Page 71 of Emergency Exit
“Ah.”
They stared at each other.
“Can I come in?”
“Oh. Yes. Right.” Harper moved aside. It was the first time Ash had been inside her apartment. She realized that it must look like a shoebox compared to his.
“Oh, wow!” exclaimed Ash. “Your coffee table is awesome.”
“Thanks,” said Harper. “The epoxy pour took me two weeks to finish.” She’d filled the crack in the gorgeous fir with blue and gold epoxy. The effect was like having a geode in the middle of the table.
“Wait, you did this yourself?”
“Yes. Like I said, I got into woodworking for a while.”
“This isn’t woodworking. This is art! Holy crap. That’s amazing. It should have a little velvet rope around it, so people can walk by like in a museum.”
Harper wanted to laugh off the comment, but instead, she found herself getting choked up. Ash looked up and immediately reached out his arms as if to hug her but stopped, arms flailing like a misfiring robot.
“Uh, shit, what did I say? Do you want to be touched? I’m sorry.”
“I love my coffee table.”
“Yes, it’s fantastic.”
“I want a hug,” she wailed, and Ash let out a big breath of air.
“OK, great.” He took a step, and then his arms were around her.
“Tighter,” she muttered.
“On it.”
Harper sighed in relief as his hug reached anaconda levels. He was like a human-weighted blanket.
“I came over to apologize,” he said. “I’m not sure how things went weird, but they did. And we never talked before Thanksgiving, and now I know why you wanted the ten thousand before going home, and I feel like a jerk. I thought we could send Cooper a money order tonight and get him out of your hair. I would have done it already, but I need his address. I didn’t feel like I could call, and then I was in the car. So… now I’m here.”
“I didn’t want to make a thing about it,” Harper muttered, embarrassed.
“Smoak,” he said, sounding stern, “you never want to make athingout of things that you need, but you’re allowed to get your needs met.”
She looked up at him.
“Did the guy finish the unicorn yet?”
“What?”
“Your guy—who I assume works out of a lab on a mysterious island in the San Juans and is looking into how to create unicorns—did he figure out how to do it yet? Because I’m pretty sure that if I’m allowed to get my needs met, then other mythical things are about to happen.”
Ash snorted. “Smoak, you are so…” He laughed and shook his head, and Harper waited for something that would probably sound like a compliment, but she would later question. “awesomeful,” he said at last and then hung his head.
“Awesomely beautiful?” guessed Harper quietly. He nodded, his cheeks pink.
“You make my brain misfire,” whispered Ash.
That gave Harper a warm feeling in her chest. Ash always seemed to be running at a hundred miles an hour, but she could bring him to a standstill. Harper liked beingawesomeful.
Gently, Ash curved his hand around her cheek and pressed his lips to hers. Harper felt the kiss like an exhalation of relief. Finally, things were the way they were supposed to be.
