“Kristen, can you tell him I have another headache and I went to sleep?”

She shoots me a sharp stare from above her red glasses. “Really?”

I sigh heavily, and another tear roadblocks my throat. “I get a pass right now. Don’t I?”

She huffs. “Fine. But this is your one and only I-haven’t-told-my-boyfriend-I’m-preggers-so-I’m-asking-my-roomie-to-lie-for-me pass. Got it?”

I’d like to laugh. Really, I would. “Let’s hope I don’t have to use it again.”

Trey

Headache? What the fucking fuck?

I know she’s lying. I know it. Harley doesn’t get headaches. Something is up, and if she’s back with Cam and is dicking me around I want to know sooner rather than later. Actually, fuck sooner. I want to know now.

I clench my fists as I walk home from the gym, trying to quell this treacherous ball of anger that’s building inside me. When I reach my apartment and turn on the shower, my hands are shaking. Only, it’s not anger that’s won squatting rights in my heart. It’s fear of the unknown. Of the absolutely terrifying uncertainty of something I never thought I’d know.

Love, and losing it.

Because this isn’t like the others. This isn’t Sloan McKay, where she could walk off and I’d hook up with someone else the next day.

Harley is my whole fucking heart, and then some.

I step out of the shower, dry off and pull on fresh jeans and a T-shirt.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I’m scared for nothing. Maybe she’s truly suffering from the mother of all headaches. If she is, I need to do something for her.

Fifteen sweaty minutes later, my T-shirt is sticking to me, thanks to the hottest August on record. I call her when I reach the stoop of her building, but there’s no answer.

I inhale deeply, and hold my breath, count to ten, remembering what my shrink Michele told me. Don’t jump to conclusions. Speak only your truth.

But I don’t feel like speaking.

I slam a fist against the railing of her building. The metal rattles against my hand, which now hurts like a motherfucker. I shake it a few times.

Where is she, and why is she lying to me?

My head is muddy, and I can’t tell up from down or left from right, and I definitely can’t tell if what I feel is normal or just plain wrong. This is all so foreign to me. I wish someone would diagnose this state of my mind right now—declare it one way, or the other. I don’t know if this is new or old. I have never known true consequences for my feelings, and maybe this makes me seem naive or just plain fucking dumb, but I never thought I could get hurt.

Because I’ve never been in love before.

I try her one more time. It rings and rings, but then someone picks up.

“Hey, it’s Kristen.”

“What’s going on? Where’s Harley?”

“She’s asleep,” Kristen says in a quiet voice.

“I don’t believe that,” I fire back.

Kristen laughs, a sharp sarcastic sound. “You don’t believe she’s asleep?”

“You’re covering for her, aren’t you?”

“Oh my fucking god. I want to strangle you sometimes. Come up and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Then the buzzer sounds, and I push open the door.

Once I reach the fifth floor, Kristen is standing in the hallway, one hand on her hip, the other on the open door. She shakes her head at me, tsk-tsking under her breath. “Oh ye of little faith, prepare to be strangled when you set eyes upon your sleeping Harley. And do not wake her up. She has a massive migraine.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, holding my hands out wide. “I’m an ass.”

She nods. “You can be.”

“Is she okay?”

She swallows, looks away then back at me. “She’s fine. I mean, she’s not. But,” Kristen says, stumbling on her words. Fuck, maybe something’s going around causing all the women to act weird. “But anyway. You can see her, or whatever you need to verify she’s asleep.”

“It’s not that I want to verify it,” I say, with a heavy sigh. “I just want to see her.”

“Go.” She points down the hall.

My knuckles sting from pounding my hand against the metal, but I deserve it.

Gingerly, I push open the door to Harley’s room, and I melt when I see her. All the sharp metal edges in me turn liquid. She’s sound asleep, curled up on her side, the blanket kicked down to her waist even though her apartment is doubling as a refrigerator showroom right now. Harley is my kind of girl in every way. She loves to blast the AC. The room is dark and silent, except for the hum of the cooling air. I pad quietly to her, bend down and kiss her forehead.

She stirs, and murmurs something unintelligible. The sound of her sweet, sleepy voice is all the evidence I need that I’m an idiot, and that I should start trusting this strange and unusual feeling of loving her, that I can survive even when I don’t know what happens the next day.

That’s life and there are zero guarantees, and I need to get used to it.

Then her eyes flutter open. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What time is it?”

“Late. How are you feeling?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk.” She stops all conversation when she reaches for me, ropes her hands around my neck and kisses me.

A quiet, goodnight kiss. A come-join-me-in-bed kiss, so I answer its invitation. I untie my boots, kick them off, and slide under the covers with her. The kiss starts to fade out, her lips barely touching mine, just the faint trace of her softness on me. Then I taste something salty on her lips, and she hitches in a breath, a small stifled gulp. I break the kiss to look at her, arch an eyebrow.

She shakes her head, and silences me once more with her mouth. This time, it’s not a goodnight kiss. She is fevered and frenzied, and she kisses me like she wants to devour me, to render me useless to anything but the power of her kiss. My mind goes hazy, and my body takes over, and all that uncertainty has packed up and rocketed off to Pluto. Because nothing is unclear between the two of us now. Her frantic hands tug at my shirt, and in seconds she’s yanked it over my head. Then her nimble little fingers find the button on my jeans, and the whole time she kisses me like she owns me.

Which she does.

She fucking owns me, and I want her to stake her claim to me always.

We reconnect with our bodies with our want, our need.

“Harley,” I say, my voice rasping as she pushes my jeans down, and I help her, kicking them off the rest of the way. Instantly, her hand is on my cock, and it’s like someone lit a fire inside me and it’s torching my whole body. She strokes me through my underwear, and I swear I might combust.

I am helpless in her hand.

“Take them off,” she whispers, and I oblige as she pulls off her tank top.

I slide a hand between her legs, and her panties are damp already. I know I shouldn’t rely on sex as a barometer for our relationship, but I can’t help it. I’m so damn happy that she’s this turned on. That I can do this to her. That she wants me as much as I want her.

I won’t last long tonight, and I don’t think she will either.

“Let me get a condom,” I say, and she makes a strange little squeak when I say that last word. I grab one from her nightstand drawer. I hand it to her because she loves putting them on me.

“Just put it on,” she says, looking away as I do, and if I wanted to dissect the moment, I’d probably ask why, but I don’t want to examine anything anymore. I want to reconnect with her, and she’s been veering away, and if this is how we come together, I’ll take it. I’ll gladly take it.

She parts her legs wide for me, and there’s something needy and sad that flashes in her eyes, as I sink into her, but then every worry is snuffed out at the feel of her surrounding me.

“Oh, fuck, Harley. You feel so good.” I ease out, and then rock back in, and she moans and clasps my back. “I missed you today. I know I saw you this morning, but I fucking missed you.”