Finding Us (Second Generation Book 1)

Chapter 7

HARLOW

Forgive me father for I have sinned. I’m not Catholic, but I don’t know how else I’m supposed to properly confess my sins. My sins? Looking at Lyle’s abs picture that he sent the other night. Not just his abs, but his abs and chest and oh goodness the elastic waistband that I knew belonged to the boxers he wore. I made the mistake of opening the text in the middle of Bible Study and I almost choked. I had to make up a stupid excuse about getting a piece of walnut from the banana bread stuck in my throat.

Then for the last three days, I have been looking at that picture over and over again. I even sat in service while my father spoke his sermon and snuck a peek at the image. Mouth dry. Cheeks blushing. Panties wet. I was expecting him to ask for a picture back, but he never did. We exchanged a few text messages back and forth, but he was busy with working on the ranch and I was busy with being a preacher’s daughter, whatever that meant.

Rather than put together the monthly newsletter, I found myself sitting back and staring at the picture once again. I’m sure that I could paint this picture by heart by now. I’ve memorized every inch of this picture and dreamy about the inches that I couldn’t see and there were plenty of inches.

“Hey there, Harlow.”

I jump up startled and almost lose balance on the chair as the sound of my ex-boyfriend Samuel comes from the doorway to the office I’m working in. I quickly turn my phone screen off and place it on my lap, face down, I feel like the kid that got her hand caught in the cookie jar.

“Samuel, what are you doing here?”

“Your dad told me you were back here. I thought I would come to see what you were up to.”

“Okay, but why are you here at the church?”

“My dad had a meeting with yours about a business opportunity.” Samuel ignored my non-invite and walked into the office and took a seat on the chair across the desk from me. “You haven’t been answering my phone calls or my text messages.”

“I know, I felt like I had said everything that I needed to.”

“Maybe I didn’t say everything I wanted to. You didn’t give me a chance to say anything back. You just left it how it was and then walked out.”

“Because I knew what you were going to say. Listen, Samuel, I know that on paper everything between us looks great, but…”

“No!” He cut me off, “I heard you and I’ve played the conversation over in my head more than once and you’re wrong. You’re wrong about us only looking great on paper. You’re wrong about what our future could be. You’re wrong about us, Harlow.”

“The fact that you are raising your voice at me right now tells me that I certainly was not wrong about the things I said. You changed, Sam. I didn’t see it at first, but in the last three months there have been so many little things that I didn’t like.”

“Like what?”

“Where do I start? You always criticized what I wore. You would get annoyed if I took more than ten minutes to answer a text. Oh, and if I dared to not want to go do something with you on a night you asked me out. Do you remember when I wouldn’t go apple picking with you?”

“I already apologized for that, dear. I told you that I was having a horrible day at work and all I wanted was to take you out and spoil you rotten and it felt like you didn’t want anything to do with me. I was wrong for yelling at you and I’m still sorry. Please. I love you and I know that all these problems between us we could work through.”