His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 219: The Fox and the Ostrich

** Harper **

Harper spent the evening working hard on her Chapters, piling up as many words as she could — no way she was going to ask for Eli’s help again, so she’d have to stock up whatever she could before the Tyler-induced apocalypse hit her and snatch away all her free time, probably very soon.

When her eyes got tired enough to need a break, she glanced at the clock. It was well past 10pm. Strange that Eli still wasn’t replying to her messages ... Call her overprotective or whatever, but the prospect made her mind switch into worrying mode a bit too easily. Could the two men really have over five hours worth of stuff to talk about without breaking into another fight?

Patience was never her virtue. Harper got up from her chair, did a few deskside stretches, and when the time changed to ten thirty, she gave up the wait and called a cab, typing one last text as she went: [ Are you guys still talking? I’m coming over. ]

Screw her promise to leave them to the conversation. She wasn’t going to simply wait until they gave her permission to clean up the remnants of their trainwreck.

The threat to show up at Eli’s door seemed to have gotten her the attention she needed. A mere few seconds later, the reply came just as she hopped into the cab:

[ Eli: Tyler left. It was an exhausting chat but all is well :) ]

[ Eli: No need to come, I’ll probably go to sleep soon from all the excitement. ]

Harper stared at her phone. Hmm. A nondestructive conversation with Tyler that ended up with Eli sounding calm and relieved and ready to go to bed?

Sure, likely story.

[ What did Tyler say that was so exciting? ] She typed.

This time, no response came for a long while.

A light rain was starting to fall as the cab slowly wound its way through the night city. Harper looked out the window, wondering if this was one of those moments in stereotypical romance novels where the sky turned gray and the characters cried in the downpour for their heartbroken melodramas. Hopefully Eli wasn’t such a fool to make them go through that again.

But when her phone finally buzzed with a reply ... it appeared that her suspicions were confirmed.

[ Eli: Why don’t you call him up? I think he’s getting his flights back home tomorrow, maybe he’ll want to see you before he leaves. I’m sure he’d love to tell you everything we talked about too :) ]

... One smiley might mean he’s trying to be funny and cute. Two smileys within three texts, on the other hand, definitely meant that something was wrong, and Harper wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

[ Harper: I don’t need to babysit him rebooking a flight, and I don’t want to hear about what happened tonight from him. I want to hear it from you. ]

[ Harper: I’m on my way to your place. ]

[ Eli: ... But I’m already in bed. ]

[ Harper: Lies. I can see your light in the living room. ]

The cab pulled into the apartment driveway as that last text went through. Harper got out, contemplated for a second, then stepped out of the covered entrance area and straight into the rain. [ I’m downstairs. See me from the window? ] She shielded her eyes from the raindrops and looked up at the light that she knew was from his room. [ Are you gonna buzz me in or are you gonna make me stand here getting wet? ]

Not that it was in her nature to scheme like a wicked fox, but it was handy to be able to use every classic novel trope to her advantage when needed. And once again, her threat won — the entrance to the lobby buzzed open almost immediately, greeting her with a cool puff of dry AC air.

Whether or not Eli liked it, however, was a different story. Because when she arrived at his door, the look on his face was ... strange. A little shocked, a little displeased, and a little ... something else.

"Damn, Harper. You shouldn’t be coming here." He looked her up and down, checking if she got soaked, though it didn’t escape her that the gesture hid the fact that he didn’t hug her when he let her in.

"And you shouldn’t be lying to me that you’ve gone to bed." Harper slipped inside, retorting half jokingly just as she noticed the two whiskey bottles on the kitchen counter, one of which was already empty. "Oh for God’s sake. Do you have to scare the hell out of me every time I come here? How much did you drink?"

"Half of that was Tyler," Eli defended himself quickly.

Harper let out an internal sigh of relief, though outwardly, she threw him a stabbing glare. "I knew you weren’t honest when you said everything went well. Tell me what happened — what did you two talk about to require that much alcohol to wash it down?"

Eli was silent.

Shit. Tyler must’ve said something serious this time. Not just a bout of lost temper, but words that actually hit somewhere and made Eli go right back into his turtle-in-a-shell mode.

Normally, Harper would give him room to sort out his emotions, but not today. This Tyler bomb had been ticking for long enough, and she couldn’t let it keep going until it detonated at the worst time, like the day when Vanessa showed up to their baseball game. She couldn’t just let Eli hide his face in the sand like an ostrich whenever he felt scared either ... He needed to learn to be honest eventually, to trust her with his worries when it came to things between the two of them.

So she decided to push this time. With a new tactic that he couldn’t resist. Cupping his cheeks with her hands, she made him look into her eyes, and she gave him a smile that was half serious, half wicked. "Tell me," she cooed. "Otherwise, I’ll have to go get those handcuffs and ’torture’ the words out of you ... Which, to be honest, I’m feeling very much like doing right now."

She knew she won this round again when his dark pupils went wide.