Page 83 of One More Chance
Jensen
We arrive backat my loft after what can only be described as a very quiet, almost somber drive. We probably didn’t say more than a handful of things to each other the entire way.
Two more nights, that’s all I get. Maybe…maybe long distance can work? Maybe, we can visit each other? People do it, right? Yeah, and how many times does it actually work out? I let out an audible sigh because I’m going insane talking to myself like this. The angel on my shoulder is like, “Anything is possible!” in all his delusional optimism. The devil on my other shoulder is like, “Face facts, bro. Ain’t happening,” in all his shitty realistic gut punches.
“What do you want to do tonight?” Harper asks as she leans over the kitchen counter toward me.
I’m on the other side, plugging in my phone and removing my wallet. I think it’s weird when men carry their wallets around their own house. Women don’t carry their purses from room to room. Do I have a need for my wallet to be in every room I’m in? No. I’ll save my sciatic nerve the trouble.
“I don’t know, really. I was thinking we rent a movie and binge on movie snacks?” I offer. I don’t have the energy to go out anywhere, although if she asks, there’s no way I’ll say no.
“Oh, thank god,” she says, laughing out a relieved sigh. “I don’t think I can muster the strength to be around a bunch of people.”
I smile at the realization that we’re on the same page. In fact, we’re almost always on the same page. “I’ll pop the popcorn. You rummage the cabinet for cookies and candy.”
“Deal,” she says.
I watch her pull Oreos and gummy bears from the cabinet and empty them into bowls. I heat a pan on the stove because the only good popcorn you can make at home is on the stove. Who even invented bagged popcorn? Was it for astronauts? No, thank you.
Harper grabs sodas and takes all her things over to the coffee table in the living room. “I’m putting on pajamas while you finish up,” she says just before she bounds upstairs.
I finish the popcorn and meet her back at the couch. We both take a seat and I start shuffling through movies, the new releases first and then back to older ones, classics really. Like the original Jumanji with Robin Williams and Romeo and Juliet, but the Leonardo Di Caprio version. It’s the only version worth watching.
“What’s that movie?” she asks, my remote hovering over The Princess Bride.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it?”
“Nope,” she says. “But this transgression sounds serious. Should we remedy it?”
“As you wish,” I say, quoting the movie. Not that she knows, but we’ll fix that.
Harper narrows her eyes at my response, just as I thought she might. She’ll understand soon enough.
Selecting it, I settle back into the couch and tuck her close to me. After the second time Wesley says, “As you wish,” in the film, Harper turns her head toward me, giving me a knowing smile. I give her a playful wink as she turns back to the movie.
We take turns trying to throw pieces of popcorn into each other’s mouths at her persistence. I didn’t know people actually did this. I thought it was one of those cheesy things that only happens in movies. But here I am, dipping and diving for each piece she tosses at my face. Admittedly, she looks adorable even as she throws her head around, mouth wide open, trying to catch the pieces I pop up.
About halfway through the movie, she picks up an Oreo and twists it in half, giving me the half-barren of cream. Harper keeps the side with all the cream on it and I raise an eyebrow at her.
“I want some cream,” I tell her.
“This is my cream, get your own.” She laughs.
I look down at my cream-less cookie and frown, jutting my lip out.
She rolls her eyes at me. “Fine,” she says. “We can share.” Harper licks some of the middle from her cookie and then extends it out to me. The look on her face suggests she doesn’t think I’ll lick the cookie after she has. Challenge accepted.
I lift her hand to my face, cookie still between her fingers, and slowly lick the cookie clean. Harper swallows hard. Who knew eating Oreos could be so sexual? There’s licking and cream and tonguing cookies. You know what, on second thought, the Oreo is definitely the most sexual cookie.
Harper leaps to me, straddling her legs around me, and my arms embrace her instinctively. Her back is to the movie now as she kisses along my jawline, her hands reaching down my body.
“You’re going to miss the movie,” I laugh out between stifled groans. I love everything about her hands on me.
Harper brings her eyes to meet mine, her bottom lip between her teeth, a teasing look playing on her features. “But I want you to lick my cookie,” she says.
And I swear to God Himself, I die in that moment. Because it’s so dirty and so unexpected and so hot, I can’t even contain myself. My hands grip her ass and now I’m the one swallowing hard. She begins to giggle, probably assuming what she said was absurd and cheesy, and it was. But it’s something else too. I don’t know why that silly erotic innuendo caught me like it did, but I realize in the split second I give it thought, that Harper is finally all the way out of her shell. The one she built, or maybe the one Charles built around her, I really don’t know. Perhaps, it’s both. But all of it is gone.
I cup both hands on her jaw, giving her my widest, most sincere smile. Her lips are still pressed into a playful line and most of me wants to coax them open with my own. But I pause us for a moment, holding her just far enough away, so I can memorize everything.