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Mia turned back at the door, smiling at Harper in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She wasn’t crying yet.
“Thank you again, Harper,” she called, before walking through the doorway.
As the door clicked shut behind Mia, Harper paused for breath, making sure Mia was far enough down the hall to not hear it when she started crying. She wept into her hands, curling into a ball on the sofa and shuddering. She felt hollow, like she had seen a part of herself slip away. She didn’t get to sleep until hours later, and still, she lay in the middle of her queen-sized bed so she couldn’t feel an empty space beside her while she cried. Seeing Mia would be torture, sure, but as Harper drifted off to sleep one thought reassured her.
Not seeing her at all would have been so much worse.
13
Amonth passed. The world hadn’t ended, and both Mia and Harper’s lives and careers had continued. They were in contact, not as intense as those first few weeks, but they were keeping in touch about big news. Big news rolled around in force when Harper was in NYC signing a new group, a Manhattan-based art pop band made up of talented NYU dropouts. She was in a meeting with them, negotiating the finer details of a contract in a smokey cafe-come-wine bar covered in cute little houseplants. She was only a little distracted by this.
Should I get some climbing plants for the apartment back in LA? The walls are too tall for anything else to look nice. I could hire someone to water them for me when I’m away—or I guess I could just call Deb, she’s loaded and doesn’t need the extra income so much as a hobby. She’s probably been hanging around for long enough with that Esme woman to know more about plants than me, I should ask her...
She thought about houseplant logistics more while going over her usual points with the band members, who to their credit looked equally distracted. She left the meeting with a sense that it had gone well, considering they had said they would sign once they finished their contract as house band at a local bar. When she went to check her phone after the meeting she didn’t think much when she saw the missed call from Mia. Mia had been updating her every few days on how the album was coming along, if the documentary crew needed to be paid for overtime etc, so a missed call wasn’t much of a shock.
She called Mia, standing in the bitter wind of a New York spring. The snow had melted before she got there, but still, she missed the West Coast.
“Harper, hi! Thank fuck you picked up, it’s an absolute mess,” Mia said in greeting. Harper could hear people arguing in the background, aggressive typing and paper being thrown around.
“Hi Mia, Jesus, what’s happening?”
“You remember Carson?”
“Carson, yeah, smart kid. Did something happen, is he okay?”
“The execs have fired him.”
“Sorry, what?”
“You remember those merchandise shortages from a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah? What’s that got to do with him?”
“Well, the stolen shirts were put up on Ebay yesterday evening. Turns out he’s been stealing merchandise and selling it under a few profiles to make a quick few bucks.”
Harper couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Why the hell would he do something like that?!”
“Money, Harper. That kid saw a way to make some extra money and took it, but he used his real email on the profile from yesterday evening so he was caught really fast.”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t that smart.
“Okay, but you’ve caught him and he’s been dealt with. What are you calling me for?”
“That’s the issue, he hasn’t been dealt with. He still had his company login for a few hours after he was fired, and he’s fucked with things and wiped my entire schedule for the next two months.”
Okay, this was bad. Very bad. This was a level of fuckery that Harper was not used to at all. It was something that could be dealt with remotely, sure, but it was going to be a pain in the ass.
“I’ll get on that as soon as I can. I still have contact details for most of those people, and I’m sure if I explain the situation they’ll be understanding.”
They would have to be understanding, Harper thought to herself, or they would have to deal with her. The Huntress thing was useful every so often, she had to admit.
“Is there anything else I should know?” she asked, hoping to whatever higher power was out there that there wasn’t.
“There is, actually.”
Shit. “Shit. What is it?”
