Chapter 18
Eighteen
Leo
I turn at the shrill question.
Right.
This has been more than enough.
I don’t give a fuck if it is Shannon’s birthday.
This needs to end, and it needs to end now.
“Look,” I begin. “I didn’t want to do this tonight, but it’s clear we’re not working out.”
Only…
It’s like I’m talking to a brick wall.
She doesn’t hear a word of what I’ve said, just plunks her hands on her hips and paces away a couple of feet, ranting, “I’ve ignored the fact that you’ve been mooning over another woman all night like a love-sick puppy.”
Harper’s eyes come to mine, something in the golden-green depths that has my pulse pounding through my veins.
Fuck.
If Shannon, who’s living in her own reality (the star of that reality being one person, and one person only—Shannon) had noticed, who else had?
Fuck.
“But this—” Shannon exhales sharply and I look up as she spins toward me, paces back.
“The birthday party was already almost too much. I let it slide because you’re good in bed and you’re clearly a nice guy, so I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.
But I don't do serious. I don’t do domesticity.
And I definitely don’t do parenthood. I made that clear the first night—”
She had.
It’s why we worked…kind of.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s why she was safe when Harper is so fucking dangerous.
But I can’t run from what’s between us anymore.
We’re having a baby, and I can’t—can’t—fuck that up.
“Shannon,” I say. “We should just—”
“And, honestly? I don't care how good you are in bed, I'm not cut out to be a mom—not today, not tomorrow, not ever. So just…lose my number, yeah?” She marches away then stops, turns back again, eyes narrowing. “Oh, and I’m keeping the purse.”
Then she’s sweeping out of the back yard, pausing only to take the coat Luna wordlessly holds out.
Silence falls.
For as long as Smitty can keep it, that is. “Um, did I hear that part right?”
“Connor,” Kylie says in a soothing voice. “Let’s give them a moment.”
“You knew didn’t you, little bird?” he accuses softly.
“Honey—”
He sighs, his gaze flicking to Luna’s. “You too?”
She holds his stare, challenge in every line of her body. “Not my story to share.”
A scowl…and then it’s my turn to withstand the wrath of the big, burly defenseman’s glare.
“We’re figuring it out,” I tell him.
“By fucking another woman?” he asks coldly.
I flinch, though truthfully it’s been weeks since Shannon and I—
“We’re figuring it out by ourselves,” I counter. “So go away.”
“That’s fucking rude,” he mutters, but there’s humor in his eyes as he says it.
And for the record, he doesn’t move.
Christ.
Nosy, pushy, matchmaking pains in the asses.
Ignoring the throb in my temple that’s returned with a vengeance, I turn back to Harper and settle my hand on her arm. “Are you feeling better?”
“Shouldn’t you go after her?”
“After who—Shannon?”
I don’t bother to keep the disgust out of my tone and something crosses Harper’s face that I can’t read.
A flicker of hurt?
That doesn’t make sense. Why would she care about Shannon, especially after Shannon had been such a bitch to her?
Then again, it’s not the best move to be talking about another woman with my…
My what?
I can’t form the words, can’t allow them to so much as float through my mind.
It’s not the best move to be discussing another woman with my baby mama.
There.
That’ll have to do.
“I’m not going after Shannon,” I say softly. “I was going to break up with her, have been wanting do it for a while now, but I didn’t want to do it on her birthday.”
Harper frowns. “Then why not before?”
“What?”
“If you’ve been wanting to break up with her, why didn’t you do it before the party tonight?”
Shit.
I tilt my head toward the house. “We should go inside.”
“Leo,” she presses. “Why didn’t you do it before?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I mutter.
“I think it does.”
“It doesn’t. Clearly, it was a mistake. Tonight was a disaster. She was a disaster.” I shove my hand through my hair. “Frankly, it was embarrassing, how she behaved. It would have been better if I had canceled everything the moment I knew things wouldn’t work out, even if—”
Fuck.
I clamp my teeth together so tightly pain shoots through my jaw.
“Even if what?”
Christ, she’s not going to let this go.
And I can’t even blame her.
It’s time I start leveling with Harper. “Even if I know business has been tough and you needed the money,” I admit.
Her eyes flash with hurt. “You mean you hired me out of pity.”
Fuck. “No, I—”
“And worse, you hired me out of pity to cater a birthday party for your girlfriend.”
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?”
“No,” she murmurs. “To being friends.”