Midnight Kiss

Chapter One

(Word Count: 2015)

One year ago on this day, Harper's sister, Layla, was on Harper's couch eating cookies and cream ice cream with one hand and gripping a bottle of expensive champagne in the other, sobbing uncontrollably about how she wanted her fiancé back. It was annoying since she'd secured her own fate by cheating on him the week prior during a drunk evening with the girls.

After being with the same man for fourteen years, she'd destroyed the relationship in a single evening.

It was with Harper's encouragement that Layla fessed up to her indiscretion. James and Layla had known each other since childhood and were a couple for more than ten years, so she thought he'd forgive her.

He hadn't, leaving her older sister devastated and Harper to pick up the pieces.

Now there James was, still single and standing in the corner of the crowded room, looking as if he'd rather be just about anywhere else in the world. Her brother was the one who'd persuaded him to come out since he seldom did anything these days besides work and avoid humanity. Seeing as the two had been best friends since they were just out of diapers, Devon had made it his responsibility of preventing James from falling off the grid, just as he made it his responsibility to force Harper out on a night she would have preferred stay in for.

People called it 'amateur night' for good reason. New Year's Eve was a night where you drank to excess, and it was a challenge to see how late you could stay up. Any other year Harper would have been asleep an hour ago after consuming half a bottle of champagne by her lonesome in the comfort of her own crappy apartment.

Instead here Harper was, watching her brother charm everyone around him, watching the women swoon over him, as she stood there avoiding every person who looked her way as if they had the plague. Though she didn't consider herself a bitch exactly, she assumed she appeared one. The reality was that she was out of her element. Harper never had much of a social life to begin with, and although she'd more or less climbed out of her shell a few years ago, she still wasn't a big fan of partying.

Or bars.

Or loud music.

Or people.

Upon noticing the clock would strike midnight in ten minutes, Harper snuck out of the bar through the back door. The beer garden illuminated by twinkle lights, no matter how cold, was the only place she could go without being kissed by some random guy who'd had too many drinks and thought kissing a stranger was okay.

Yeah... no. Hard pass for her.

If she thought she wouldn't catch grief by her brother, she'd head home right now. And spare herself the agony of sharing the road with all the drunks.

"You stole my spot," a voice behind her spoke.

Harper knew the voice well, seeing as she'd been hearing it since she was a baby.

"Nuh uh. I found it first," Harper teased with a grin. She'd been playing the role of his baby sister for her entire life since he'd grown up in foster care, with the last three years of his adolescence spent with her own family fostering him.

Harper thanked her lucky stars that her parents hadn't gone for full blown adoption or things would have been strange when he started dating Layla. 

Though James was most definitely not her older brother. He'd been her secret love for years. But ever since she'd been old enough to get crushes, he'd belonged to her sister. Until this last year, that is.

James cracked the first smile in what seemed like years and Harper's heart melted into a puddle at her feet. She didn't know if the breakup still left him devastated or if he was just having some serious trust issues, but she'd only seen him a handful of times since two Christmases ago. Every one of those times, he remained fairly quiet with only the occasional tired smile peeking through. Not that he was giving her the cold shoulder exactly, James just didn't appear as comfortable with her family as he once was.