Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)(79)

Adam smiled. “Harper knows how much this job means. She would be behind it all the way.”

Roman lifted a brow. “But how much does she mean to you?”

A question that should have been a breeze to answer. A question that a few weeks ago wouldn’t have sent his mind racing and his heart thumping. Harper was so many things to him: a lover, a confidant, an unwavering support, and, most importantly, a friend.

Adam found himself smiling at that last one. Harper would punch him if she heard him say that, but he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, that was her most amazing quality. That and her smile.

“She’s special.” And after this talk he was going to find her and buy her that chocolate-dipped banana, then hold her hand and walk around the festival. Maybe even try to win her a teddy bear. Nah, a bunny, she’d like that better.

“The thing about special people is that if you make them wait around, you risk missing out on everything that’s special,” Roman said, all cryptic.

“You go to the Golden Noodle and clean them out of fortune cookies again?”

“All I’m saying is that six months is a long time.”

“It’s six months. I’ve been gone for longer during bad fire years,” Adam said, wondering what was going on. Roman was acting like Adam being gone would be a problem. “Unless you think it will affect my position here.”

“No. The opposite.” Roman opened his mouth to say more, then wiped a hand across his brow and sighed.

Something was up. That was for sure. Roman was blunt by nature, always said it like it was and didn’t waste time on making it frilly. It was why he was such a good captain. But right then, Roman was acting like he was navigating a minefield, and Adam didn’t want anything to detonate.

“The only person who hates BS as much as I do is you,” Adam said. “So what’s going on?”

Roman nodded, a sliver of respect in his eyes. “I need to know before you go all-in and I take this to Lowen that you and Harper have talked and agreed that this is what you want.”

“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 f*cking 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.”