Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)(27)

Smooches meant for Clay.

Harper pushed back, surprised to discover just how many packs Adam had under his shirt. A twelve-pack for sure.

“What was that?” she demanded, wiping her hands across her lips, painfully aware they were tingling.

Dang misfiring tingles.

“Me, missing my girl,” Adam said, holding up a to-go bag of his own. He also held the paintbrush that had been holding her curls back, which meant her hair probably looked like an electrocuted Q-tip.

“Your girl?” she asked, a sinking feeling settling in her gut.

“According to Facebook you have some big status change you’re dying to announce.”

Harper felt her hands start to sweat. There was no way he could know she had a favor to ask. A favor she had been putting off asking because she didn’t know what she’d do if he said no. A favor that, if she asked in front of Clay, would make everything awkward.

She looked at Clay’s expression of shock and snorted. After that kiss, awkward would be a welcomed state. “It’s nothing, really.”

“Huh,” Adam said. “Aunt Luce has placed ten-to-one odds that it is a ring-required kind of status change. Which is why I thought I’d drop by and let you know I’m a size fifteen.” He wiggled a brow. “Special order.”

“You wish,” Harper mumbled.

“Ring required?” Clay said, not as horrified as Harper would have liked. In fact, he seemed excited to be chatting with Adam. “I didn’t know that you two—”

“We’re not,” Harper clarified, right as Adam said, “She had me at hello.”

Clay’s eyes bounced between the two of them like he was watching the final set at Wimbledon. Adam’s eyes? They were firmly affixed on Harper’s cleavage.

“One look at her Parisian peek-a-boos and, pow, it was like witnessing a goddess being born.”

“Parisian peek-a-boos?” Clay asked, his brows folded in on themselves.

“You peeked at my Parisian peek-a-boos,” Harper clarified.

Adam grinned, wicked and with purpose—and Harper’s knees wobbled. “I did a lot more than peek.”

“He’s kidding.” When Adam didn’t comment, only twisted one of her loose curls around his finger, she elbowed him in the ribs. “Tell him you’re kidding.”

“No can do, sunshine. Parisian peek-a-boos are powerful stuff,” he said, slinging his arm around Harper’s shoulder. “Plus, some girl was seen wearing my jacket and was nearly mobbed. I can’t imagine what would happen to anyone who spoke out against Hadam.”

Oh God. Harper’s stomach constricted—Adam had seen the post. Not wanting to get into it in front of Clay, Harper used her best teacher tone and said, “Cut the bologna. This is about the jacket, isn’t it?” Without giving Adam the chance to respond, she turned to Clay. “Can you give us a minute to straighten this out? I promise this is not what it seems.”

Clay looked at his watch. “Actually, I have to go. I just wanted to say thanks for babysitting. Enjoy the gift.” He handed her the bag. “Nice to see you, man.”

“He kind of walks like a girl,” Adam said as Clay headed down Main Street toward his car.

“He does not. And what was that? Payback for me interrupting you and Baby?”

He laughed. “No. That was nothing like me and Baby. What happened with me and Baby was a gigantic cock block. That”—Adam wiggled his fingers in an animated wave as Clay drove by—“was just me interrupting some friendly chitchat.”

“That was not friendly chitchat! You totally co—” She looked in the shop’s window at the kids, who were looking back, ears peeled. “Well, you know what you did.”

He grinned. “Maybe you should explain it to me.”

She grabbed a pencil out of her apron and resecured her hair into a messy bun at the back of her head, ignoring the flyaway curls. “Clay was about to ask me out and your kiss was to chase him off.”

“He wasn’t about to ask you out, sunshine,” Adam said in a gentle way that made Harper question herself. She hated questioning herself, even though she did it often when it came to the opposite sex.

“You don’t know that.” But somehow she got the really sick feeling that he did. That she was the one misreading the situation—again. Which was impossible. She was sending the right messages this time, and receiving them.

She opened the bag and wished she had the ability to make herself disappear.

Inside wasn’t a set of pastries and napkins for an impromptu sweets break. Inside was a gift card and a pencil drawing of a big stick figure with a paintbrush, holding hands with a smaller stick figure. They were both smiling, only the bigger one had a halo of curls that took up most of the page. At the bottom, in hard-won scribbles was a big #1 followed by the word SITTER.

“Maybe he’s just not ready to start dating,” she said quietly, reminding herself that his divorce had been finalized just last year, and twelve months wasn’t all that long to mourn the loss of a dream. So she’d be patient. Not that Clay would forget her and Adam locking lips on Main Street.

“Maybe,” Adam said, but he didn’t sound all that convinced.

“What do you mean maybe?”

“I know guys, and he’s not the guy for you.”