Going 78 Miles Per Hour | ✓

61 | Rerouting Route Home

DOMINGO
2:01 AM

Dahlia Gray

I'm not a possessive girlfriend, or a jealous one. I have no reason to be. I trust Harlow with my entire living, and I know he knows I do. He wouldn't do anything to betray my trust. At the same time, Reid Harlow isn't the most available person out there, and I doubt any other girls would try to talk to him, given his exterior and personality.

It still surprises me how we came to be.

But, that's not the situation at hand.

Like I said, I'm not a very jealous girlfriend. Harlow owes me nothing—except for his loyalty. I don't ask for much, and I try not to, given all he's done for me.

But right now, I'm a very frustrated girlfriend.

The cold nips at my skin as I lean back against the park bench, taking in the celestial stars. I unleash a sigh, my breath condensing in the air in the shape of a smoky cloud, while the skin around my cheeks pricks with the weather and causing all loss of warmth and color around them. I'm not surprised—I've been out for a long time.

Because of Harlow, but not the exact reason one may think.

When Harlow came home that Friday night, it was almost six am. The sunset was creeping through the blinds of the living room, shades of pastel brushed across the rising sky, and the grandfather clock in their home dong at the hour. He stepped into the  foyer, attempting to make silent movements, only for every motion to produce a small sound—enough to wake me up.

I was already on edge, barely entering my slumber, due to not knowing where Harlow was. When I came home from work, I learned from the family that he wasn't picking up any calls nor replying to any texts—and my first initial thought was something bad happened. Something went wrong.

I tried to call him myself, but it went straight to voicemail. I tried to text him, and I did a thousand times, but it was left on delivery, and the painstaking edge creeping around my heart at the thought of losing my person was unbearable. I couldn't sleep. I forgot how.

So, when he came home, perfectly intact, just a bit cold from struggling to get the key through the lock, I tackled him into a hug. I knocked him against the front door (doing a service, actually, closing it behind him), and whimpered into the crook of his neck, whispering you're okay, you're okay, over and over again.

Harlow didn't comprehend much. He returned my embrace, with a little less urgency than I had, because he was too worn-out from his night out. I could still feel his hand rubbing my back, soothing me, despite not knowing what exactly had me troubled.

He carried me to the couch, because I refused to leave his embrace, and he was too tired to argue. When he sat me down, on his lap of all places, he pulled back to have a good look of my face and tucked away all the wild hair behind my ear, taking me in.

"Hey," he said to me, trying to calm my irrational fears with his voice. I could've been dreaming, I remembered thinking in that moment, but when he spoke, he grounded me with reality that a breath of relief left my lips and I lowered myself back to his shoulder, burying myself into the crease of his neck.

"I thought something happened," I mumble into his feverish skin, "you weren't picking up your calls, and you weren't answering mine, and you always–you always try to answer mine and I just—"

I had to force myself to pause and take a sharp breath, regaining all the lost oxygen from my frantic speech. Harlow, in response, rubbed my back comfortingly, soothing out all the pains and irrational thoughts I had conjured in his period of absence.