His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 203: A Cutie in My Stead

** Harper **

With Chelsea’s help, dinner ended successfully on a peaceful note, with no dramatic news-breaking other than the cooking challenge. At some point though, the incessant commentaries coming from the earbud did start to give Harper a hallucination of being in a werewolf novel, where her chatty wolf simply wouldn’t stop talking in her head and offering snarky remarks about her love life ... But considering that her wolf was indeed resourceful and reasonable, she had nothing to complain about.

If only she could do the same with Eli.

After returning home from the restaurant and hanging up on the chat, Harper sat down at her desk, staring thoughtfully at the airpod she had just taken off. Now that Tyler had gone to stay at Eli’s apartment, it was going to be a long four days ahead, without Eli by her side and without a way to hear his voice or feel his warmth ... Was there any way to make this work like she did with Chelsea? Could there be a different kind of medium that was quiet and tangible, something that they could use to pretend that they were still right next to each other?

She contemplated the question on and off for the rest of the night, all the while wondering how the dinner had turned out in Eli’s perspective or whether there had been any private conversations at his place involving her. For over a dozen times, her hand drifted to her phone, and she’d type up a longing text message to ask him how everything was, before remembering that she couldn’t really send it and risk Tyler discovering something at the worst time.

Ugh.

So she deleted it all and kept waiting patiently ... until a few minutes after she got in bed. Finally, her phone dinged with the message she had been waiting for all night.

[ Eli: Asleep yet? Sorry it took me so long to text. Tyler finally went to bed. ]

[ Eli: I miss you. Let’s play that airpod game at some point too so I can keep talking to you nonstop. ]

The simple words that were exactly what she was thinking lit up Harper’s face in a heartbeat. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised that he had already figured out her secret plan with Chelsea and wanted to do precisely the same.

[ Tyler snores a bit at night. ] She typed up the reply with a big smile. [ Just wait until he falls asleep and call me quietly. ]

Eli sent over a happy face with sparkly eyes. But then it was followed quickly by a sad puppy face. [ But I want to hug you. It’s not the same. ]

... Why did he have to say exactly what she was thinking again, in such a careless way that made her impulsively want to call a cab and go right up to him and give him that hug?

[ Gonna surprise me by showing up at my door again? ] Harper resisted the urge and teased him instead. Visiting each other was not an option for the rest of the week, and they both knew it, though she still looked longingly out the window toward the lamppost he had stood under last time.

The typing bubbles on his side started blinking, just as her doorbell rang.

At ... twelve thirty in the morning?

"Wait, what did you do?" Harper blurted, forgetting that no one could hear her, before dashing to the door and pulling it open.

It wasn’t Eli standing outside, to her disappointment but also to her expectation. Instead, it was—

A six-foot-tall teddy bear??

"Hello, Miss." A human voice startled her, and it wasn’t till then that she saw a person’s face poking out from behind the bear’s giant head. "Um, if you could sign for the delivery—" He passed her a tablet with some difficulty over the bear’s enormous shoulders.

Bewildered, Harper signed, and the delivery man courteously dumped the ridiculous mass of a stuffed animal into her arms.

"&%@$*!" Harper could barely make it back into her living room with that huge armful, and her mind was blank with disbelief until her phone dinged again:

[ Eli: Wish I could be there. Hope this cutie can keep you company in my stead for the next couple of days. Hug it when you can’t sleep and the bed feels too empty <heart> <heart> ]

Oh.

Awww.

Harper stared at the bear in her arms, then the phone, and then she laughed out loud. Yep, trust this guy to always know how to level up his game, even when they had to be separated by brotherly interference.

And now she had found just the perfect solution to her own "airpod equivalent" dilemma, too.

~ ~

Two days later, when Eli parked his old honda downstairs at Harper’s apartment and she emerged from the lobby carrying her camping gear, both Eli and Tyler’s jaws hit the ground.

Because she had her tent and sleeping bag rolls on her shoulders, her weekend backpack on her back, and ... a one-person-tall teddy bear in her arms.

"A-Are we going glamping now?" Tyler asked with wide eyes. "What’s that about?"

"Oh, this?" Harper hid a wink in Eli’s direction behind the bear’s huge head. "I’ve been getting a bit of insomnia since coming back from Hawaii. Must be the weather change. A stuffed animal seems to keep me warm and help me fall asleep faster, so I thought I’d bring it with me. It’s chilly in the mountains at night, isn’t it?"

She didn’t miss the fleeting twitch of a muscle on Eli’s face, as if he could barely bite back a laugh.

"Gosh, yeah of course." Tyler’s expression immediately softened when he heard his little sister mention insomnia. "You should’ve told me you haven’t been sleeping well, sis. We didn’t have to go this weekend." ƒrēenovelkiss.com

"Nah, it’s not a big deal. A change of environment usually helps with sleep issues anyway, and I’ve been excited to go back to that camping site after so long." Harper smiled innocently as she dumped her backpack and camping gear into the trunk. Then she carried the teddy bear to the back seat, placed it between her and Tyler, and shamelessly buckled it up like a little girl would do to her favorite doll. "Ready?" she beamed to the driver.

Eli gave her a raised eyebrow through the backview mirror, and she chuckled to herself as the car rolled forward.