Happy Place(44)

“I’m with Sabrina on this one,” Parth says.

She holds the bottle up as she tries to cup a hand around her ear. “What’s that? Is that just global warming I’m feeling, or has hell frozen over and Parth is actually agreeing with me on something?”

“I’m agreeing with you,” Parth says, “because this time, you’re right. It was bound to happen eventually.”

She rolls her eyes, goes back to filling glasses.

“Harry, I’m serious,” Parth says, setting his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t you dare break my delicate angel’s heart.”

Sabrina snorts. “Oh, come on. Wyn better not break her heart.”

Cleo says, “There’s no need for all this pressure.”

“He would never in a million years hurt her,” Parth says to Sabrina, passing Wyn and me each a glass of champagne. Just like that, they’re back to their old squabbling selves.

“And she’s been secretly obsessed with him for years,” Sabrina argues.

“Speaking of unspoken sexual tension,” Wyn grumbles, waving his glass in their direction. “You two want us to leave you alone for this argument, or can we be done now?”

“Ew!” Sabrina says.

Parth pulls a face. “Thank you, Sabrina.”

“I’m not saying you’re gross,” she says. “I’m saying the idea of us is gross. Can you imagine? And also, the last thing this friend group needs is another romantic entanglement. We’re already playing with fire here, and I really, really cannot lose this. This”—she waves the bottle between us again—“is my family.”

It’s mine too, but I’m not worried. I already know: I will love Wyn Connor until I die.

That night, for the first time, I sleep in Wyn’s room. We lie awake late, with the sheets kicked off us, our sweat drying, and he plays with my hair.

“It’s always a complete mystery to me,” he murmurs, “what you’re thinking.”

“I’ll help you out,” I say. “Eighty percent of it is picturing you naked.”

He kisses my sticky forehead. “I’m serious.”

“I am too,” I say.

“You’re a mystery to me, Harriet Kilpatrick.”

My smile falters. “I’m a mystery to me too,” I say. “I didn’t realize how little I understood myself until I met Cleo and Sabrina. They’re both so sure of how they feel about things.”

He pulls another curl straight, and the gentle tug sends a current down my center. “Well, we should get to know you,” he says.

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Something small,” he says.

“Like what?”

He smiles unevenly. “Like why do you love cozy mysteries?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. They’re so . . . mild.”

His kiss against the side of my head melts into a laugh. “Mild?”

“The worst thing that can happen to a person happens, right at the start of the story,” I explain. “And it’s like . . . this feeling of safety. You know exactly what’s going to happen by the end. So many things are unpredictable in life. I like things you can trust.”

He frowns, his golden hair mussed up off his forehead. I’m suddenly sure I’ve found the one unacceptable answer to his question, the one that makes him realize I am not the cool, sexy, mysterious woman he has confused me with.

His teeth scrape over the fullest part of his lip. “You can trust me, Harriet.”

In that moment, he pierces a little deeper into my heart, opens another door, finds an entire walled-off room I didn’t realize was there.

He pulls me into his chest, and our heartbeats sync. I’ve never felt so certain of anything, so right, so safe.





15





REAL LIFE

Wednesday


SOMEONE IS JACKHAMMERING inside my skull.

I roll over, press my face into the downy mattress.

THUNK-THUNK-THUNK.

A voice breaks the bodiless dark: “Everybody decent?”

My eyes snap open on a bedroom washed in the dim gray of morning. The smell of wet stone and brine wafts in from the open window, and rain pummels the roof.

“I’m coming in!”

Sabrina. She’s calling through the door.

My eyes zigzag around the room, my scrambled egg of a brain piecing together my surroundings. I’m sprawled in the middle of a king-sized bed, wearing only my underwear and Virgin Who CAN Drive T-shirt.

“In three . . .” Sabrina says.

My gaze finds the jumble of spare sheets on the floor, the golden-brown leg extending beyond it, the arm tucked under the mess of sun-streaked golden hair.

“Two . . .”

I hurl a pillow at Wyn’s face, and he jolts upright.

“One,” Sabrina says. “That’s it. I’m coming in. Cover up your”—I wave frantically at Wyn—“goods if you don’t want me to see them.”

His gaze clears, widens. He gathers the bundle of bedding around him and launches himself onto the bed, a trail of sheets spilling out behind him.

“Good morning,” Sabrina says, swinging the door open.