“So you played the friend card, huh?” Dax asked, dropping his feet to the floor and coming to stand by the counter. He picked up the quarter and placed it by the back row of booths. Then he placed another by the other side of the stage.
Adam didn’t ask how he knew where the perfect spots were, since he was pretty sure it had something to do with a woman. Or a wedding. Or both.
“I didn’t friend-zone her.” Adam pulled out a stack of Post-it notes with carnival games written on them. “And even if I did, there is nothing wrong with being friends. Nothing.”
“Oh, it’s something, all right,” Dax said, laughing. “You have a sweet and pretty woman, who wants something casual I might add, and you put on the brakes so you can become friends first.”
Well, hell. When put like that, Adam was the one who needed to wear the Deputy Pussycat hat. “How much did she tell you?”
Dax shrugged. “Not much. She didn’t have to. Those walls are so thin, Emerson and I can hear Harper hold her breath when she watches those end of the world movies. So when you two started hollering in the store downstairs, it was like we were in the room with you. Emerson wanted to fillet you, but I made some popcorn and listened as you embarrassed yourself, then told her it was good news.”
“How is invading a private conversation good news?” Adam asked.
Dax shrugged. “Wanting to take it slow means you like her.”
“Everyone likes Harper. She smells like the beach and birthday cake.” She was also funny and genuine and one hell of a friend. He’d seen it in the way she treated others, and now that he’d been on the receiving end of that gift, he didn’t want to jinx it.
“Yeah, but you like her like her,” Dax said.
“How does any of that Harper told Emerson who told you BS equate to me liking her?”
Dax took the stack of Post-its out of Adam’s hands and, without asking, staggered them around the park, while Jonah stood there silently for a while. Tense. Assessing. Calling on every little trick of the trade he’d learned in that fancy detective school he’d attended.
It worked—sweat beaded on Adam’s forehead.
“Women have been chasing you since you were old enough to buy condoms,” Jonah began. “You always let them catch you. At least for a night or two. Then you somehow charm them into thinking that being friends was their idea.”
“‘No ties, no one cries,’” Adam repeated what had become his mantra over the years. Only, now when he said it, it felt odd. Like he was spouting off a lie.
“Yeah, I never really thought you believed that BS,” Jonah said. “Just like I don’t think you believe that all you want from Harper is friendship.”
“There is nothing wrong with being friends,” Adam argued, which only made his brothers smile bigger. The assholes. “We’re just having fun.”
Even saying it made him wince, because yes, Harper was different and with her he always had fun. But when he was around her he was different too. Lighter, happier, grounded.
Able to experience the rush of the jump without the impact of the landing that usually followed. But the landing would come if he wasn’t careful—with Adam and relationships it always did. This meant he needed to tread lightly, think before he jumped, because when he did jump, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be jumping alone.
Everything Harper did in life was in tandem, and he’d meant what he’d said last night. Life was too short to be ordinary. Which was why he lived balls-out, chasing the next high. This time though, if he had to deploy the chute, then he wanted to make sure that neither of them walked away burned.
Because with Harper, there wouldn’t be a reserve chute.
His brothers exchanged concerned looks. “Well, while you’re braiding each other’s hair or talking about favorite boy bands or whatever else girlfriends do while having fun, you might want to ask her advice on this map,” Dax said, picking up the Post-it for Dr. Harvey Peterson, the town’s podiatrist, and sticking it to Adam’s forehead. “I might not have been back for very long, but I know enough about this town to understand that stationing Handsy Harvey’s Complimentary Two-Minute Foot Massage station next to the Ladies’ Baptist Choir is an epically stupid decision.”
Adam had already met his quota of epically stupid decisions for this lifetime, plus he’d told himself he wasn’t going to kiss Harper today, which was why he was dead set on avoiding her. At least until he’d had twenty-four hours to clear his head—and get that image of her straddling him out of his mind. So when he received a text a few minutes later, asking him to pick up a shift, Adam decided that the map could wait.