by Lexi Ryan
“You know that’s not what I mean. Patsy texted and said you sent her home. What are you doing spending all your time here when your pretty actress ran away from her wedding and straight to you? Have you two even talked about what that means yet?”
Sighing, I put the clipboard down. I’ve stayed away from my house for three days. The first day, I went to the gym and went heavier and harder than I have since the season ended. Anything to get my mind off Emma. After a shower at the gym, Bailey met me at the bar to help me get Emma’s car to my place. After that, I cleaned up the storeroom at the bar, had lunch with Jazzy, Olivia, and Olivia’s mom, and pulled a couple of shifts working alongside Bailey. Yesterday, I spent a few hours at the park with Jazzy, had dinner with the guys who have already trickled in for Arrow’s wedding, and reorganized the files in the back office. Today has been more of the same, and I’m planning to work behind the bar tonight whether Bailey needs me here or not.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean I’m going to lose my mind if one of us doesn’t deal with their problems, and since I am currently unable to deal with mine, I would really like you to stop avoiding yours.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.” When did I become such an awful liar? “Things are complicated right now.” Not to mention all the unanswered questions I have. I’m forcing myself to be patient and to trust that she wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t where she needed to be.
“And where’s America’s favorite runaway bride today?”
“Don’t call her that.”
She grunts. “Sorry. Would you rather I call her Emily?” I give her a hard look, and she sighs. “Why is she so precious? Why do you need to take care of her, to protect her like she’s a child? She’s a grown damn woman. And she slept with you when she was engaged to someone else.”
“Yes, someone she didn’t marry.” There it is. The reason why I’m having trouble holding on to my anger. I needed Emma to run away from that wedding. My pride needed it and my heart needed it. That’s what she did, and I’m glad even if she would’ve been better off with him. I’m glad even if that makes me an asshole. I told her I wanted her to be happy more than I wanted her for myself, but the selfish part of me is glad she ran and glad she spent the last two nights under my roof.
“She was supposed to marry someone else. This doesn’t bother you? Maybe make you question her character?”
“There’s always more to a situation than it appears, Bail.”
“She ripped your heart out with her teeth, threw it on the ground, and pulverized it with her heels—”
“That’s descriptive.”
“—and now you’ve scraped it off the pavement and you’re handing it back to her and saying more, please.”
I close my eyes. Bailey is just trying to be a good friend. “Don’t paint me as the victim here, okay? I’m a big boy. I know what I’m doing.” I’m not sure that’s true, though. I don’t know what I’m doing with Emma right now. I don’t know what she wants from me or how long she plans to stay.
She studies me for a beat. “How did you two meet, anyway?”
I set my jaw and cut my eyes away. “I had a summer job in Laguna Beach.” I grab my clipboard and scan the list, trying to drop the subject and get back to work.
“And you just happened to hook up with a famous actress?”
I shrug but don’t look at her.
“You’ve told me about your father, remember?” she says softly. “I know all about him dragging you through cons when you were a kid.”
“That’s not something I want everyone knowing.” I glare at her. “I told you that for your own protection. He’ll come around here, try to get money from you and the bar…”
She props her hands on her hips. “You told me because you needed a friend. That’s what I am, Keegan. I’m your friend, and I’ve spent the last year watching you put yourself back together after Olivia rejected you. I hate to see you go through that again, especially if it’s all rooted in guilt around an old con that went bad.”
“I fell in love with her,” I say softly. God, it’s almost a relief to talk about it—to have a real friend I can confess my ugly deeds to without recrimination. “I thought it was just another job, but then I fell hard. She made me believe I could be as good as the man I was pretending to be. Better, even. I’m not going to let her break my heart again, but even if she did…” I shrug. I don’t know how to say it without sounding sappy. She made me a better man. That’s all there is to it.
Bailey nods solemnly then surprises me by wrapping her arms around me and hugging me. She’s at least a foot shorter than me and makes me feel like a giant, but mostly it feels awkward because Bailey isn’t often physically affectionate with me. “Don’t get hurt,” she whispers.
My phone rings, and she releases me as I pull it from my pocket. My dad’s name lights up the display. Fuck me. I turn the screen to show her. “See what happens when you speak of the devil?”
She laughs. “Have fun with that.”
I think about rejecting the call, but then dread crawls up my spine as I imagine Dad showing up on my doorstep and seeing Emma in my house. I swipe a finger across the screen to answer it. “Hey, Dad.”
“You’d never guess what I just saw on the TV.” He pauses a beat, but I don’t bother guessing. “That old friend of yours—Emma Whatchamacallit?—she canceled her wedding.” When he cackles, he sounds more like the Wicked Witch of the West than a seasoned conman. “Wonder what that’s about. Do you think it has anything to do with that actor? The stepdad? You know who I mean. Harry Evans?”
“I wouldn’t know, Dad.” At least I’m not lying about that, but the possibility of Harry having more to do with her canceled wedding than I did turns my stomach sour.
She came to you.
“Not too late to make some cash from that waste of a summer,” he says.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I don’t want Emma’s money, and I don’t want you bothering her. You know how I feel about this.”
He grunts and mumbles something that I suspect is pussy, but I don’t care enough to call him on it. “Whatever, I’m clean these days anyway. Living on the straight and narrow, trying to be a better man.”
Bullshit. “That’s great, Dad. Hey, you need anything else? I’m at the bar trying to wrap up a delivery.”
“Oh, then I’ll let you go. I need to get back to winning my money back from this crooked casino.”
“You’re still in Vegas?” I guess he had money for a room after all.
“For now. But put a beer aside for your dear old dad. I’m gonna come visit my grandbaby here real soon.”
“Don’t fly all the way to Blackhawk Valley,” I say, a little too quickly. “That’d be a waste when Jazzy and I are headed back to Florida on Monday.”
“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about me seeing her?”
No, it means I don’t want you to know that Emma’s here. “It means I might be willing to talk about it. If you really have gone straight, that is.”
“Of course I have. Have I ever lied to you?”
I bite my tongue so hard, I grimace.
“I’ll let you go,” he says. “Talk soon.”
I end the call and take a deep breath. Emma Rothschild ran from her wedding and is hiding out at my house, my dad’s up my ass and looking in Emma’s direction for easy money, and Bailey’s convinced I’m on the fast track to heartbreak. Can my life get any more interesting?
Despite Bailey’s objections, I stay for the nonexistent Tuesday night rush, opting for the easier path of work over facing my problems. When I pull into the garage, I’ve been going for eighteen hours, but my exhaustion is more from the effort to stay away from her than from what I’ve filled my day with. I dread going to bed because I know my mind won’t let me sleep.
Last night when I got home, she was asleep, and tonight it’s even later. The house is already dark except for a lamp she left on in the living room. I
head straight to the bathroom, where I plan to take a long, hot shower. I need hot water to wash off the grime from the day and hopefully some of the tension from my shoulders.
It’s just as I step into the bathroom and reach to turn on the light that I realize it’s not completely dark in here. Emma is in the tub, candles lit all around her, her head leaned back as she soaks in the bubbly water.
Before I can back out of the room, she turns and blinks at me as though she fell asleep in the tub. “Hi,” she whispers. “Do you need the bathroom? I can be out of your way in just a minute.” She looks around and then back to me, and I realize that’s my cue to leave, but I really don’t want to. Her cheeks are pink from the warm water, her hair wet and wrapped in a sloppy bun on top of her head. The outline of her body under the bubbles is just visible enough in the flickering candlelight that my cock aches in my jeans.
Turning quickly, I force myself out of the bathroom and pull the door shut behind me. I close my eyes and take one deep breath after another. Holy shit. I’ve been working so hard to stay away from her, because no matter what I think about her and her decision to run from her wedding, her decision to keep her marriage a secret from me, or her decision to leave me five years ago, I know she didn’t come here to fuck around. That’s not Emma. And hell, if she did, I’d be disappointed. I want more from her than sex.
I go to the kitchen and grab myself a beer. This is becoming a nightly habit, and Vegas aside, I don’t typically drink much. When she comes out of the bathroom, she’s dressed in the same flannel pants and T-shirt I gave her three nights ago. Of course she is. What else would she wear? She doesn’t have any clothes with her other than her wedding dress, and I’m the dickhead who was so caught up in his own internal drama that he didn’t even think to run to the store to buy her something to wear. God, I’m a fucking asshole.
She takes a seat on the couch and wraps her arms around her knees.
I want to pull her into my arms and hold her. I want to brush her hair back from her face and look into her eyes until she forgets about her senator. I can’t do any of that. “I’m sorry I was gone all day.”
She shakes her head. “You had to work. You have a life. I don’t expect you to cater to me.”
“I should have stopped by. I should have checked in on you.” I cut my eyes away from her.
“I understand if you want me to leave. You can’t keep avoiding your own house because I’m here.”
I set my jaw. It’s ridiculous, but I don’t want her to leave. I want her to stay. She came here because she needed something, and is it so far-fetched to think that something might be me?
I draw in a ragged breath. Maybe Bailey’s right and I’m setting myself up for heartache, but I can’t help it. “Tomorrow I’ll take you shopping for whatever you need. Then, if you want to get out of the house, maybe we can hang out at The End Zone for a while.” I flinch, realizing that the invitation might not be appealing if she only came here to hide. “It’s up to you, though.”
“No, I’d like that. I think it might do me some good.” She bites her bottom lip before giving me the closest thing to a smile I’ve seen since she arrived. “And I’d like to spend the time with you.”
* * *
Emma
Up before the sun seems to be Keegan’s habit. Since he promised to spend the day with me, I decide that means I don’t need to pretend I’m sleeping when I hear him in the kitchen on Wednesday morning. I climb out of bed and rush to the bathroom, wanting to brush my teeth and tame my bedhead before facing him.
When I feel presentable—or at least the best I can manage, considering the circumstances—I find him in the kitchen making a pot of coffee. I love seeing him so domestic, padding barefoot around the kitchen in jeans and a T-shirt that stretches across his shoulders. His hands seem to be too big for everything he touches. I’ve always loved watching his hands, and I swallow hard looking at them now. I thought I saw desire in his eyes when he walked in on me in the tub last night.
I haven’t cared about or tended to my body’s sexual needs in five years. I went on a few dates before Zach and I hatched our plans, but every time a man would try to touch me, the moment would be invaded by something dark and sick, and I’d push him away. I thought I was broken forever, but ever since my weekend with Keegan in Vegas, it’s like all that darkness has been washed away and replaced with snippets of memory, images of his hands and mouth, pieces to an incomplete puzzle that I desperately want to complete. Even if we never touch again, to have the memories from our night together, as foolish as all of that may have been, that would be something to cherish.
He smiles when he sees me. “Coffee?” He pours me a cup even as he asks, and I move into the kitchen with my arms wrapped around myself. “I found an old dress of Olivia’s. She left it here months ago.” He clears his throat and hands me a handful of folded black cotton from the other end of the counter.
I hold it up nervously, afraid his girlfriend was some tiny thing and it won’t fit me. But it’s a cotton sundress, and it looks like it might. I don’t want to think too much about why his baby’s mother has clothes in his closet. He said they were never a real couple, but if they weren’t together, wouldn’t her clothes be in the guest room and not his?
“Is it okay?” he asks.
I push away my worry and smile. “Do you think she’ll mind?”
He shrugs. “I honestly don’t think she remembers she owns it. Clothes are kind of disposable to Liv.” He sighs heavily, and I feel like there might be more he’s not saying. “I’ll buy you some new stuff when I’m at the store today.”
“I can buy them myself.” I hold the dress to my chest. “I’m going to go put this on.”
“Sure.”
I run to the bathroom and quickly pull off Keegan’s sleep pants and T-shirt. I washed them yesterday while he was gone, feeling more comfortable using his washing machine than I did digging into his drawers for another set of clothes, but I’ll feel better dressed in something a little less sloppy.
I pull the dress over my head and look in the mirror. It’s tight around the chest, but around the waist it’s looser than I expected. The baby doll look isn’t very flattering on me—and can even make me look like an expectant mother if I stand at the wrong angle—but it’ll do for this morning and a trip to the store to buy clothes of my own. I had Becky pack me a few things and ship them, and they should be here tomorrow, but I want to have something that doesn’t belong to Olivia to wear to the bar tonight.
When I step out of the bathroom, I feel self-conscious. Is he going to see me in this and compare me to her? I shouldn’t be jealous of her if they aren’t together, but I can’t help it. She’s the mother of his child. That’s a connection that’ll always be there.
Keegan’s sipping coffee and, in typical male fashion, doesn’t seem to even notice the dress. His eyes drop to my mouth and linger there for a long beat.
For a minute, I think he might feel it too—this constant pull that I’m always fighting when he’s close, that need to be as near to him as possible. But then he blinks, his smile returns, and any temptation I saw in his features disappears as if it was never there.
My heart races. I want him to kiss me, and I know it’s not fair, but I want him to forgive me for all the shit I’ve done to him that he doesn’t understand.
I didn’t grow up in a home where honesty was valued. I grew up in a home where you pick and choose what information you give to people, and you hide the unpleasant parts. While I was with Keegan, I thought I’d outgrown that and become a more mature woman than my mother. But the end of the summer proved me wrong.
“Do you still like omelets?” he asks. “I was about to make myself breakfast.”
I nod. “Sure. Do you want some help?”
He arches a brow. “This from the girl who burnt eggs the other day?”
“You knew about that?”
“I saw the charred remains in the trash can.”
I mak
e a face. “I was hoping to keep my continuing ineptitude in the kitchen a secret.”
He bites back a smile. “Come here, and I’ll show you what to do.”
I pad around to the other side of the island as Keegan pulls eggs from the fridge, bowls from the cabinets, and a cutting board and a couple of knives from the drawers.
He pulls fixings from the fridge and says, “Pick your poison.”
“I like spinach, bell peppers, and feta cheese,” I say, pointing at the items.
“Easy enough,” he says. He slides a bowl across the counter to rest in front of me. “First, let’s crack the eggs.”
“That, I can do.” I crack an egg on the side of the bowl and use both hands to open it. I wrinkle my nose when I see I lost a piece of shell. “Dang it.”
“Here,” he says. He steps behind me and wraps his arms around me to put one hand on each of mine. “Take the shell,” he says, guiding it into the bowl, “and use it to scoop out the bit that dropped in with the egg. It comes out easier that way than trying to fish it out with your fingers.”
He guides my hand into the bowl and scoops out the shell. I close my eyes at the feel of his hard body behind me. His heat, the breadth of him, his strength. My body buzzes with his nearness, but he must not feel it like I do, because he stays where he is and moves on to the next egg, showing me how to crack it harder—but not too hard—against the side of the bowl to get a cleaner break.
When we’ve broken eight eggs, he finally steps away to wash his hands in the sink. I follow after him, and after I dry my hands, he gives me a whisk.
“Got it?” he asks.
I nod, whisking the eggs in the bowl like I’ve seen him do before. I like parts of cooking I can’t screw up. There’s nothing to burn with a whisk and no danger of over-whipping the eggs. While I work, he washes a bunch of spinach and a green pepper and sets them on the cutting board.
