“Adam is very charming,” Harper said, busying herself with cleaning the brushes off in the water, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. “And what does my hair have to do with anything?”
Emerson sat forward, her eyes going serious. “Rodney Fletcher. Seventh grade. He asked to borrow your history notes, the next day you came to school with highlights, only they were more hydrogen-peroxide orange than platinum. Rodney didn’t notice because he had a thing for Laura Fuller, who needed a history tutor.”
“Laura Fuller,” Harper said, smiling. “Rodney ended up running into her after college and they got married. Talk about destiny.”
Emerson was not impressed by the information. “Curtis Kemp, senior year. He asked to sit next to you on the bus to Disneyland. You showed up with your ends burnt from the iron you used to straighten your hair. He did notice because he was gay.”
“I still can’t believe he played it off so well.”
“He didn’t. I knew, the school knew. His parents knew. Everyone knew.” Emerson wasn’t done. “Jessie Long. You went red, he went to Columbia the next week for college. Lance Miller liked Posh Spice so you cut your hair off, and he cut eighteen months off his sentence by returning the rats he stole to the lab.”
“They were doing animal testing on them and he was sensitive to the cause,” Harper defended. “And he’s an animal-rights lawyer now.”
Emerson rolled her eyes. “I don’t even want to know how you know that.”
“Because we’re friends,” Harper said. “Just because it didn’t work out how I dreamed doesn’t mean I don’t want them in my life.”
“You’re right. If you keep picking men who are looking for a bestie or a beard, then you won’t ever really lose them. It also means you never really had them,” Emerson said, and Harper felt her heart thump at the statement. “If you never open yourself up to more than friendship, then you’ll never have someone who is completely yours.”
Harper wanted to argue the point, because Emerson was making it sound like she did it on purpose. That she invested her heart into relationships she knew had no real potential of going anywhere, which wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.
Because there was nothing more that Harper wanted than to have a family of her own. A husband and kids and that safe haven that she saw others find so easily.
But facts were facts and if what Emerson was saying was false, then how did Harper manage to get over Clay, the guy she’d invested nearly a year of her life in, in a matter of days?
A question she didn’t want to ponder sober, much less after a few glasses of wine. Because the answer might break her heart. “Yes, Adam charmed me—he is sweet and fun and makes me feel sexy. But just because I don’t want him as my ex yet doesn’t mean I want to make him mine either.”
Shay placed a hand on Harper’s knee. “What if you did?”
“You guys are the ones who told he wasn’t looking to be collected.”
“That was before he invited you to dinner. At the station,” Emerson said. “Then brought you dessert.”
Harper closed her eyes on a sigh, partly thinking about that dessert, but mostly thinking about how they had three days left in their deal. “He only invited me because I cornered him into being my boyfriend. He had to make it look real,” she admitted, feeling ridiculous and terrified about the whole situation. Ridiculous that she had to corner a guy into agreeing to be her boyfriend, and terrified that she wanted it to be true.
Shay laughed. “I may not have lived here my whole life, but in the two years I’ve been around I’ve learned a lot about those Baudouin men. First, no one can corner them, unless they are looking to be caught.”
Another fact, but her lie had also put Adam in a professional corner. One that might have cost him the promotion. Harper knew he cared about her, the same way he cared about everyone in his life. His brothers, his crew, the town. Adam had a big heart, and he was offering her a small piece. But the whole thing?
“We’re just having fun while it lasts,” Harper said, closing up the lids on the paint jars.
“And what if it lasts longer?” Shay asked.
A scenario Harper was too scared to even hope for. Outside of her friends, no one in her life had ever lasted. Not her dad or her mom or her family on the sets. Clovis was the only real family member who had stood the test of time.
Then there were her friends. Always there, always loyal, always happy to fill up that place in her heart when she became lonely. Oh, Harper knew the secret to making friendships that lasted forever.