Trent was as hotheaded and gung ho as Adam, but Adam should have used more caution. He shouldn’t have said they had this fire locked down when he was in no position to make such a claim, and he shouldn’t have spoken up without thinking through the consequences. The regret cut deep.
A warm hand slid into his and Harper gave him a little squeeze. “That’s okay, you can buy me a chocolate-dipped banana at the festival. Tonight, I’m helping Emerson with the food for tomorrow, which means I get to stuff my face with really yummy food that I didn’t have to cook. Then Shay is stopping by to help organize the decorations and help me brush up on my face-painting techniques.”
“Which means they get to drink wine while you bust out the Halloween paints?”
“Pretty much.”
Adam smiled. “Have I told you thank you for saving my ass?”
“Several times,” she said. “But you can tell me again, Saturday at the fair. When you let me paint your face.”
“Like unicorns and bunnies on my cheek?”
“Or a super manly mask. Like Robocop or the Black Flame. Anything but a zombie or skeleton, which the older boys ask for. Last year a group of them snuck into the girls’ dance team tent and scared them so bad that they couldn’t perform. So as the newbie running the face-painting booth, I was asked to come up with new ideas this year,” she said. “If the older boys see you going superhero and not villain, they might do it too.”
“First off Robocop is a cop, and that’s lame. Black Flame? A super villain. And a girl.” Harper gave a little shrug as if she knew that and was teasing him. “How do I know you’re not just saying you’ll paint something super manly, then paint a bunny on my cheek? Because I’ve only ever seen bunnies at these things.”
“Because I’ve never done the face-painting booth. But now that I am, there’s going to be some new manly designs to choose from. In fact, if you wanted, I could paint your face so that you’d look like Hephaestus, because I’m that good.”
“The god of fire?” he asked, impressed he remembered. “What, did you go to face-painting school at the National Academy of Arts?”
“Better.”
He looked down and found their hands swinging. The Five-Alarm Casanova was standing in the park, with his girlfriend, swinging hands—and liking it.
Wasn’t that unexpected?
“I got my training in body painting”—Harper leaned in, good and close, until he could feel her dress brush his thighs, her lips skate over the ridge of his ear—“from a legend in the field. And, yes, bunnies were my specialty, but not the fuzzy kind that hop on all fours. I painted on the bodies of Hugh Hefner’s Bunnies.”
Adam swallowed. “You worked at the Playboy Mansion?”
“How do you think I know so much about lingerie?”
With a final squeeze to his hand that said she was dead serious, Harper took her booth number off the table and walked toward the Fashion Flower, proving with that practiced sway that she was all about the unexpected.
That night Harper and Shay sat in Emerson’s apartment, picking out face-painting masks while testing a nice selection of the following day’s menu items. They had an even better selection of wine.
“How about I make you a fairy?” Harper asked, dipping her brush into the aqua glitter paint.
“Do you want dessert?” Emerson asked, snatching the tray of her famous baklava right before Harper could grab a piece. “Because if I see one fairy option then you will never get another one of these again. And never is a long-ass time.”
Harper raised a paintbrush in surrender. “No fairies, got it.”
Emerson’s six-year-old sister, Violet, had, up until recently, believed that fairies were real, that she was a fairy, and, therefore, would only answer to Pixie Girl. It had taken Emerson two years to get Violet out of her wings and into normal clothes, so Harper could see how it was still a sore subject.
Harper looked back to her paints, the emerald green and gold glitter catching her eye. “How about an Egyptian princess?”
Shay thought about that for a moment, while taking a long sip of wine. Her eyes went wide. “I want to be an Egyptian queen,” Shay clarified, her expression turning mischievous. “Cleopatra. She had cats, and Jonah would make a handsome Mark Antony.” She leaned back in the chair and sighed. “I can just see him feeding me grapes in one of those loincloths. Maybe I should text him to make sure we have grapes.”
Shay picked up her phone and started swiping, while Harper went about picking out the colors.
Shay’s phone pinged. “Jonah says he’s stopping by the store on his way to get me, so Cleopatra it is!” Her phone buzzed again. Three times. “He’s leaving right now. Oh, he says he’s using the sirens.” Shay looked up. “We’d better hurry.”
“Seriously?” Emerson set the tray on the coffee table and plopped onto the couch. “This is supposed to be girls’ night. Something both of you made clear. So against my better judgment, I agreed, and even hosted it so I could kick you out if it got all emotional.”