I wince. “She wasn’t really ever my girlfriend?—”
“Leo.” Harper’s exhale is frustrated, her hands as she tightens her ponytail jerky. “I don’t understand you. It’s giving me whiplash. We had that night together and it was great—and I know you thought it was great too because you said you couldn’t wait to see me again!”
“Harper,” I begin.
But she’s on a roll.
“Then you said what you said and did what you did”—she throws her hands up—“and I can’t fault you for that. We had an intense night, and I get things were said in the heat of the moment?—”
It wasn’t.
I mean, it was.
But it was the truth of what I was feeling.
It was just that reality crept back in, reminded me I can’t have it.
“Then you show up asking for me to cater an event for your girlfriend. Okay, not your girlfriend,” she adds when I start to protest. “But you do hire me to cook for the dinner party tonight and in the next heartbeat, you find out I’m pregnant and then you’re…” A sigh. “Once we both got past the shock of it all, you were good about it. No, you were great about it, and even more so when it came to the doctor’s appointment and finding out about the ginger candy and the food delivery.”
“Harp,” I murmur.
“But it’s hot and cold, Leo. And…hell, I can’t keep up.” She exhales sharply. “I don’t even know if I want to. We had one night and now it’s done.”
Every cell in my body wants to protest.
To take her in my arms and prove that’s not right.
Except…she’s still talking.
“But I want this baby. I know she wasn’t planned, know that it’s not the best time for me to even be pregnant, but the moment I saw that positive come up on the test I knew. And hearing her heartbeat…” She sighs, her eyes going glassy.
“I know,” I whisper. “And I know things are messy right now, but can we just…be friends?”
A flicker through those gorgeous hazel eyes. “You want to be friends with me?”
“Yeah, I do, Harp. You’re cool and funny and smart, and I’m an asshole who can’t be?—”
The man you need.
“—who can’t take back my idiocy. But”—terror ripples through me as I admit the truth that’s clung to my soul from the moment I saw those positive tests—“I want the baby too. I know it’s messy as fuck, but can we just call a truce and figure it out together?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, long enough for me to hear Smitty’s protests from inside the house, where Kailey must have corralled him while Harper and I talked.
“You don’t have to give me an answer tonight,” I say, even though I desperately want her to say yes.
Want her to say yes to more than just being friends.
Want her to say yes to forever.
But that’s…not to be.
I can give her friendship, can give her loyalty, can give everything except my heart.
So why is there a voice inside my head telling me she already has it?
“Okay,” she says.
My chest goes tight. “To taking some time to think about it?”
