Chapter 10

Levy

Listening to them all chat shit about their music, most of the groups I haven’t even heard of or the artists and their college work, hits me right in the fucking gut, it highlights just how much of an age gap there is between Harper and myself. Jeez, eighteen years, I feel like an old crumbly just looking at her and sneaking glances at her in my rearview. Oh, fuck now I’m turning into some pervert, and feverishly try recalling all the couples out there that are in age gap relationships. Why couldn’t this be forward in time when she’s at least thirty and I’m forty-eight it just sounds better. Doesn’t it?

We arrive back at mine in around twenty-five minutes, I had to stop to get fuel - this truck of mine drinks it and even though I ought to consider getting a more environmentally friendly one, as Dylan keeps banging on and on about, I’d be sad to see this go. My father owned it and had it since he first learned to drive, so yeah, it has plenty of sentimental value.

Dylan, Lacey and Harper hop out of the car and make it to the front door, Dylan unlocks it and lets them in. Harper looks back at me and smiles, I smile back. What? Like I’m not going to be nice, even though I feel as grumpy as hell at the moment. Sure, I feel grumpy, I’m attracted to a woman nearly half my age, my son’s ex-girlfriend and a college student, how much worse can it get?

I need to hook up with my mate Lex, an ex-Navy Seal who married a girl twelve years younger than him. Oh, Lord what the fuck am I even thinking? This can’t go anywhere; it will not go anywhere why the hell do I need to even think these things? The girl is taking up space in my head, she’s all I can even think about right now.

“Dad come on, we’re starving,” Dylan calls out from the house as they slip out of their shoes.

“You know how to work an oven, Son, do it yourself.” Harper comes back out flicking her wet hair over her shoulders, it hangs long and loose, she is a vision with her rosy cheeks and corn blue eyes, a man could easily get lost in them.

“Just going to run across the road and check in on my mother.”

“Sure, no problem, the pizza will be waiting with your name on it. You want anything extra on it?”

“Yeah, please mushrooms if you have it and extra cheese, I love cheese.” She makes some kind of soft murmuring noise that hits me right in my fucking dick. Great, just fucking-fantastic.

“No problem. Go check on your mother and we’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thank, Levy. You’re the best.” She stands on her tiptoes and places a kiss on my cheek, my skin burns, and I feel myself blushing. Fuck’s sake I’m a grown man, I can’t recall the last time I blushed from a damn kiss. Maybe when I was a horny teenager but seriously. I feel the soft warmth of where her lips touched my skin, those soft, pillow-like lips of her and raise my hand and touch my cheek. Okay, so now I’m behaving like a damn puppy boy.

I go inside and see Lacey and Dylan placing the pizzas in the oven, “hold up on one of those, Harper wants extra mushrooms and cheese, I’ll handle it.”

“K, Dad.” Dylan removes one from the oven and sets it back on the granite island in the kitchen. Lacey sits and scrolls through her phone giggling every now and then. I bet she’s on that TikTok app or whatever the kids are on these days, I have no idea. To be honest, I’m not one for social media. I do have a marketing person who I pay part-time, Helena is a whizz, so it seems because I have no end of business rolling in, and she’s always taking photos and asking me to take selfies with my bikes, working in the garage, out on my rides and the such type of stuff. It feels weird snapping pictures of myself, I have lots of Dylan from when he was a kid and growing up but taking pics of myself, it just makes me feel weird.

I busy myself with the pizza for Harper taking special care to arrange the mushrooms in a circular flow from the centre outwards to the rim. Oh, God now I’m decorating a damn pizza. What am I coming to?

“Ours is done, we’re going to eat,” Dylan announces just a few minutes later, Lacey places her phone down on the island and I see some picture, video thing, I guess they call them a reel nowadays of a dog and a kitten playing. Okay, I admit it’s kinda cute.

“Go ahead and eat, Harper won’t be too long.” I place the pizza in the oven after I’ve scattered plenty of extra cheese on it. The door opens and closes and Harper makes her way into the kitchen. Her eyes are red, Man has she been crying? Who hurt her? Why is she crying? My instinct is to go over to her and take her in my arms but in front of Lacey and Dylan, I think some eyebrows would be raised. But damn it, I can’t stand to see her like this. She sniffles.

“Sorry, I took a while my mamma was passed out again.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, dad’s only just put yours in with extra mushrooms just as you like it,” Dylan pats one of the wood stools next to him for her to go sit by him.

“Okay if I just go use the bathroom tidy myself up?”

“Help yourself, you know where it is,” I tell it clenching and unclenching my fists by my thighs. It’s all I can do to stop myself from bringing her close to my broad chest and holding her tight. “Dylan, keep an eye on the pizza, I’ve just got something I need to take care of.”

“Sure, Dad no problem.”

I make my way out of the kitchen into the large open plan lounge area with its high vaulted, oak beamed ceiling and head to the door on the right where the cloakroom is. I can hear crying from the other side of the door. Fuck, I rake my hands through my hair.

“Harper it’s Levy. You okay, honey?” I wait, she sniffles and blows her nose, this is killing me to know her heart is hurting.

The door opens, “fuck, I feel such an idiot and now I look a mess. It’s my momma she’s just had way too much to drink and was sick everywhere. I had to clean it up and try and get her into bed. I can’t take seeing her like this, I feel useless, like I just can’t do anything to help her. It’s breaking my heart.” Fresh tears run down her cheeks and fuck it, I have to comfort her, she needs to be held and to be told it’ll be alright, only I know from experience with friends that I have lost to addiction, that it won’t be alright. Not unless her mother gets the help she needs and sticks to the plan for recovery. Fuck, fuck and fuck again. Why does someone as beautiful, smart and funny with a golden heart like Harper have to go through this? Life sucks sometimes and isn’t fair.

I pull her into my arms, her head rests on my chest, her body feels warm, her hair smells of the lake and coconut, it fills up my senses.” She cries on my chest; I feel her tears through my T-shirt and lift her head by tilting up her chin with my thumb and forefinger. Her eyes are beautiful even full of tears, so innocent, so fresh and so damn fucking beautiful that I could lose myself in them forever.

“What can we do to help you, Harper? You know you don’t have to do this all on your own, right?” She bites her lower lip, it shouldn’t but it makes my dick twinge, for fuck’s sake this girl is hurting, and my dick wants to spring into action. What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Nothing, there’s nothing any of us can do, Levy. She’s broken, so broken. Neither I nor Taylor can reach her. She’s wasted, finished and I am just so frightened that one day I’ll come home, and she’ll be dead, laying there on the sofa choking on her own vomit.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. I use my free hand to grab some toilet paper and hand it to her. She blows her nose and moves slightly away from me. Already my body feels the loss of her warmth pressed up against me.

She tilts her head up and gives me a wane smile whilst squaring back her shoulders, “I’ll be fine, it hurts you know to see her like this when life is so perfect and beautiful and momma is still young, she can have anyone she wants if she cleaned her act up.”

“I know, Harper, let’s try to do this together, hey? You, Dylan and I, we’ll come by and help out some more and not let you and Taylor deal with it. Besides, you could do with a man around the house, am I right?” She nods and smiles, this time it’s a little cheerier.

“Good, so let’s go eat pizza, everything is always better after pizza. I’ll fix something nice and healthy for your ma to eat and take it over with you when you’re done here. Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Levy.” She kisses my cheek again, just as I am turning my head to leave her get herself together. Our lips brush and holy fuck, I think I’ve just been struck by lightning.