Into You Series: The Complete Collection

12. Saria

CHAPTER 12

SARIA

I always thought the van renovation would be slow and agonizing, but time files when you’re working with a fun crew, and Harry and Cara are my kind of people.

After a couple weeks, it all starts to blend together: I go to work, Harry goes to class, I babysit Cara, and then we work on my van on weekends between his regular customers. As the days passed, I realized I was spending too much time away from the apartment, so I started bringing Mercury to the shop as well. Harry even built him a little parrot perch on the wall. The customers love him. Though, the poop is not ideal. We had to install a bucket with chips below his perch. Not as classy as the rest of Harry’s shop, but Mercury’s exotic colors make up for it.

Cara, the smart girl that she is, saw the way Mercury likes to nip at t-shirts, so she doesn’t try to pet him, but she does talk to him far more than I ever did. I caught her repeating “That’s crazy talk” over and over until he repeated it back. Now that’s all the dang parrot says. One day, if I ever get the chance, I’ll tell Cara how his repeats of that phrase kept me up at night for a whole week. But for now, she’s having fun and I’m not going to break that.

I do whatever project Harry tells me to do with the van while he works on other vehicles. Today, it is hoisting the new solar panels on the roof for installation. By the time he closes shop, I’m almost done and hoping against hope I haven’t completely screwed it up. Anything relating to electrical is not my forte and he knows it.

The bay doors roll closed, and it only takes a few seconds before the van moves side to side and I see Harry climbing the ladder to greet me on the roof.

His hand slides over the panels. I never miss a moment to admire his hands, the prominent wrists, and how he can graze over something on a car with both a confident touch and such gentility; it’s almost heartbreaking.

“Not too shabby, princess,” he says.

“Your instructions were chicken scratch, so I went off book,” I say. I didn’t. His handwriting was very clear, but it’s more fun to tease him because he gives me that look with his chin tilted down and, god, do I love being silently scolded by that man.

“Alright, let’s talk shelving.”

“But there are already shelves,” I say.

“Yeah, and they’re garbage just like the rest of the build you don’t want to redo,” he says.

“I swear we have this argument every week,” I groan. “I don’t want to waste time if I don’t have to. It’s almost two months until launch and I’m not adding a single day to that timeline.”

He chuckles, walking across the roof to the rear end, grabbing the side, and swinging down like some Tarzan of the auto shop. I don’t have that same type of grace when I crawl—not walk—to the back and take the ladder rung by rung.

“These shelves won’t add a bit of time,” he says. “Promise. Don’t you want to make this van unique? For your…followers or whatever?”

“How dare you throw that in my face,” I say with a grin, pointing a finger in his direction that he playfully swats away.

I started a social media account of our van build one week ago. So far, I’ve accumulated a few hundred followers, which baffled me entirely. Harry says people can’t resist pretty women and vans, which I guess is hard to argue given the numbers.

“I just know you want the most ‘social media friendly’ van,” Harry says, throwing air quotes up. I take a step closer to him, taking my turn to swat away his hands like he did mine.

“That’s a ridiculous way to put it,” I say with an eye roll. “And you know it.”

“I only say the ridiculous things you tell me,” he says, walking closer. “Maybe you’re just a ridiculous person.”

We’re toe to toe at this point, peering into each other’s eyes, a smirk plastered on his face and a teasing smile on mine. My back is almost hitting the rear end of the van, and he knows he has me cornered.

Sadly, this is far from the first time we’ve gotten in the position.

It’s a game we like to play. We see how far we can take things and who will break first. Somehow, over the course of three weeks, we’re both still reigning champions. Neither of us push. He’ll back me against the van, and I’ll ‘accidentally’ shimmy past him in the shop, rubbing my ass across his crotch. One time, I ran my hand over his exposed abs when he was wiping his forehead with his shirt. I said I was reaching for the rag next to him and overshot it. He knew better than to believe me.

Other days, we might find ourselves simply staring into each other’s eyes. That part I don’t plan. I can’t help that I admire his face and he admires mine. What are we to do?

“I’ll build new shelves if you pose in front of my van without a shirt on,” I say. “I’ll get so many more followers that way.”

He exhales, his minty breath too sensual to belong to something as simple as mints .

“Let’s get some wood and go from there,” he says.

“Oh, you’re getting wood?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow before looking down to his zipper and back up.

Harry smiles, leaning down to whisper, “Don’t push your luck.”

Eventually our dam of tension will burst. I can feel it pushing closer every day, but as he walks over to the stairwell, I know that today isn’t that day. It will be yet another night I go home and touch myself to the man I somehow can’t seem to get in bed—or, on floor—a second time.

It baffles me too, trust me.

Harry grabs his keys off the wall and twirls them over his fingers. “Cara! Come on, we’re making a construction run!”

Cara runs down the stairs, hands held straight up in the air like we just told her we’re visiting a theme park. Girl loves her hardware stores.

Cara and I always play hide and seek while Harry gets the big things. At first, we stayed in the lighting area with all the displays of overhead fans, but it was too easy to find one another. Too well lit with too many shadows.

This time we decide on the kitchen model area with all the fake sinks and kitchen island setups. This is also coincidentally the area with customer service, which means Cara can’t run. She likes to run, but the second an adult chastises her for it, Harry has taught her to respect authority enough to obey. Makes my job as makeshift not-nanny-but-still-technically-a-nanny much easier when I get the help of fellow adults. Although, I’m sure they don’t see me as one when I’m crouched over like a dinosaur stalking around the corner looking for a giggling kid.

“Come out, come out!” I say slowly, peering around the corner. “Dino Saria needs a little snack!”

I hear giggling in the distance and know I’m close. When I turn the corner and see little pink sneakers poking out from behind one of those swinging door displays, I know she’s toast.

“Dino Saria?—”

“Saria?”

I twist on the spot, my elbows still tucked into my sides and my fingers curled around my splayed palms like creepy dinosaur hands, all while looking into the silver eyes of my worst nightmare.

“Noah,” I say, straightening out my hunch and wiping my palms clean on my leggings, as if the memory of what I was just doing can be wiped away.

He peers from side to side, his eyes playful as he squints at me.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Oh, you know…” I say absentmindedly, curling my lips inward and shaking my head. “Dinosaur…stuff.” I wince at the stupidity of it all but decide to let my hands fall by my sides in mental defeat. “What are you doing?”

“Getting a new kitchen,” he says, looking over to the closest sink on display and patting it like it performed a nice trick and he’s proud of the thing. I guess he could be, but I also know it’s porcelain and Noah is more of a stainless steel kinda guy. I hate that I know that.

From the corner of my eyes, I see those same pink sneakers that were poking out from under the door frame now tiptoeing over to me with a sly, cheeky smile.

“I win!” Cara yells loudly. I hold my finger up to my lips.

She doesn’t understand how hide and seek works exactly—bless her—but I nod anyway.

“You won,” I agree. I could come up with something better, some more Cara-worthy sarcastic response, but my arms feel too much like jelly and my heart is beating too fast to muster up something funny.

Instead, Cara does the job for me.

Her nose scrunches up when she finally takes in the sight of Noah before us. I can see why. He’s in a freaking home improvement store wearing light gray slacks, a fine leather belt that doesn’t look like it’s creased past one week’s worth of wear, and a spotless white button-up, a breezy type of thing, rolled up his forearms.

“Who are you ?” Cara asks, sneering the last word. I should correct her rudeness. It’s the adult thing to do, but instead I just stick out my bottom lip in agreement and tilt my head to the side.

“Well?” I ask, palm up toward Noah. “She asked a question.”

Noah coughs out a laugh. “I’m an old friend of Saria’s. And you are?”

I find myself taking half a step toward Cara, as if she should be shielded from shitty men with shitty histories. Cara should only have the pleasure of knowing men like her dad. Harry is one of the good ones. The honest ones. The ones dressed appropriately for a store with freaking lumber.

“My daddy says not to talk to strangers,” Cara says.

Noah laughs, and I feel a weird toss-up between a swoon and a scowl land on my face. I must look monstrous.

“So where have you been?” Noah continues with a forced laugh. “How’s Harry?”

I tense. He didn’t even give me time to answer before whipping out the name of my so-called boyfriend. He could have easily said something like ‘what’s-his-name’ or ‘that guy’, but Noah likes to be upfront. He wasn’t raised to be a condescending ass. Just a straightforward ass.

“He’s great,” I say immediately, a smile forming fast. “ We’re great.”

Yeah, dig that knife in.

Noah leans his hand on the sink, pocketing his other hand with an exhalation and a quick nod. The man looks like a damn model and I hate it, but I know that lean of his. Noah is nervous.

“We’re having everyone over for dinner this weekend,” Noah says. “All the families. You guys should come.”

Oh no. No no no.

“My parents are probably busy?—”

“They already agreed,” Noah says, throwing out his hand. “We’re having an engagement get-to-know-everyone thing. It’ll be great.”

‘They already agreed’?

‘You guys should come’?

Was I not invited to my own family gathering??

“We’ll be there,” I blurt out.

I stand there, feeling like a big old bag of crap. I’m dragging Harry into this again. But, hey, I guess it could have been worse…I could have seen— well, oop, there we go.

“Saria!” Charlotte’s chipper voice sounds down the aisle, and I’m biting the inside of my cheek so hard I swear it might bleed soon. “Wow,” she says breathlessly, looking down to Cara then back to me. “I didn’t know you had a kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Cara says instantly, her arms crossing in defiance.

“She’s Harry’s daughter,” I say.

I look to see Noah, who is slowly nodding in understanding. I don’t know why that gesture makes me so uncomfortable, but my palms are sweaty, and I wish they’d stop gushing water like I’m some magical fairy centerpiece in a park fountain.

“Well she’s free to come as well,” he says.

“Free to come where?” Charlotte asks.

“Our engagement dinner.”

“Oh.” Charlotte’s face falls. I’m sure she didn’t expect a child at her fancy engagement dinner, which only makes me want to bring Cara more, but my actual adult instincts finally kick into gear.

“No, she’s got a bedtime, and wine…you know…doesn’t end well with this one,” I say with a laugh. Nobody laughs back.

“Understandable,” Noah says, pocketing his other hand. “Makes me woozy too.”

He throws a wink at her and I tense up again, the mama bear inside me wanting to growl back. But, obviously, that would be obscene in the sink section, so I restrain myself.

“Well, we should get going,” I say, looking at Cara. She’s already glancing down the aisle, distracted by the different lightbulb selections anyway.

“I’ll text you details,” Noah says.

Hand in hand, he and Charlotte walk off, but I can still smell his wonderful cologne a few seconds later so I know he hasn’t gone far. He was looking at sinks, after all.

Then it hits me.

I wonder if they’re buying a house together.

If my chest were a person, it would have just stumbled then fallen down a flight of stairs only to be exhausted by the act of falling more than the pain of the tumble. Because how many times am I going to get upset by this?

They’re engaged.

And Noah and I are not.

I take a deep breath in then let it out slowly and shakily before turning my brain to other things. Things like the fact that Harry, my fake boyfriend, will be having dinner with my family and he hasn’t even met them yet. Nor are they even aware of him.

This just got way more complicated.

Rules be damned, this is information that needs to be shared stat .

“Cara, I’ll race you to the lumber aisle!” I say quickly before darting off. Were it anyone else, they may not have understood me by how fast that sentence came out, but it’s Cara and we speak the same language.

I’m one aisle down before she’s somehow found a shortcut to the next aisle over by crawling through—I’ll have to scold her for that later—and we stumble into the second-to-last aisle to find Harry with his arms crossed over his chest, examining the employee cutting a piece of wood down to a smaller size.

I want to take the time to admire him for who he is. He doesn’t wear a leather belt. He doesn’t wear a white fancy shirt. I don’t think he even owns a lightweight button-down. But he does have biceps for days that cannot be constrained by his canvas jacket.

No, now is not the time for swooning!

“Harry, you’re meeting my dad,” I say.

His eyes widen and he stares at me before the employee coaxes him back to reality to request further measurements.

“Yeah, just…uh…that piece again…” he says, waving his hand absentmindedly before lowering his chin toward me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“We have a family gathering…an engagement party, actually.”

“You and me ?”

“No!” I say, stomping my foot in frustration. “Noah and…Charlotte.”

I almost call her Vanna. I look both ways as if checking to see if anyone noticed.

“Families weren’t in the plan,” he says.

“Last I checked, little Cara here is family,” I respond, giving her bun a little tap on the top just like Harry does. She finds it funny normally, but she’s too distracted by the wood being cut to care.

“She was part of the plan,” he growls. I kind of like his authoritative tone, but… no, no. Focus.

“Well, things got more complicated I guess,” I hiss-whisper with as innocent a shrug as I can manage.

Harry sighs, arms falling by his sides as he looks from Cara to me to the cut wood to the floor again.

“Fine.”