“Mikey!”

Harper grimaced and looked up from her book. To her left, two men were fighting in the sand for a football. She stared at them a little longer than necessary, knowing her sunglasses were shielding her wandering glance. For a beach that was still fairly unpopulated for the early summer, she was partially annoyed that they’d chosen a spot so close to her. This is where she came to catch up on her reading, not to be distracted by a couple of man-children. Harper sighed to herself and looked back at her book. It was slow going. Twenty-three pages into the 896 page abridged version of Les Miserables was taxing on all counts, and now with the glorified children beside her, Harper felt there was no hope of progress.

She closed the book and looked up at the ocean. It didn’t seem all that different from where she’d grown up. Balboa Island had the feel of a small New England cape town mixed with the population and hustle of a metropolis like Newport. It was the lifestyle everyone thought Californians had; lounging at the beach, dining on the pier, shopping all day. That had never been the life Harper had, hence the reading of a 900 page book. It wasn’t even required reading. She’d just graduated from the University of Miami, so gone were the days of required reading. This was for fun. Only few would agree that it was actually fun.

She’d only been at the beach for a couple hours, feeling like it wasn’t worth it. With the boys next to her, she’d probably leave pretty soon, when she really just wanted to spend the entire day here, focusing. After another moment of watching the waves crash onto the beach, Harper reopened the book and tried to get back to the task at hand.

“Hey! Can you toss the ball?!”

Harper silently cursed the boys and their constant chatter and rowdiness. She went back to re-reading the sentence she’d just started on.

“Can you toss the ball?! Miss scholar?”

Only then did it click that he was probably yelling at her. And when Harper looked up, both men were staring at her. Sure enough, just a couple feet away from her sand chair, the football lay waiting to be returned. It was a simple request, but it aggravated her to no end. Why couldn’t he just walk over and get the ball for himself… silently. Still, they stood waiting like eager puppies, so Harper reached for the ball. From her knees, she twisted her body and threw the football back at them. By the way they continued to stare, Harper knew she’d impressed them, but she huffed and went back to her book.

Even when the boys eventually sat down and resorted to quieter conversation, Harper couldn’t keep focused. She found herself trying too hard to listen in to what they were saying, most of which seemed to be centered around vacations they were planning on taking, or remodels on their homes. What shocked her was that they didn’t seem to talk about work at all. And more than that, they were at the beach on a Thursday afternoon and didn’t seem like they were in any sort of rush to get ready for a work shift later in the night.

Harper had managed to get through a couple pages when the electrical storm began. Thunder and lightning cracked through the sky, and Harper jumped at the first sound. She looked up, saw a bolt of lightning out in the distance, and decided it was time to go. Granted, so did everyone else on the beach. As she packed up, the men beside her stuffed their belongings into their backpacks and got ready to run. After they left, she’d be alone on the beach. While she would’ve enjoyed the silence, she also didn’t want to be stranded on a beach while bolts of lightning touched down.

“You need help?!”

She looked back and saw the man that had been previously yelling at her for the ball. This time he yelled over the thunder and waited for her answer. Harper shook her head, but the man folded up her chair and picked it up anyway. She stood and flung her bag over her shoulder.

“Let’s go!”

Lightning crashed and Harper took off running up the beach. The man followed next to her as she led him towards the parking lot. Theirs were the only two cars there, and from the distance, she could see his friend, huddled in the car waiting to leave. Harper clicked the button on her keys to pop the trunk and she stuffed her bag in, leaving room for the man to place the chair beside it.

“How far do you have to go?”

Harper looked up at him. It was only now that she realized he was a great deal taller than her. She also understood what he was asking. “Half-hour or so… Sunrise,”

He shut the trunk and looked to the distance as more thunder roared, “the storm will catch up with you before you make it back.”

“Yeah I’ll probably find refuge somewhere close. I’ve got reading to catch up on anyway,” she partially lifted her book up.

He glanced at the cover, not completely seeing it, and half-smiled, “drive safely, then. Hope you don’t get struck by lightning.”

“Oh thanks,” she smirked. After another glance, the man ran back to his car and Harper slid into hers. With the first drops of rain, she peeled out of the lot, knowing the storm was already getting closer. Coming in, she’d seen a coffee shop and figured she could hang out there until the worst had passed.

Perk was a cute little place everyone tried to go to because it wasn’t a huge franchised corporation. It was small, intimate, and the only of its kind, so when Harper ran through the glass doors, it didn’t surprise her that she could barely find a table to sit at. Apparently many people had the same idea of riding out the storm in here. But there was a small table tucked away in the corner and Harper went for it, happy no one beat her there. It was right by the window, and by the looks of outside, the weather had grown exponentially worse.

She started back up on page twenty-six, doing her damnedest to stay focused despite the various chatter around her. She did truly enjoy the book so far, and even though she hadn’t ever read it through, she knew the plotline and some famous passages throughout as she had studied in school. Now she was getting to put context to those passages.

Harper had just turned the page when a ceramic mug got set down in front of her. Her initial reaction was to shake her head as someone had clearly made a mistake. And when she looked up, she saw the man from the beach; the curly brown hair, the blue eyes, and the off-kilter grin.

“You looked like a cappuccino girl.” He took a seat across from her, with his own cappuccino in front of him. “What’re you reading?”

Blindsided, she lifted the book to show him the cover. “This is creepy,”

He smiled and shook his head, “no it’s a grand gesture.” He chuckled when she shook her head. “Jason,” he suppressed another giggle by taking a sip of his drink.

Harper stared at him, “Harper.”

Jason smiled, “I wanted to make sure the beautiful girl from the beach found shelter… Saw your car parked on the street.”

“Creepy,” she mocked and looked down at the mug in front of her before hesitantly taking a sip. She had to admit the warmth of it did make everything seem better. “Is that your thing? Your go-to move? You rescue a girl in the storm and follow her to a coffee shop?”

“No, but that’s not a bad move. I might steal that,” he joked again, obviously pleased with himself.

“How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?”

Harper smiled and shook her head, “you can’t answer a question with a question.”

“Why not?”

She licked her lips and waited. But as soon as she realized Jason wasn’t to give up, she relented. “Thirty-two,”

Jason furrowed his eyebrows and breathed out, pretending to be offended by her guess. “It’s the beard, isn’t it? You think it should go?” He brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his cheek. This time, when she didn’t answer, Jason smiled, “just turned twenty-eight.”

“Where do you live?”

He was charmed by her bluntness. “Weston,”

Harper took another sip of her cappuccino. “Are you from Florida?”

“No,” Jason answered just as bluntly.

“Where are you from?”

“Are you interrogating me?” Jason chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “I’m only answering if I get to ask you questions afterwards.”

Harper waited a moment, contemplating that. She figured she could work her way around touchy subjects. So finally, she nodded and agreed.

“Canada,”

She nearly laughed out loud. “And you chose Weston, Florida?”

“I work in Sunrise, so it’s close.”

“What do you do?” Harper waited, but instead of answering, this time Jason shook his head. She played off her confusion with a joke. “You’re part of a drug cartel?” Jason smiled and shook his head again. She took another moment, “you’re an escort?” This time he rolled his eyes. She smiled and again, “you’re a gigolo!”

Jason nodded jokingly, and Harper understood that this meant it was his turn to ask her questions. “Are you from Sunrise?”

Harper shook her head, “California.”

“And you chose Sunrise?” He joked playfully just as she had.

“I moved after I graduated from the University of Miami,”

“Congratulations,” he took a second to take another sip. “Degree?”

“Literature.”

“That explains that,” he pointed to her copy of Les Miserables.

Harper looked down at her book and thumbed through the pages. “I studied passages endlessly but never actually took the time to sit down and read it. Now with all my free time, I decided to give it a go.”

“Favorite passage?”

She glared at him as though he was asking her to choose her favorite child. This answer didn’t come easy to her. She loved so many different aspects of this book, so to pick out one profound moment, was incredibly difficult. “Those who do not weep, do not see,”

Jason seemed taken aback by her response. And for a moment, it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything at all. “Do you believe that?”

Harper looked at him, “I believe our world is grossly desensitized to the atrocities we commit against each other; that we put on blinders and just go, trying to ignore what’s going on around us. I believe that what Victor Hugo saw and wrote about in 1862 still happens today in some degree. And I believe that someone who does not cry at what man has become, is not truly seeing it.” Harper now realized that Jason had leaned his head against his fist and was staring at her intently. “Sorry… that was preachy.”

He shook his head and smiled, “no, that’s smart.”

Harper looked down at her ceramic mug and stared at the foam in it. “Well I didn’t take AP classes in high school and graduate magna cum laude for fun.” She tried to giggle mostly because that’s what her life had been; a long string of academics because it was what her parents expected of her.

“What do you do in your free time for fun?”

She was taken aback by this question. No one had really ever asked her that. They seemed content to know that she had spent her waking hours studying. And now Jason sat waiting for an answer. “I… read…?”

He chuckled, “I said for fun.”

“That is for fun,” she smiled and now felt like she had to defend that answer. “Up until recently, I was always in school. And until a couple weeks ago, I was student teaching. So yeah, when I get a free moment, I want to read.”

“Grade?”

“Third,”

Jason sat back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling like he was praying to God. “See I feel like you should be getting out there. You’re twenty-two, not a grandma.”

Harper laughed, “you just want me to get out there with you. A twenty-eight year old man that follows girls to coffee shops.”

“There are worse things,” Jason admitted. They locked eyes with each other, and Jason leaned forward in his seat. “I’d like to take you on a date, if you’d like to go with me.”

The more he looked at her, the more anxious Harper got. Finally, she began digging through her purse, locating her wallet. “I can’t,”

He watched her, unsure of what she was doing, “why not?” When she put down a ten-dollar bill on the table and stood up, Jason did the same. “I didn’t think you had a boyfriend,”

“I don’t,”

“A girlfriend?”

Harper looked up at him and tilted her head to the side. Part of her believed it was just a joke, and the other part didn’t know what to think. Jason reached down to pick up the money she’d left on the table and offered it back to her.

“I know you don’t know me. I’m just some random guy. But I know me, and I know that a six year age gap isn’t that much. I know that I’d enjoy taking you out, and I’m confident you’d enjoy it too. And I know I could make you laugh…”

She interrupted with a laugh of disbelief.

“See,” he grinned.

Harper adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “Jason, thank you for helping me get off the beach… and for the coffee. But we’re at very different points in our lives,”

“How do you know?” He interjected. “You don’t even know me,”

“Because I’m at a different point in my life than everyone I’ve ever met. Dating isn’t really on my list of things to do. So again, thank you. I appreciate your help today.” She offered him a small smile and stepped around him, leaving the coffee shop.

Back at her one bedroom apartment in Sunrise, Harper tried to get back to reading. But every time she was about to make progress on a new paragraph or sentence, she began thinking of Jason. God, she could be so dense sometimes. Physically, he was what she always imagined wanting. Tall, muscular, a contrast of dark hair and light eyes, a look that even with his height and stature, still looked gentle. And sure he was twenty-eight, but he had been charming and witty, and undoubtedly more well spoken than any boy her age.

But now that was done. She had told him no and left without giving him any chance to see her again. Of course he lived in Weston, and she lived in the next town over, but the population was dense and she figured she could go her entire life without ever running into Jason again. It wouldn’t be the worse thing in the world. She’d find someone, eventually… maybe. Or maybe she had just pushed that person away for some stupid reason.

---

The start of summer meant cleaning out a classroom that had spent the better half of the year collecting dust and trash. The kids had already begun their summer break, but Harper was still finishing her work. It felt strange to be throwing away projects that had meant so much during the year, and now they were nothing more than bits and scraps of paper, left behind by children who didn’t care to take them home. How quickly these little humans would look back and wish they were still living the easy life of third grade.

To pass the time of mindless cleaning, Harper turned on an audiobook version of Amy Poehler’s memoir. Compared to the heavy literature she usually read, things like this really allowed her to turn off her mind. She could focus on it, but also didn’t need to be all in to understand what was going on. So far she was really enjoying it. There was an easiness to the way Amy Poehler read her own words.

Other than the office staff, Harper was supposed to be alone in the building. Most of the other teachers had cleaned out their rooms soon after school let out. So when Harper caught the glance of a figure in the doorway, she stumbled backwards and clutched at her heart. “Jesus,”

“No, it’s Jason,”

Harper noticed a grin spread across his lips as he entered her classroom. Hair tied up, in a pair of yoga pants and an old tank top, she was nothing short of mildly disgusting. The humid Florida monsoon season had a way of doing that to people.

“Do you know how many elementary schools are in Sunrise?” He asked, leaning against one of the small desks. When Harper shook her head, he clasped his hands together in his lap. “Neither did I. Apparently there are fifteen, which makes it incredibly difficult to locate one specific teacher without actually knowing their last name.”

“And yet here you are. It’s creepy,”

“No, remember I told you it’s a grand gesture.” He smiled again as his eyes danced over her figure quickly. “Listen, I think you’re a smart girl, so you’re going to make a decision that you think is best for you. And that’s fine; I think you should. But if you’re going to make a mistake, make one with me.” Jason stood up straighter and took a step forward, “if that mistake is nothing more than getting a free dinner one night, then I’m asking you to consider making that mistake with me.”

“Jason, please don’t take this personally, but…”

“Don’t say it’s not you, it’s me,” he interrupted and simultaneously took another step forward. “I’ve said that to girls before and it’s always been a lie. Harper, I’ve been thinking about you. And I’ve been thinking that I want to get to know you, and I want you to get to know me. And it’s weird because I haven’t wanted to let anyone into my life in a really long time. So it’s not easy for me to say this to you; it isn’t a line or a move I have, it’s just the truth.” He stopped and realized Harper was staring at him, unmoving. “So, yeah…”

“You can pick me up tonight,” she blurted out, partially unsure of where that came from.

A smile flickered over Jason’s face, “yeah, for sure. Seven? I’ll give you my number and you can text me your address.” He took it upon himself to unplug her phone from the speaker. Despite the audiobook cutting off, she found it oddly charming the way he took control and initiative to make this work. After he finished putting his number in, he handed the phone back to her. “I put my last name in there just incase you have more than one Jason. Demers,”

Harper smiled and nodded, clutching her phone a little tighter. “I’ll see you tonight, Jason Demers.”

Notes

LOL i'm back. I got locked out of the other account, y'all. So all future updates on this story will come from this account so please re-subscribe, comment, vote, and yeah... thanks!