Midnight Kiss

Chapter Seven

Harper nodded.

"I'm real happy for you, sugar. You deserve some happiness."

With happiness would come sorrow, but Harper supposed that happiness didn't mean as much without experiencing all those other things that made it worth it.

She rubbed at her tired eyes and looked around the room with double vision. All the flowers were in place, the chairs set up, the candles lit, the programs divided up on all the end table with boxes of tissues by their side. She'd set up all the boards filled with family photos, had the DVD in the player to show home movies with the deceased. 

Harper's job here was done until the family showed up in an hour. When she caught her reflection in a nearby mirror, the word haggard came to mind. "Would you mind if I laid down for a little while? I got shit for sleep last night."

Nevaeh collected her long, black curly hair and began twisting it up into a bun. "You go right on ahead, sugar. I'll wake you up when it's time."

Since Harper was only twenty-four, her job history was short. She'd worked as a waitress during high school, then at the campus bookstore in college. Despite having little experience in the work field, Harper knew she lucked out in having Nevaeh as a boss. There may have been a twenty-seven-year age difference between the two women, but they had a lot in common. They tried to go out for dinner or a drink after work at least once a week, sometimes a movie if a good one came out.

While her job may have been on the depressing side, Nevaeh tried to make work as pleasant as possible and had a way of making people smile even on the worst day of their life.

Harper laid her body down on the couch in her boss's couch and closed her eyes, hoping for even just ten or twenty minutes of sleep in the hour she had available. Yet the image of Devon's angry face plagued her mind and left her in the same restlessness she felt the night before. His words played like a loop, over and over again, until Harper opened her eyes once more to rid herself of them.

There was a light tap on the door and Harper looked over at it and let out a groan. It wasn't uncommon for family to arrive early, bringing with them their own small, personal touches to the room. A favorite object or framed photo. They even allowed for the occasional family dog to attend the funeral, which broke Harper's heart more than a crying spouse or confused child.

"I'm coming," she told Nevaeh on the other side of the door. "I don't have a chance in hell of sleeping anyhow."

Harper was raising her body to a sitting position when the door opened and James walked through, sporting a black eye and a slight cut over the other. Her sleepy eyes shot open as wide as they could go and her hand flew up to her mouth as she rushed over to his side. "What happened? Did Devon do this to you?"

James waved off the comments and leaned against the garish purple wall of Nevaeh's office. "Stopped by the golf club on my lunch break to go talk to him. Talking wasn't getting us very far, so I told him to go ahead and hit me. Despite what people say, violence can solve some things. I think him and I are gonna be okay."

Relief rushed over her. It didn't solve her and her brother's issue, but it meant everything knowing that she hadn't destroyed a twenty plus year friendship. 

"Does it hurt?"

A slight smile appeared on James' face as he sat on the couch she'd just been laying on. "Not as much having to let it happen did," James answered before his smile faltered. "After all the shit he said to you, it took all my self-control not to hit him back."

"I don't blame him for that," Harper said. Instead, she blamed herself. Despite how his words hurt her, she deserved every one of them. "Devon found his baby sister and best friend together with no warning. He was mad and had every right to be."