Matt had given us a total of forty-three minutes to settle in before he sweet-talked us into taking him out to swim. At first, I’d argued that he would likely swim at the barbecue Emmett’s father and stepmother were hosting this evening—the same party that had me, once again, questioning why I had come to Dallas—but Matt had looked up at me with big, hopeful green eyes, said “Please, Mom. Emmett’s gotta go somewhere and you’re the only one who can take me,” and I was putty in his tiny hands. I told him he could swim for a little while.
A little while had turned into an hour, and he showed zero signs of wearing out as he stepped onto the diving board and flashed me a toothless grin.
“Remember what I said earlier about Outlaw Country adopting me?” Lyra sighed from the lounge chair beside mine.
“No back flips, kiddo,” I yelled and waited for him to execute a perfect cannonball before I turned to look at my best friend. “Yeah, I remember. What about it?”
“Do you think he’d consider it?” When I snorted and rolled my eyes up toward the sky, she slid her aviators down until they were resting on the tip of her nose. “Don’t roll those pretty blue eyes at me, McKinsey Brock, because I think it’s completely feasible.”
A faint smile played at my lips as I rested my head against the orange lounge cushion. I seemed to recall Lyra saying just about the same thing about Mrs. H years ago when she came to my high school graduation. When I pointed it out to her, she lifted her bare shoulders until they grazed her hoop earrings.
“I can’t help it that the Hudson family A) has good taste in homes and B) are incredibly hospitable.” She flipped over onto her stomach, rested her chin in her hands, and looked me square in the eye. “I dare you to disagree.”
“Wasn’t going to,” I said. In spite of the elegant Mediterranean exterior of Emmett’s home, the inside was earthy and inviting, plush furniture that I wasn’t terrified to sit on and vibrant, warm terra-cotta color scheme. It was five bedrooms and six bathrooms of open space—the biggest house I’d ever been inside in my entire life—but I had felt right at home as Emmett showed me around.
He had put me in a guest room on the left side of the house, and when I made a teasing remark that I guaranteed his bedroom was the next door down, he pulled me close to him again and moved his head slowly from side to side.
“No, Angel. My bedrooms all the way on the other side of the house, right along with Matt’s and Lyra’s.”
“Behaving?” I’d laughed, and he shook his head again. Then he’d lowered his mouth a little closer to mine.
“Preparing for what’s to come,” was his answer before he brushed his lips over my own, tugging my lower lip between his teeth. It hadn’t been a kiss—it was much too short to be called that—but when he left, I stood in the middle of my bedroom for a long while with a speeding pulse and an inability to breathe just right.
Yeah, the Hudson family was hospitable, all right.
“You okay there, Angel?” My best friend’s voice held a note of laughter as it dragged me from my thoughts. Her lips quivered, and I could tell she was holding back a knowing grin.
Skimming my fingers through my dark, wavy locks, I looked away when I answered, “Fine. What’s up?”
“While you were daydreaming about sex in a cowboy hat, I was saying that I’ve decided I don’t really want him to adopt me. I’ll just invite myself to visit all the time once you two—”
I groaned and shot an icy glare in her direction. “Don’t say it.”
Adjusting the straps of her black monokini, she gave me a look that made her look like the love child of the Cheshire Cat and the Grinch. “Emmett Hudson is in love with you. I swear he looked like he wanted to throw you over his shoulder and take you with him when he left to run over to his Dad’s a little while ago.”
“He did not,” I argued. Still, I felt a sharp twist in my stomach when I remembered the way my heart had clenched at the look he’d given me just before ducking out the front door. Yeah, there was something there—something I felt, too—but I’d been burned too many times to call that something the L-word and suggest to Emmett that we live happily ever after.
I didn’t even know if that was possible for us anymore.
“Watch this, Mom!” Matt’s shouting drew my attention toward the pool as he approached the diving board again; he wiggled his dark eyebrows at me when our eyes met. “Emmett showed me how to do this!”
“We’re looking,” I yelled back and Lyra rolled over to her back again to witness his newest stunt. Puffing his cheeks out in an exaggerated breath hold, he launched himself off the board and reached back to grab both feet before he made impact with the water, causing an epic splash. A few cold droplets landed on my bare legs, and I wiped them away with my hands.
“My boy is fearless,” Lyra said proudly under her breath. When he broke the surface, she put her hands together and clapped dramatically for him. “Ten out of ten!”
“What’s it called?” I asked.
“Flying squirrel.” He grabbed his oversized, reclining float as it passed by, climbing on it while he explained, “Emmett says we’ll try it on bigger boards when I get a little better at swimming.”
“You’ll be on the Olympic swim team in no time.” Lyra’s praise earned a massive grin and a full flush from my son. “Then I’ll brag to everyone I know that I had your autograph way before them and they’ll all be lime green with envy.”
He grabbed his juice box out of the float’s cup-holder and made a face when he realized he’d already finished it. “I’ll swim after I play for the Braves, though.”
“That’s my boy.” Lyra nodded appreciatively. “And I’ll have box seats to all your games and you can introduce me to Adam.”
“Oooo-kay, Aunt Lyra.” He giggled then rolled off the side of the float into the pool where he started doggy-paddling toward the shallow end.
She turned to me with one black eyebrow raised. “The kid totally thinks he has me.” At my forced, clueless expression, she blew an exasperated breath through her nose. “You remember that guy I dated before I left for the Australia tour, right?”
Oh, I remembered him. Lyra had dated some doozies over the years—hell, we both had—but Mr. Show-Tunes was one of the more interesting ones. He was completely harmless but over-the-top strange.
“How can I forget?” I bit the inside of my bottom lip, stifling my grin. “Not many boyfriends sing Broadway Top 40 while they’re on top of you.”
“Yep, that’s Shawn.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and I imagined that every memory from their four-week romance streamed through her brain in a ten-second montage. Opening her eyes, she cringed. “What you don’t know is that when he wasn’t rasping lyrics into my ear—which ruined several shows I actually liked and multiple orgasms I would have liked to have had—he had a very normal obsession with baseball. I totally know Adam doesn’t play for the Braves, just like I know my precious godson will try to trick me into making a bet with him. He’s like a super cute Rumpelstilskin.”
“So how do you plan to handle that one?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Pretend like I still don’t know what team the guy plays for.”
“So you’re going to knowingly lose a bet to the kid?” I laughed. “Sounds like he still has you, Ly.”
“What can I say? I can’t resist a set of green eyes. Kind of like my best friend, which of course leads me back to you.”
“Jesus, Lyra.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose between my fingertips and sighed. “Do we have to do this? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“When he gets back from whatever he had to take care of and you all go to his family’s party, pay attention, okay? The way he looks at you—” She shivered, even curling her black-painted toes to drive her point home. “If Ronan looked at me like that, I’d probably still be in that hotel room with him. And you better not judge me for admitting that.”
“Lyra, he—” But then I replayed her exact words in my head and narrowed my blue eyes into thin slits. “Wait, what?”
She innocently widened her gray-eyed gaze. “Wait, what, what?”
“What do you mean by ‘when you all go to his family’s party’? Aren’t you going too?”
Fluffing her short cap of black hair, she guiltily averted her gaze to Matt, who was digging around in the stainless steel refrigerator in the outdoor kitchen. “Remember I mentioned that my cousin Val lives in Fort Worth, right?”
I remembered. She’d brought it up just last night when Emmett had asked me to come to Dallas. What she hadn’t mentioned was that she planned to visit Valentina so soon. On the night when I’d be thrust into Emmett’s world headfirst and without a life jacket. Although he had assured me earlier that Hazel was on vacation in Cancun, I was still terrified.
Still afraid of the rejection—just as much as before.
“Ly,” I whispered, my stomach roiling because my voice sounded so weak, even to my own ears. “Hell, I don’t want to do this alone.”
I didn’t realize I was holding my necklace until Lyra’s thin fingers wrapped around mine, unraveling them from the bejeweled key. “Emmett and Matt are your family. Close your mouth, Kinsey Brock, because it’s the truth, even if you try to deny it. As much as I love you, and as much as you’re like a sister to me, I wouldn’t feel right ruining this night by being a third wheel.”
“Lyra—”
“You won’t be alone because I can guarantee that man won’t leave your side for a moment tonight.”
“Ly—”
But she cut me off once more. “You ever listen to his music?” When I shook my head, because I’d always avoided Emmett’s songs like they were the second coming of the black plague, her lips quirked. “I couldn’t resist buying everything the guy’s ever released after I found out he wasn’t the Lord of the Douches.”
I groaned, and she continued, “Do me a favor, won’t you? When you get a chance, look up “You and Me, Tonight.” It wasn’t on his first album, or the second, but his third—five years after you met him.”
“And then what?” I heard myself whisper.
“Then I want you to look me in the eye and swear to me you’re not it for him.”