After a moment, a soaking wet, barely robed Harper answered the door, letting me in. I wanted to stick my head inside the stupid bucket at the sight of her. She thought nothing of it and returned to her bath. I followed her and stuck the champagne in the bucket, turning around just in time to miss what I didn’t really want to miss.

“You can turn back around now,” she said absently.

She was resting her head against the back of the tub, her hair clipped up so it wouldn’t get wet, her long slender neck exposed. For a split moment, I considered vampirism. I would have ravished that neck that very second if I knew she had made the same commitment to me that I did to her at that afternoon. I needed to get out of there.

“Callum?” She said, running a sponge over her arms and upper chest.

“Ye-yes?” I sat on the edge of the counter to give the impression I was breezy. I doubt it was working. That was evident in her smirk.

“When will we get our marriage certificate back?”

“In a couple of days, why?”

“Hmm,” was all she said.

“Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking. Maybe you and I could use those days to shop for simple furniture for our new apartment? After working lunches? I know school starts in two weeks. That doesn’t leave us a lot of time. I know we’ll get our apartment but we’ll have nothing inside it just as school starts? That’s too much. We should try to at least get a few larger pieces.” She lifted her silky knee from the water, making me reel. “Like a sofa, television, and bed.”

The word bed was more than I could handle.

“Um, yeah. That’s a great idea, Harper. Let’s start tomorrow. We’ll go to that Sunday swap meet they hold over by Charlie’s. They shut down the entire street for the entire day.”

“What a good idea!” She exclaimed, shifting the water a bit.

I ran. From that room, from that robe, from that enticing water and from her. I threw myself onto the bed, groaning into my pillow. She was going to kill me. Making my commitment to God made me feel like she was mine to do things with but she hadn’t made the same commitment and now I was stuck in a marriage with a woman I loved, one that I was so incredibly attracted to, one that I wanted to touch all over including her mind and couldn't. I was a glutton for punishment and wanted nothing more than to gorge myself on that creature soaking in our wedding night tub.

When Harper got out, I left the room for her to dress, barely looking at her. I showered in the huge glossy black marble walk in shower. I let the steam roll around me and the heat work out my frustration. I had no idea what I was going to do. I was beginning to panic. I loved her so much I could barely see straight. I wanted her so much I could barely breathe straight. I needed her so much I could barely think straight. I hopped from the shower onto the warm tile floor and toweled myself dry, dressing in my long pajama pants, foregoing the t-shirt as it was too hot and turning off the light before I entered the room.

It was quiet and dark. Harper was hidden beneath the covers steadily breathing and I realized she may have already fallen asleep, causing an inexplicable ache in my chest. I slid into the silky sheets under the down comforter and laid my head on the soft goose feather pillow, staring at the ceiling. I threw my arm over my eyes suddenly unsure of what I’d done.

“Callum?” Harper whispered, startling me.

I removed my arm from my eyes and looked at her. She shifted and rolled over on her side, propping herself up on her elbow. I followed her lead, doing the same.

“Yes?” I asked her beautifully moonlit face.

She didn’t say another word, just slid over to my side of the bed and wrapped her arms around my bare chest, fitting her head underneath my chin. I didn’t want to think about how well her body fit next to mine but I couldn’t help it.

After an hour of just holding one another, Harper spoke. “I’m glad I married you,” she said before drifting off into a deep slumber.

“I’m glad I married you too, Harper,” I whispered into her hair, “because I’m in love with you.” But she didn’t hear, gone into a dream.

Chapter Twelve

Sunburn

Callum

“Dude, your hair is getting ridiculously long,” Harper teased, running her hands through it, sending a shiver of warmth down my spine and my eyes rolling to the back of my head.

“Think I should cut it?” I asked drunk on her touch, lounging next to her on the sofa, otherwise known as ‘Callum’s bed’.

The microwave beeped and Harper jumped up, tripping over the step into our kitchen as it was so dark. The smell of popcorn wafted its way into our little living room. She came back with it in a giant bowl along with two bottled waters.

“I wanted soda,” I said, furrowing my brows.

She sighed but shoved her shoulder into mine as she sat. “I know that but you’ve already had four today. I’m vetoing a fifth.”

“Fine,” I sang not wanting to admit how much I still loved that she looked after me.

“And no way,” she said.

“No way, what?”

“No.” She cleared her throat, staring into the bowl. “I don’t think you should cut it.”

For two years, Harper and I had been playing the ultimate game of cat and mouse. Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘I thought they were only going to marry for a year, then annul, divorce, whatever.’ Well, truthfully, we liked being ‘fake married’ or as I like to secretly call it, ‘faking that my marriage isn’t real’. Also, unfortunately John Bell was only sentenced to a year in prison and had been released six months prior. Though, he’d yet to find us, I wasn’t going to leave her defenseless while we were in school, so we decided that we’d stay married until the end of the school year. That was partly by design. I wasn’t ready to leave her yet. I didn’t want to.

We didn’t need any more grants starting our sophomore year and had become completely independent. We belonged to no one. We owed no one. We were each other’s family. This was it for me. There were things that had been happening lately that made me think this was also it for her.

“Your hair is getting long as well, Harper,” I stated, unsure how to tell her that I loved it as long as it’d become.

“Do you like it?” She asked me, turning away from the screen.

“As a matter a fact, I love it,” I said honestly. It reached her elbows now in long, loose coppery waves, like when we’d first met. She’d cut it after we’d married just under her shoulders.

“Thank you. How’s Krantz treating you this semester?” She asked.

“Like crap as always,” I admitted, making her laugh.

“I told you not to take him for Bio-Chem. Everyone and their dog knows not to take Krantz, even journalism majors,” she winked.

“Yeah, well I told you, I didn’t have a choice. The only other option was when you were already off and I didn’t want to have a conflicting schedule.”

“Yeah, yeah. I think you just like torturing yourself.” You have no idea.

A scary part of the film came flashing across the screen, making Harper scream and jump in my lap. She grasped my shoulders and pulled herself into me closely making my heart leap to my throat.

“Sorry,” she whispered, scurrying off me quickly, a blush creeping across her gorgeous neck. I’d wished the scene had lasted longer just so she could have stayed in my arms.

“It’s alright,” I said, readjusting on the sofa.

Harper had decorated our apartment in a lot of different pieces. She dragged me to the Sunday swap meet near Charlie’s practically every weekend that first year. We’d buy little pieces together and place them in our house, making it a home. She described our home’s style as eclectic. I can remember every piece we bought together and why. For instance, the sofa we sat on was ‘a tufted purple velvet Chesterfield’. I had no idea what that meant but I just nodded and agreed to its purchase as it was the first thing she’d found that made her squeal in excitement.

And the wingback in the corner? It was a piece of crap when she found it at the thrift store but she promised me it would look good once we recovered it in a funky pattern and, of course, she was correct. I refused to go to the cloth store to pick out the fabric and told her she had carte blanche. She came back with a mustard yellow print. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I hated it but when she made me stay up until one in the morning recovering it with her, it’d grown on me and it ended up being my favorite piece we’d ever bought because of the conversation we’d had while covering it.

That’s what I loved about the furniture in our apartment. I could care less what it looked like. Harper could have had the worst taste in the world and I would have loved it regardless. She doesn’t, by the way. It was the fact that she was in every piece, in every corner, on every shelf. She was everywhere, reminding me how much in love with her I was.

In the two years we’d been married, I’d only kissed her once and that was on our wedding day. She tortured me with hugs which I gladly took. I’d kissed her neck more times than I could possibly count but it was starting to wear on me. I was too invested to confess all now. I was frightened to admit to her how much I loved her, afraid she’d bail, not wanting to torture me under my own roof. And I couldn’t just be friends with Harper. It was all or nothing and nothing scared the ever living crap out of me. So I took all her friendship and pretended it was enough.

“Did you pay the insurance, Callum?”

“Yes, honey bunches of oats,” I laid on thickly.

“Shut up,” she laughed.

I stood up quickly.

“Where are my slippers and pipe?” I demanded, “And roast beef again for dinner? Woman! You are dangerously close to a spanking!”

“Take that sexist crap and shove it,” she laughed harder, doubling over.

She surprised me by tripping me and I fell hard onto the hard wood floor. I was laughing too hard to get angry. She was laughing as she crawled toward me and lay down beside me. We both stared at the ceiling, our laughs dying out slowly until our breaths were the only thing audible beside the film.

She turned on her side, her head resting on the inside of my folded arm.

“I have a lot of fun with you,” she said.

“Me too. I’m wonderful.”

She slapped me playfully and I tickled her until she could barely breathe.

The next day was Friday and we were both off school that day but had to work at the campus library which proved useful for both of us as there was a lot of down time and we always needed to study. It also helped that when we got off, most of our work was already done and we could spend a lot of time with another.

“Get the mail, Harper,” I said, juggling my back pack and keys, stepping off our elevator.

“‘Kay.”

Harper opened our little box with her key and removed four or five envelopes, shifting each one behind the other as she read off what each one was.

“Bill, bill, junk.” She stopped on the fourth one. “Hmm,” she said, eyeing the envelope. “It’s a letter, for you.”