Page 3 of The Summer I First Saw You
“Don’t know who the fuck you are,” the monster’s voice slurs, “but you’d better get the fuck out of my home cuz I’m not in the mood.”
Oh, God. It would be just like me to have broken into the wrong house. I manage to take a step toward the door just as the monster emerges into the light.
“Harrison?” I whisper.
I’m not sure why I ask.Obviouslyit’s Harrison. No one else is this tall, this broad-shouldered. No one else has that angelic bone structure and the most bitable lips God ever created. Except the square-jawed, endlessly responsible Harrison I remember wouldneversway drunkenly, clad only in boxer shorts, while gripping a fifth of bourbon.
And this one is doing all of the above.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, grabbing the back of a chair to stay upright.
My jaw falls. Because no matter how drunk he is and no matter how long it’s been since I saw him last, Harrison should still know who I am. “Jesus, Harrison, you’ve known me since I was a newborn. How much have you had to drink?”
His eyes narrow. “Daisy? Little Lazy Daisy?”
God, I hate that nickname, though I guess it’s better thanGoth Wedding Barbieor the other variants he came up with. “Took you long enough,” I sigh, setting my bag down.
His gaze roams from my face down to my T-shirt and shorts before it jerks away. “You grew up.”
He says it the way someone else might sayyou’ve got a gun—as if this fact makes me a danger. He apparently thought I’d bestuck as a pouting teenager forever. “Right. It’s a thing that happens to humans over time, Harrison.”
Normally this would make him laugh, or smile, or say something funny in response. But I don’t evenknowthis version of him, the one acting as if my presence is the worst thing that could possibly happen to him.
“Why are you here?” he demands.
I release the death grip I had on my keys and perch on the edge of the sofa. “Why areyouhere?” I counter. When Liam spoke to him this afternoon, Harrison claimed he was already in LA. He was “clearly preoccupied,” according to Liam, which forced me to envision Harrison having sex with someone who wasn’t me. “You’re supposed to be out of town.”
Harrison’s eyes darken. His scowl grows. “Something came up.” He collapses into the leather chair to his left. “I’m not sure why I’m explaining while you’re the one here committing a felony.”
I set my keys on the coffee table. “I got in a fight with my mom, and Liam’s got his new girlfriend over. I thought I could crash on your deck, but the door was open.”
“You thought wrong,” he says. “You’re lucky I wasn’t armed.”
I laugh quietly. “You’re too drunk right now to aim successfully. I think I’d have been okay.”
Which is weird. Since when does Harrison get drunk? He’s the guy who stays sober just in case the designated driver fails to. He’s the guy telling Liam totake it down a notch, the guy who sayseveryone needs to settle the fuck downwhen a fight’s about to start.
He remains endlessly in control when no one else is. For him to be drunk at all, much less so drunk he can barely stay upright, means something must have gone dramatically wrong.
I kick off my shoes and sink back into the uncomfortable couch, curling my legs beneath me. “What happened with the girl in LA?”
He’s a lawyer and being quick on his feet is one of his greatest skills, yet he freezes at this very simple question. And why did he tell Liam he was alreadythere?
“Thereisno girl in LA,” I blurt loudly, my surprise echoing against the cement floors.
“What?” he asks. He looks around him, as if he’s seeking a way to distract me, which is exactly how a liar would respond. If someone suggests that you’ve fabricated yourrealgirlfriend, you don’t look around for help.
It was mostly a guess on my end, but this pretty much confirms it. Honest, ever-responsible Harrison has told everyone that he doesn’t care about the end of his marriage and that he’s so busy with work and his new girlfriend that he can’t make time for them, and some of that is a lie. Maybe even all of it.
“I’m not surewhyyou’re lying, but either there was never a girl in LA or there’s nolongera girl in LA and—I’m spit-balling here, but I assume it’s because you were trying to get the guys off your back or didn’t want to admit to two failed relationships.”
He looks so crushed that I wish I’d kept the theory to myself. I wish I’d pretended it makes perfect sense that he’s sitting here drinking in his boxers when he’s supposed to be six hours south.
“Congratulations,” he says quietly, raising the bottle to his lips. “Now leave.”
I ignore him, and it’s really not out of self-interest. Yeah, I’m not eager to sleep in my car, but what really worries me is that he is the most wonderful of Liam’s friends, and I have no idea who he’s become.
He clearly hasn’t been eating. He looks like he could use a year of sleep and possibly a stomach pump if I knew how to operate one. It hasn’t diminished his loveliness one bit—heremains a 1950s Cary Grant/Gregory Peck lookalike come to life—but this just isn’thim.
