He was sure there were a million other reasons, but he was too busy imagining all the ways to get complicated with Harper to think of any.
“Oh man.” Dax gave a sad shake of the head and rested a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “You’re losing your touch, bro.”
“He’s losing something,” Jonah said dryly. “Otherwise he wouldn’t even consider telling his superiors that his proposed event planner, for a department-sponsored event, is a girl he tried to sleep with but didn’t quite close the deal. Now he wants to use department money to pay for the girl’s services. It doesn’t get more complicated than that.”
Adam cringed because when put that way he could see how it might be construed as a problem. But Megan was his ace in the hole. The meeting was tomorrow morning. And if he went in there without a plan, Lowen might just demote him to the FNG and he’d wind up answering to Seth and McGuire.
“Megan is my best bet at this point,” Adam admitted, wondering what the strange tightness was in his chest.
“Well, that is a bet I don’t think you should take, because the only outcome of mixing business with pleasure is getting fired,” Jonah said.
“What if I make it clear that there will be no pleasure?” God, he was totally losing his touch.
“As long as you’re using department funds to pay someone you’ve hooked up with, it’s a bad move.”
“Shit.” Jonah was right. Adam needed a new plan, and fast. He couldn’t walk in there with his New Year’s hookup on his arm, just like he couldn’t walk in there without some kind of plan to prove to Lowen that he had this thing handled. “I’m so screwed.”
“Just not in the right way, bro,” Dax said with a shit-eating grin. “All you have to do is find someone in town who knows how to plan a party who you haven’t slept with.”
“We going to play or stand around clucking like a bunch of girls?” McGuire yelled from third base.
“You ever see that movie Anaconda?” Adam hollered back, and McGuire zipped it. He had no qualms whatsoever referencing the python incident in front of a crowd to keep McGuire in line.
Adam rubbed some dirt on his hands and went back to the batter’s box. Finding someone he hadn’t slept with to plan the party shouldn’t be that hard. Especially with the current drought going on.
Then again, the budget was practically nonexistent, the schedule impossibly tight, and St. Helena was a small town.
The music stopped and the crowd stilled. Jonah returned to the mound while Adam and Dax returned to the batter’s box. Jonah chalked his hands, stared down Adam, wound up, and released the ball. Adam saw it speeding toward him—not toward the plate, but him. At an alarming rate. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t step back in time and the ball smacked him in the thigh, making a loud thud and no doubt leaving a mark.
“What the hell?” Adam asked.
“Whoops,” Jonah said, not pissy in the slightest for just costing his team the game.
“Whoops?” Adam threw the bat and stalked toward the mound, the tightening in his chest growing with every step. “No whoops. That was on purpose. You just threw the game.”
“Did I?” Jonah shrugged as McGuire made a big show of prancing over home plate and throwing his cap in the air as if this were the fucking World Series. “Guess you needed the win more than we did.”
Harper had once read that the best way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time. And since there were too many elephants in her life to address, she decided her first bite of the day would be a cookie. Which was how she found herself at the Sweet and Savory—instead of at the fire station.
A girl needed a hearty breakfast before tackling her problems. She also needed a cute dress, something she’d justified as she’d slipped on a little strapless summery number she’d kept at the back of her closet, just waiting for that perfect event to wear it to, like say, facing a certain funny, gorgeous, sex-lebrity.
Checking her makeup in the bakery’s window, she touched up her lipstick, Sensual Seduction, then practiced eye contact. It was bold and direct and—
“Oh God.” Everything inside her stilled. Everything except her heart, which pounded as she took a closer look at herself—surprised at what she found looking back. Scared even.
The dress was silky and flirty and spoke of a woman who knew what she wanted. More importantly, a woman who went after what she wanted—and got it. Which was why it had sat at the back of the closet for so long. Once she took it out and wore it for the world, she’d never be able to put it in the back again.