His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 183: Daydreams

** Eli **

Eli shook his head. He fetched a glass of water and placed it in Harper’s hand, making sure that her drunken fingers were still capable of wrapping steadily around it. "You’ll get a royal headache tomorrow if you stay like this," he sighed. "Drink some water and go to sleep. We can talk about cute little things that look like puppies some other time."

He was trying not to think in the direction of that puppy making process, which she just admitted that she liked. This wasn’t a good time to consider such a revelation too deeply.

Much to his misfortune, however, Harper wasn’t ready to change the subject yet. "Why? Do you not like them?" She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. "Well, babies can certainly be bothersome. And a handful to take care of. Not that I’m super excited about changing diapers all day, so I can understand the feeling. Besides ..."

She tilted her head, as if thinking hard about a very difficult dilemma. "Besides ... The idea of feeding them always feels a bit odd to me ... I guess I don’t really like the weird prospect of someone else sucking on my boobs? It’s good when you do it, but ..."

Eli: "..."

"..."

"......"

Note to self: if he ever thought that Harper was a wicked little devil when sober, then she was a heck of a big devil on steroids when drunk. Had this type of colorful thoughts always been on her mind? Was she simply too shy to say it out loud until she was high on the booze?

"I, um, haven’t really thought about that topic before." Eli ran a hand helplessly down his face. He was talking about the topic of kids, of course, not the topic of sucking boobs. And he was trying hard to stay on the course of the real discussion, because he could feel that Harper was somehow serious despite her drunkenness and her ignorance of the effect of her words.

"Oh of course, that makes complete sense." Harper sipped her water and nodded understandingly. "Not that I would’ve asked you about it in the first place, if not for people bringing it up at dinner ... Even I haven’t considered it seriously myself, except in some daydream scenarios."

"... Daydream scenarios?"

Harper giggled. "Yeah, I always thought it’d be nice to have at least two kids so they can grow up together. Like me and Tyler. It’s fun to have a playmate around at all times. And I want at least one boy, too. I bet a baby that looks like a miniature version of you would be crazy adorable!"

Eli blinked, not expecting to hear himself mentioned in that daydream of hers.

"But then again, kids are a handful." She went back to reiterating the earlier point. "So I wouldn’t mind spending a few years of two-person time before committing to that. Like coming to vacations in Hawaii! It’s not something you can easily do anymore once you have little ones. And there are so many other places in the world I want to see too. Provence, tulips in the Netherlands, cherry blossoms in Japan ... And you said Florence is your favorite city in the world, right? I’ve only been there once with my parents when I was really young, so we should totally go together and see it again someday."

Eli blinked again as she rambled on.

She had never told him any of this before. Not her well thought-out agenda for starting a family, not her plan for traveling the world, and certainly not the fact that she had somehow included him in all of the above. It wasn’t just any guy in a placeholder sort of way to fulfill her dreams, but him — the one who she imagined would make an adorable baby, the one who she knew liked the beautiful city of renaissance.

He wasn’t sure how to process that sudden overflow of information. It hadn’t even been a week since they decided to give this dating thing a try ... and she had already started imagining a future with him? Back when she said she was "interested"—

"Oh, and have I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind just doing that forever either?" Harper was reaching up to him as his thoughts wandered. The rest of her water sloshed in the glass when she wrapped her other hand around his, pulling him into the chair next to her. "The two-person time, I mean. If that’s what you’d rather prefer. I know you aren’t ready for the serious type of relationship yet ... and that’s ok, you don’t need to think about anything too far and scary in the future if you don’t want to. In the end, I like every moment I can get to spend with you, and that’s all that truly matters to me."

Eli continued to stare at her in a daze. Maybe it was a good thing that she was too drunk to notice the expression on his face now. That strange and unspeakable feeling he had earlier this week was back, the same feeling that melted his insides when she opened up her heart to him at the swimming pool. The same feeling that rendered him speechless in a sense of awe.

She wasn’t letting him in on a guilty secret right now because she was drunk. She was simply telling him a given truth, a thought so natural in her mind that it easily slipped free when she lowered her guard. In her eyes, he had already become an inseparable part of the rest of her life ... but she was careful to respect his own freedom too, even if what he wanted might not be the same. Because that was how much she cared about him.

His heart swelled from the realization, and he closed his fingers tight around hers. "I didn’t say that I—" He paused, carefully choosing the most appropriate words. "I like your daydreams, Harper. Tell me more about them ... and I want to be part of it all."