Kimi and Harvey had shared coffee and conversation now almost every day for a year. Kimi would be lying if she said she wasn't smitten with the man and that accent. 

        Every word he said was made only that much more interesting by his accent. It didn't hurt that he was possibly the sexiest piece of chocolate she'd ever seen. She liked her men dark, and the hue of her son's skin could attest to that. 

        To her, there was nothing more beautiful than a black man; especially with deep, rich, dark skin looking as if it had been kissed by the sun itself. 

        Kimi's sisters wanted to have children with mixed or white men because they wanted their babies not to have kinky hair, but Kimi wasn't with that. She loved her son and his nappy hair and wouldn't love him any more or less if his father had been white, Asian, or Latin. 

        Her sisters made fun of the dark brothers, but they infatuated Kimi. Her brothers made fun of the dark sisters, but Kimi wanted to look like them. 

        She wasn't going around spreading hate and death to the white man, but she was just fine with dating a man of color. She had nothing against interracial relationships and wouldn't mind being in one if she felt a partner of another race could understand her. Could take the time to see into her mind and not stereotype her. 

        She hated the stereotyping of black men as deadbeat fathers. Yes, her son's father was a deadbeat, sorry excuse of sperm, but he wasn't representing every black man. From what she could see, Harvey adored his children and was a father in every sense of the word. She found that sexy. 

        When he talked about his children, there was a sort of pride in his face and he lit up like there was nothing better in this world, and she loved to see a man so involved in his children's life. 

        He had convinced her to pursue higher education, so she was taking classes at the community college. She went to the high school to use their media center when she had a paper to type, though. She preferred that over the college's overcrowded media center. 

        Harvey liked that Kimi wasn't a trifling mother, though young and single. She did what she had to do for her baby, working to keep him fed and the bills paid. 

        He noticed how often she brought her homework to the shop when she'd been in high school, and still sometimes in college, and he sometimes helped her with her math. She seemed to have a good head on her shoulders and listened attentively when he spoke. 

        He knew she had missed her graduation by two credits and decided to make them up in the school year as opposed to the summer. Over the summer, she worked her days and spent her evenings with her son. She wasn't giving up on her diploma. However, she needed that time with her baby. 

        Harvey looked at Kimi every single day, thinking to himself that she was just gorgeous; her voice, her smile andher laugh. When Harvey was having an off day, she spoke life into him as if he was her man. She told him about how great of a man he was and how much better he would be. His own wife would tell him how much she didn't care. 

        As of right now, he was telling her about a vacation his family had taken. She noticed he didn't talk about his wife much and wondered if the omissions were purposeful or if his wife just wasn’t around. 

        When he stopped talking, he looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, when do you have time just to yourself?"

        "When I take my showers; and when I come here," she told him with a crooked half smile.

        He frowned a little bit. She wasn't used to that. She was used to being told it was her fault. She had decided to lay down and get a baby, so this was what she deserved. No one ever had sympathy for her plight as a single mother.

        Most men ran the other way upon hearing that she was a single mother. Not that she was looking to date right now. It was just a frustrating feeling, feeling as if she should be quarantined. She understood that she had consented to the sex that landed her a teenage mother. However, she hadn't asked for the responsibility to be on her shoulders alone. Ethan was always going to have everything he needed except for his father.

        "That's really it?" Harvey asked sympathetically.

        "That's really it."

        He said nothing for a minute, watching her. Kimi sipped her coffee slowly, indulgently. It was Friday. No library.

        He just marveled at her everyday beauty. She had the sort of face that didn't need the glamming up. He wanted to see what she would look like in the morning.

        He wanted to take her to the salon and spa and drape her in jewels and put her in a ball gown and see how beautiful she was then. He wanted to put designer glasses on her face and a pantsuit on her with high heels on her feet and tie her hair up in a chignon and see how sexy she was then.

        Before his fantasies could run too rampant, he blinked and looked down at his phone, a text from his daughter telling him her mother was tripping. When wasn't she? He didn't reply to the text. He would just have to call Blaire and talk her down from whatever hysteria she was in now.

        "You are very pretty, Kimi," he told her. She blushed.

        "Thank you."

        "Why do you blush when I say that?"

        "No one quite as good looking as you has ever told me that," she admitted. Harvey smiled.

        They shared simple flirtations all the time. Things that could be said were innocent and simply playful, but so many times Harvey looked at this woman and thought she was beautiful. He couldn't just keep that to himself anymore. 

        It was like he had known her for ten years instead of two. The level of comfort was so high. He reached over and took her hand, and she didn't move it, looking up into his eyes.

        "Is that to say you find me attractive?" he wondered.

        She just looked at him for a long time, her lips slightly parted. Attractive? She hadn't been able to get him off her mind since she met him. Her fantasies only grew in intensity. 

        "I find you very attractive," she admitted, taking her hand back slowly. "I understand that you have a wife and children," she told him softly.

        He didn't say anything. He had never cheated on Blaire before. He had never really wanted to although he had nearly done so a couple times. He just felt like she was giving him sex on demand, and he wasn't really the type who'd been looking for love, so he made due with her. He was a one woman man. That and the fact that cheating on her was enough to get him killed this time for real.

        He was willing to take that chance with Kimi. He just had to slip past her defenses. He had to be her friend first.

        He took a drink of his own coffee, looking down at her small hands. Hands that he desperately wanted to hold although he wasn't a hand-holding man. He'd never even held his daughter's hand; never willinglyheld his wife's.

        Kimi never wanted to be involved with a man who was already with someone else. She wanted to be her man's number one priority. She wanted to not have to compete for number one. With such wants, a woman had to have a man to herself; and if he was already taken, he was never hers.

        "Say you had a day to yourself; what would you do?" he asked out of curiosity.

        "Are you kidding? I'd take a nice, long, hot bubble bath, listen to some slow jams and read," she told him. "I'd probably get my nails done and have a good solid eight hours of sleep. I can't remember the last time I had a solid eight," she told him.

        Harvey just nodded and watched her. She seemed so smart, but what she had told him about being satisfied to simply graduate high school was sticking with him. He wanted her to see just how far she could get if she stayed in college. She sometimes hinted at wanting to drop courses although she was halfway to her degree. 

        "So why didn't you want to do anything after high school?"

        She shrugged. "I've just been in school so long. I don't really have the quality time I want to spend with my son. I only get Sundays with him and I want to have more than just Sundays. Working and being a student and being a single mom... It takes its toll."

        "If you continue going to school, you can work less," he told her, trying to be optimistic about it.

        "Then who's going to pay for that, grants? Are they going to also pay my bills? Lately,I've been calling out a lot."

        "I'll pay your tuition, Kimi, if you wanted to continue to go to school."

        She looked at him for a moment. He had been so sincere when he said that. It did something to her, moved her inside. She couldn't accept that from him, but just the fact that he had offered.

        "Um, I should get going," she decided. She always decided to leave before her mind concocted some formula of a way that they could be. 

        She wondered oftentimes if he knew what he was doing. If he knew just how hard he was making her fall for him.

        He caught her by the wrist. "Kimi, wait," he told her. He really hadn't meant to scare the girl off!

        "What?" she wondered, looking up at him.

        "Do you want another job? I mean, with a better pay and less hours, so you can spend that time with your baby?"

        "You mean at your company?" she wondered. That was sounding good, but it wasn't a good idea.

        "That's what I mean," he told her.

        "Can I think about it?" she asked, knowing the answer was already a firm no.

        "Yeah. See you Monday?"

        "Sure."

        Kimi left, unsure that working at Harvey's company would be a good idea. It actually already seemed like quite a horrible idea. She was attracted to him, and he was married. That was never good. What would she do, spending her day with him?

        As she walked to the high school to use the library computers to finish her English paper, she could not take her mind off Harvey. There was just something about him. He was so smooth and sweet.

        She asked herself why she was denying herself the opportunity to make more and work less, and she decided to go back into the coffee shop, skipping her English assignment for the day.

        When Harvey saw her come back in, he was happy. She came and sat down. "What sort of position?"

        "Administrative assistant."

        "A secretary, I can do that," she told him, nodding. "How much?"

        "Twelve dollars an hour," he responded.

        That was four and a half dollars more than the minimum wage she was making. Twelve dollars an hour was a good deal.

        "When can I start?"

        "Whenever you're ready to start," he told her. "You can start Monday if you want to."

        "I have school Monday morning. But I can do it after school?"

        "Yes," he told her. She nodded.

        "Thank you," she told him with gratitude.

        "You're welcome. I can take you by the office today and show you around."

        "Yea, that'd be cool."

        He led her to his car and took her the few blocks to his office. She looked up at the tall building as he led her through the glass doors. The receptionist greeted the two with a smile. He led her to the cafeteria, and she was amazed to see all the different robots and toys around. These were grownups, at their job, having fun.

        She saw a popcorn machine, a slushy maker, cotton candy machine... "Your children must love bring your child to work day," she told him.

        "We do that every Saturday here. It's a very loose environment. So the next time someone tells you something about computer geeks, you just bring them here," he told her with a smile before leading her to his office. "My last secretary quit to be a stay at home mom. Her husband is a doctor. This would be your desk here, and I usually keep my office door open. I mean, if you want, I have another desk in my office, but Luanne liked being out here, mostly because shewas nosy. That choice will be up to you. Whenever you're ready to work, you've got a position."

        "Thank you, again, Harvey. Honestly."

        "It's no problem."

        "I should get to school." That paper and the need to get away from Harvey were collectively nagging at her.

        "I can take you."

        Harvey drove her to school and she got there two minutes before classes started, making her way to the library and signing in before going to find a working desktop. The whole time, she was just thinking about her new position. She had to remind herself, He's a married man. 

        As she sat there typing, she couldn't take her mind off that man. 

        She would tell herself to stop going to the coffee shop. He already told her he waited for her every day. Why was she giving fuel to the fire? 

        She told herself then not to sit with him, but he came to her with that smile and a coffee and she couldn't resist it. 

        Thirty minutes later, there were four words in Kimi's paper, and two of them were her name. One was October, and one was “This.” 

        She got up and stretched, walking around the library. How does one clear her mind of married men? 

        The crush wouldn't be so bad if she didn't have a chance and she knew she had a chance to be with Harvey if she wanted to take that chance. That’s what was making it so hard. Her crush wanted her back but her crush had a wife.

        "Get it together, Kimi," she thought aloud. 

        She went back to the desktop and cleared her mind. Her typing speed was fifty-five words a minute and with that type of accomplishment, one would have expected her to finish her paper before the final bell, but she had just saved her paper by that time. It should never be so hard to complete a thousand word essay; especially with her research in front of her and the paper so well thought out, but when a girl had South African men on the brain... 

        "I like Harvey." 

        Saying it aloud helped her accept it. She liked Harvey.