Page 60 of The Complication with the Best Man

Everyone else in the class laughs, including Harper.

“Congratulations,” Ellen says, then moves on with the class, explaining what we’ll be doing first.

I lean down to speak into Harper’s ear, and her floral scent hits me again, making my dick twitch. “I hope that’s okay. Seemed easier than explaining to everyone what the situation is between us.”

She turns her head to look at me when she responds, and our lips brush. She blinks and covers her mouth, stepping back. “Sorry. Yeah, that’s fine. No biggie.” Then she turns and gives her full attention to Ellen.

We do a pretty good job of putting together the appetizer and the main dish, and while the pork tenderloin cooks in the oven, we move on to making a chocolate mousse for dessert. We’ve got our chocolate, butter, cream, sugar, and eggs ready to go in front of us.

“Okay, it says to beat the sugar and egg whites together until they’re foamy.”

Harper looks at me. “Do you know how to separate the egg whites from the yolk?”

I cringe and shake my head. “No, but I can give it a try.” Ellen demonstrated for us before she sent us off to work on our own.

Harper slides the glass bowl in front of me. I pick an egg from the carton, crack it on the side of the bowl, and try to do what Ellen did, moving the yolk from one half of the shell to the other, allowing the egg white to fall into the bowl. It’s going okay until the third pass when it slips off the edge of the eggshell and falls into the bowl.

“Shit.”

Harper giggles.

I arch an eyebrow. “You think it’s easy? Why don’t you give it a try?”

She doesn’t back down from the challenge, shrugging. “All right.”

She bumps me with her hip, and I slide to the side so she can stand in front of the bowl. That’s one of the things I hope our child inherits from their mother—her backbone and the way she seems to go at everything straight on.

Harper cracks the egg, but she doesn’t even get the chance to separate the yolk from the white because she cracks it too hard and the entire egg slides into the bowl.

“Shoot.” She frowns at it.

“Hey, guys, how’s it going?” Ellen looks at our bowl and cringes. Yeah, we’re not killing it at this cooking thing.

“Neither of us can crack an egg and separate it,” I say.

“Not to worry, that’s why they invented these.” She holds out something that looks like a large metal spoon with slim gaps along the outer edge. “It’s a yolk separator. Toss those eggs in the trash, and I’ll show you how it works.”

Harper dumps the eggs in the bowl into the garbage, then slides it in front of Ellen. She shows us how to use the separator, and the egg whites slide nicely into the bottom of the bowl, leaving the yolk resting on the large spoon.

“Oh, that’s so much easier,” Harper says. “Making us do it the hard way, I see, Ellen.”

Ellen hands a kitchen tool to me. “I just like to get everyone to try to do it themselves because not everyone has one of those.” She winks, then walks over to next couple to check on them.

“This should be easy now,” Harper says with a smile.

We work through the recipe, not having any more trouble now that we’ve handled the egg white situation.

We work well as a team, one of us naturally stepping in to handle a step in the recipe while the other one plays the role of assistant, then we switch without even discussing it. I’m hopeful it’s a sign of things to come when we coparent together.

“Can I ask you something?” I ask as Harper folds together the cream and egg yolks.

She glances at me quickly before returning her attention to the bowl. “Sure, what’s up?”

“You seemed to have a reaction to being at a school when you thought maybe I’d signed us up for a class or something. As if you thought I’d planned for us to prep for the ACT test.”

The corners of her lips tighten. “It’s a sore spot for me. I was never good at school. I got by, but it was always a struggle.” She shrugs. “My dad was a teacher, and my mom was a principal, so I always felt like it should come easier to me, you know?”

The impression I’ve always gotten from Harper is that her parents are supportive, though I’ve yet to meet them. “Did they make you feel that way?”

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