Page 15 of Unmasking Love (D.C. Renegades #1)

Harper

Delivery for Daniel Harper

Aiden drops his gaze from mine and I miss it. I want it back. I’m almost cold without it. “Sorry, that was too melancholy of me. I’m still a little groggy I guess.”

“No, it’s fine, you don’t have to be in a good mood.” Aiden says and I watch as his fingers drum along the back of the bench. “How are you feeling about it? Is it tough to be at the office with that Fuck Wad?”

I force my mouth into a half smile half frown because this is another grin and bear it situation. One I’ve found myself in before. One I’ve learned to navigate by detaching myself from my emotions.

Robot Harper. Engage.

“It’s fine. He’s harmless. I’m not sure anyone knew we were even dating so there’s nothing to worry about from my coworkers. And it’s a pretty competitive environment so it’s not like they’re my friends anyway.”

“Okay, you sure?” Aiden asks and the attention from his piercing blue eyes sends a chill through me that I unsuccessfully suppress. “Are you cold?” He asks as he reaches for his backpack.

“I’m fine.” I smile, still forced, lips closed, but it’s less of a frown than its predecessor. “Thanks again for lunch.”

“Of course.”

“What do you have going on for the rest of the day?” I ask. Not wanting our time together to end.

“I’ll take a nap and then make some dinner before heading to the arena.”

“ Fun.” I offer. Fun? Seriously Harper, learn how to talk to an attractive man; who saw you naked, twice, and made you breakfast and brought you lunch. God, I am so in debt to him.

Thankfully he smiles, “Yeah, fun.”

A beat passes and then Aiden stands and wipes his hands down the front of his sweatpants. I admire the view of his lower half that is now at eye level and feel a little ping of arousal in my core.

Aiden is hot. And nice.

Nice and hot.

If I’m not careful I could easily get wrapped up in another relationship before my last one is even cold in its grave.

“See you later, Harper,” Aiden says with a smile and I pull my gaze up his body.

The sun is behind his head so I’m squinting to try and make out his face clearly.

When I lean an inch to the left his head blocks the rays and I get a good look.

He’s smiling and I feel a genuine smile crack across my face too.

“Bye, Aiden.”

Watching him go is the cherry on top of this whole interaction. He walks his bike to the road, clips on a helmet, and swings his leg over like a damn cowboy mounting a horse.

That ping of arousal radiates and I feel weak in my knees.

And elbows.

Aiden can make my freaking elbows quiver.

When he disappears from sight I take a deep cleansing breath, fold up my empty wrapper, and walk back down the block to the office.

The family I’m seeing this afternoon called me last week and asked for homes in a specific school district.

Their daughter is a sophomore in high school so maybe she’s an athlete and they’re trying to get her more playing time?

Or one of them is running for school board and needs to live within a certain boundary?

Eit her way it narrows down my search radius but a new listing hit yesterday and they said they’d pick up their daughter and meet me at the house this afternoon.

There are some emails I need to get back to which I would have done last night but I was, well, otherwise engaged; getting drunk over catching my boyfriend cheating on me.

Aiden kept looking at me like he expected me to cry. Or crumble. But, I never have. I bottle it up, bury my weakness, and move on. I’ve been doing it for years, it’s second nature now.

With a long exhale I square my shoulders towards my computer and focus all my attention on work. Work has never let me down. Work is always there. There is always more of it for me to find. More to do to keep me busy. Occupied. Distracted from my loneliness.

And for the longest time that “work” has been about homes.

It doesn’t take a world renowned psychologist to relate the fact I have been obsessed with homes since I was little to the way my mom bounced us between them when I was growing up.

All the TV shows and movies I watched as a kid had the nuclear family and white picket fence. Then the magazines I devoured as a teen had beautifully designed spaces with recipes for cozy home cooked meals and party hosting.

I never got around to the party hosting part. I’d need to build a friend group first. But I’ve got boxes of old magazines and notebooks filled with recipe clippings stored in the basement of my house waiting for me to use them.

Maybe someday when I remodel I’ll have an office I can keep those clippings in.

A space to put some up on the wall. Currently I’m in the second floor apartment of a Victorian that was converted into apartments back in the sixties.

The building came up for sale a year after I started with the Rothchild Reality Group and I used my commission check from Felix’s house sale for the down payment.

Mom thought I was crazy but I loved the building as soon as I saw it.

There was history and amazing vintage details. Someday I’d like to remodel it into a single family home again.

One, it would increase my resale value.

But, secretly, I want to fill it with a family.

Over the years, my imagination has taken each of my boyfriends for a test run as the husband in my home. None of them really showed any interest in helping with the renovation itself but I was able to picture some of them in the dream version of the completed home.

Sitting with me on one of the twin facing sofas in the front room by the fireplace. We’d be sipping wine. My feet on his lap as I read a novel and he watched a sporting event on TV.

Or cooking together in a kitchen that takes up the entire back third of the first floor.

Playfully bopping flour on my nose as we baked cookies for the Christmas party.

Or smiling as he hauled a tray of hamburgers out to the grill on the deck.

The ambient chatter of a house party of adults filling the emptiness.

But.

The images vanish from my mind with a poof and I shake my head to clear the debris. I have to stay in a relationship for those dreams to come true. I have to figure out how to keep a man interested in me.

I’ve tried it all. Helping with his work, cooking for him, cleaning.

Running errands. There was one who didn’t want to be seen getting pedicures so I learned how to do it.

Another who didn’t like that I was the same height so I wore flats for four months.

One who brought his parents to our first date and I ended up talking more with them over the course of our relationship than I did to him.

I still talk to Joe and Kathleen every so often.

Unfortunately Crispin is just the latest in a string of relationships that start off fine but end around the sixteen week mark.

But , like the others before, I’ll bury myself in work for a bit and then one night I’ll feel particularly lonely and decide it’s time to get back out there. I’m good at the meeting men part. Probably because I meet new clients all the time and have to charm and build trust immediately.

It’s the keeping them around part that I need to figure out.

***

“Nanners,” Cheryl, the mother, calls after her daughter, Hannah, who just stomped off when I mentioned the high school, “please, don’t storm off, talk to us!”

I offer a placating smile to Tom, the dad, who watches his girls walk off with concern in his features. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Things have been tough for Hannah lately. It’s why we’re moving.”

“Oh, I see.”

“She just hasn’t been herself for a while and we got a call from the school that she’s been getting bullied. She won’t talk to us about it so we decided to move but now she seems pissed we’re moving.”

Wow. Do parents like this really exist? Hannah might be in the throws of teenage crisis but I hope someday she realizes how good she has it.

I blink back at Tom while my eighth grade tormentor comes to mind. Mom didn’t move us until I was a junior in high school and the relocation wasn’t because I’d been an outcast since I was thirteen.

Mom’s speciality was finding men to house the both of us and this new guy was also thirty minutes closer to the ocean.

Win win.

It has only taken her ten more years to finally get the man with the ocean front property. She started out in the middle of the state with an infant and worked her way south and closer to the coast with each relationship.

“ Sorry Ms. Daniels, I’m just going to go-” Tom trails off and I step to the side to give him more room to exit the kitchen.

The tour had barely started. We’d gotten through the entryway and I watched Tom and Cheryl as they watched Hannah for her reaction. We moved on to the kitchen and that’s when I said “high school” and the teen stormed off.

I pull out the counter stool and take a seat. I’m not sure what Hannah is experiencing. Cheryl doesn’t seem like the type to sleep with a classmate’s dad and end his marriage. I feel my eyes glaze over as the internal shutters clap closed over my soft spots.

It might not have been so bad except Mom doesn’t know how to be subtle. She got caught bouncing on his lap in the car. By his daughter, my friend, Alena.

The next morning at school, Alena wouldn’t talk to me. I had no idea what I’d done. She didn’t talk to me for two whole weeks. She’d walk the opposite way in the hall. She’d cross the classroom if I tried to approach her during study hall.

I obsessed over what I had done wrong. Was I wearing the wrong clothes? Did I forget her birthday? Did I miss an episode of Supernatural that we were going to watch together?

Then Claudia told Annie who told Sierra who told me that Alena’s parents were getting a divorce and she was telling everyone it was my mom’s fault. That my mom was a homewrecker and that I’m a whore just like she is.

I hadn’t even had my first kiss yet.

How could I be a whore?

But logic doesn’t apply to thirteen year old bullies and I was completely ostracized. No girls wanted to be my friend. They wouldn’t even talk to me. In our grade of sixty kids I’d only speak to someone if it was required in class.

No one to speak with at my locker during passing periods.

No one to get Starbucks with after school.

No one to trade make up tips with.

No one.

My reputation followed me to Palmdale South High School where the class size and my isolation increased ten fold. I started dating Brandon Giles over the summer and thought my fortune was about to change.

Until he dumped me the week before sophomore year started.

At least I had my first kiss under my belt.

By the time mom found her next man and moved us, Alena had soared to the peak of popularity and she didn’t have to actively bully me anymore. The damage was done. I was a nobody.

In the day and age of the internet, geography isn’t going to do much if the bully is dedicated. Luckily she let me leave without a fuss.

Maybe Hannah thinks moving is a sign of weakness.

Bullies take any perceived weakness and exploit it.

Like mine, who hounded on the fact I was a whore just like my mother.

Something Alena, as my former friend, had talked with me about.

I knew the way my mom moved from man to man wasn’t normal.

She was the opposite of my friends’ moms.

When we moved away I made a few new friends at school but struggled to make inroads with already established crowds.

“Fine! Whatever, just, ugh!” Hannah yells as she storms back into the house. She stops in front of me at the counter and I sit up straight. “I’m sorry I was rude and left this stupid fucking house while you were just trying to do your job.”

I bite back my smile. “It’s no problem, wanna see the hot tub?”

“No.” She sasses back and I see Cheryl and Tom’s faces fall.

“Okay,” I turn to them, “I’ll show you the basement’s entertainment center. The sellers are willing to leave the equipment and furniture if you’re intere sted. We can work through the pricing details during the closing process.”

I lead the way to the basement and then the rest of the house. When the tour wraps up Cheryl walks Hannah to the car and Tom says he’ll be in touch. I watched him take his wife’s hand in his before he drove off.

In my car I try to dodge the memories of being an outcast teen but I can’t quite shake them.

As I walk up to my apartment I still carry the hurt of younger me and how it felt to have all your friends suddenly hate you.

Alone isn’t a new state for me to be in, but it doesn’t exactly get any easier.

It felt nice to sit with Aiden for lunch today. That wasn’t lonely. He’s got a game tonight and I’m not sure what time it starts or even if he checks his phone but I send him a text anyways.

Thank you again for lunch. It was the highlight of my day.

I change into some sweatpants and look through my cabinets for dinner fixings.

It’s mostly baking ingredients but I’m not in the mood for whipping up a cake tonight.

I find a half sleeve of crackers and pull out the string cheese from my fridge.

There are pickles in there too so I toss a few onto my plate.

There, it’s like a charcuterie for one. I bring my sad girl dinner with me to the sofa and my phone buzzes.

You’re welcome. Are you having dinner and watching our game? It starts in half an hour.

I just sat down with my crackers, cheese, and pickles!

What kind o f crackers?

Do I admit that they’re stale Ritz? Does that make me too sad?

Just some that I had in the pantry :)

Aiden doesn’t respond but when I turn on the TV and tune it to the local sports network I see that they’re about to take the ice.

I watch as they skate around behind the commentators who are talking about an injured player on the other team.

Finally I see Aiden walk behind them out onto the ice, several minutes after the rest of the team.

The game becomes background noise as I start to answer emails on my phone. Absently I reach over to my dinner plate and paw around. Dangit. Empty. I stare at it wondering what else I might be able to scrounge up when my doorbell rings.

Maybe it’s Wes, although he usually texts or calls before coming over. I slide into a pair of sandals and walk downstairs.

Through the peephole I see a stranger.

“Hello?” I call through the door.

“I have a delivery from Lapis.”

“Oh, sorry, you must have the wrong house. I didn’t order anything.”

“Says here it’s for Daniel Harper? He live here?”

Huh? My name is Harper Daniels. I don’t understand what is going on.

“There’s an order note saying it’s from Aiden.” The delivery guy calls out.

What?

“Oh yeah, that’s for me then, thanks.” I say as I unlock the door and reach for the food. I carry it back upstairs and set it on my coffee table. Before I open the bag I stare it down.

I can’t believe Aiden sent me dinner.