Harmony runs a hand through her hair and looks at me. I think I see her eyes glossing over with tears, or maybe it’s just the way the low sun is shining on her face.
I stand up. “You’re a good girl with a good soul. Maybe you should stay away from me. Maybe your parents are right. Maybe I am just a giant fuckup who won’t ever fix what he did. But you know what? In those sixteen months, I saw a lot of good in people too. Little acts of kindness mixed in with all the hate. I chose to focus on the good. And I promised myself when I got out, I’d do good for myself and those around me. It’s hard when everyone sees you a certain way, though. And it’s extra hard in this little town where everyone knows your story. And honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t already know about it.”
“It actually makes sense because I wasn’t here for all this drama,” she says. “This all happened when you were nineteen or so, right?”
I nod. “And the trial was when I was twenty.”
“So I would have been eighteen. I was in Nashville that year,” she continues. “I did a year and a half at Vanderbilt. I was living in a bubble of music and fun times. So it makes sense I missed all of this drama when it hit the town.”
I blink a few times. “Holy shit, Harm. You went to Vanderbilt? I mean, I knew you were smart. But that’s serious. No wonder your parents don’t want you around me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Let’s not get off topic. Zach, I trust you. I don’t know why, but I do. I don’t agree with what you did, but I see why you did it.”
She paces around the rock and walks back up to me. “Actually, no. You are a dumbass. Seriously, why didn’t you just put up a damn GoFundMe page?!”
I swallow. “Rub it in. I was short-sighted as hell.”
She shakes her head. “I wish I would have known you back then. I wish we were friends. I could have told you what a big freaking idiot you were being with your plan! Who are your friends, anyway?”
I shrug. “Malek. And some guys at the restaurant.”
Stepping in even closer, she crosses her arms and tongues her cheek. “Oh? What kind of ‘friend’ hits on me and doesn’t give you a girl’s number when I was begging him for it?”
I recoil. “You mentioned that.”
“He lied to you, Zach! He said he didn’t have my number. Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“Why did you have Malek’s number?”
“I had to text him for Sebastian one time about booze for his party.”
Pulling out her phone, she shows me a text thread from Malek. I swallow, shaking my head as I look through the messages. Malek is basically blackmailing her, demanding she go out on a date with him first. My heart drops, and my chest aches like crazy. I know she’d mentioned what he did, but seeing the texts sends it home. “Get the fuck out of here. No. What the fuck!”
“Why are you even friends with him?”
I pinch my eyebrows. “I’m pissed at him right now. I admit it. I’ve been friends with him forever. He backed me up that night at Bambino’s. That’s loyalty.”
“Yeah? Well, he was a dumbass because a real friend would have told you that you had a horrible idea! And to find another way to help your sister!” In the middle of her scathing statement, she takes hold of my forearm.
I can’t tell if it’s in a loving way or not. Tension flows through me.
“All right, that’s how you feel? I’m just a dumbass with no friends? You’ve known me for like a week. And what about you? All your family and friends do is tell you to stop playing guitar and try to control who you date! They all think they know what’s best for you. But what do you want, Harmony?” Although, I mean for all of this to come out with sincerity, my tone is harsh.
She pauses. “I—I told you. To play music.”
“Well, you have a weird way of showing it. You should be playing to stadiums of thousands of people. I know what I felt when I walked into The Hungry Burger that first night. You have a gift that very few people have. And you damn well better start taking it seriously.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” She grabs hold of my other arm.
“Oh?” I spit out. “I shouldn’t tell you that you should go after what you want? And not the whims of your stepmom?”
“Stop,” she mouths, and presses her body into mine. Her eyes are fiery, even more so with how the golden light is shining on her face. “I know what I . . .”
Trailing off, she loses her footing on the black rock and lets go of me as she starts to fall straight back.
I react like lightning, diving forward and catching her a few inches before her head hits a rock below the surface, the side of her head dipping into the water. My hand grips her hip tightly as I pull her out of the water and onto my chest.
“What are we doing here?” she breathes.
“If you want to go for a swim, sweetheart, we can do that. But we had better do it a little downstream from here, where the water isn’t so rocky.”
“No,” she quips. “I’m serious. What are we doing in Blackwell? What’s left for us here? Your friends aren’t really friends. My family doesn’t understand me. What are we doing here?”
My chest flares with desire, pressed up against Harmony’s body. It’s so distracting having a serious conversation while she’s pressed against me.
Wrapping my arm around her, I try to think coherently, but it’s like she’s cast a magic spell over me.
“I couldn’t leave here,” I reply. “I’ve got my job. I’ve got people who like me.”
“Do they?” she shoots back. “People don’t even know you. Just like my parents don’t know me.”
Harmony has gotten under my skin. This woman knows just how to light a fire inside me. I feel my insides burning up.
“So what exactly are you suggesting?” I ask.
“Oh, you know.” She bites her lip playfully and looks at me. “That we go skinny-dip in that part of the river you mentioned. And then we get the fuck out of here and go somewhere far, far away and become the people we want to be. Together.”
Chapter 15
Harmony
The creek should be quiet, but it sounds more like an earthquake. All of my senses are heightened as I stand ankle deep in the water, letting its cool temperature soothe my feet.
Zach rips off his shirt and jeans, stripping down to his boxers.
I can’t stop myself from staring at him.
He’s so damn attractive that it’s unreal. Huge, defined muscles lined with tattoos, and I feel like I can see every rippling line between each of them.
But for the first time I find myself wondering if it isn’t somehow a tragedy that he got so fit, that it might have been one of the only things he had that was “positive” in his life for those sixteen months he was in prison.
My heart breaks for him, but at the same time I hear a question nagging at me. Can you trust a man like this? You still have no idea of the totality of what he’s been through.
I shudder, because the voice asking the question sounds like my stepmom’s.
Curling my shoulders forward, I try to reframe my inner voice.