“And you said yes.”
“I said I had never met a bearded dragon that I didn’t like. Which is true.”
“You’ve met other bearded dragons?”
“No.” He gave her a grin.
“So Simon got it into his head that you would take Henry, and the teacher is desperate enough to be rid of him that she went along with it, and somehow someone talked Simon’s mom and dad into bringing him over here to you?”
“They actually brought him down to the station. But we were out on a call, and our smart-ass dispatcher said there was no way in hell she was letting Henry hang out with her, so she gave them my address and said it was fine to drop him off here.”
Harper pressed her lips together and shook her head slowly. “Wow.”
“So… can you take care of Henry when I work?”
“What are Henry’s other options?” Harper’s eyes were back on the tank now.
“Hunger, neglect, probably years of therapy.”
She sighed. “Can’t let that happen.”
James grinned, feeling like he’d just gotten an A from the toughest professor on campus. “I’ll bring him over on my workdays.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You go into the station at the crack of dawn,” she said.
“You’ve noticed.”
“You’re noisy.”
Uh-huh. She’d noticed. “I gotta go protect the people of our great city.”
She gave a little eye roll. “Just get me a key to your place, and I’ll go over and check on Henry on my schedule.”
Give her a key to his place, huh? Was Professor Broussard the type to go through his drawers? He’d like to think so. “Okay,” he said. “Will you know what to do once you’re in my bedroom?”
Ah, there was that you’re-not-nearly-as-charming-as-you-think-you-are look she was so good at. And that made her look so fucking hot for some reason. “I assume that was supposed to be flirtatious, too? And then I was supposed to say something about you having a dragon in your bedroom to which you would quip, ‘already do’?”
He flat out laughed at that. She called him on his shit, and he liked it. He would not have expected that. The liking-it part. He’d expected the other from the very first time she’d done it. “Yeah, probably something like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “This time, when you write up the paper about the care and feeding of a bearded dragon, use spell-check, and I’d appreciate a twelve-point font and double spacing. Also, bearded is b-e-a-r, not b-e-e-r.”
Then she shut the door in his face. Again.
Yeah, she was really hot.
Four months ago
“I don’t suppose you know anything about…” James sighed and swung the door open to reveal the woman who was slumped against his front door. Sobbing her eyes out.
Harper looked up at him. “What did you do?”
He huffed out a little laugh. “She’s not mine.”
Harper had to admit she liked hearing that. She hadn’t seen a lot of—okay, any—women in and out of James Reynaud’s apartment over the two months she’d been living here, and she’d fully expected to. But she had absolutely no doubt the man had as many as he wanted, whenever he wanted them. And there was no way he was celibate.
He was the kind of guy who just oozed sex appeal and confidence that said he knew every one of the ways he appealed to the opposite sex. Hell, even to a few of his own sex, she was sure. From the dark scruff on his jaw, to the swagger, to the tattoo that wrapped around his upper arm, to the fact he wasn’t just a firefighter—oh, no, he couldn’t have just one sexy profession—but also a musician. The guy was an alpha cliché from the tips of his work boots to the tips of his perfectly-styled-to-look-mussed dark hair.
Not that it was always perfectly styled. When he’d just gotten home from a shift at the fire station, his hair was definitely mussed. Just like his normally cocky swagger was traded for a fatigued trudge, and his quick, mischievous smile was a tired, solemn expression. She only ever saw any of that through her window, though. He never came over until he was freshly showered, smelling great, and full of cockiness.
The first time she’d laid eyes on the guy and thought hot, young, and arrogant, she’d figured living across from him was going to be either a parade of women, a parade of kegs, or both.
It had been neither.
It had been the sounds of his door opening and shutting, the sounds of those boots on the wrought-iron steps that led up from the brick courtyard below, the sounds of his piano drifting out of his window and into hers, the sounds of him calling down from over the edge of their shared balcony to Clyde and Billy, the two old men who worked in the kitchen of the praline shop that made up the first floor of their building, and then, every once in a while, the sound of him knocking on her door. Followed by his somewhat lame yet stupidly funny attempts at flirting with her.
She was now a co-parent to an olive tree and a bearded dragon. How had that happened?
But it had. And now it looked like she might be on the verge of… what? Adopting a sobbing twentysomething woman?
“What’s going on?”
“She’s drunk and heartbroken and hates men,” James explained.
“Is she aware that you’re a man?”
“I’ve never proven it to her in any meaningful way, but I assume so,” he said dryly.
Harper really did like his sense of humor. “So, then, why is she on your doorstep?”
“Because this is where her sister dropped her.”
Harper hadn’t quite reconciled the fact that this man, who kept strange hours and had one of the most laid-back attitudes she’d ever met, was someone who others brought things to for caregiving. It was… fascinating.
And she wasn’t a woman who used that word—or, really, any word—lightly.
Harper crossed her arms and propped her shoulder against her doorframe as she settled in for this story. There was always a story. And she found them… yes, fascinating.
“Okay.”
“This is Courtney,” he said, gesturing toward the woman.
She was sitting against his door, her knees pulled up to her chest, clearly not caring that with her short, bright red skirt, they could see she was wearing an equally bright red pair of panties. Her blonde hair looked like she’d run her hands through it repeatedly, and her mascara was streaked down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she looked quite miserable.
“Courtney was dating a guy in the band,” James said. “He broke up with her last night. Her sister took her out to drown her sorrows. Then Courtney wanted to go to his house to talk to him. Her sister knew that was a terrible idea, but the only other person Courtney would agree to talk to was me.”
“Her sister just left her here?”
“She figured this might take a while, and she had to go home because she’s got a sitter with her kids.”
“What, exactly, might take a while?” Harper asked.
“Me making her feel better.”
Harper felt her eyebrows rise. “I see.”
“Not like that.” He gave her a look that seemed sincerely offended. “Her sister thought since I know Scott really well, I could convince her that Scott was serious about the breakup and that he’s not worth her time and tears anymore.”