All Chapters of Curvy and Off-limits: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Harper's POVThe coffee shop across from campus smelled like cinnamon and burnt espresso, the kind of place that plays acoustic covers too loud and never quite gets the temperature right. Mason already claimed a table by the window when I walked in, two drinks in front of him like he'd guessed mine before I even ordered. I don’t know how I feel about that but I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to sound like a prude and let it be the reason I never actually dated. He is putting in effort. "Vanilla oat milk latte." He slid it across the table with a small proud smile. "Blair told me. Said I'd score points."Oh. That makes more sense. "Did it work?" I smiled softly, allowing myself to feel cared for. "You're sitting down, aren't you?"I laughed and dropped into the seat across from him, wrapping both hands around the cup for the warmth more than anything. It was easy being here. That's the first thing I noticed and the thing I kept noticing the entire hour. Easy the way Sunday morni

Harper's POVI hadn't spoken to Declan in three days. Again! Three days of passing each other in hallways like strangers, of eating breakfast at separate times just to avoid the table we'd stood at that night, of pretending my wrist didn't still remember the exact weight of his fingers.It should've been easy to keep avoiding him. It wasn't. Blair had begged me into going to Hayes' party, some end of midterms thing at his family's lake house twenty minutes outside town. I said yes mostly because staying home alone with my thoughts sounded worse than a party full of people I only half tolerated. I drove myself. That should've been my first mistake.The party was loud and crowded and exactly what I expected, red cups and bad music and Blair disappearing within ten minutes to go flirt with someone from her chem class. I found a corner near the kitchen and nursed a drink I wasn't really drinking, counting down the hours until I could reasonably leave without looking like I'd had a bad ti

Harper's POVI left the lake house before the sun fully came up, slipping out while Hayes was still asleep on the couch and the storm had reduced itself to a light drizzle against the windshield. I didn't leave a note. I didn't check if Declan's door was open or shut. I just grabbed my keys, pulled Blair's borrowed shirt over my head and drove home with the radio off, replaying a kiss I'd already told him meant nothing.It meant something. That was the whole problem.By the time I got back to Kings Manor, showered and changed into something that didn't smell like rain and someone else's cologne, I'd built the wall back up brick by brick. Cold. Distant. Whatever happened in that hallway stayed in that hallway.Breakfast was already laid out when I came downstairs and of course he was there. Black coffee in front of him, jaw freshly shaved, looking like a man who hadn't spent half of last night with his mouth on mine. My stomach clenched anyway, some traitorous physical memory refusin

Declan's POVI woke up at six on instinct. It was the way I have for two years and lay there waiting for the sound of her door. It didn't come.I told myself it meant nothing. People sleep in. People change their schedules. I stared at the ceiling anyway, ears straining for a sound that never arrived until six thirty passed and then seven and the house stayed exactly as quiet as it had been at five.No footsteps on the stairs. No front door opening onto the driveway. No sound of her car pulling away toward whatever gym she's decided to punish me by driving twenty minutes to reach.I told myself I didn't care. I got up anyway, showered faster than I needed to and made it downstairs before the chef had even finished setting the table."Morning, Mr. Kings." He glanced up from the stove. "The usual?""Yeah." I sat, eyes flicking toward the empty spot across from mine, the one that's supposed to have a plate of oatmeal in front of it by now if she's been to the gym already. Nothing. No bow

Harper's POVNatasha had the table set before any of us made it downstairs, candles lit despite the fact that it was six in the evening and the sun hadn't even fully set yet. The good china out for what was apparently just a regular Thursday. She's changed twice since I saw her that morning. She currently wearing something cream and silk that probably cost more than my old rent, hair freshly styled like she was hosting a magazine shoot instead of dinner with her own family."Doesn't this look lovely?" She beamed at the table, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from the tablecloth. "I told Theodore we should do this more often. Family dinners. Isn't that nice?""It's nice, Mom."She squeezed my shoulder on her way past, already fussing with the flower arrangement centered between the candles, humming something under her breath. I sat down across from where Declan would eventually take his seat and my stomach tightened before he even walked into the room.He arrived a few minutes later, ha