“It’s alright,” I said, readjusting on the sofa.
Harper had decorated our apartment in a lot of different pieces. She dragged me to the Sunday swap meet near Charlie’s practically every weekend that first year. We’d buy little pieces together and place them in our house, making it a home. She described our home’s style as eclectic. I can remember every piece we bought together and why. For instance, the sofa we sat on was ‘a tufted purple velvet Chesterfield’. I had no idea what that meant but I just nodded and agreed to its purchase as it was the first thing she’d found that made her squeal in excitement.
And the wingback in the corner? It was a piece of crap when she found it at the thrift store but she promised me it would look good once we recovered it in a funky pattern and, of course, she was correct. I refused to go to the cloth store to pick out the fabric and told her she had carte blanche. She came back with a mustard yellow print. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I hated it but when she made me stay up until one in the morning recovering it with her, it’d grown on me and it ended up being my favorite piece we’d ever bought because of the conversation we’d had while covering it.
That’s what I loved about the furniture in our apartment. I could care less what it looked like. Harper could have had the worst taste in the world and I would have loved it regardless. She doesn’t, by the way. It was the fact that she was in every piece, in every corner, on every shelf. She was everywhere, reminding me how much in love with her I was.
In the two years we’d been married, I’d only kissed her once and that was on our wedding day. She tortured me with hugs which I gladly took. I’d kissed her neck more times than I could possibly count but it was starting to wear on me. I was too invested to confess all now. I was frightened to admit to her how much I loved her, afraid she’d bail, not wanting to torture me under my own roof. And I couldn’t just be friends with Harper. It was all or nothing and nothing scared the ever living crap out of me. So I took all her friendship and pretended it was enough.
“Did you pay the insurance, Callum?”
“Yes, honey bunches of oats,” I laid on thickly.
“Shut up,” she laughed.
I stood up quickly.
“Where are my slippers and pipe?” I demanded, “And roast beef again for dinner? Woman! You are dangerously close to a spanking!”
“Take that sexist crap and shove it,” she laughed harder, doubling over.
She surprised me by tripping me and I fell hard onto the hard wood floor. I was laughing too hard to get angry. She was laughing as she crawled toward me and lay down beside me. We both stared at the ceiling, our laughs dying out slowly until our breaths were the only thing audible beside the film.
She turned on her side, her head resting on the inside of my folded arm.
“I have a lot of fun with you,” she said.
“Me too. I’m wonderful.”
She slapped me playfully and I tickled her until she could barely breathe.
The next day was Friday and we were both off school that day but had to work at the campus library which proved useful for both of us as there was a lot of down time and we always needed to study. It also helped that when we got off, most of our work was already done and we could spend a lot of time with another.
“Get the mail, Harper,” I said, juggling my back pack and keys, stepping off our elevator.
“‘Kay.”
Harper opened our little box with her key and removed four or five envelopes, shifting each one behind the other as she read off what each one was.
“Bill, bill, junk.” She stopped on the fourth one. “Hmm,” she said, eyeing the envelope. “It’s a letter, for you.”
a moment, a soaking wet, barely robed Harper answered the door, letting me in. I wanted to stick my head inside the stupid bucket at the sight of her. She thought nothing of it and returned to her bath. I followed her and stuck the champagne in the bucket, turning around just in time to miss what I didn’t really want to miss.
“You can turn back around now,” she said absently.
She was resting her head against the back of the tub, her hair clipped up so it wouldn’t get wet, her long slender neck exposed. For a split moment, I considered vampirism. I would have ravished that neck that very second if I knew she had made the same commitment to me that I did to her at that afternoon. I needed to get out of there.
“Callum?” She said, running a sponge over her arms and upper chest.
“Ye-yes?” I sat on the edge of the counter to give the impression I was breezy. I doubt it was working. That was evident in her smirk.
“When will we get our marriage certificate back?”
“In a couple of days, why?”
“Hmm,” was all she said.
“Why?”