Being Harrison Bloom’s Girl

Though it didn’t really feel like going home. It felt like another thing that was pulling at her, tugging as if it would all end only when she unraveled. There was too much to do, too many commitments.

How was she going to deal with it all?

She would have to, thought Leigh, and she heard the siren.

“Sh*t,” she muttered, and the fear that rose was instinctive. Being pulled over in a Mercedes by the police was not at the top of any black woman’s list.

She pasted a smile on her face, and kept her hands on the steering wheel.

She squeaked a little embarrassingly when the officer’s face popped up by the window and he tapped it.

She smiled nervously and rolled it down.

“Miss, do you know you were going twenty miles over the speed limit?”

“I was? Sh*t. Sh*t, I wasn’t paying attention to the speed limit. I’m late for dinner. Going home from college for the weekend, you see. Mom’s cooking. She doesn’t like it when I’m late.”

She was babbling.

She clammed up quickly.

“I need your license and registration, please.”

“Oh yes, of course. It’s in my purse,” said Leigh. She sat there, resigned to her fate, as he looked over it.

“I’ll have to give you a ticket, miss. Please stay within the speed limit now.”

“I… Yes, thank you. Sorry. Please.”

What on earth was she even saying?

She took the ticket meekly enough, wondering just how fast she had been going – she’d been too consumed by her own thoughts to even notice – and got going again, wondering if things could possibly get much worse.

By the time she got to Harrison’s condo, she was feeling better, but not by much. She was ushered right into the private elevator that led to Harrison’s penthouse. She took a few deep breaths on the way up but couldn’t seem to settle herself down.

“Leave it behind, shake it off,” Leigh told herself, but she couldn’t.

When the elevator doors opened, she saw him.

Harrison stood there, flicking the cufflink closed at his wrist, and he looked so handsome that everything else seemed to fade away.

Surely, as long as she had him, everything would be all right?

“Leigh,” he said, and the warmth of love and pleasure in his voice made her relax a bit more.

This was what distance couldn’t do, thought Leigh, and she felt the weight of so much stress lift off her.

“Harrison,” said Leigh, and to her own shock and surprise, she ran straight into his arms.

“Oh, baby, I missed you, too,” said Harrison, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight, as if he would never let her go.

“I didn’t know how much I missed you until now,” said Leigh, resting her head against his chest, holding on to him as if he could keep her steady, somehow.

“Kiss me,” whispered Harrison, and Leigh raised her face to him, her lips parted. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers sliding into his soft, wavy hair, a shade too long, and knew that she was home.

But then it rang again, and again, discordant and ugly, and they drew apart, though reluctantly.

“Fu*k it,” he muttered, and took his phone out.

Leigh moved away, her legs a little wobbly.

Harrison always did have that effect on her.

“Well, fu*k me,” she quipped, and Harrison grinned, quick as a flash. His smile did things to her that almost rivaled what his hands could do.

What his mouth could do.

Hell, the man was a genius with all of his body. He could definitely make taking a weekend off worth her time.

“Shh. It’s Martha,” said Leigh, and there was nothing like knowing her mother was waiting, after having cooked a meal for them, for which they were probably late, to douse the fires he had lit in her loins as if with a bucket of very cold water.

“Sh*t,” said Leigh, as Harrison took the call.

If Martha was calling Harrison, there was a pretty good chance that she had called Leigh and hadn’t been able to get through. Because, Leigh remembered now, belatedly, that she had forgotten to charge her phone.

“Yes, Martha, we’ve both left. We’re on our way. Leigh had a little trouble with traffic, or we wouldn’t have gotten late,” lied Harrison glibly. Add ‘cop,’ thought Leigh, and it wouldn’t be a lie.

Harrison hung up and looked at her with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

“So, ready to go and explain why we’re late?”

Leigh chuckled.

“Hey, they’ll be so happy to see me that they won’t really grill me. You, on the other hand, might be another matter altogether.”

Harrison sighed.

“I hope that in a couple of decades, when we’ve been married for years and have a couple of kids – I’m thinking three – and a few dogs, Samuel will stop grilling me about my intentions towards you. I swear, Leigh, I really thought we’d turned a corner that first time he grilled me. I didn’t know that it was just the beginning of a pattern.”

Leigh smiled and walked to the elevator with Harrison, but suddenly, she felt like there were jumping beans in her belly.

Twenty years?

Married for years?

Three children? Had Harrison really put a number to it? And so casually! A few dogs? Who did he think would pick up after three children and a dog? Did he think she was going to law school to be his brood mother of some sort?

“…coat.”

“What?” asked Leigh, not sure what he’d been saying. She was in shock after hearing how casually he could lay out his plans for their entire lives. Which, apparently, he had decided that they were spending together.

“Coat, Leigh,” he said, patiently.

“In the car. Let’s go,” said Leigh, and told herself to stop thinking.

Maybe that would help.