10. Miles

Chapter 10

Miles

Damn, she’s gorgeous.

“You’re drooling, little brother,” Wilder laughs.

“So funny.”

“What’s happening between the two of you? When we drove up you were holding hands and I’ve never seen you guys doing that before.”

“You mean Ivy didn’t tell you about our talk this afternoon?”

“Nope. She said she talked to you and when I asked what it was about, she said it was none of my business. That it was between you, her, and Jovie.”

“Ivy’s my new favorite St. James,” I joke. “I’m not sure what’s happening with Harper. It’s different.”

Harper and her girls start walking toward us and a smile spreads across my face. Wilder places his hand on my shoulder. “Whatever it is, you look happy. I hope it works out the way you want it to.”

I nod, grateful that no matter what, my family is always on my side. We might get all up in each other’s business to an annoying degree, but there is no better feeling than having my brothers and Clara in my corner.

The other group stands next to us, and Harper asks, “Where should we start?”

“Wilder, Hunter, and I will help our crew with the furniture. We can move it to the backyard, and you can tell us what you want to do with each thing out there. Why don’t you guys start in your bedroom or office? You can pack up the stuff you want to take to my place first.”

“Okay.”

Everyone starts to walk away, but I grab Harper's hand and pull her toward me. Once everyone is inside, I place a quick kiss on her lips. “I hope that was okay.”

She pushes her hair behind her hair as a blush spreads across her face, “Yeah, it was okay,” she whispers.

“You handling all this?”

“Honestly, I’m a little scared to go inside the house. I love my little home and the idea of it being destroyed makes my stomach hurt. I know that it can all be fixed, but it will never be the same. Ya know?”

“I promise we will make it exactly what you want it to be,” I say the right words, but after just a few kisses I want to tell her that she can just live with me forever. There’s no reason to fix her house. She can move her things and live with me, but that would be sure to send her running.

“I trust you to do whatever I want, Miles, it’s just the way it goes, you know? Once something has been fundamentally altered it’s impossible to get it back to the way it was before.”

Before I can ask if she’s talking about more than just her home, Effie yells from inside the house that she has a question about something, and Harper goes inside.

Has our friendship been fundamentally changed by a few intimate moments? Will it ever be the same— is that even what we want? I know I want something more, but I still don’t know what Harper wants. Maybe we need to press pause on everything but our friendship. She’s going through a traumatic experience and that makes people do crazy things. Maybe that’s all this has been on her part and it makes my chest hurt to think that maybe I’m pushing her into something she doesn’t want because she thinks it’s the only way to preserve our friendship.