“Oh, I was just thinking. Maybe you and I could use those days to shop for simple furniture for our new apartment? After working lunches? I know school starts in two weeks. That doesn’t leave us a lot of time. I know we’ll get our apartment but we’ll have nothing inside it just as school starts? That’s too much. We should try to at least get a few larger pieces.” She lifted her silky knee from the water, making me reel. “Like a sofa, television, and bed.”
The word bed was more than I could handle.
“Um, yeah. That’s a great idea, Harper. Let’s start tomorrow. We’ll go to that Sunday swap meet they hold over by Charlie’s. They shut down the entire street for the entire day.”
“What a good idea!” She exclaimed, shifting the water a bit.
I ran. From that room, from that robe, from that enticing water and from her. I threw myself onto the bed, groaning into my pillow. She was going to kill me. Making my commitment to God made me feel like she was mine to do things with but she hadn’t made the same commitment and now I was stuck in a marriage with a woman I loved, one that I was so incredibly attracted to, one that I wanted to touch all over including her mind and couldn't. I was a glutton for punishment and wanted nothing more than to gorge myself on that creature soaking in our wedding night tub.
When Harper got out, I left the room for her to dress, barely looking at her. I showered in the huge glossy black marble walk in shower. I let the steam roll around me and the heat work out my frustration. I had no idea what I was going to do. I was beginning to panic. I loved her so much I could barely see straight. I wanted her so much I could barely breathe straight. I needed her so much I could barely think straight. I hopped from the shower onto the warm tile floor and toweled myself dry, dressing in my long pajama pants, foregoing the t-shirt as it was too hot and turning off the light before I entered the room.
It was quiet and dark. Harper was hidden beneath the covers steadily breathing and I realized she may have already fallen asleep, causing an inexplicable ache in my chest. I slid into the silky sheets under the down comforter and laid my head on the soft goose feather pillow, staring at the ceiling. I threw my arm over my eyes suddenly unsure of what I’d done.
“Callum?” Harper whispered, startling me.
I removed my arm from my eyes and looked at her. She shifted and rolled over on her side, propping herself up on her elbow. I followed her lead, doing the same.
“Yes?” I asked her beautifully moonlit face.
She didn’t say another word, just slid over to my side of the bed and wrapped her arms around my bare chest, fitting her head underneath my chin. I didn’t want to think about how well her body fit next to mine but I couldn’t help it.
After an hour of just holding one another, Harper spoke. “I’m glad I married you,” she said before drifting off into a deep slumber.
“I’m glad I married you too, Harper,” I whispered into her hair, “because I’m in love with you.” But she didn’t hear, gone into a dream.
Chapter Twelve
Sunburn
Callum
“Dude, your hair is getting ridiculously long,” Harper teased, running her hands through it, sending a shiver of warmth down my spine and my eyes rolling to the back of my head.
“Think I should cut it?” I asked drunk on her touch, lounging next to her on the sofa, otherwise known as ‘Callum’s bed’.
The microwave beeped and Harper jumped up, tripping over the step into our kitchen as it was so dark. The smell of popcorn wafted its way into our little living room. She came back with it in a giant bowl along with two bottled waters.
“I wanted soda,” I said, furrowing my brows.
She sighed but shoved her shoulder into mine as she sat. “I know that but you’ve already had four today. I’m vetoing a fifth.”
“Fine,” I sang not wanting to admit how much I still loved that she looked after me.
“And no way,” she said.
“No way, what?”
“No.” She cleared her throat, staring into the bowl. “I don’t think you should cut it.”
For two years, Harper and I had been playing the ultimate game of cat and mouse. Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘I thought they were only going to marry for a year, then annul, divorce, whatever.’ Well, truthfully, we liked being ‘fake married’ or as I like to secretly call it, ‘faking that my marriage isn’t real’. Also, unfortunately John Bell was only sentenced to a year in prison and had been released six months prior. Though, he’d yet to find us, I wasn’t going to leave her defenseless while we were in school, so we decided that we’d stay married until the end of the school year. That was partly by design. I wasn’t ready to leave her yet. I didn’t want to.
We didn’t need any more grants starting our sophomore year and had become completely independent. We belonged to no one. We owed no one. We were each other’s family. This was it for me. There were things that had been happening lately that made me think this was also it for her.
“Your hair is getting long as well, Harper,” I stated, unsure how to tell her that I loved it as long as it’d become.
“Do you like it?” She asked me, turning away from the screen.
“As a matter a fact, I love it,” I said honestly. It reached her elbows now in long, loose coppery waves, like when we’d first met. She’d cut it after we’d married just under her shoulders.