“Of course.” She looked at her table companions. It was really interesting meeting people who knew and hung out with James. She was sure she was going to enjoy this. “I mean, you’ve been talking really big about this piano for months, but all I’ve heard is you tinkling on it through the window.”
“Tinkling, huh?” he asked. He straightened, nodding. “Okay, Professor. You asked for it.”
She grinned watching him get up on stage, shake the hands of all the other men, exchange a couple of hugs, and then take his place on the piano bench. He shot her a look that was part flirtatious and part challenge. Oh, she was ready for whatever he thought he had to show her.
“So how do you know James?” Joseph asked as the other men took their spots.
“Oh, we’re neighbors,” she said. “I live across the landing.”
“You’re the lady taking care of Amos’s olive tree,” Joseph said with clear surprise.
“Yes.” Harper smiled. “Helping, anyway.”
Joseph nodded. “Yeah, we’ve heard about you.”
“You have?”
Neveah smiled. “I’m not sure James even realizes how much he’s talked about you, actually.”
Harper felt her heart give an extra beat at that. “Really?”
“You also take care of Fred,” Joseph said.
Harper didn’t even bother correcting the dog’s name. “Yes, I do.”
“And you teach at Loyola, and you speak French, and you drink tea, and read romance,” Neveah said. She laughed lightly. “Yes, we’ve heard of you.”
Harper shot James a glance. He was laughing with one of the guys who was leaning on the piano. He looked completely at ease behind the instrument, and she felt a little flip in her stomach. She knew he was a musician, and she had heard him on the one in his apartment, but she was about to see yet another side of him. She couldn’t wait.
“Of course we pressed him,” Joseph said.
“Pressed him about me?”
“Well, about what it was that had changed,” the older man said. “But it became clear quickly that it was you.”
“What do you mean what had changed?”
“A few months back he stopped flirting—” Joseph looked at Neveah and shook his head with a chuckle. “Well, he never stops flirting. He can’t help it entirely, you know. But he stopped taking women home, stopped so much of the partying. He still came in and played. He’ll never stop doing that. But he changed. And when we asked him about it, he talked about you.”
Harper took all of that in. James had told her he hadn’t been with anyone since he’d met her. She’d believed him. Kind of. She wasn’t sure she’d believed that he’d totally stopped flirting and going out and everything. That was… something.
“Wow.”
Neveah covered Harper’s hand and gave her a sincere smile. “James Reynaud has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know.”
Harper nodded. “Me too.” She paused, more words on the tip of her tongue. But she wasn’t sure she should say them. Still, these people seemed to really care about him. Honestly, she had yet to meet someone who knew James who didn’t really care about him. It seemed wherever he went he made deep, loyal friendships and connections. “It surprises me a little that he came to me for help so many times,” she finally said.
“What do you mean?” Joseph asked, leaning his elbow on the table.
“Well, with the olive tree and Am—Fred,” Harper said. “And there’s a lizard and…” She glanced at James again. He was talking to another member of the band, but as if he felt her eyes on him, he glanced over and gave her a quick smile. “There’s a baby,” she told Joseph and Neveah. She wasn’t sure she should be spilling that, but Isaac was a fact, and these people clearly knew James and cared about him. “The baby’s mother just left him on James’s doorstep. Literally. He doesn’t even know who she is.”
Joseph’s eyes didn’t even go wide. He just thought about all that for a moment. Then he said, “He takes care of people. He always has. His mother was like that.”
“You knew his mother?”
“Of course. His father played in here,” Joseph said. “I sat on a stool playing trombone next to his piano every weekend for almost forty years.”
“You’re a friend of his parents,” Harper said. “Wow.”
Joseph smiled. “I am. Wonderful people. It almost killed his father to leave the city, but he had to take Katherine out.”
“But you said she took care of people,” Harper said. “I’m surprised she’d want to leave after Katrina when so many people needed help.”
“They stayed to clean up,” Joseph said, his eyes sad. “But that’s what almost killed her. Her soul, you know? Because she took care. She loved so much. She empathized so easily. It was just almost too much. She wanted to stay. Part of her did. But her husband saw what it was doing to her. In the end, it was his idea to go. And we all encouraged it. It was like her light was slowly going out. We couldn’t stand that.”
Harper swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry.”
“No one was truly the same after Katrina,” Joseph said. “Whether you stayed or went. If you stayed, you wondered why. You faced the fact that the city was different, a little broken. If you left, you felt guilty. There is no winning.”
Harper nodded.
“Anyway,” Joseph said, “James is just like his mama. He takes care of people. And things. He fights fires and adopts dogs. And babies.” Joseph shrugged. “I don’t think anyone who knows him would be surprised to find him with an abandoned baby.”
“I’m flattered that he keeps coming to me for help, then,” Harper decided. “I’ve never… been like that. The person that people come to for things.” She frowned as she realized that. “I’m capable, of course. I can figure almost anything out. I just am not the person that someone would think of handling something huge like that. At least, not as a surprise.” She realized most of the people who really knew her would probably describe her as smart and adept, but probably not all that flexible.
Joseph nodded, studying her. “You sure that he’s coming to you for help?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe he’s coming to help you.”
“To help me with what?”
“Laughing. Loving. Having a dog. And a baby.”
Harper felt herself nodding. “Yeah, maybe,” she said softly.
Maybe James had been taking care of her all along, bringing all those things into her life because he thought she needed it. Just then the first notes from the stage hit her, she turned in that direction. Or, more specifically, toward the piano.
It was just James, with a bit of bass and a little cymbal behind him.
And holy crap. He was good. Already.
Sure, she was biased. But the entire bar quieted, and the music filled the room. It was a slow, jazzy piece that mesmerized her. She couldn’t take her eyes off him and the way his fingers moved over the keys. Confidently, easy, with no music in front of him, just his eyes on the ivories.