“Holy. Crap.” Celia was staring at her.
Harper could feel her cheeks were hot.
“I swear if I didn’t know better, I’d think you just had sex with him before walking over here with me. You’re flushed, and you looked dazed and happy and like you’re totally floating.”
Floating? She’d spent the morning cleaning up baby poop and puke and pee. The three P’s. Then shopping for pacifiers and a crib and more diapers and all kinds of overwhelming necessities that filled James’s apartment and made the whole thing feel even bigger than it had before.
Harper put her hands against her cheeks. “Do I?”
“He was good, huh?” Celia asked. “Wow. I mean, he looks like he’d be good. The firefighter body, the piano player fingers…” She shook her head and cut her grilled chicken sandwich in half. “I’m so jealous of you right now.”
Harper laughed. She was tired. They hadn’t really slept deeply or very long. She’d had puke in her hair and pee on her pants. She and the guy she had a huge crush on had been cleaning up poop together. Poop. But Celia was jealous of her.
“We didn’t do the date,” she confessed.
Celia finished chewing and swallowed. “Well, it wasn’t a date, I guess. But you…” She frowned, really looking at Harper now. “Wait, you didn’t do it? At all?”
Harper shook her head. She sighed. “He got called to a fire.”
“But that was at least a couple of days ago.”
“I know. He was there all night, slept a lot of the next day, went to work yesterday.”
“Which leaves last night.” Celia leaned in. “Don’t tell me you changed your mind.”
Harper shook her head quickly, reliving the feel of James’s lips against hers. “No. Not at all.”
“So what happened? Why haven’t you jumped him yet?” Celia asked, biting into her sandwich.
Harper realized she needed to eat, or her break was going to be over and she’d be starving in her meeting. She took a bite of her chicken salad and washed it down. “His baby son showed up.”
Celia froze midchew. She stared at Harper. Then frowned. Then chewed quickly, swallowing, wiping her lips and then said, “What?”
Harper twirled her fork in her chicken and mayo. “Yeah. There was just suddenly this baby on his doorstep last night, and, obviously, that took up a lot of our time and attention.”
“He has a baby?”
Harper lifted a shoulder. “Yes.”
Celia set her sandwich down. She leaned in. “Does this change things?”
Harper nodded. “Yeah.”
Celia looked disappointed. “That’s too bad. I know you really liked him.”
Harper tipped her head. “You think so?”
Her friend smiled. “You talk about him all the time. He makes you laugh. You always have this affectionately exasperated air when you talk about him, but you definitely like him. And I know you were looking forward to getting him naked.”
Harper gave a little choked laugh. Celia had told her that she should sleep with James after the olive tree situation. She said she had never seen Harper that delighted.
Delighted. That was the word Celia had used.
Celia taught English composition. The woman shared a love of words and agreed that words mattered and that people should choose them carefully. It was something that had first forged their friendship over salads in this very cafeteria shortly after Harper had joined the faculty. They’d only known one another a little over a year, but Harper felt that if Celia said something like she’d seemed “delighted” then that was worth considering.
“Well, it has changed how I feel.” Harper pressed her lips together and shook her head. Admitting it out loud made it more real. But finally she said, “After seeing him taking care of the baby, I like him even more.”
She’d been prepared—so she’d thought—to date a man who was a father, perhaps. Or to date one who was open to adoption. But to be attracted to him being a father… she hadn’t experienced that before. It wasn’t just the protectiveness that came out either. James already had showed that side. He was a firefighter. He protected people every single day. It wasn’t the sweet side. She’d seen that, too. With Ami. Even with Henry. With her, honestly.
It was actually the way he’d just done what needed to be done. He’d picked the baby up and come straight to her, out of habit. But when it had become clear this was not her forte, he’d taken over. He’d been the decision maker between them. He’d been the one to assume the responsibility.
That was really damned attractive. Especially when his youth and laid-back attitude and tendency to—seemingly, anyway—need help with things were some of what was making her hold back from him.
He’d blasted right through those hesitations in less than twenty-four hours.
Celia’s grin was big and bright and immediate. “Oh, that’s amazing.”
“You don’t think that’s crazy?”
“No. You’ve always been attracted to his caregiver side.”
Harper took a deep breath and nodded. “And the kisses were pretty great, too.”
Celia’s eyes went round. “You kissed?”
“Yes.” Harper couldn’t help her huge smile now. “I mean, they were pretty short, but they were sweet. And hot.” Had she just sighed? That was strange. But that had to have been her. “And he says that we’re still going to do everything he’d planned on the other night.”
“Well, yeah,” Celia said, picking her sandwich up. “I mean, just ’cuz there’s a baby, doesn’t mean there’s no sex to be had. Babies sleep. Married couples manage to have sex after they have kids. It can be done.”
Babies slept. Of course they did. This one had slept really well last night, in fact. Maybe he would again tonight… And when had she gotten so hot and horny?
Oh yeah, about the time the firefighter across the hall had brought her an olive tree.
“Harper?”
“Huh?”
Celia laughed. “Wow. I hope James can measure up to whatever you have going on in your head. Good thing he knows about the books. Hope he’s read a couple.”
Harper blushed hard at that. He had, in fact, borrowed a couple. A couple based on her recommendations. A couple of her favorites. He said he was an avid reader and that they often had a lot of downtime at the station. She hadn’t asked if he’d finished them, but they’d been back on her table. And two more had been missing.
If he now had an idea of what she found sexy in books and was willing to…
“Dr. Broussard? Hi.”
Harper’s thoughts were interrupted by one of her students approaching from the main counter.
“Sophie! Hi!” Harper was thrilled to see the girl.
Sophie Duncan had been in her class last semester. She was nineteen and was putting herself through school. She was one of Harper’s brightest students and had been one of Harper’s favorites. Intelligent. Studious. Always in the front row. A copious notetaker. Sophie was a driven, type-A perfectionist who had her eyes already set on grad school, even as a freshman. Harper also knew that she was doing this all on her own. Harper didn’t know much about the girl’s parents, but she knew that Sophie was here on a full-ride scholarship, which was the only reason she was managing Loyola at all, and she took it extremely seriously.