His Naughty Lessons

** Harper **

"Gosh, Harper. You’re even pushier than your brother." Eli groaned helplessly, trying to avert his eyes from his girlfriend’s piercing gaze, but failed.

It was a good sign though. Harper could tell from his face that he had questions for her, and he simply needed a little nudge to let it out.

"As I should be. And have every reason to be." She pressed her forehead to his, trying to calm his nerves with a little intimate touch. "We need to start getting used to this, Eli. The fact that there are two of us in this together. I know it’s new for you to talk about this kind of stuff — and really, it’s new for me too — but if you keep hiding whatever is troubling you, then we won’t ever get past it."

She hoped she had picked the right words. Relationships weren’t her expertise in any way, and she didn’t know if asking him to open up to her would scare him off again, but she did know that she wasn’t a fan of those novels where the couple couldn’t simply sit down and talk to each other. Stretching out misunderstandings for hundreds of Chapters might be an easy plot device to keep readers on the edge of their seats, but the forced angst coming out of character stupidity had never appealed to her, and she certainly didn’t want to see it happen in real life.

Maybe she did do it right, or maybe looking away from his eyes made things easier. Eli was quiet for a long moment, then took a deep breath in. His hands came up behind her, lightly holding her shoulders after only a brief hesitation. "You’re not going to like what you hear," he sighed.

"Try me."

A delicate silence hung between them for a few seconds. "Have I ... ever done something that annoyed you?" he asked carefully in the end. "Or offended you?"

... What?

Harper had no idea where that came from. Had they tricked each other and got angry at each other back in the days when they were little brats? Sure, plenty. Had they disagreed and argued on trivial topics in the past two months, such as him being a stubborn idiot? Sure, as they were currently doing right at this moment. But he obviously wasn’t referring to either of those.

"Be specific," she demanded. "What made you ask that? Is Tyler still convinced we aren’t getting along somehow?"

Eli hesitated again, as if trying to make up his mind on something life-changing that he was about to say next. "No. But he did bring up a fair point. You weren’t picking up my calls for the whole four years when I was on the west coast ... and I never bothered to ask why."