Take me Somewhere

Chapter 4

 Harper worked straight through the morning with sheer force of will. Her mind kept wondering to her breakfast with Liam and then to her impending lunch with Daren. She hadn’t done a single thing wrong but she felt like she had and to her that was even worse than if she had launched herself across the table this morning and kissed him.

She slammed her pen down at that thought and glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes until noon was close enough. She wrapped up what she was doing and let the store manager know she was going to step out for an extended lunch.

The restaurant Daren liked to meet her for lunch at was a little ways away but not worth getting her car out of the small parking garage across the street. She enjoyed the walk and actually wanted to stop by the small gift shop inside the restaurant. It would kill some time before Daren got there.

“Harper!”

Harper froze on the sidewalk at the sound of her name being called. There was no way this was happening.

“Two times in one day. I sure am lucky.” Liam came to a stop beside her and pulled the headphones out of his ears. His breathing was labored and his tank top sweaty from the obvious run he had just been on. He looked amazing.

“What are you doing on this side of downtown?” He looked around, “I don’t see your car anywhere; did you walk all this way?”

“Yes I did actually; I enjoy it. I consider it my daily exercise…which clearly lacks in comparison to yours.” She motioned to his drenched top, “How long do you usually run?”

He laughed as he looked down at himself, “Yeah I’m pretty gross right now aren’t I? I usually do five to ten miles, just depends on my mood.”

He said it so casually harper choked on her own breath, “Five or ten! I couldn’t make it past the first one.”

He put his hands on his hips and gave her a once over, “Oh, come on, you’d at least make it to the two and a half mile mark.”

The wink he gave her did funny things to her stomach and she started walking towards the restaurant and he fell into step beside her, “Do you live around here?”

“Yeah, I’ve got the top floor in one of the high rises down the street. It’s convenient for work but I’d much rather be out of the city.”

“Really? Where do you work if you don’t mine me asking…and out of the city as in a different city or away from the chaos?” She glanced over at him as they continued walking and blushed when she caught him staring at her too.

“Me and those men you saw at the restaurant the other night own a company together. It kind of has its hands in all areas now but we started off as a marketing and consulting business. Now we have multiple retail stores open around the world.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. Congratulations.” She was shocked at how successful he was and was grinning up at him when she noticed the odd look on his face.

Her steps slowed until she was at a complete stop, “What…?”

He kept staring at her and finally shook his head slightly, “It’s just…that’s the first time someone has actually said ‘congratulations on your success’ and I actually believed them when they said it.”

“Well…that makes me kind of sad for you.”

“Don’t get me wrong. My family is amazing about everything. I just meant as someone who just met me or hasn’t known me my entire life.”

Harper considered that and could see how easily that could be true for anyone. People could be very envious when someone had something they thought they deserved, “Well I’m glad I could be the start of a better group of people that you know Liam.”

“I am too Harper.” He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. Harper sucked in her breath and froze at the feeling of his hand on her skin for even that split second.

“Look, I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you were doing.” He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her again but thought better of it, “I’m going to finish this run and see if my luck continues for the day.” He put in his headphones and Harper gave him a small wave as he started running backwards away from her and then turned and shot out of sight. She touched her cheek where his hand had grazed and thought that she had had some luck today too.

()()()()()

“Hey baby.” Harper tensed as she felt Daren’s hand squeeze her shoulder as he came up behind her at the table. She had been waiting for over twenty minutes and was just about to give up on him.

“You weren’t answering your phone. I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

He sat down across from her and his gaze turned intense as he pulled out his menu, “I can’t always be at your beck and call Harper. Sometimes I have things to handle at work. Unlike at the hardware store they need me to make sure things keep running smoothly.”

Harper felt the hurt and anger running through her and shoved it down deep inside. Daren had been making little jabs at her like this their entire relationship; as if the things she did weren’t as important as his. Sarah and Julie used to tell her to dump him when they had first started dating but that really was the only bad thing about Daren. Things may have been getting a little tenser lately but she didn’t think it was enough to call it quits. He’d had his moments since she’d first met him but it had never gotten that bad.

Her mind flashed to Liam and then to Daren grabbing her the night before, “Has your day been going well otherwise?” She quickly asked to get her mind onto something else.

The waiter came over with their drinks and paused to take their orders, “We’ll both have the Cesar salad and house soup. Thanks.”

Before Harper could tell the server that she actually did not want that for lunch Daren grabbed her hand across the table and squeezed, “Thank you.” She said softly to the server and left it alone. She knew Daren liked ordering. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her today.

“My day has been great. First we started on a new prototype for – “Harper felt her phone buzz and stopped listening to what Daren was saying when she glanced down at the screen.

“My luck continues. I knocked my time down on my run. Thanks for the extra energy boost.”

She quickly shoved her phone back into her purse and focused on what Daren was saying. This was going to be a long lunch. The need to answer Liam back was so strong it was like her hand was burning. She grabbed the napkin off the table and started tearing it into little pieces.

“Harper, stop that. It’s like I’m at lunch with a child.” Daren grabbed the napkin and crumbled it up and Harper checked the time on her watch.

()()()()()

The second she got back to the store and was at her desk she pulled out her phone.

“I guess you’ll have to move those five to ten miles on up to ten to fifteen now just to challenge yourself.” She smiled at her small achievement of putting together a somewhat witty response and sat her phone down where she would be able to see if he responded back.

No less than a minute later her phone buzzed again.

“Already done. I tacked on another mile this morning just to knock my ego back down a notch.”

A laugh escaped and Harper looked around her office as if someone could see or hear her through her closed door. She was just about to respond when another text came through.

“Have dinner with me tonight Harper.”

She dropped her phone as if it had bitten her and just stared at it. She couldn’t keep this up. The fact that she so desperately wanted to go to dinner with Liam when she had just left lunch with Daren said a lot. It said she had let whatever this was go too far already and she needed to put a stop to it.

She went to respond that she couldn’t and her fingers wouldn’t type the words. She felt alive and…understood when she was around Liam and she didn’t want to give that up. She stared at her phone a minute longer and decided she would have dinner with him tonight. She would have dinner with him and she would tell him she was in a relationship. She would tell him, hope he didn’t hate her for leading him on, and still want to at least be her friend.

She truly hadn’t meant to lead him on but that’s exactly what she was doing. It was obvious he was interested in her in a more than friendly way and to him she was available. Sarah giving him her best friend’s number would have made him believe there wasn’t an issue.

“Okay. 8 PM?”

Harper quickly typed a text to Daren saying she was having a late dinner with Sarah tonight. That Sarah had an emergency of some kind she needed to talk about and that he should stay at his place tonight.

“I’m looking forward to it. Same place we first met.”

Liam’s text came across the screen just as Daren’s short ‘OK’ popped up.

Harper laid her head against the desk in front of her and groaned. She was turning into someone she really didn’t like but tonight she would tell Liam the truth and everything could go back to normal.