Page 10 of Seeing Harper

“It was really thoughtful of you to order two to-go boxes so we could put that second pizza in them.”

“I wanted us to both have left overs for midnight when we’re wandering through our kitchens trying to figure out what we can eat. It’s the whole reason I order a second pizza. There was no way there’d be any left of the first one between the two of us.”

“You do that, too?”

“What? Midnight snacking?” he asked. “All the time.”

“I don’t usually admit to it, or eat as much as I did when I’m out in public, because I’m a girl and it’s apparently frowned upon,” she said, mimicking someone from the north with extreme social graces when she said frowned upon. “But, I feel like I can just be me when I’m with you. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course, it’s okay. I insist that you do.”

“Good.”

“I hope that thing with the waitress didn’t ruin your night. It just really got to me.”

“Not at all. And I left her a twenty dollar tip, so I’m sure she’s over it, too, anyway,” Harper said.

“You gave her twenty bucks after I paid?” he asked exasperatedly.

“Yep. You might have scarred her for life. It was the least I could do.”

Clay laughed. “She shouldn’t be coming onto males like that. Especially when they have a woman sitting with them. It’s pretty shitty the way she disrespected you.”

“If I’d been your girlfriend, as you claimed I was,” she said, smirking and giving him some side-eye, “I’d have made my place known. But you’re not. So, it wasn’t my place.”

“Feel free to step in if anything like that happens again. It really just…” he stopped speaking searching for the right word.

“Pissed you off. I know. It’s probably because you met the girl that’s going to be your mate. I’ll protect you until you claim her, though. Promise. No big bad waitresses will make you feel icky.”

They both dissolved into laughter.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“We talked about me. We talked about my parents, the horses, my family and the damned trees. But you never said a word about yourself. How’s school? Do you like it? I never hear you talk about it like Cruz and Bastian do. Though Bastian’s tales are usually about women and football.”

Clay sighed as he thought about his answer. “Can I be honest?” he asked, looking over at her as she drove them through the darkness toward his home.

“Please do — always.”

“I hate it. School was not something I ever wanted to do. I enrolled due to a lack of other options.”

“Lack of options?!” she asked.

“Well, not options, I could have done whatever I wanted to do, I just didn’t know what that was. They offered me a scholarship, so I didn’t feel like I was wasting the college fund my parents saved for me. So I went. Sebastian was going, so I’d have somebody I knew there. I didn’t want to stay here and work at the restaurant. I could have worked construction with the Pride and I do during the summers, but it’s not what I wanted for a lifetime, I honestly just didn’t know what else to do. So I went to college.”

“You’re a business major, right?”

“Yep. I figured whatever it is that I finally do, I’ll need to know business whether I’m building my own, or working for somebody else,” he said flatly.

“You still don’t know what you want to do, do you?”

“Last week, no. But I believe I’m figuring it out now.”

“Really? What is that you want to do?”

“Can’t tell you.”