Page 59 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

I pick up my phone.

I open the group chat. The one with all four of us. I type.

Killian: Raph had better not be going to your room if he wants to live to see sunrise, Harper

Maddox makes a sound behind me. I don’t look at him. I watch the window.

The three dots appear almost immediately.

Harper: Who is this?

I stare at those three words.

She knows who this is. She’s known from the first buzz of her phone. She wants me to say it properly, to claim it rather than just assert it, to be the thing she’s been waiting two weeks for one of us to be, which is direct. She’s going to make me work for it or she’s not going to give me anything, and she’s entirely right about that, and it’s the most Harper thing she could possibly have done.

Good. It’s good. I’m glad she’s not making this easy.

Asher has stopped pretending to drink his vodka and is reading over my shoulder. Maddox has his arms crossed with something on his face that is dangerously close to a smile.

Killian: You know who the fuck this is

Three dots. Gone. Three dots again.

Harper: You’re interested in my social life because???

I look up from my phone.

“Three question marks,” Maddox says.

“I see the three question marks.”

“She’s making you say it.”

“I know.” I type.

Killian: Come to my office.

A pause. Longer this time.

Harper: Is everything okay?

I watch the window. She’s stopped walking. She’s standing on the path with her phone in her hand and Raphael has stopped beside her, looking at the screen with her. He reads it and says something and she says something back and he laughs and she pushes his shoulder and he holds up both hands and keeps walking without her.

Good.

I look back at my phone. I look at Asher and Maddox, who are both watching me with the focused attention of men who have just watched something shift.

Two weeks of carefully maintained distance. Correct and appropriate and completely wrong.

Done.

Killian: Now, Harper.

22

HARPER

Iknock once because I was raised with manners even if the people who raised me weren't, and then I open the door.