Need You for Mine(91)

“Oh,” Adam said, then laughed. Because, shit, Roman had him confused. But now he got it. More often than not, when a guy with strings was offered a promotion that required relocation, they’d always check first with their other half. Who would undoubtedly take issue with their spouse leaving for so long. Since Adam had neither strings nor a spouse, he had no problem saying, “I’m good. I mean, Harper is sweet and special and we’ve been having a fun time, but it’s not like that.”

By that Adam meant that while Harper might have been his other half while planning the event, had even been the perfect pretend girlfriend in a really hot affair, they weren’t officially at the check-in stage. In fact, come Monday they wouldn’t be official anythings. Except partners in a sexy game of pretend.

Roman didn’t need to know all the details, those were between Adam and Harper, but he needed to understand that his job came first. So even though Roman’s eyes were darting over Adam’s shoulder, clearly telling him they had company—probably Lowen—Adam added, “What’s real is this opportunity and the chance to become a better firefighter. A better leader for this department. Harper and I, she’s great, but it’s not that serious.”

A weird heaviness pressed down on Adam’s chest the second he said the words. Taking in a deep breath, he tried to ease the tension, but it was as if there was a misfire between his brain and his body. It was too connected to his heart—which was telling him that this was more serious than he was allowing himself to admit.

Roman stared at him for a long moment, his expression uncharacteristically closed. “I heard different.”

“You heard wrong.” There went another misfire. This one bigger, stronger, impossible to ignore.

“Actually, he probably heard the rumor that I bought a pregnancy test,” a very familiar female voice said from behind.

Adam wasn’t sure what caused his lungs to freeze up more—the fact that Harper was standing directly behind him or that’d she said pregnancy test. He closed his eyes, playing over exactly what he’d said, praying she hadn’t overheard, then slowly turned around.

Yup, she’d overheard all right. Enough to have that permanent smile of hers so dimmed he could barely make it out. The hurt in her eyes, that was as clear as fucking day. The second she looked up at him, bam, the hurt and disappointment swimming there knocked the wind right out from under him.

“Harper,” he said, then trailed off. Because what the hell could he say to come back from that?

Adam had been here before, in this very situation, and he knew the aftermath of speaking first and thinking too late. There was no coming back. Just ask the best candidate to come out of the Cal Fire academy, who Adam managed to take out with a few simple, thoughtless words. They were spoken from inexperience, naiveté, and an ego that was too big to question. But it wasn’t until Trent died that Adam realized he’d said them out of fear.

“Man, rumors travel as fast as secrets in this town,” Harper said with a self-conscious shrug. She stood there in that pretty dress that had been calling out to him all day, holding on to two frozen bananas and enough hurt to make him a thousand kinds of bastard. There were other things there in her eyes, things he didn’t want to acknowledge. “It’s just a rumor.”

“So you didn’t buy a pregnancy test at the pharmacy?” Roman asked skeptically, as if his checkout-counter intel was solid. The problem was, in St. Helena it usually was.

“I bought three.”

Shit. Adam felt everything bottom out. He was free-falling—out of control, with no parachute, and too many strings wrapped around him to breathe.

“No need to panic, they weren’t for me. They were for, uh, a friend,” she said, maintaining eye contact. One of the things he’d seen on her cute little Allure List. Only right now she didn’t look cute. She looked crushed, and he was the cause.

“How much did you hear?” Adam asked.

“Enough.”

Right. He already knew that. The look of utter humiliation on her face said she’d heard everything she needed to.

But instead of crying or ripping him a new one, like any other woman would have done, she plastered a sweet smile on her face that made everything he’d said, every bonehead decision he’d made, that much more real. And painful. Because even when Harper received a direct shot to the chest, she still managed to look after everyone around her.

“Enough to know that whatever position you give Adam he will rise to,” she said to Roman. “He’s a great firefighter and an even better guy. He deserves this.”