“Shh,” I said, putting my fingers on his lips. “You’re not even very late.” I straightened his collar.
“Sure, but,” he looked down at himself and chuckled. “I talked you into coming to this thing, and I meant to do it right. I was supposed to pick up my suit at the dry cleaner’s. But they’re closed now.” He stepped closer to me, slipping his hands over the silk on my ribcage. “Damn, you’re beautiful,” he said. Then he kissed me on the lips, in front of God and everybody.
I let him.
The band began to play a slow song, and Hartley pulled back, smiling. “Here we go! Lose the crutches.” Hartley put his hands on my hips. I leaned forward on both feet, locking the knees of my new braces. Stashing the crutches on a chair behind me, I looked down, stepping carefully onto first one and then the other of Hartley’s shoes. “There you go,” he whispered in my ear. Taking small steps, he slid backwards into the crowd of dancers, my feet on his. Just like we’d practiced.
And there we were, slow dancing together, our arms around each other. If anyone had been watching us, they might not even have noticed that without Hartley stabilizing me, I couldn’t stand on my own.
“Now this is what I sped home for,” he said, kissing my hair.
“This is great,” I agreed. “But if you don’t tell me right now what happened with your father, I’m going to burst.”
He chuckled. “Yes ma’am. But it will take me hours to tell you everything.”
“I have the time.”
His nose tickled my ear. “I’m going to tell you every last thing, I swear. But my head is still spinning, and I’m not sure where to start.”
“He must have gotten your letter.”
Hartley’s lips brushed my cheek. “He did. But it came right in the middle of his divorce.”
I looked up at Hartley. “I read about that. He was married for fifteen years?”
“Yeah,” he said. “When I read that article, it made me wonder if he got the letter at all.”
“But he did.”
Hartley nodded. “His wife…ex-wife, whatever, she told him over the phone —‘you got an envelope from someone named Adam Hartley, it’s marked personal and confidential.’ And that’s when he told her about me.”
My head jerked back as I looked up at him, and it destabilized us for a second. My foot slipped off Hartley’s shoe and onto the floor. “She never knew?”
He shook his head. “But he said that when she told him about the envelope, he didn’t even hesitate. He said that if he’d always been straight-up with her about that and a lot of other things, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten a divorce at all.”
“Ouch,” I said. “Sounds like he has quite a bit of shit to shovel.”
Hartley’s hands skimmed my back. “I got the impression today that he needs a bulldozer and a back-loader for all his shit. But it sounds like he’s working on it.”
“What did you talk about?”
“A little of everything. We spent about an hour and a half, I think. And I’m going to see him again next month.”
“Wow.”
“I couldn’t stop staring at him, honestly. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror — he looked just like me, but different.”
“Hartley, I’m sure he couldn’t stop looking at you, either. You’re yummy.”
He snorted. “You’ve got it bad, Callahan.”
The slow dance ended, and the band began to play something faster, a swing dance. We needed to leave the dance floor. Hartley held out both his hands and walked backwards, and I pushed down on them, using Hartley for my crutches. My gait on the new braces would never be graceful. But it was a hell of a lot more natural than it had been before.
“Whoa, sorry!” Hartley said suddenly. He had bumped into Dean Darling while walking me backward.
The dean looked at us and then did a double take. “Miss Corey Callahan!” he exclaimed. “I did not expect to find you on the dance floor — which is yet another ridiculous error on my part.”
“I didn’t expect me there either,” I admitted. “But I was told the Beaumont Ball was nonnegotiable.”
“As it should be,” the dean smiled at us. “Carry on.”
Hartley tucked me to his side, lining up his hip against mine. He wrapped one hand around my waist, and the other he brought across his own body and in front of mine, where I leaned on it. We had a few new tricks, he and I. It was more fun to go to parties than it ever had been before, with my personal spotter to lean against. And nibble on.
Bridger gestured to us from a doorway that I’d never seen open before. “What’s over there?”
“A terrace,” Hartley said. “Want to walk out there for a minute?”
“Sure,” I reached for my crutches, but Hartley stopped me. “Walk with me. I won’t abandon you.” He stood up in front of me, his hands by his sides, bent back to reach for me. I took both of them in my own hands, pressing down on him for support. It was only about fifteen feet to the door. I had a little trouble with the threshold, which was a stone ridge in the floor. So Hartley picked me up by the hips, made a half-turn and set me down on the other side. Then he grasped me around the waist, giving me his other hand for support, and we inched forward towards our friends in the darkness.
When I looked up, there was an unfamiliar guy watching me, a quizzical expression on his face. “I’m not wasted,” I said to him. “This is a permanent condition.”
“Uh, sorry,” he said, breaking his stare.
I shook my head. “I’m just having a little fun with you.” Then I heard the telltale sound of a popping cork, and caught a flash of Stacia’s blond tresses as she turned around, a bottle in her hand. “Colin, the glasses?”
The guy who’d been staring at me held up a stack of little clear plastic cups, and Stacia began pouring a small serving into each glass. Hartley held me to his side, and I sniffed the April evening. Spring was coming. It seemed impossible to believe, but my first year at Harkness would be over in six weeks.
Colin passed cups around, but when he offered them to Hartley and I, Hartley declined. There weren’t any chairs outside, and it took all our free hands to keep me standing.
“Hang on,” Bridger said. He disappeared behind us, then reappeared a moment later with a dining hall chair, which he set down behind me.
“Thanks, Bridge,” I said, sitting.
Stacia came over then, with two cups for us. “You look great tonight,” she said.
When I realized she was talking to me, I was almost too stunned to respond. “Thanks,” I stammered. “So do you. But that goes without saying.”
It was dark. But I swear she winked at me.
Bridger raised his glass in the air. “To contraband,” he said. Drinking wasn’t allowed at the college-sponsored ball.
“To contraband,” everyone agreed.
The champagne hit my tongue with a smooth bubbly tang. It was spectacular. I tugged on Hartley’s hand, and he leaned down to me. I whispered in his ear. “Stacia complimented me, and your father showed up all on the same day. I fear we’ve reached The End of Days.”
He kissed my neck. “Did you notice? This is really good hooch.”
“I did. Remember what happened the last time we drank expensive champagne?”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Hartley whispered, his mouth ghosting over my ear.
“Where’ve you been all day, Hartley?” Bridger asked, putting a hand on Hartley’s shoulder.
“If I gave you a thousand chances, you wouldn’t guess right,” he said.
“Well now I have to know.”
“Bridge, I’m not ready to tell the whole story. But I will say this — I drove a check out to my mom today, for twelve years of back child support.”
“What?” I yelped. “You didn’t mention that.”
“Patience. I told you it would take me hours.”
“Whoa, dude.” Bridger drained his wine. “You’re right. I was never guessing that. So who is he?”
r /> Hartley shook his head. “It’s messy for him. We’re taking baby steps, here.”
“That doesn’t sound like a baby step,” I said the next time Hartley leaned down to me.
He scooped me up and sat on the chair, with me in his lap. I wrapped my bare arms around him, and he rubbed them. “You feel cold.”
“I’m okay.”
Hartley whispered into my ear. “The check was for a quarter of a million dollars.”
“My God! He just showed up with it?”
Hartley nodded, his nose skimming my face. “He had his lawyer calculate how much he owed. There’s a formula the state uses.”
“And he just said…here? This belongs to you?”
“Yup. I told you he was shoveling his shit with a bulldozer. So I took it to my mom, and of course she said, ‘I won’t take the money.’”
“What?” I yelped. “She has to take it. Then she can quit that awful job.”
“It took me two hours to convince her. That’s why I was late. But now she can go back to school. She’s thinking about becoming a nurse.”
The idea made me bounce with happiness. “She’ll be amazing. Hey — I’ll show her how to remove an IV.”
“God, I love you,” he chuckled, holding me close. “You crazy, brave, sexy thing. I thought about you all day today. Because if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have met him.”
I snuggled closer. “That’s not true. You might have gotten there a different way.”
Instead of arguing the point, he kissed me. “Come on,” he said. “We have to dance again.”
“Why?”
“Because I dragged you to a dance. And so we’ll dance, at least once more. Before I take this dress off of you.”
“That sounds like fun,” I whispered.
His breath was hot in my ear. “Which part?”
“All of it,” I answered.
And it was.
Thank you!
Thanks for reading The Year We Fell Down. I hope you enjoyed it!
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Ready for More?
You’ve just read the first full-length book in the Ivy Years series. The next book is The Year We Hid Away, and it’s Bridger’s story. Hint: his family troubles will only get more complicated. His junior year at Harkness will be the hardest of his life. The only bright spot is meeting Scarlet, who understands all too well how family can derail your life.
While Scarlet is hiding something big, Bridger is hiding someone small.
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The Year We Hid Away
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About the Author
Sarina Bowen is a Vermonter whose ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country since the 1760s. Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing, espresso products and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. On a few wooded acres, she lives with her husband, two boys, and an ungodly amount of ski and hockey gear.
Sarina is the author of Coming in From the Cold, published 2014 by Harlequin.
Sarina Bowen, The Year We Fell Down
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