Teaching Harper (Tempting Mr. Bedford #2)

Seven

POV: SIMON

Harper was gone from the room when I woke up to my alarm.

I couldn't explain the feeling of regret and longing that came over me when I realized the side of the bed she'd slept in was empty. Surely, this was a good thing. It let us both avoid the awkwardness of the morning after and allowed me to do what I did— shower, get dressed, and leave the house as soon as I could.

Yes, I'm a coward. But I only needed to get away for a while so I could self-reflect on my actions the night before and decide what to do. What to say to her. How we can move on from there.

My bicycle was in storage. I was going to be living in San Francisco for two years as a visiting professor, so I had to have a good many things of mine transported by a moving company. After taking it out of the storage facility, I mounted my bicycle carrier on the car and strapped the bike in. It was early, so I got breakfast at a coffee shop near the park.

Unsurprisingly, I was ravenous. Three breakfast muffins weren't enough, and it took a plate of bacon and eggs and some French toast before I could satisfy my hunger. I also needed a second mug of coffee to perk me up as I didn't get a full night's sleep last night.

"Simon!" said a vaguely familiar female voice.

I looked up from my coffee to see Chloe walking up to my table, a bright sunny smile on her face. She was dressed in a lime-green hooded sweatshirt and black leggings and carried a cycling helmet under one arm.

"Oh, good morning," I said, smiling. "Fancy running into you here."

She dropped into the seat across the table from me without asking and set her helmet on the table. "I come here for coffee before I go biking." She raised an eyebrow at the remnants of my rather large meal. "I see you had the same idea."

"Yes, luckily their coffee is decent." I looked behind her. "Is your boyfriend meeting us here?"

"Well, no." She smiled sheepishly. "I don't actually have a boyfriend."

I frowned. "You don't?"

She shook her head, grinning. "That's just something I say so customers don't hit on me at work."

"Ah, I see." It was deplorable how men inflict their unwanted attention on women at work to the extent that women have to pretend to be already in relationships. I would have preferred it if Chloe did have a boyfriend as I didn't want her to think I had any romantic interest in her, but since I invited her nonexistent boyfriend, I'm sure she understood that this wasn't a date. "I completely understand."

"You're not mad?"

"Not at all. Will you be having breakfast?"

"Yeah, let me just go grab something."

She returned a few minutes later with a coffee and a plate of French toast. "I don't usually eat this much before biking," she said, "but I got jealous of your French toast."

"Do you live close by? Or near Kinghorne?"

"I live upstairs from the bar," she said. "So yeah that's near the university campus. I didn't go to college, though."

"Not your thing?"

She shrugged as she cut into her French toast. "It might be, I don't know. But I didn't want to get into so much debt for something I might not even need. I'm hoping to run my own business someday."

"What kind of business?"

"Beer." She grinned, popping a piece of toast into her mouth. "IPOs. I make the beer we serve at Trank."