Page 48 of Mile High Coach

I’m wearing a navy blue peacoat over the sweater dress, earmuffs situated over my braid. Harrison’s coat hugs his chest and arms, a Blue Crabs hat pulled down over his hair. I’ve already caught several heads turning in his direction, doing a doubletake. Women with wide, interested eyes. Men who clearly recognize who he is, and rethink their decision to say something to him.

“You thought I’d love fighting through crowds of people?” I return, glancing up at him and getting yet another reminder of our height difference. When he looks down at me, I catch the squish of his chin, that dimple popping on his right cheek.

“Who’s fighting?” he asks, tugging me over and pulling me into a line. “I haven’t seen you fight a single person, Waters. And I’ve been waiting.”

I laugh again, roll my eyes, adjust my earmuffs. It’s admittedly not that cold—not nearly as cold as I know it will be in January, but there’s something about acting cold that feels nice. Specifically when Harrison notices and pulls me closer tohim, throwing his arm around my shoulders and rubbing his hand up and down my bicep to warm me.

We reach the front of the line, and I’m doused in the smell of apples, cranberry, star anise and cloves. Harrison places an order for us, but I don’t catch what it is until he’s turning around, a mug in each hand, stretching one out in my direction.

“Is this…a boot?” I laugh, gaze flicking up. Harrison’s eyes shine, their blue color darker today and glinting in a self-satisfied way. He watches me with the careful expression of someone showing you their favorite thing, like a little kid extending a drawing to you and waiting with bated breath to see if you can identify the object they’ve sketched for you.

The steam feels warm against my cheeks, and the drink smells amazing—spicy and sweet like cinnamon and something tart at once.

“Well, it’s a mug shaped like a boot. Baltimore Christmas tradition,” Harrison says, lifting his own to his mouth and blowing gently. “Be careful, it’s piping hot.”

My chest squeezes even as I nod and look down at my drink.

Be careful, it’s hot.

Something my dad would have said to me, once upon a time. A sign of a careful and attentive man, always thinking about how to keep me safe and happy, his thoughts always on someone else.

I think, not for the first time, that Harrison would have made a great dad. Then, in an attempt to push those thoughts away, I take a quick, tiny sip of the liquid.

It’s like cider, but more. Very hot, like he said, but worth the sting.

“You like it?” he asks, and the smile that breaks out over his face when I nod is enough to make my heart feel like a helium-filled foil balloon.

We carry our drinks and walk through the market, and I realize as we go along, that Harrison shields me from otherpeople, making sure nobody bumps up against me. It’s another moment that reminds me we’re taking this thing too far, that the way I feel when I look at him is not how someone should feel about their sperm donor.

But we are just friends. He’s a Baltimore local, making sure I’ll have a good holiday season here.

He’s a man offering to come to my place to help me when I’m pregnant and can’t lace up my own shoes.

“Sorry,” he says, turning slightly away from me. He pulls out his phone and glances at it, shaking his head before silencing it and tucking it back into his pocket.

Normally, I wouldn’t pry into someone else’s business, but the words come out of me before I can stop them, “Who is that?”

Harrison glances at me in surprise, and I register the moment on his face when he decides to tell me, clearing his throat, “That was, uh, Brad.”

I know who Brad is straightaway, from reading Harrison’s Wikipedia and from stalking him on social media. I traced the entire saga of Harrison’s marriage, the affair, and the divorce, but I just blink at him, raising my eyebrows in his direction. “Brad?”

“Something of an ex-best-friend.”

“Did he play for the crabs?”

“He did.” Harrison nods, clears his throat, then turns and looks out over the Christmas market, avoiding my gaze. For a second, I think that he might not tell me about it.

Then, he does, recounting the whole ugly thing. His marriage suffering from his attention to hockey over his wife. Her fertility journey. How much she wanted to have a baby.

How, when Harrison wasn’t paying attention, she went and got pregnant with his best friend, giving birth to a baby girl nine months after the two of them announced their divorce.

“She’s probably…well, she’s probably turning fourteen this year,” Harrison says, in a very careful voice.

It’s not often that I’m reminded of our age gap, but this is one of those moments. That Harrison could, theoretically, have a teenage daughter makes it crystal clear the difference in years between us.

“Wait—” I stop, turning to him, eyes widening. “So, you’re telling me that for fifteen years, this ex-best friend has been trying to apologize to you?”

His eyes darken, “Harrassing me, yes.”

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