His Naughty Lessons
Chapter 102: Golden Frat Boy

Chapter 102: Golden Frat Boy

** Harper **

"Well, my middle school and her elementary school," Eli clarified. "Wow, that does sound like so long ago."

"And my painting skills have not improved at all since then." Harper leveled her brush over Eli’s cheek again. "Speaks for this man’s bravery that he lets me use his face as a playground."

Chelsea cocked her head. "Actually, I didn’t know you could draw at all. You haven’t done much art in college."

"She used to draw plenty as a kid," Eli chimed in casually. "In very creative ways, such as painting her avatar on my t-shirt with pasta sauce—"

"Pretty sure that was tomato soup," Harper corrected him. "And Eli, stop grinning, I can’t draw straight lines if your face keeps moving!"

Though Harper was already grinning herself, finding the memory that Eli just reminded them of too hilarious to resist. She had been retaliating against him that time for ... beating her in her favorite game? Or eating all her brownies behind her back? She couldn’t quite remember. But she could recall all too clearly sneaking up on him while he took a nap on the couch and painting a large, menacing dragon with the tomato soup leftover from lunch. That was the end of one of his favorite white shirts.

"Birds aren’t supposed to have straight lines in them anyway, Harper. You’re welcome for these curvatures that make them look so natural and adorable." Eli examined the wiggly legs of the chicken-chickadee in the mirror approvingly, still beaming.

From the corner of her eye, Harper saw Chelsea shake her head again, though this time she was smiling. "You know, Eli, you are quite different from what I expected." She spun a chair around and sat down next to him at the booth. "Harper kept mentioning that she has this friend who’s a bigshot in some finance company, and I’ve always had you figured as one of those golden frat boys who’d be into luxury yachts and exclusive nightclubs. Never thought you’d be so ... well, not that."

Harper glanced up at her friend as she swirled the brush one more time. Chelsea had Eli figured as a golden frat boy? Hmm. Certainly never the way Harper saw him at all.

"You mean as in, not nearly sophisticated or fashionable enough for the industry standard?" Eli grinned again, almost turning Harper’s next stroke into a blackened strikeout.

"Let’s just say easygoing and actually fun to hang out with?" Chelsea offered. "Not my idea of a billionaire heir, that’s for sure. You are the future owner of Sterling Trust, right?"

With the sound of those two words, the atmosphere around them seemed to have changed ever so slightly. If Harper wasn’t finishing up the last detail of the chickadee, she might have missed the tiny twitch of a muscle on Eli’s face. But she didn’t have to notice it to know that the mere mention of being the Sterling heir would make him wince — something that Chelsea was obviously unaware of.

"Right," Eli replied succinctly. He was still smiling, and probably no one except Harper could hear the subtle drop of temperature in his voice.

"Wow, that’s such a big name to live up to," Chelsea marveled. "I mean, I work in finance too, and I can’t be more familiar with Ronald Sterling’s name. My boss talks about your company a lot. It’s been one of the biggest investment firms in Davenshire for ... a couple of decades by now?"

"Twenty-eight years since founding. It’s grown quite a bit since then."

"I bet." Chelsea nodded with an impressed air. Then a gleam of genuine curiosity flashed across her eyes. "Actually, that’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now ... Harper said you moved into her neighborhood with your father when you guys first met? Her home is in Davis Town, if I remember correctly. Six hours drive from here."

Harper wasn’t exactly sure where Chelsea was trying to lead to, but apparently Eli was. Something about him changed, and his smile was starting to fade.

"So," Chelsea continued, "your father has been the owner of Sterling Trust all this time, and he was ... commuting twelve hours round trip every day to his office? How did that work?"

Oh. God. No, not this topic.

"Chelsea, I think my drawing is done." Harper put down the palette and brushes on the table and hastily tried to change the subject. "Does it still look like a chicken to you?"

Chelsea gave her a confused look, though it only took the girl a moment to get the hint — she might be insensitive at times with her jokes and gibes, but that didn’t mean she was slow or intentionally wanted to hurt anyone with her insensitivity. "Oh ... Um, are these supposed to be its feet? It looks like—"

Eli turned his face away, blocking the painted bird from their view. "You don’t have to help me dance around the subject, Harper." He gave her a somewhat tight smile before turning to Chelsea. "My father didn’t commute. He lived here, in Davenshire."

Chelsea obviously wasn’t expecting such a response. "In ... Davenshire? But ... then who were you living with back then? Harper said your mom wasn’t with you—"

"She passed away before that. There was a homecare lady staying in the house with me most of the time, though my father did visit occasionally on weekends."

An abrupt silence fell over the three of them.

Harper hadn’t expected that he would actually bring this up. Back in the day, none of the kids in the neighborhood knew the full story of Eli’s family, and no one could ever get him to talk about it. Even Harper herself had only known that his mother had passed away before the move, and that his father was always busy with work. The topic of his parents was always a forbidden one, and she had grown used to never asking about it after all this time. But ...

"Chelsea?" An unfamiliar voice sounded behind them, interrupting the frozen conversation. "I had no idea you were coming to the game today!"

In the broken silence, Harper realized belatedly that the clubroom had been filling up while they occupied themselves at the booth, and a tall blonde was sashaying toward them. Chelsea swiveled her seat in the woman’s direction.

"Oh. Hi Vanessa, what a surprise! I had no idea either." Chelsea rose — all awkward conversations about family thankfully ending — and gave the blonde a hug. Turning back with a smile, she introduced, "This is my boss."

Harper offered a courteous nod, though Vanessa’s eyes didn’t meet hers. Instead, they landed on Eli and widened. "Eli? What brought you here today as well?"