This thing with Adam, she feared, had already gone past friendship. Past being charmed, past a simple crush, and into something much deeper. She’d seen it happen to her friends, more times than she could count, seen the moment when they fell in love, and, even better, had that love reciprocated. But it had never happened to her.
She knew she was capable of great love, she just wasn’t sure the reciprocated part would ever happen.
“I don’t think he’s looking past next week.”
“Have you asked him?”
A knock sounded at the door, and Harper plastered a smile on her face. “Mark Antony’s here to get his queen.”
“I can tell him to come back,” Shay said. “Emerson’s right—this is girls’ night.”
“And this is romantic.” Harper pointed to the door. “He rushed to come and get his woman, and you want to let him doubt that your urgency equals his?” Harper shook her head, then stood to walk to the door. The spring in her step was much lighter than her heart.
Harper looked through the peephole and—sweet holy mother—her entire body sprang to life at the sight of the best backside in wine country.
“Is it Mark Antony?”
“Right gladiator body,” Harper said. “Wrong hero.”
Because facing her apartment door, leaning a shoulder against the wall, was everyone’s favorite firefighter—who was supposed to be on duty. But he wasn’t wearing the standard-issue SHFD uniform. Nope, he wore a fitted gray T-shirt that clung to his body, proving that the back would be as impressive as his front, and a pair of battered jeans that hung way too low on his hips to be decent. But it was what he held in his hand that had her heart pounding.
She looked over her shoulder at Shay and whispered, “What’s the other thing about Baudouin men? That says they want to be caught?”
Shay smiled, big and knowing. “That when there’s dessert involved, they’ve started casting their bait.”
Harper swallowed at the implications, her heart picking up at the possibility.
“And this here is double-chocolate-chunk bait.”
Harper jumped at the sound of Adam’s voice. It came through the wood door, but sounded as if he were right there—on her side.
She peeked through the hole.
“Crap.” He was facing Emerson’s door now with a big, badass smile on his face, waving the proverbial carrot—a double-chocolate-chunk proverbial carrot, which now that she put it like that almost seemed healthy.
“They’re homemade,” he said. And when she didn’t open the door he lifted it to his mouth and took a bite. A big bite. “My stepmom’s recipe. A real keeper.”
Harper reached for the doorknob, but Emerson beat her to it and yanked open the door.
“Wait, you bake?” Emerson asked, face wide with shock.
He smiled. At Harper. “I can cook too.”
“How is that possible? If it isn’t on a grill, Dax burns it.”
Adam shrugged, then took another bite of the cookie. The big jerk. “You picked a cop. They think it’s all about the size of the gun. Real men, like firefighters, don’t have props to rely on, so we have to be the real deal.”
“Real men fight fires?” Emerson asked.
He winked at her and she rolled her eyes and went back to the couch, but not before snagging a cookie from the bag, which she sniffed and licked before tasting. And if her dreamy eyes meant anything, then those cookies were the real deal.
And Harper was beginning to think Adam was too.
“Why aren’t you at work?” she asked.
“One of the guys needed some overtime, so I gave him my hours,” Adam said. “I told Roman I wanted to help you get ready for tomorrow. You know, loading up the cars, lifting heavy objects, lending a hand with the face painting.” He looked down at Harper and grinned. “Anything you need.”
Her friends’ brows perked up in question at Adam’s offer, and Harper’s nipples did some perking of their own.
Adam looked at Shay’s face mask. “I see you already got started.”
“I’m Cleopatra,” Shay said, turning her face side to side, modeling it.
“I know. Mark Antony was at the station helping me organize the tents for tomorrow when you drunk-texted him.”
“I’m not drunk,” Shay slurred.
Adam looked at the three empty bottles and lifted a brow.
“Okay, maybe I’m a little tipsy.”
“Which is why Jonah is on his way.” He shifted those blue pools to Harper. “And I came here to make sure you got home safely.”
“I’m still on my first glass and I live across the hall.” She pointed at the door two feet behind him to prove it.