44. Harper

I’d read that damn message seventeen times today. Every time, I felt like a complete asshole. No, I didn’t expect him to be perfect, but I expected him to be honest. And how did that make me wrong?

I didn’t believe I was wrong. Yet I still felt like an ass. I’d read every torturous message he’d sent for the last ten days. And I missed him. The gut-wrenching hurt that had hit me when I realized he’d been hiding something so big from me didn’t invalidate the love I had for him. A heaviness had settled over me since he left. One I’d shed months ago and had forgotten about. It was the weight of carrying it all. The stress of every tomorrow. But he’d lied. And now I’d always wonder if he’d do it again.

An alarm sounded, startling me out of my stupor. Dammit. A resident’s panic button was going off.

“Oh shit.” I popped to my feet and scanned the notification. Eleanor Sparrow, room 567. She wasn’t one to hit her button for the TV or because she needed more ice water. No, she was the opposite. She hardly wore the damn thing.

I flew out of my office.

Carolyn glanced up from her screen as I darted past her. “It’s?—”

“I know.” I ran straight to the stairs, bypassing the elevator, and took them two at a time, all the while praying she was okay. My heart pounded as I hit floor five and burst into the hall. The elevator doors opened as I passed them, and a young male nurse on duty today fell into step behind me.

“I’ve got the key,” I announced as I approached Eleanor’s quarters. I flashed the card, and once the door beeped, I flung it open.

“Eleanor,” I called, running inside. I’d only made it a couple of steps in before the sight registered. I halted and slapped a hand over my face. “Oh my God!”

Old man ass. Old man ass. The image was burned into my brain so that even though my eyes were pinched shut and my hand was covering them, all I could see was the hairy white ass.

“Henry, did you hit my button?” Eleanor huffed.

“I told you to take the damn thing off, sweet stuff.”

I cringed.

“Are you standing with your eyes closed too?” the nurse behind me asked.

Of course I was. I spun, and when I was facing him, I forced my eyes open. Now I was staring at the twenty-five-year-old whose face was scrunched up in horror.

“Just spin around,” I muttered. But even as I studied the door, I still couldn’t shake the image of Eleanor’s hands pinned over her head while Henry’s pale body slammed her into the sofa.

“You should have knocked,” she declared.

“You hit your button!” I cried. “We were under the impression that it was an emergency.”

She sighed. “This is why I keep telling you, Harper, that at times, it’s okay to take it off and live a little. If I’m always afraid of the what-ifs, I’ll miss all the good things. Or in this case, the good stuff gets interrupted by nosy young people.”

Annoyance flashed through me, but it was quickly followed by shame. She’d told me the same thing dozens of times, but today, the message hit me differently.

Was that what I was doing with Kyle? Was I missing out on the good moments because I was scared? Scared of trusting, scared of getting hurt.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Henry grumped, “but I’d appreciate it if you two left. We were in the middle of something.”

I cringed. I did not want to think about that.

“Oh, I think we’re finished,” Eleanor groused.

“Like hell we are,” Henry said. “I took two of those blue pills. We have a good few hours left.”

Tempted to cover my ears, I pushed the man in front of me out into the hall and let the door slam shut behind us.

“Pretty sure I’ll be traumatized for life after that…”

I stared at him. No shit. But I reined in my composure. “Our residents deserve privacy and respect, so let’s just forget it happened.”

His face screwed up as he regarded me, as if I’d grown horns right in front of him.

Yeah, kid, I know. There’s no way I’ll forget it either.

“Maybe just go home tonight and get drunk. Come on.” I headed back for the elevator.

My coms beeped in my ear. “Do we need a bus?” Carolyn asked.

“No. False alarm. I’m coming down.” I hit the button to call the elevator.

“Good,” she said. “By the way, you have company waiting in your office.”

Company? Zara was the only one who visited me, but we hadn’t made plans to have lunch today. Though I supposed it wasn’t totally out of character for her to show up like this. Especially this last week and a half.

I cringed twice on the way down when flashes of the scene upstairs hit me and got sympathetic smiles from the nurse with me.

“Zara’s here?” I asked as I approached Carolyn’s desk.

“No,” she said. “It’s your ex-husband.”

Jace?

I stopped just inside the door and found him sitting in the chair in front of my desk.

“Hi, Harp.”

“Hi.” Without moving closer, I put my hands into my pockets and waited.

“Can we talk?” He waved at my desk chair.

Sighing, I pushed the door shut. A conversation with my ex was nowhere remotely close to enjoyable, but maybe it would cleanse my mind of the vision of my resident’s ass. Jace was good at pissing me off, and that would likely keep me thinking about whatever the hell he was going to say.

I moved around my desk and sank down into my chair. “What do you want to talk about?”

He set a check on the surface between us and pushed it my way. A check made out to me. For $10,710.

“That’s the last seven months of alimony.” He sighed. “I’ve got a job, and I’m doing well now. I was saving it to take the kids on a trip. Disney or something.” He lifted one shoulder, sheepish.

I bit back a frown. Piper would absolutely hate Disney at this point in her life.

“I’m working on being a better dad.” He ducked his head and cleared his throat. “And a big part of that is understanding my daughter. I realize now that though maybe a lot of girls her age would love to meet princesses, she probably wouldn’t do well with that kind of stimulation.”

The awareness he displayed in that statement blew me away.

“I know.” He sighed, probably reading into my expression. “I’d like you to put it toward activities for them or things they need. Maybe swim lessons for Sam and some therapies for Piper. Whatever you think. And I’m meeting with my attorney next week. I’ll have him draw something up to end alimony effective seven months ago.”

My heart pounded hard against my breastbone, and my hands shook. “Are you serious?” I wasn’t complaining, an extra fifteen hundred dollars a month would go a long way.

“Yeah. Your boyfriend?—”

“Kyle?”

Jace nodded. “I didn’t know what to make of it at first. You dating some rich athlete. But the guy’s solid. He’s been a huge help.”

“To you?” My mind spun. Kyle had gone over that day, and I knew that Jace had texted him a few times, but Kyle hadn’t said much about it.

“Yeah.” He clasped his hands on the desktop. “He’s given me great suggestions and helped me plan out some ways to make my place more comfortable for Piper. And he got me in touch with a therapist through his organization. Somebody I can talk to about parenting Piper, and even Sam.”

Wow. I was blown away by all of it. By Jace’s total one-eighty and his dealings with Kyle. Though maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by that last part. It was all totally on point for Kyle.

“The other thing I’ve realized…” He sighed and shifted in his chair. “I owe you a sincere apology. For all the lies.”

I blinked. This couldn’t be real. I must have passed out from the shock of witnessing eighty-year-old sex, and now I was dreaming.

“Harp,” he said, his tone concerned and his light brown brows pulled together.

“I think I misheard you,” I choked out.

He chuckled. “No, you didn’t.”

“For two years, you swore you hadn’t lied.”

He frowned. “I never lied about being fired. But I told you ten lies a day to cover it up. I lied about where I was. I lied about how my day had gone. I lied about what money I was using to pay for things.” He shook his head. “I wish I could say that I had a good reason. That I did it to protect you or take care of you. But I did it for myself. Plain and simple. That made me an utter ass, and you deserve better.”

“I…I—” I was in shock. The words wouldn’t come.

“I don’t expect you to accept my apology. But I wanted you to hear it.” He frowned again, a look full of self-reproach. “And I’d like to try to be a better co-parent.”

I should forgive him, and I should be grateful for the changes he’d been making. But I couldn’t wrap my head around it all. “How are you going to do that?”

“Listen more when you talk about the kids. Remind myself that Piper is going to respond to things in ways I wouldn’t. I’d love your help with it, but you owe me nothing.”

He was right. But I owed my kids the opportunity to have a better relationship with their dad. I’d grown up without a father, and the last thing I wanted for Piper and Sam was to experience the same thing.

I sighed, letting my shoulders relax. “Want to come to dinner on Wednesday? You can see Piper at home, and we can talk more. If it works out, then maybe we can make it a regular thing.”

“I would appreciate that.” He gave me a genuine smile. “And if your boyfriend wants to come, that’s cool too.”

“Kyle and I aren’t…” I fidgeted with the pen on my desk, doing my best to ignore the way my chest pinched. “We ended things.”

“I didn’t see that coming. The guy seemed perfect.” With a sympathetic frown, he stood. “See you Wednesday?”

I nodded, and when he was gone, I unlocked my phone and read Kyle’s last text again.

I’d thought he was perfect too. But he’d lied, just like Jace had.

My brain chirped at that last thought. Because unlike Jace, Kyle had lied for a reason. The issue was that I didn’t know if I could get past it.