Need You for Mine(41)
“So many have come before, most only getting a few nibbles, but my granddaughter reeled in the Moby Dick of men.” Clovis took a moment to let that settle, then fanned herself. “Although if you want Moby rearing out of the water you might want to consider new sheets. That’s not the kind of kitty he wants to snuggle up with, if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, she knew exactly what Clovis meant. An official Panty Raid had been thrown on her Grumpy Cat sheets.
If this was anything close to what Adam had been experiencing the past week, then she needed to put an end to it. Immediately. Then let him off the hook. She might need him for the shoot, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice his promotion to get a photo.
“Look,” Harper said in her best inside voice, then remembered that Clovis only had one volume. And it was “Can I get a witness?” She took the ladies by the arm and led them to a quieter part of the store. “Adam and I aren’t dating.”
“Labels are so passé,” Clovis said. “I told Giles that we didn’t need to DTR in order to get DND.”
“DTR?”
“Define the relationship,” Peggy said. “And DND means to get down and—”
“Got it.” Harper held up a hand and tried not to picture her grandma and Giles getting DND.
“Harper, order up,” Lexi said from the counter where she was dangling Harper’s box of courage.
“We aren’t DNDing or LH6ing or sexting or any of the other terms you might come up with.” Although they had been KISSing. “Adam and I are just friends. F R N D S.”
“Say what you want,” her grandmother said, “but I know women, and I know lingerie. No woman wears Luscious lace cheekinis for a friend. Especially when that friend ranks a solid fifteen on the man-candy meter.”
Harper didn’t bother to ask how her grandmother knew her lingerie of choice—the woman had a God-given gift. But she also had a mouth the size of the Grand Canyon, so Harper needed to make herself clear. “We. Are. Not. Dating.”
“But Facebook—”
“I lied. Okay?”
Clovis tsked. It was a sound that always managed to make Harper’s throat fill with guilt, even if she hadn’t just confessed to lying.
“Oh, honey, you’re a horrible liar. You always look like you’re going to cry when you fib.” Clovis patted her on the arm, and if she weren’t Harper’s grandmother, Harper would say it was condescending in nature. “Kind of like now. But a word to the wise, even if Facebook is saying you had him at hello”—Clovis looked at Harper for so long she felt her ears heat—“if you want to have him screaming Oh, you might want to be more forthcoming with your cookies.”
There wasn’t much Adam couldn’t handle. From jumping out of planes to charging headfirst into some gnarly situations, he tackled problems balls-out and head-on. The bigger the risk, the bigger the rush, and the greater the thrill.
So then why did he feel as if he was about to pass out just looking at a book of party themes?
“How about this one?” Seth said, pointing to the page with black tablecloths, poker table paraphernalia, and fuzzy dice table decor.
“It’s a family-friendly picnic, not a bachelor party,” Adam said, wondering how, out of everyone he knew, he’d managed to get stuck with the FNG as his party planner.
Right, because the universe was bitch-slapping him for his past indiscretions. So when Seth mentioned he’d planned all the poker nights for his fraternity, Adam drafted him as the decorations committee. A decision he should have made before they’d ordered their second round of beer.
“If this is a picnic, then can’t we just buy some hotdogs, paper plates, and chips? I mean, everyone likes hotdogs and chips.”
“The handbook says we have to have games and craft tables and an overall theme. I don’t think tailgate eats counts as a theme.” Adam flipped to the next page, which had everything one would need to throw a clambake engagement party. And slammed it shut. “I’m screwed.”
He had less than an hour before his meeting with Lowen, was thirty minutes from town, and outside of securing a caterer, who wasn’t talking to him, he had accomplished jack shit on his massive to-do list.
“Maybe we should just go back to St. Helena and ask the cute girl at the party store to help us plan it,” Seth suggested, and Adam was tempted to give in.
Megan had approached him this morning, explained how Harper had cleared everything up, and said that she would be happy to help with Beat the Heat. Only, Adam had politely declined, then lied, telling her he had it all under control. Because (a) she wasn’t all that forthcoming on what everything meant, (b) Megan looked exactly like what Jonah had said—a bad decision—and (c) Adam was tired of making bad decisions.