“You don’t have to,” Harper started to protest.
“It’s fine. I love it,” Kylie said, slipping the diaper bag over her shoulder and cradling Isaac with a smile. “Honest.”
A moment later, she’d disappeared into the back room with the baby.
James focused on Harper. She was frowning after Kylie.
“You want me to go get him?”
She shook her head. “It’s just… weird.”
“What is?”
“That I know there are all these women in your past. I mean we’ve been specifically looking for two of them in the past two days, and clearly, Kylie isn’t his mom, so we’re going to have to keep looking. And I want to hate them and feel like I should be jealous.” She looked up at him. “And I am, a little, but mostly I’m just happy to know that the women you’ve been with are nice women. Hardworking. At least one was happy to see you. Megan might have been too if you’d talked to her. I just…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
“You just what?” James prompted, wanting to hear this for some reason.
“I know you said that none of these women were serious or long term and yes, I’m glad about that. But you’re also not just…” She took a deep breath. “You’re not just fucking around with these women either. I know they might have just been one-night stands, and you might not know what W state one of them lives in, but you were sweet and funny and made sure they had a good time, and they all walked away from you—or watched you walk away—feeling good about things.”
He’d liked to think so. But it meant even more that Harper would assume all that. Not because one of the women had told her that, but because she knew him. He lifted a hand to her face, running the pad of his thumb over her cheek. “Would this be easier if I’d just banged them in the storage room and didn’t even know where any of them were from or worked?”
“No. Because that wouldn’t line up with the guy I know you are.”
“Why the teary eyes, then?” He stepped in closer.
“Oh.” Her gaze flickered to the book of invitations and announcements. “I realized that if we really were ordering birth announcements, we didn’t have any information to fill in. We don’t know how much he weighed or even what day his birthday actually is.” She gave him a wobbly smile. “And we don’t know if he had another name or what to put for his mom’s name.”
“He has a name, though,” James said. “And I think we just make the day he came to us his birthday. And… we could fill his parents’ names in.”
“We could fill his dad’s name in, I guess,” she said. “Single dads are hot.”
He smiled. “Or we could give him a mom.”
She frowned.
He hadn’t prepared to say this today. Or this week. Or maybe for a few months. But hell, a week ago he hadn’t been prepared to be a dad, yet here they were. “I looked some stuff up. Her abandoning him essentially terminates her parental rights. We go get a lawyer, show up before a judge, and make it official.”
“You mean declare you as his father and to make it official that she’s out of the picture?”
“Well, yes.”
“You’ll need the DNA test.”
“Right. But I should have that in a couple of days.”
She nodded. “I mean, it doesn’t solve the problem of medical history, but I guess we just do the best we can.”
“But I was talking about showing up in front of the judge to make something else official.”
“What’s that?”
“We get married.”
She just stared at him. Her eyes didn’t widen. Her mouth didn’t drop open. She didn’t gasp. She just stared at him. As if she were still waiting for him to speak. Or maybe explain himself.
“If we’re married, then you can adopt him. He’ll have a mom and dad.”
She wet her lips, then took a deep breath, then pressed them together.
“Professor?”
She closed her eyes and took another deep breath.
“Harper?”
“Yeah?” Her eyes were still closed.
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded.
“What do you think?”
“About getting married so we can adopt Isaac?”
Finally, he couldn’t take it. He took hold of her wrists and leaned in until she opened her eyes. “Say something.”
“I… I really wasn’t expecting that. At all.”
“When was the last time I brought something up with you that you were expecting?”
She seemed to think about that for a second. “The sex,” she finally answered.
He gave a little laugh. “Okay, fair enough.”
“But you’re right,” she added. “I never know what’s going to happen when I answer my door.”
“So this being unexpected should not be a reason to say no to it.”
Harper took a deep breath.
“We have a little situation.” Kylie breezed back into the front of the store just then, Isaac in hand. In both of her hands. Which were outstretched, holding him away from her, and the baby puke that was covering the front of her. “I didn’t burp him soon enough.”
“Oh my gosh!” Harper rushed forward.
The moment was completely shattered, and James pulled in a deep breath. Holy shit. He’d just proposed.
But as he watched her scoop Isaac up and apologize to Kylie, who laughed it off very nicely and said she didn’t live far and could easily go home and change, James realized he barely remembered a thing about his night with Kylie. But he remembered every smile Harper had ever given him.
Before Isaac. All these things he felt and thought about her were pre-baby. Had it all come rushing forward now that they were doing this huge, crazy, over-the-top thing of caring for a newborn together? Yes. But it had all been there before.
Now he just needed to figure out what to do about Emily, and everything would be great.
He needed to call a lawyer.
And maybe buy a ring.
No, for sure buy a ring.
“He proposed,” Harper said to Celia. For the third time.
“You mentioned that,” her friend said dryly.
“I mean, that’s insane.”
Celia shook her head. “I’ll give you that it’s a little crazy, but it’s not insane. You’ve known each other for six months. As he said, you like each other. Now you know the sex is amazing. You practically live together. There’s a dog and now a baby.” Celia took a sip of her tea. “It’s not really insane at all.”
“So that’s all you need? To like each other, have great sex, and get a dog and baby?” Harper asked.
Celia seemed to think about that. “Well, I’d say those are a pretty great place to start. I mean, there’s also stuff like kindness and trust and respect, of course.”
They already had those, too. Harper realized that she was not winning this argument. Why was she arguing again? She looked down at the stroller where Isaac was reclining, happily watching the brightly colored stuffed lion toy that hung from the stroller’s canopy. She wanted this little boy, and surely her and James being married would make that easier. The state or a judge or whoever decided these things probably liked giving babies to married couples. Right?