Callum & Harper (Sleepless 1)

“For what?” I asked, tears staining the shoulder of his t-shirt.

“For giving me a reason to want to fight again.”

Chapter Seven

Tide is High

Callum

“So, this is where we’re staying the night, I guess?” Harper asked me.

I sighed. “Yes. I’m sorry but The Hope House ran out of cots.”

“I figured.”

Harper snuggled closely to me on the bench, a massive yawn escaped from her delicious mouth.

“Here, lay down,” I ordered her. “We have no blankets, so you’ll just have to settle for me,” I teased, making her blush the most attractive shade of pink on her soft skin.

She gave in to me and I laid down, my front to hers. We tangled our legs together and I wrapped my arms around her little torso. She sighed, content, and for a moment I didn’t feel like the care-taking failure I really was. Laying this close to her sent an oddly warm shiver through my entire body. My feet tingled and that same thread of shocking greatness traveled up my blood stream, affecting even the roots of my hair. I shivered involuntarily and Harper mistook it for my being cold, clutching me tighter, making my heart race and a crimson heat to pool in my stomach. She burrowed her face in my neck and, unable to stop myself, I inhaled the scent of her hair.

As I watched the shadows on her face from the lamp post, I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever seen anyone lovelier than Harper Bailey. She was everything I could ever want in a girl and a new fever gathered in my chest when I realized what it meant. I was falling in love with Harper Bailey. The scales were tipping fast and furious in that direction and I was slightly alarmed at how comfortable I was at the rapid descent. Falling for Harper felt like the most natural thing in the world and, God help me, I liked it. Damn the consequences.

Just as she started to drift to sleep, Harper’s eyes shot wide, making me grin. “What are we going to do now, Callum?”

“Don’t worry about that now. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Just sleep,” I told her, wrapping her tightly against me.

She nodded and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, her breaths steadied with sleep and I felt free to spend most of the night wondering just what in the hell we were going to do. Somewhere between the fantasy of winning the lottery and desperately considering knocking over the proverbial liquor store, I fell to sleep.

“Get up!” I heard someone yelling. I realized that someone was poking me with something hard in the back. I turned around and recognized the end of a police officer’s flashlight. “Did you hear me? Wake up!” The officer said.

I stumbled up and helped a sleepy Harper sit up as well. The officer shone the bulk of his light at our faces but as we shaded our eyes from the blinding brightness, he dragged the beam toward our chests.

“What are you guys doing?” He asked. “Have too much to drink tonight?”

“No, sir,” a scratchy voiced Harper answered.

“No, we just didn’t have a place to sleep,” I offered.

The officer narrowed his eyes at us. “Why not?”

“We’re homeless,” I said and it felt so weird admitting it out loud.

“Run away?” He asked.

“No sir,” I said. “We have no home to run from.”

“Why didn’t you stay at one of the city’s night facilities?”

“We tried,” Harper said, “but they ran out of cots.”

“Have your I.D.’s?” He asked bluntly.

Harper and I pulled ours out and handed them over to him. He spoke into his sleeve radio and asked the operator to check us out. When he was satisfied we weren’t wanted criminals, he handed us back our I.D.’s.

“You guys can’t sleep out here,” he said, bringing us to our feet and escorting us from the park.

“But we have nowhere to go,” Harper said.