Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Paisley

I was gonna freak.

My heart was racing so much it felt like it was going to pop like stepping on a cherry, walking up the cramped, creaky wooden steps to Honey’s, but my mastermind gambit had paid off—the looks people gave me were like they’d give a stranger.

Damn. I knew it wouldn’t last long, once people found out my hair was blonde now, but… I wanted to enjoy the moment. Just me and Harper looking obnoxiously beautiful in a blazer.

Honey’s was so cute, I was literally obsessed—I used to hit it up all the time when I was new in town, a bar and a cheesy arcade in one, but I hadn’t been in a hot minute. It had been where I’d met Annabel for the first time, when she’d tried hitting on me. I’d hit her with the all-powerful thanks but no thanks, and we’d been friends for life.

So there was something about using it as one of Harper’s goodbyes to Bayview. But if I thought about that too much then I’d turn into a sentimental little blob and wail on the floor and then everyone would know it was me, so… that was out of the question. Instead, I bought Harper the Honey Special, their signature cocktail—even God was powerless to know what was in the thing—and I dragged her to the back corner, shrouded in low light and shadows, to watch her drink it.

“It’s, uh… what’s in it?” she said, holding the thing up to look in the side.

“Deliciousness and love.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t answer much.”

“Just drink it and let your life be changed. Oh! But we’ve gotta take a pic first.”

“Well, of course. We’d die otherwise.”

I elbowed her lightly. “See? You get it.”

I got a picture of us with our Honey Specials, and I spent a second after just staring at the picture.

I looked… different. And even though it was scary, I think I looked kind of good.

Harper had certainly thought so. She’d just about tripped over herself to tell me not to go get changed. I wanted to bottle up the way that moment felt and hold onto it forever, getting complimented by a beautiful woman.

I couldn’t keep myself from laughing at the sheer amount of trepidation she had going into her drink, but she eventually took a sip and agreed that it was good—I couldn’t get her to acknowledge that it was made of deliciousness and love, but I got all I could out of her—and we hit up the vintage arcade cabinets after our drinks, Harper showing off her skills like the annoyingly talented beautiful woman she was.

It took another drink and a bit of dragging her to the dance floor for me to realize I kept thinking of her as beautiful, and suddenly it was all I could focus on—a track on repeat in my mind, every time I looked at her, fixating on the shape of her face, the curves of her lips, the lift of her cheeks, the slight point to the outsides of her eyes that made her gaze look so sharp, so… beautiful.

I kept replaying the moment of her asking if I had feelings for her in my head, and if I was being totally honest, it kind of scared the life out of me.

At the end of the night, both of us a couple drinks deep and a little delirious on having danced too much, we slipped out of the bar and around back to the park overlook, breathing in the cool, brisk night air, clean and fresh coming in off the park, and she leaned against the railing next to me, looking out over it all. The park sprawling below the boardwalk overlook was pretty and all, but… somehow I couldn’t keep my eyes off Harper.

“So, enjoyed bucket number three?” I said, and she laughed.

“You suck at figures of speech.”

“What?”

“A bucket list isn’t… a list of buckets. It’s a list of things to do before you kick the bucket. As in—die.”

I scowled. “We’re not dying.”

“Well—no, but you’re the one who decided to use it as a metaphor here.”

I put my hands up. “Okay, whatever, hotshot. So, enjoyed kicking bucket number three?”

“That’s worse.”

“Oh my god, there’s literally no winning.”

She laughed, turning to me, and she seemed to lose her composure when she did—her cheeks tinted pink, and she glanced away shyly. “I’m glad we got to go. Thanks for taking me.”

I suddenly got the trope about kissing at the end of a date, and all the magical things it meant. This wasn’t a date—even though I guess it could have been in another world—but I wanted to kiss her so badly. She was so pretty. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking it all night. Was it just because I’d been thinking more about what beauty looked like to me, or was it… more than that?

I couldn’t handle it being more than that, so I chose to believe that it wasn’t. Case closed.

“Still plenty more where that came from,” I said. “Go get some sleep, gorgeous.”

Whoops. I’d meant to say dork or loser or nerd or something. Harper blushed harder, giving me a nervous smile. “Yeah… sorry I’m such an early sleeper.”

“Nah. You’re cute like this.” I reached out and caressed her cheek, which—come to think of it, that was a hell of a move, wasn’t it? I wondered when my hand had even gotten there, but hey, I liked the way she reacted, melting into it with her brows arched, eyes closed, lips parted.

“I’m… guessing you’re going to take me somewhere else tomorrow?”

“Honestly, I should probably put some hours in at the shop, y’know? People will start forgetting it’s there.”

“Any idea how you’re addressing the blonde hair?”

I made a show of being surprised, touching my head. “Oh, what? Oh… it’s blonde. Did I do that?”

She sighed. “Yeah… thing is, I think people actually would buy that from you.”

I winked. “Paisley the mastermind. But I’ll see if we can squeeze in something together.”

“Well, I’ll… try to think of the next bucket.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” And my self-control lost, because I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers—a quick kiss, just a second, leaving her there breathless and reeling, eyes wide, blinking fast, and I tried to ignore the way my heart beat wildly in my chest as I turned away.

“Paisley—”

“See you tomorrow, Harper.”

“I… I’ll see you tomorrow…”

I got home in a rush and collapsed on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, and I heard myself giggling. Wonder what that was about.

Either way, I got changed, taking off my superhero disguise and changing back into regular old Paisley, glasses and oversized sweater, and I tried to make myself a midnight snack, but I didn’t have any crackers, so I climbed over the fence into Emberlynn’s yard and popped open the back door. Aria caught me on my way out, my hands full with crackers, and she raised her eyebrows as she paused at the bottom of the stairs.

“You’re… blonde,” she said.

“Oh. Yeah. I found some hair bleach and decided to see what it did.”

“What it did, as if it’s up for debate…” She sighed. “Blonde and stealing food. Well, at least the blonde part is new. It suits you. You actually applied it pretty well too. I’ll tell Emberlynn not to jump when she sees a blonde girl in the house crawling around under the sink.”

“You’re marginally okay sometimes, Ar,” I said, skipping on out of the house.

∞∞∞

I got some hours in at the shop that night, flipping the sign around and cleaning up the shelves that had accumulated a bit of dust—I hadn’t worked in a couple of days now, but, like, sue me. A good few people came in, and only Charlie stopped to ask me about my hair, so maybe I was surviving this thing after all.

I slept for maybe four hours that night, too excited somehow to stay asleep, and I cleaned up and headed out to the shop again, half because I wanted to get some time in while Harper was still working so we could both have the evening and half because I needed somewhere to pace excitedly and talk to strangers. I was at the till watching a couple of people leave when I got a text from Harper, and all I could think was the sudden memory of kissing her flashing through my head.

I talked to Anders about interesting things to do in town, and he recommended some kind of treehouse thing south of town. Do you know what he’s talking about?

I almost threw my phone across the room fumbling to respond. oh my GOD you’re going to love it. i’m booking a stay there for the night right this instant!!!

for the night??She responded right away, so at least I wasn’t the only one fumbling to text immediately. I have to be back here in the morning, I can’t sleep in a tree all night

I replied with a take the day off tomorrow too and a heart emoji, and she spent a minute typing.

I took the other day off already.

you know, most people take two days off in a week. every week, even, for a lot of them!!! scary stuff

She didn’t respond, which meant I had to take drastic measures. When the door opened and Sam came in, I came around the corner and made a beeline for him.

“Sam! Oh, thank god it’s you.”

He put his chest out. “It’s me! Uh… waiting for a hero?”

“You’re going to work at Jenna’s today, right?”

“You know it. I’m gonna see you there, right?”

“Listen, big guy, Harper is in critical need of a special kind of remedy called treehouse therapy. She has to sleep in a treehouse tonight. I’ve already booked it for her, so I just need you to make sure everyone knows she’ll be out of the shop tomorrow, okay? Make sure Jenna puts on extra pastries and stuff for tomorrow, she’s gonna be swamped.”

He scratched his head. “Uh, treehouse therapy—is that a thing?”

“Oh my god, dude. Keep up. I’m not even gonna answer that. Just tell me you’ll do it. It’s for her wellbeing!”

“All right, all right.”

Score. Paisley was a genius.

It was three hours later before I got a call from Harper, and I picked it up all too happily.

“Hello, my dear Harper,” I hummed.

“Pais, what the fuck is treehouse therapy?”

“The only remedy for you, my dear Harper.”

“Jesus Christ. Fine. Fine, I’m closing tomorrow. Why are you like this?”

I leaned against the counter, trying not to smile too obnoxiously and doing a terrible job. “Psh. You love me. I’ll see you tonight, okay, Harps? It’s a little out of the way, so I’m renting us a car.”

“I honestly forgot you even know how to drive.”

“I’m a good driver, thank you. Five o’clock, pretty dork.”

Apparently my mouth settled for something between beautiful and loser. Whatever. She didn’t fight it.

I spent a dreamlike while getting ready, just trying stuff on in the mirror and obsessing over every detail, imagining how Harper might react to me wearing this or that—wondering if we might kiss again—and I even blew my hair out. It had been a minute, but hell, I looked hot like this.

And I hadn’t realized that I could look this good.

I nipped out quietly to grab the car, and I was lucky Stephanie at the rental barely knew me, because she had no idea who I was when I showed up in my full look. I almost went for a sleek black sedan before I realized that was what Aria would pick, so I went with the red instead, and I went around to the lot next to Harper’s business block and texted her a selfie. I fussed over every detail of it, retaking it three times and throwing a filter on too, and I sent it with the caption just so you don’t get too tongue-tied seeing me here

The message marked as read quickly, but it took a while of her starting and stopping typing to reply. I’m a little underdressed. I thought we were going to a treehouse.

Oh yeah. I probably was overdressed for a treehouse. Still, I scowled at the screen. I swear, I put SO much of myself out there and you can’t even give me a compliment.

She replied without the compliment, but with something else I needed. do you want bubble tea?

I almost dropped the phone. Oh my god do you even have to ask??? I want the matcha one pleeeassseeee you’re the best Harper I love youuuu

She replied with, all right good, just confirming, now do you want to unlock the car?

I jolted to where Harper was standing outside the passenger side door, holding a drink carrier with two cups of bubble tea. The little rat had already known I wanted the matcha one. She was too good.

I unlocked the door, and she stepped inside, handing me my drink as she settled in. “Quite the ride you’ve got.”

“How long were you sneaking up next to me?”

“I sent that text as soon as I got here.”

“And not a compliment?”

She shut the door, looking away. “You look gorgeous. That color is beautiful on you.”

That one, I could work with. I hummed happily to myself as I sipped the tea, started the car, and pulled out of the lot. “I make anything look good,” I said lightly.

“I would believe it,” she said in that small voice where she hadn’t meant to say it. She swallowed, folding her hands in her lap, but I just focused on driving instead of teasing her today.

She really was cute, though.