Harper's Rules 1 & 2

Chapter 7: Jake

A/N: Slight mature content.

After I hung up on my call with Ellie, I laid back in my bed, closed my eyes momentarily, and thought of the last time I'd seen Harper. We'd brushed past each other when she came over to visit Ellie during spring break. But the mind- and dick-blowing experiment that had been entirely accidental during Christmas break our junior year is what stood out in my mind as our last time 'together.'

Ellie and I were both home for Christmas vacation, halfway through our third year of college, and Harper had been in a particularly bad mood. Since this was the first Christmas after my and Ellie's Dad had passed away, we were in no mood to celebrate either.

Harper's hatred of Christmas stemmed back to her mom's abandonment. Every year, Harper's mom sent her birthday and Christmas cards, and she always burned the envelopes sealed shut. I'd always thought she was pretty badass for her efforts but her Dad didn't approve of her weird feministic-like ritual and twice a year she burned them in our garage.

After my dad passed away, I'd made an effort whenever I was home that I fixed up the jalopy of a car he'd bought my senior year of high school as a 'project car' to keep me focused off stupid shit like drinking and girls. The distraction worked to the extent that I abstained from drinking, but not girls.

More like just one girl.

I also never finished that fucking piece of scrap metal Dad thought made a good project car. That winter, I had about two months more of work reconnecting the electrical switches, refurbishing the interior, and taking it somewhere to get painted.

My back flat on a gurney, I laid underneath the car's hood when two sets of feet walked out of the garage and stood at the work bench near the garage door entrance.

The voice I hadn't heard since I'd been home but recognized in my sleep blurted out loudly, "Time to burn this shit up."

"This is really stupid Harper." Ellie's voice was full of sarcasm. "You should adult up and stop burning this stuff. It's just a Christmas card, what if your mom sent money?"

"Then she'll know when it never gets cashed," was Harper's contrite, emotionless response.

"Harper, seriously." Ellie sighed quietly. "You need to reconcile with your mom."

"Fuck no, but I have an addition this year," Harper deadpanned. Neither of them apparently saw me but I had a perfect view of her skinny jeans, black puffy winter coat, and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. One hand held an envelope and the other a piece of paper that she handed over to Ellie.

"Harper.. what the - oh my gawd!" Ellie choked out her words. "This is about... Jake? Are you... serious? You and my brother Jake doing this... stuff?"

I nearly fell off the gurney.

"There is no me and Jake," was the indignant reply. "Just lingering dirty thoughts that I never acted on. Sorry, I've... been in a dry spell. Seeing him again got my lady bits all worked out, apparently I'm that desperate for any form of testosterone."

Then, in what I recognized as an over-rehearsed tone of voice, Harper emphasized, "Trust me, there's no feelings there."

At that moment, I hadn't had enough time to sort out everything she'd revealed in those words. All I'd focused on was how she lied, based on her strained tone of voice. She'd lied at my request that Ellie never found out about us, so I knew that tone in my sleep. That, plus other than whatever pull between us that mentally I ripped her clothes off whenever I saw her, was the only thing we agreed on.

"That's putting it mildly, shit Harper." Ellie's eyes narrowed as she looked over the paper. "This is quite the naughty list. And the fact these, umm... items have anything to do with my brother, that's just -"