Getting Off Easy

by Erin Nicholas

  “Of course we pressed him,” Joseph said.

  “Pressed him about me?”

  “Well, about what it was that had changed,” the older man said. “But it became clear quickly that it was you.”

  “What do you mean what had changed?”

  “A few months back he stopped flirting—” Joseph looked at Neveah and shook his head with a chuckle. “Well, he never stops flirting. He can’t help it entirely, you know. But he stopped taking women home, stopped so much of the partying. He still came in and played. He’ll never stop doing that. But he changed. And when we asked him about it, he talked about you.”

  Harper took all of that in. James had told her he hadn’t been with anyone since he’d met her. She’d believed him. Kind of. She wasn’t sure she’d believed that he’d totally stopped flirting and going out and everything. That was… something.

  “Wow.”

  Neveah covered Harper’s hand and gave her a sincere smile. “James Reynaud has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know.”

  Harper nodded. “Me too.” She paused, more words on the tip of her tongue. But she wasn’t sure she should say them. Still, these people seemed to really care about him. Honestly, she had yet to meet someone who knew James who didn’t really care about him. It seemed wherever he went he made deep, loyal friendships and connections. “It surprises me a little that he came to me for help so many times,” she finally said.

  “What do you mean?” Joseph asked, leaning his elbow on the table.

  “Well, with the olive tree and Am—Fred,” Harper said. “And there’s a lizard and…” She glanced at James again. He was talking to another member of the band, but as if he felt her eyes on him, he glanced over and gave her a quick smile. “There’s a baby,” she told Joseph and Neveah. She wasn’t sure she should be spilling that, but Isaac was a fact, and these people clearly knew James and cared about him. “The baby’s mother just left him on James’s doorstep. Literally. He doesn’t even know who she is.”

  Joseph’s eyes didn’t even go wide. He just thought about all that for a moment. Then he said, “He takes care of people. He always has. His mother was like that.”

  “You knew his mother?”

  “Of course. His father played in here,” Joseph said. “I sat on a stool playing trombone next to his piano every weekend for almost forty years.”

  “You’re a friend of his parents,” Harper said. “Wow.”

  Joseph smiled. “I am. Wonderful people. It almost killed his father to leave the city, but he had to take Katherine out.”

  “But you said she took care of people,” Harper said. “I’m surprised she’d want to leave after Katrina when so many people needed help.”

  “They stayed to clean up,” Joseph said, his eyes sad. “But that’s what almost killed her. Her soul, you know? Because she took care. She loved so much. She empathized so easily. It was just almost too much. She wanted to stay. Part of her did. But her husband saw what it was doing to her. In the end, it was his idea to go. And we all encouraged it. It was like her light was slowly going out. We couldn’t stand that.”

  Harper swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No one was truly the same after Katrina,” Joseph said. “Whether you stayed or went. If you stayed, you wondered why. You faced the fact that the city was different, a little broken. If you left, you felt guilty. There is no winning.”

  Harper nodded.

  “Anyway,” Joseph said, “James is just like his mama. He takes care of people. And things. He fights fires and adopts dogs. And babies.” Joseph shrugged. “I don’t think anyone who knows him would be surprised to find him with an abandoned baby.”

  “I’m flattered that he keeps coming to me for help, then,” Harper decided. “I’ve never… been like that. The person that people come to for things.” She frowned as she realized that. “I’m capable, of course. I can figure almost anything out. I just am not the person that someone would think of handling something huge like that. At least, not as a surprise.” She realized most of the people who really knew her would probably describe her as smart and adept, but probably not all that flexible.

  Joseph nodded, studying her. “You sure that he’s coming to you for help?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe he’s coming to help you.”

  “To help me with what?”

  “Laughing. Loving. Having a dog. And a baby.”

  Harper felt herself nodding. “Yeah, maybe,” she said softly.

  Maybe James had been taking care of her all along, bringing all those things into her life because he thought she needed it. Just then the first notes from the stage hit her, she turned in that direction. Or, more specifically, toward the piano.

  It was just James, with a bit of bass and a little cymbal behind him.

  And holy crap. He was good. Already.

  Sure, she was biased. But the entire bar quieted, and the music filled the room. It was a slow, jazzy piece that mesmerized her. She couldn’t take her eyes off him and the way his fingers moved over the keys. Confidently, easy, with no music in front of him, just his eyes on the ivories.

  Yes, she wanted to be that person. The person who people knew, just knew without much thought or contemplation, just felt could be counted on. Someone who they could come to with the things that needed taking care of, that they couldn’t handle themselves, but needed to be done. A man who needed to know things would be taken care of as his health was fading had thought of James. A little boy panicked about a home for a lizard had thought of James. All the men who worked with him and knew him, who trusted him to have their backs in life and death situations, had thought of him when a dog needed someone. And a woman, who had spent only a few hours with him, and hadn’t been getting to know him all that well, probably, had still sensed he was the kind of guy she could trust her child with.

  Harper wanted to be that person, too. Someone who others could depend on when things seemed desperate.

  And because of James, she was seeing she could be.

  He’d helped her realize that.

  She felt a tear on her cheek and quickly dashed it away. She couldn’t believe all this had happened in the course of a few months. And honestly, without the last few days with the baby, she wasn’t sure this all would have come to light so quickly or clearly.

  Just then the music shifted, the trombone and trumpet came in, and the tempo picked up. James’s fingers flew over the keys faster, with skill and confidence, and his face lit up as the band hit their stride, and the light and the temperature and the very air in the building seemed to be turned up a notch.

  It was very familiar, actually. From the first time she’d opened her door to James Reynaud, everything around her had seemed liked it had been turned up a notch.

  9

  He played for almost an hour.

  James kept looking over to where Harper was sitting to gauge when it was time to call it a night. But she was into it. She was watching them constantly, her fingers tapping on the table along with the beat, smiling, seemingly absorbing it all. Her smile would grow when she saw him looking at her, and at one point she’d fanned her face and winked.

  He loved it.

  He’d wanted her to love all of this. He’d wanted her to enjoy the club and the music. It was a huge part of him, and it would have felt strange if she didn’t like it. But he hadn’t been sure. She didn’t go out. She liked to be at home. Alone, as far as he could tell.

  He knew he’d been challenging her and her usual routines and habits over the past few months. But she’d risen to every challenge and surprised him at every turn.

  And every time she did, he fell a little deeper for her.

  Earlier, hearing her say she loved him and would marry him had been the biggest thrill of his life. He’d had no idea how that would feel. He’d had no idea how it would all play out at all. But having her say it to him in the middle of the club where he poured his heart out into the music so oft
en, where he’d grown up watching his father do the same, had meant everything to him. He didn’t know if Harper realized that or if it had truly just been a spontaneous moment that had felt right—which he also loved, considering spontaneous was not a word he’d use to describe Harper Broussard—but it had been perfect.

  Finally, he called it a wrap. As much as he loved playing, he wanted to be with her. Marcus was working tonight, so James needed to go and ask him about how to get ahold of Caroline from the W state, and then he needed to get Harper home.

  He made his way to the table where she was nursing her second glass of wine.

  “You read—”

  Before he even got the words out, she was on her feet and had grabbed his hand. She pulled him through the crowd and around the tables. Toward the back office.

  “You know where you’re goin’, Professor?” he asked.

  “Neveah filled me in,” she told him over her shoulder. “She said there’s a bow tie to hang on the doorknob.”

  James chuckled. “I didn’t know about the bow tie.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.” She pulled him down the short, dark back hallway to the closed door at the end near the back exit. She turned to face him as she twisted the knob and stepped back into the room. “Neveah said she’d run interference for us.”

  He’d never brought a woman back here. He knew a few of the guys had hookups in the club, but he hadn’t asked for details. He followed her into the room that was lit only by a small lamp on the corner of a messy desk. There was a dusty file cabinet in one corner, a coat rack with a blazer jacket that could have easily been there since the forties, and a brown leather sofa that had also, clearly, been there longer than James had been alive.

  “You sure this is your kind of place, Professor?” James asked, settling his hands on her hips. “’Cuz I’m happy to take you home to not just one big, comfy bed, but two. Hell, we’ve got two couches and two kitchen tables to choose from, too.”

  She ran her hands up to link them behind his neck. “This office has been used for decades as a rendezvous spot,” Harper told him. “I love the idea of being a part of this club’s history.”

  “Well, that’s as much arguing as I’m going to do on the subject,” he said. He fucking loved that she was the one who had pulled him down the hallway. He reached over and turned the lock on the door. “How are your panties?”

  Harper’s voice was husky when she answered. “Wet.”

  Lust swept through him. “So you like jazz piano?”

  “I like you,” she said. “I like watching you in your element like that. I like being surrounded by people who get you and think you’re amazing. I like realizing that you had no reason to be interested in me but that something brought you across that landing to knock on my door.”

  He wasn’t sure exactly what the right thing to say was, so he just went with his gut. “Take them off, Professor.”

  She immediately reached under her skirt and pulled her panties down and off. She moved as if to toss them away, but he snagged them. She watched, eyes round, as he lifted them to his nose and breathed in. They were, indeed, wet, and they smelled like heaven. Like her.

  “Unzip me.”

  He was vaguely aware of the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket, but there was nothing that was going to make him stop this.

  Her cheeks were pink and she was breathing hard. This woman made him weak in the knees. Her fingers went to his fly, and she unbuttoned and unzipped him, spreading his jeans open.

  “I’ve never given a jazz musician a blow job.”

  Definitely weak in the knees. James clenched his fists. He was going to fucking stay on his feet. Even if it killed him.

  “Harp—”

  She went to her knees, pulled his boxers down, and slid her tongue up and down his length.

  James braced his legs and worked on breathing. He squeezed his eyes shut but then quickly popped them open to focus on the sight of Harper Broussard taking him into her mouth.

  He groaned. “Professor.”

  She looked up at him from under her lashes. And took him deeper.

  He swallowed hard. He was going to die.

  She sucked and licked for several minutes, and James tangled his fingers in her hair, absorbing every second. But finally it was too much.

  “On your feet, Harper,” he growled, his gut, balls, everything, tight.

  Licking her lips like a damned siren, she got to her feet.

  “Come here.” He pulled her in, his hand at the back of her head, plundering her mouth with his tongue.

  She kissed him back, enthusiastically. He turned her and backed her up against the door. He ran his hand up under her skirt, relishing the silky, hot skin of the back of her thigh, the lower curve of her ass, then the sweet, wet heat between her legs. She moaned as he slid a finger deep and ran his thumb over her clit.

  She gripped his arms. “Please, James.”

  He should tease her, play a little, make her beg. But he couldn’t take one more second not being balls deep. He rolled a condom on and lifted her against the door then bent his knees and thrust.

  They moaned together, and he started moving immediately. He thrust again and again, taking them both higher and higher. He felt her clamp down around him just seconds before he roared her name as he came hard.

  Panting, he leaned into her, resting his head against the door over her shoulder.

  Slowly he became aware of her hands and knees gripping him. He pulled back and looked down her. She gave a big sigh and smiled up at him. He squeezed her ass, then let her legs swing to the floor as he stepped back and dealt with the condom.

  They both worked to straighten their clothes then moved in to kiss again. As their lips touched, James’s phone dinged with a new text message.

  He pulled his phone out, kissing her, glancing down to swipe the screen to open the message, then kissing her again. He lifted the phone and peered at it. Then he frowned.

  “Everything okay?” Harper asked.

  “It’s Lexi. She has the DNA test back. She wants to meet us at the apartment.”

  Harper frowned, too. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  No, it didn’t. James punched the button to dial Lexi’s number. “Lex, what’s going on?” he asked the second she answered.

  “I was called into work tonight and just checked my mailbox, so I didn’t realize I had the results here,” she said.

  “That’s okay. What do they say?”

  “Let’s just meet at your apartment, and I’ll tell you both everything,” Lexi said. “I assume you’re with Harper.”

  “I am.” James looked at the woman whose hair was a mess and whose lips and cheeks were pink. She looked well fucked. And happy. Why did his gut tell him that the happy look was going to be temporary.

  “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes,” Lexi said.

  “Just tell me now.”

  “There’s… quite a bit to tell you,” Lexi said. “It really will be easier in person.”

  James blew out a breath. “This doesn’t sound good.”

  “I know,” Lexi agreed. “I’m sorry.”

  Well, shit, that really didn’t sound good. Feeling like he had a cement block in his gut, he said, “Fine. See you soon.”

  It took him a second to meet Harper’s gaze.

  “What’s going on?” she asked quietly, obviously sensing something big was happening.

  “I’m not sure exactly. Lexi got the DNA results back and wants to talk to us. She said it would be easier to explain everything in person.”

  Harper frowned. “Oh.”

  Yeah, oh.

  “I haven’t asked Marcus about Caroline,” he said. He knew Harper would put the pieces together and realize Caroline was the girl from the W state. The final contender for Isaac’s mom.

  Harper nodded. “I guess we could ask him quickly if he’s got her contact information.”

  James nodded.

  “Or we could come back.�
� Harper frowned. “I’m worried. I just want to get home to Isaac right now.”

  James blew out a breath. “Me too.” Then he held out his hand.

  Harper hesitated for just a second. But that second was long enough to make the ball in his gut tighten further. They both sensed something was wrong, and they knew it was going to change everything. Was Isaac sick? Did he have a genetic condition that was going to cause a disability or long-term problems or even be terminal? James felt cold suddenly. None of that had occurred to him. It had all seemed so easy to this point, actually. The baby had shown up, James had headed over to get Harper, she’d jumped in to help, they’d fallen in love with Isaac and each other, and they’d planned a future. It had all seemed to be falling into place. Yes, not knowing and needing to find the mother had seemed liked a complication, but he’d fully expected to offer her whatever she wanted to have her turn over all of her parental rights and for him and Harper and Isaac to ride off into the proverbial sunset together.

  A moment later, Harper took his hand. Her pause had really only been for heartbeat or two, but it had felt like a year in some ways.

  They stepped out of the office and turned down the hallway, heading out of the club without speaking. James pulled his phone out and called up his Uber app. There was a car available a couple of blocks over. They weren’t far from the apartment, but a car would get them there faster than walking, and while a part of him wanted to put off whatever Lexi was going to tell them, suddenly James needed to know what was going on. It was a burning in his gut.

  He reserved the car and started up the side street. Harper didn’t ask a single question. Not even when he stopped by the car and opened the door for her. They didn’t talk on the drive back to the apartment or as they climbed the steps.

  But he paused outside his door.

  “You okay?” he asked Harper.

  “No.”

  He nodded.

  “You?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She also nodded.

  Finally, he inserted his key and opened the door. He knew Lexi wasn’t here just yet, since he hadn’t seen her car downstairs, but if she was coming from the hospital, she wasn’t far. She might have gone home to get Caleb, though. If this was really bad news, she might want James’s friend there to help break it.