and she doesn’t answer. All she does is look up at me, and I bend to kiss her lips.
"I have to go," she says. "Rachel is going to be waiting for me."
I nod my head at her and slip my fingers in hers as we walk down the stairs. My chest hurts, thinking she is going to leave any minute. "Well, well, well, if that isn’t the walk of shame," Presley says from the stool in the kitchen. "I don’t know what is."
"There is no shame," I say, and Harlow untangles her fingers from mine.
"Can one of you drive me to the hotel?" she asks them. "Or point me in the direction, and I can Uber there."
"I’ll take you," Clarabella says, coming to her. "I’ll be back for you guys after I drop her off."
"Thank you," Harlow says and then looks up at me, and I can see that she has so much she wants to say, but she just nods at me and walks out of the house. I want to reach out for her hand and kiss her one last time, but I know with an audience present and the embarrassment that she is feeling, she will not be happy with me.
I watch the door close behind her and then see Shelby walk past me and look outside. I hear the crunch of the tires as they drive away, and only then does Shelby turn around and look at me. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?" she shouts at me, putting her hands on her hips. Definitely not what I thought I was going to be doing this morning.
"Here," Presley says, walking to my side and handing me a cup of coffee. "Before you answer anything, drink."
"Why can’t you be nicer, like her?" I point at Presley and take a sip of the hot coffee. "And why are you yelling?"
"Because you have lost your ever-loving fucking mind." She throws her hands up in the air, and I just smirk.
"There was also fucking last night." Presley tries to make a joke, and we both glare at her. "Tough crowd."
"One, what happened between Harlow and me." I say her name again, and it’s like music to my ears. "Is between us."
"It took you two years to get over her," Shelby points out, and I roll my eyes.
"I was busy building my practice." I try to shy away from the truth.
"Lies," Presley says from beside me, and I look over at her. "He never got over Harlow."
"What?" I ask, shocked, and Presley just shrugs her shoulders.
"You can’t stand there and tell me that you actually loved Jennifer," she says, and the coffee that I took a sip of is starting to come up. I’m about to say something when she puts up her hand. "I’m sure you liked her plenty, but love." She shakes her head, sitting back down on the stool. She picks up her cup of coffee and brings it to her lips. "You didn’t love her."
"How can you say that?" Shelby says and then looks at me.
"You.” Presley points at Shelby. "Are full of shit." Shelby gasps at her while I hear the sound of tires again. My heart speeds up in my chest, and I wonder if Harlow decided that she didn’t want to be dropped off and instead wanted to come back. The front door opens, and Clarabella steps in and shuts the door behind her.
"Okay, I rushed as fast as I could." She looks at the three of us. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing," Shelby and I say at the same time.
"Liars liars, pants on fire," Presley says. "Shelby was asking if Travis lost his goddamn mind. Then I told him that he never loved Jennifer."
"True," Clarabella says, and my eyes widen, and she looks at me. She laughs. "You can’t actually stand there and tell us that you loved Jennifer." She looks at me, and I want to say that I did, but I look down at my coffee. "Exactly, you were never you," she starts to say. "I mean, look at this place. You bought this house and never brought her here." I swallow down. "You never even told her."
"It never came up,” I lie to her. I will not tell anyone why I bought this house four years ago. No one, except for the woman who just walked out.
"Wait a second," Shelby says, holding up a finger. "When I asked you about the wedding night, you said that you would rent a room at the hotel."
"I did rent a room," I tell them. "I told you guys not to decorate here. I specifically said I wasn’t coming here on my wedding night."
"You said you didn’t want to bring Jennifer here, yet you brought Harlow," Shelby continues as if she’s fucking Sherlock Holmes.
"Because he doesn’t love Jennifer," Clarabella says, and I look at her. "When you are with Harlow, it’s like you are you."
"What the fuck does that even mean?" I say, frustrated that everyone is all in my business and that all of this is coming out.
"You never really laugh," Presley says. "It’s just like…" She doesn’t know what word to say, so Shelby comes up with one.
"Boring," Shelby says. "You are very boring." Her face grimaces.
"But then, with Harlow, you are joking and laughing. You held her hand coming down the stairs," Clarabella says. "I never saw you kiss Jennifer. Not once."
I tilt my head to the side. "So we weren’t touchy-feely." I drink a cup of coffee, and it tastes sour in my mouth.
"Can I share my thoughts?" Clarabella says, holding up her hand.
"Why, you’ve been holding back?" I laugh.
She rolls her eyes. "When you broke up with Harlow," she starts. "We couldn’t even say her name. Every single time we saw you, you looked worse and worse." She wipes a tear away from her eye.
"Yeah, you looked like shit," Presley cuts in. "Your eyes were all sunken in. It was bad."
"And forget about us even saying her name. I remember once Mom mentioned her name, and you got this look in your eyes, and you left the house." I look down, remembering how hard it was for me. "Now you broke up with Jennifer yesterday, and you didn’t even bat an eye."
"Also, we’ve said Jennifer a million times, and you didn’t cry." Clarabella points at me. "Harlow walked out the door, and you looked like someone stole your ice cream."
"What do you want from me?" I ask all three of them.
"We want you to be happy, jerkoff," Shelby says, folding her arms over her chest. "And if Harlow makes you happy, own up to it."
"You are so lucky," Presley says, shaking her head. "If you broke up with me four years ago, and then you invited me to your wedding, the last thing I would give you was a blow job."
"Same," Clarabella says. "I would definitely kick you in the balls."
"She obviously still has feelings for him," Shelby says, and my heart skips a beat hoping she is right.
"Anyway, I’d love to sit here and chat about Romeo’s love life," Clarabella says. "But we have a brunch to get to."
"Also, please note," Shelby says. "I’m not cleaning anything in this house."
"You made this mess," I say, looking around at the house.
"You had sex in this house," she counters. "And the last thing I want to do is touch something that your ball sack touched."
"I would die," Presley says, stepping away from the counter. "Did you do it here?" She points at the counter. And I try to hide the smile. "Oh my God."
"I don’t think we did it in that spot." I point, and truth be told, we never left upstairs. "But it might be around there."
"I need a shower and disinfecting," Presley says, walking out the door. "Brunch in thirty. Don’t be late."
"Why are we having a brunch if there was no wedding?" I ask.
"Because the food was ordered, and we only invited your friends," Shelby states, walking out the door and slamming it shut.
"I guess I’ll find my own ride there," I say, shaking my head and looking around. I walk back upstairs to the bathroom and take a shower, showing up at the brunch forty-five minutes later in jeans and a polo shirt.
"There he is," Frankie says when I walk into the same room we were in last night. Except all the tables are gone but one round one in the middle. "Fuck, how are you not hungover?" he says when I get close enough to him. I take a look around and see it’s only the guys that are here so far.
"Slept it off," I lie to him, and the door opens, and I look over, expecting to see her walking in. But the only ones who walk in are Rachel, Victoria, and Lydia. The three of them are all wearing sunglasses.
"Please tell me that someone has a Bloody Mary?" Lydia says, going straight to the bar.
"Hey," I say to Rachel when she comes to say hi. "Where is Harlow?"
"Oh, she left," she says, and everything inside me shuts down. "She had an emergency and had to head out."