Page 20

Jamil

A warm body snuggled further into me, reminding me that what happened the night before hadn’t been yet another dream, and that this time she was still here when the sun rose.

I forced my eyes open despite their protest just to prove that I wasn’t wrong.

There burrowed in my arms was Harper, with her long hair pulled up into a messy knot that she must have done in the middle of the night and mascara smeared under her eyes, sleeping peacefully.

My heart clenched at the sight of her. I let myself relish the moment for a few minutes before I slowly peeled my body away from hers and padded into the kitchen.

For the first time, a quiet morning in my kitchen didn’t feel oppressive when I knew Harper was sleeping down the hall.

I ignited the flame on one of the burners on my stove before tossing a pan over top of it.

After grabbing all my ingredients from my fridge and pantry, I got to work making my mother’s pancake recipe.

A realization dawned on me as I went to brew a pot of coffee.

I had no idea if Harper was a coffee person or a tea person.

I shuffled around my cabinets until I found the only box of tea that I owned.

I pulled creamer and milk out of my fridge, along with butter and syrup.

By the time the pancakes were done, my entire pantry was out on my island, and I was staring at it as if it would tell me how Harper liked to take her breakfast.

“This is quite the spread for two people,” Harper said on a yawn as she emerged from the hallway.

One of my t-shirts was hanging off her shoulders.

My breath caught in my throat at the sight of her.

That same messy bun sat cockeyed on her head, but she must have snuck into the bathroom to wash her face.

Even though this was fulfilling a fantasy in my head I’d imagined multiple times over the past weeks, disappointment leaked into me. “I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”

She hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “Do you want me to go back?”

I sighed and shook my head. “No. I realize I don’t know if you like coffee or tea in the morning. Or how you like to eat pancakes, so I would have had to drag the entire fridge into the bedroom to make sure I got it right.”

Harper giggled at the thought. Before last night, I thought I had a handle on my attraction to her.

I wanted to spend time with her because of how relaxed she made me, but I was always able to control myself before.

Now there were cracks that showed, like at the restaurant in Seattle, that were becoming uncontainable.

“I like coffee with creamer,” she told me as she climbed onto one of the barstools and eyed the spread. “Doesn’t matter what kind of creamer and it doesn’t matter how much.”

I poured the creamer into both cups of coffee before placing one in front of her, following it up with a kiss that I pressed to the top of her head. Harper wrapped her hands around the mug and breathed in the scent of freshly brewed coffee, looking rested and completely content.

“Oh, someone texted you a bunch of times or a few different people. I thought it was important, so I brought it out to you,” Harper told me as she produced my phone and slid it across the counter toward me.

My notifications said I had five text messages.

Four of them were from the facility where Jordan had been and one of them was from my brother.

It had been over a week since my brother had walked out of treatments and today was going to be the final day the facility was going to search before they deemed him as vacated.

All the text messages from the facility were updates telling me that my brother had checked himself back in and was now back under their care. The single one from my brother had my chest tightening with each word I read.

Jordan: I still need your help to get out of my debt. Please. I’ll pay you back. I’ve only got a month to pay it back.

I noticed Harper watching me carefully as I tossed my phone back on the counter with a sigh.

I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but those text messages would never get easier to read.

It was more uncomfortable when I was confronted with the reality of my brother’s life in front of someone that didn’t know because that was usually when the questions started.

Except Harper stayed quiet as she watched me, waiting for my lead.

“Thanks. It’s just some personal stuff.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t feel comfortable with telling her the full story about my brother yet. I was fiercely protective over Jordan and his situation because I didn’t want people to wrongfully judge him for a handful of mistakes he made in his life.

Addiction was a difficult thing to understand if you had no personal experience with it. It was difficult to watch a loved one battle with something that had wormed its way into their life and had such a stranglehold on them that they couldn’t escape it.

I tried not to notice the single moment of disappointment that crossed Harper’s face before she busied herself with stacking her plate up with pancakes.

The last thing I wanted was for her to feel like I couldn’t trust her—which was the farthest thing from the truth.

I already felt safer with her than I had with anyone—besides my friends—in years.

But I wanted to keep Jordan close to my chest for a little bit longer.

“Do you have plans today?” It was an evening travel day for a ten-day away series trip, and we had the rest of the day to ourselves.

Harper shook her head. “I just need to pack for the trip at some point. I’ve mastered the art of last-minute packing.”

Spending nearly every free second I had with Harper was beginning to become a habit, one that I didn’t mind having. Coming up with any possible excuse was becoming second nature just to keep her near me and today I could use her positive energy.

On the long list of things I hated most, brand deals and commercials were at the very top.

My agent had scheduled a quick filming day for today at the stadium before I had to travel, and it was exactly the last thing I wanted to do with my free time.

I would have much rather spent it lounging around my living room with Harper until it was time for us to leave, but that was the price of playing professional sports that made me wonder if it was worth it.

“I have a commercial I’m filming at the stadium around lunch time. I can drop you off back at your place so you can pack and then we could go to the stadium together. Having you there would make the entire experience much more enjoyable.”

Harper screwed her mouth to the side as if she were debating her answer before giving me a playful smile. “Are you adding me to the payroll as an assistant?”

“I can think of a particular form of payment you’ll find acceptable,” I told her with a wink before I sauntered off toward my bedroom to change. I heard a sharp intake of breath that had me chuckling all the way to the shower.

*

If I could cease to exist at this very moment I would.

If I could throw it all away and not have it affect my family, I would.

If I could play baseball without all this extra shit that was expected of me, I would.

The thoughts inside my mind were loud as the photographer’s assistant coached me into different positions for various shots. “Now, let’s get a smile,” the photographer shouted over to me, and I had to force my eyeballs to not roll all the way to the back of my head.

We had only just begun and I was already losing patience from being asked to pose and then repose multiple times.

Harper was standing off to the side of the photographer next to my agent.

Catching her gaze while the makeup artist did touchups to my face under the lights lifted some of the overall anxiety I had for things like this.

I tried to muster the best smile I could, and the photographer began snapping away while shouting out more instructions.

“Wider!”

“Less forced!”

“Think of something funny if you have to!”

They were all useless instructions and with each one shouted in my direction, my blood pressure rose. Eventually the smile fell completely off my face.

“Maybe we should take a break?” the photographer suggested.

“We don’t have time for a break,” Nico jumped in. “He has to be at the airport in two hours.”

“I’m not sure that the brand is going to want pictures of Jamil looking like he would rather be anywhere else, would they?”

“The photoshoot is only supposed to be a portion of today’s content,” Nico fired back.

“If we don’t get the shots we need, it will take the entire time.”

Nico opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by Harper. “Hold on.”

She slipped in front of the photographer and made her way out onto the field where I was standing, pulling all my attention to her instead of the swarm of people waiting for me to do what I was asked.

“You okay?” she asked quiet enough so only I could hear.

“I just hate this stuff,” I murmured, fighting the urge to kick at the dirt and ruin the field for this shoot.

“Then reschedule,” Harper replied, as if that was the easiest thing in the world.

“It’s not that simple,” I said with a sigh. I would give anything to be done with all of this and just get on the plane.

“Why isn’t it?” Harper pressed. I recognized the bite in her voice. It was the same one she used when she was about to drill down on one of her questions and herd the person she was interviewing toward the answer she was looking for.

“I have obligations—contracts that I signed. I can’t just walk away from that.” Annoyance edged its way into my voice. How could she not see that?

“You are the commodity here, Jamil. If you need a break, you have every right to ask for that. Reschedule if you have to. If you can’t stand here and smile, then you can walk away from it today.”

The set of Harper’s shoulders was strong and maybe even a little stubborn, like she was prepared to argue with me if she had to.

Maybe she was right. I’d never had someone tell me that was an option before.

Could I just walk out of here right now?

Nico would lose his mind. Before I could decide if that was something I truly wanted to do, Harper leaned in close to whisper something in my ear.

“Or you could picture me naked, my hands fisted in those thousand-count sheets from this morning, and get this over with.”

I barely had time to register what she said before she disappeared out of the shot. My mouth dropped open. It felt like a cold bucket of water washing over me before I caught the wink she gave me over her shoulder—much like the one I gave her this morning. A laugh burst out of me at the sight.

“That’s perfect!” The photographer began capturing shot after shot. I barely even noticed the flash of the camera as I watched Harper blush, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just done. In a stadium full of people, it was just the two of us enjoying our own inside joke.

After a few minutes, the photographer looked up from his camera. “I think I’ve got it!”

“Fantastic,” Nico exclaimed as he clapped his hands together. “Thank you, everyone!”

Harper met me halfway as I began to walk off the field. She reached out to give my shoulder a small shove. “See, you always had it in you. You just need to loosen up a little bit.”

Neither of us mentioned what it was that made me loosen up. If I did, I was worried that she would shutter herself off again and whatever was happening between us would end altogether. Only the quickest squeeze of my hand told me that she was thinking about it, too.