I felt my entire face scrunch in confusion as I watched the two men, Clay looking pleasantly surprised and Harper looking… almost sick and very apprehensive. “Clay, hey. It’s, uh, been a long time.”
“Damn right,” he nodded as he took Harper in. “What are you doing in Seaside man?”
“Ah…” Harp trailed off, his eyes drifting over to me for a short moment as he rubbed his neck.
Help? Was he asking for my help, or was I reading that wrong?
“You stay here now?” Clay went on, and when Harper nodded he whistled. “Huh, small world. You know I heard about… well, I heard, man. I’m sorry.”
I blinked at the man beside me now that I’d ventured back to the other side of the table.Heard what, exactly?
“Shit happens,” was Harper’s only response before he speared me with another look, this one particularly puppyish.
Help. He wasdefinitelyasking for help. And after he just yelled at Clay on my behalf and got me juice, I was pretty inclined to give it to him.
“Clay, Gus has a tattoo he has to prep for, so…” I started, reverting to his preferred name. “I’ll see you later?”
Clay’s eyes moved around the booth quickly as if he was actually taking in the contents of it now that he recognized its owner. He nodded. Knocking the table twice he extended a hand across it to pound Harper’s fist.
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “See you, Fernandez. And Montez, hit me up soon. Same number. We’ll catch up.”
And then he was gone.
Silence stretched between the two of us for as long as we watched Clay disappear into the crowd. I moved first, turning my gaze up my shoulder to look at Harper. He was holding his jaw tight, his gaze locked somewhere far off in the distance, way beyond Clay. Way beyond this world I think. Maybe in a memory. I frowned, feeling sort of clueless all of a sudden.
“You know Clay Ferguson?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. He glanced down at me in a double take, his attention probably snagging on my apprehensive face. “What?”
I straightened. “He’s a pretty hard guy to know, Harp.”
He straightened too, stiffening. “Youknow him. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is his family has owned half of Seaside for literal generations and you’re not even from here. You mean to tell me you justknow him?”
“What’s so hard to believe about that?” he asked in a harumph.
“How do you know him?” I asked instead of playing into his indignation.
Another awkward fidget and I swear I’d never seen him look so uncomfortable. “I knew him when I was younger. A teenager. We did summers together at camp.”
Stunned. I was stunned.
I blinked several times, because the words he was saying were not the typical‘Gus Harper who owns a simple tattoo shop on the coast’words. They were bigger words. Because you didn’t just‘do summers’with the Fergusons if you weren’t also someone of comparable status.
Which had my whole understanding of him turning upside down. It had me wondering, who the heck was Augustus Harper?
Chapter Thirteen
ALTA
He wouldn’t leave me alone. Not at work, not at home, not in the showers or in bed or even when I was fast asleep. Harper had been plaguing my mind, impeding on my every thought ever since that stupid kiss.
A week since the festival and even though I had so many better things to be worrying about, I couldn’t stop thinking of the weirdness at the booth.
Don’t get me wrong, I tried. After Clay left and it became clear that Harper was not going to tell me how they knew each other, I’d tried to switch tactics to gain more information. By abruptly changing the subject.
“Clay said he was sorry about something,” Isaid, trying to sound casual. “Why?”
