February
“Whoa, look who managed to claw his way free of the bedroom.”
Jase glanced up from tying his Nikes to see Max clapping Romeo on the shoulder across the locker room.
“Good to see you, man. How’s the better half?”
“The morning sickness is gone,” Romeo said, grinning. “Sally’s appetite is back, and baby’s been asking for cake. Lots of cake. Like, we’ve gone through four since we got back from Florida.”
What Romeo didn’t mention was that he’d been baking the cakes his new wife had been craving from scratch for almost two weeks now. A fact Jase knew, since he’d been the one Romeo called from the grocery store in a panic about whether the cake from the bakery department was going to be good enough. What exactly they put in it, and whether a box mix would be better. He’d been going off the deep end over cake—and friends didn’t let friends go down that way.
So Jase had called Janice, gotten a recipe, met Romeo at the store, and taken him back to Chez Foster where they’d muddled through the cake-baking process together like men. Meaning, it took three tries, a second trip to the market, and a refusal to call for directions…but in the end, that was one fine cake Romeo took home.
Janice to the rescue again.
“You here for the game?” Jase asked, joining them along with Dean and a couple of the other regulars they’d been playing ball with over the past few years.
“Yeah, man. I need it,” Romeo said, patting a stomach as flat as Jase’s. Probably more so. “Don’t want to get soft.”
Max snorted, cutting a glance at Jase. “Come on, man. I know he just got married and has a baby on the way, but no way can I let that one go.”
Never.
“And this was the only place you thought you could get hard?” Max asked, eyes gleaming, hand over his heart. “Man, I’m flattered, but I respect the institution of marriage far too much to—”
“Aww, shit,” Romeo groaned, shaking his head. “Bite me, Brandt.”
“That’s what I’m saying… I want to. You know I do. But it’s over, lamb chop.”
These guys. Gotta love ’em.
A few minutes later, the other guys headed out to the court, while Jase stayed behind as Romeo finished getting changed.
He looked good, relaxed like he hadn’t looked since before the engagement party. “Married life looks good on you, man,” Jase told him.
Reaching into his gym bag, Romeo nodded. “It’s been good.” Then checking to see who was left in the locker room, he added, “Having that wedding behind us, man… What a difference. Suddenly, it’s just Sal and me, you know? No more town hall meetings about the big day. No more worrying if this one will fall through too. No more Willsons looking at me like they wished they could scrape me off their shoe.”
It had been rough with them, for sure. “They coming around now that you guys are official?”
Romeo laughed. “Not likely, but the wedding is over. It was like you said—they just sort of faded back into the woodwork. Yeah, they’ll be around with the baby, but in small doses. Not like my folks.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Romeo pulled a fitted sport shirt over his head and closed his locker.
“Being honest here, you look worse than you did two weeks ago. What’s going on?”
Jase shook his head but then shrugged, because it was Romeo, and the guy had divulged his darkest secrets and worst fears to him over the years. Jase could trust him, and maybe he just needed to say it.
“Emily.”
Romeo raised a brow and lowered his voice. “I thought that was nothing. She isn’t suddenly looking for more, is she?”
Running his palm across his mouth, Jase shook his head.
“Then what… Oh, shit—are you the one who’s falling? Because seriously, if that were the case, you’d have just made my wife the happiest freaking woman on the planet. She worries about you, Jase, with that string of ‘girlfriends’ but never anyone special. And Emily… She’s special. Dude, let me tell Sally.”
Jase almost choked on his tongue. “No! You’ve got it wrong. I’m not falling into anything, especially not with Emily.”
He liked women. Respected them. But when it came to romance, there were rules he lived by, and falling went against them. Jase liked to date. Exclusively. But on a limited basis and always on his terms. Girlfriends. Brief relationships that were casual and fun, with minimal chance of drama or expectations getting out of hand. And it worked.
“So what is it?”
It was the sizzle-and-pop chemistry between them. Her long legs and soft smile. That sharp wit and wicked, sweet tongue.
“She’s going to be there for the rehearsal tonight. Marcos Nicks’s wedding. We’re paired up as attendants for tomorrow, which means we’ll probably be partnered for the meals.”
He’d have to dance with her. Feel her in his arms. Close enough to touch in all the places he knew he shouldn’t.
“If you’re worried about it being weird between you, or her expecting something from you, just call her up, man. She’s cool. I think you’re stressing about nothing.”
Romeo didn’t get it. And even though the words were there, Jase couldn’t make himself say them out loud.
He was the one who wanted something. He was the one who hadn’t been able to get Emily out his head. And even as he stood there sweating about the night to come, a part of him knew it was because he’d already accepted the inevitable.
“Jase, chill. Shake out your arms, loosen up your shoulders. It’s one night. Look, if you two hook up again, whatever. If not, then no big deal. But relax about it and just…hell, let life happen, you know?”
He was right. Besides, there was always the possibility—the good possibility—that once Jase actually saw Emily tonight, he’d take one look at her and realize he’d been worked up over nothing and he wasn’t interested anymore. Okay, so maybe it was more like a slim possibility, but a possibility just the same.
“Yeah, thanks, man.”
Romeo smacked the back of his hand into Jase’s gut and flashed him a mouth full of pearly whites. “Then enough of this chick business. Let’s play some ball.”
* * *
By the time Jase pulled into the lot of the squat Episcopal church that night, he’d almost convinced himself that seeing Emily again was all it would take to get his head back on straight. Like some kind of contagion, she’d be the key to a cure.
But as he approached the red-painted double doors, his heart started pounding the way it used to before a big game. When all the guys would be chest bumping into each other, rattling helmets, and smacking the glass with their sticks—and he’d be staring at the scoreboard, his blood pumping hot, all thoughts zeroing in on that one goal.
Emily’s laugh reached him the moment he stepped through the doors to the vestibule. That heavenly sound echoed through the open space, playing in the rafters before slipping softly around him.
He wanted her.
And cue the not-so-soft physical reaction. Great, he was already scanning for the closest closet. A month had been too long.
Crossing into the nave, he saw her. She was wearing a classic black dress that clung in all the best ways, leaning casually against one of the pews and talking to another bridesmaid. Emily’s hair was pinned up in some kind of twisty thing that was sexy enough to have him wondering what it would take to get it down again.
What it would take to get her alone again.
And then she stalled where she was, turning to look over her shoulder his way.
His pulse jacked.
One look and he’d know whether a coatroom or closet visit was off the table or not.
“Hiya, Jase. You made it,” Brody announced, clapping him hard on the shoulder and effectively yanking Jase’s attention around to him and Max. Whom he hadn’t even noticed walking in.
“Guys, good to see you.” Or normally it would have been, but they’d just cost him the answer to a question he’d wanted very badly. A glance back to Emily, and she was fully engaged in her conversation. Turning back to the guys who were watching him a little too intently, Jase asked, “We know when they’re starting?”
The sharp clapping of their wedding coordinator, followed by the command that they begin, had everyone turning back toward the front of the church, and all attention was on the rehearsal at hand. Jase’s too. It was either that or pull a fire alarm and lure Emily into another dark alcove, and he wasn’t sure either of their eternal souls could take the hit of a second infraction.
So he focused on the front of the church. Without so much as a glimmer of humor in her eyes, the neat-as-a-pin little woman directed them through a routine Jase could manage with his eyes closed, considering the number of times he’d been through it already.
For a moment he thought he might be able to get some satisfaction if they lined the attendants up for a walk-through, but even then they were crowded with the other attendants, the coordinator snapping in everyone’s faces until finally the rehearsal was over and they were all being shooed out into the night.
Jase watched as Emily left with a couple of the girls before he had been able to score any deep eye contact. But it didn’t matter. They were all heading over to the restaurant Greek Islands from there. He’d have time.
* * *
Waiting by the bar in the rustic-style Greektown staple, he replied to a few work emails and then basically faked “busy” until she walked through the door, laughing with one of the other girls in a way that had his heart thudding heavily in his chest.
Emily’s steps slowed when she saw him, her smile fading just enough for him to see the nerves she usually hid. He got it. They needed to talk. But not wanting to draw too much attention, or be completely obvious or a total ass, he helped the other girl with her jacket first and directed her toward the back of the restaurant. And then he turned to Emily, the sense of smug satisfaction she brought out in him rushing through his veins.
“No date tonight,” he murmured close to her ear as he helped her out of her coat. His thumbs trailed down the bare skin of her arms and he drew a slow breath, taking in the scent of her.
Emily stiffened, then turned to him, alarm in her eyes. “Jase, we agreed. It’s over.”
She really was a good girl. “We did. But—”
“I have a date,” she cut in, sounding almost…apologetic?
No way. She’d shown up alone. And the way she wasn’t letting her eyes connect with his was perhaps even more telling than if she’d been staring straight into them. Because he could feel it. He could feel the resistance and the draw and that same something lighting up the air between them.
“So where is he?” he asked, running this thumb along the bend of her elbow.
“Caught in traffic. He’s just late. Jase…” she said, whispering his name, but he didn’t need to hear whatever was coming next.
“Sure,” he said, stealing Janice’s most nut-crushing line. Emily was trying to save face, even though they were beyond that. He got it. She didn’t want to be the one who made the move. She didn’t want to be obvious. So she claimed a date. One who conveniently wouldn’t show. Whatever. As long as she left with him, Jase didn’t care how it happened.
At the table there were three open seats remaining. Together.
Jase pulled out the middle chair for Emily before taking the seat to her right. Leaving the chair for her imaginary date available on the other side.
Everyone was chatting about the church and how beautiful the ceremony was going to be the next day. Jase joked around with the guys. Teased the bride-to-be, flirted with her grandmother. Basically made sure he’d done his small-talk best before doing what he’d been wanting to do from the start. Turn his attention to Emily.
As if sensing her reprieve was over, she met his eyes.
“So how have you been?” she asked politely. Stiffly.
Which only made him think about what it was like when her body went soft and lax beneath him.
“Jase,” she said so quietly that it snapped his attention back to the now. To where he was staring at her mouth.
Right.
Eyes up here. Got it.
“So tell me about your date,” he said with just a pinch of malevolence, because this was Emily after all. Old habits and all that.
She seemed duly uncomfortable.
He liked it. She could squirm a bit for making up a date. And he’d make it up to her later.
When she didn’t volunteer any information, he prodded again.
“What’s his name? Have you guys been seeing each other long?” He smiled wickedly. Knowing it hadn’t been that long since she’d been with him. “Getting serious?”
Emily stared down at the empty spot beside her and took a long, deep breath. Bracing, maybe. Time to come clean?
“His name is Mitchel. We’ve been out a few times.”
Emily, Emily.
“A few times.” Suggesting three or more. Which suggested something else altogether. Something that tightened his gut and left a sour taste on his tongue. Because the third date usually meant—
No.
She was screwing with him.
So he’d screw back. “And what does this Mitchel do for a living?”
“Investment banker,” came the answer in a register octaves too low.
Jase froze, his eyes locked with Emily’s as it hit him.
Mitchel wasn’t just the product of Emily’s imagination. He was real. Mitchel freaking Beekman, the guy who’d been all over Emily at Romeo’s engagement party.
And, motherfucker, he was there.
A pair of broad shoulders in a navy wool overcoat brushed past him.
“Hey, Sunshine. Sorry, I got held up,” Mitchel offered jovially before rubbing a hand over Emily’s upper arm and dropping a kiss on her cheek. An appreciative sort of grunt left the guy as he stepped back and raked a look over her that had Jase’s hands balling at his side. “You look amazing.”
Emily ducked her head and brushed a few strands of hair from her face, obviously flustered by the compliment.
Mitchel turned to Jase then, a wide smile in place as he shoved out his hand. “Jase, man, good to see you again.”
Jase pulled it together and did the whole polite thing, not entirely sure whether the guy had picked up on what was happening before he walked in.
If their roles had been reversed, no way would Jase have missed some asshole putting those moves on Emily. And he sure as hell would have let the guy know he knew what was going on. But that was just him.
Not Mitchel. Emily’s not-fake date, who was barely six feet.
An uncomfortable weight landed in Jase’s gut. He looked away, then back, as an ugly, unfamiliar part of him started to pound at the inside of his chest.
What was this?
Jealousy? Not just the funny, no-big-deal kind, but the real, gut-wrenching, bad-decision-making, caveman kind?
Jase didn’t get jealous—at least he hadn’t with the women he’d dated in the past. But now that Emily was in the picture, yeah, jealousy.
He was so screwed.
His eyes cut back to where she was smiling at Mitchel. Whom she’d been out with a few times. Did that mean they’d already had three dates and this was the fourth? Or was tonight—the night she was wearing that killer dress with her hair all wound up so there was no missing the sexy length of her neck—date number three?
Not. Going. To. Think. About. It.
He needed a distraction.
An emergency. Why hadn’t he gone to medical school? He could be faking a call from the hospital right that minute. Skating out to go save some critical pretend patient in immediate need of his expertise. Only then he wouldn’t be able to scrutinize every subtle touch, breath, look, or word shared between Emily and Mitchel for the rest of the night. He wouldn’t be able to make an educated guess on where this date was going after the flaming saganaki and cheers of “Opa!”
It didn’t matter. He didn’t need Emily.
There were at least a dozen women he could call and have waiting at his doorstep when he got home.
Only he didn’t want any of them. He didn’t want anyone in his bed except Emily. And there was every likelihood that she would be going home with another man.
Flagging the waitress, he ordered a drink. A stiff one.
The night wrapped up not a minute too soon. Two grueling hours of Jase pretending he didn’t care about the conversation taking place beside him. Trying not to react to the occasional brush of some soft bit of Emily he wished he didn’t know quite so intimately. Trying not to think about what a few dates constituted for a girl like her.
And then trying not to think about what Emily—no matter what kind of girl she was—had let him do to her in a church after exactly zero dates.
He’d wanted more than the one drink he nursed all night, but better judgment and the all-too-real fear of putting a serious move on another man’s date—in front of two dozen friends and family—kept him from giving in.
Standing with the rest of the group, he leaned in and dropped a kiss on Delphine’s cheek, promising her a perfect day tomorrow. He toughed out an extended good-bye with Marcos’s great-aunt, who liked to hold hands while she talked about the new medicine she’d started taking, and passed on Brody’s invitation to take it back to the bar.
There was no way he could sit down with his friends and be cool while his thoughts were wrapped up in the sound of Emily’s soft laugh for some other guy.
No, he needed to be alone.
Shrugging into his coat, he’d thought he was in the clear when Emily stopped beside him.
“Jase,” she started, not able to meet his eyes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Em.” He thought about catching her chin in the crook of his finger and bringing her eyes to his, but if he let himself do that much, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop. So instead, he said the words a bigger man might have actually meant. “Have a good night.”
Twenty minutes later, he was stalking across the entry to his apartment, the echo of his door slamming harder than it should have still ringing in his ears. He threw his coat over the back of the couch and went straight for the bar, thoughts of Mitchel asking Emily if she’d ever been to France swirling through his head as the first gulp of scotch burned its way to his gut. Provence. Like, maybe they ought to go together. Because Emily would love the lavender fields.
Yeah, she probably would.
She’d probably find it romantic and be full of those soft, sweet smiles he hadn’t had enough of since high school. Since he’d started putting up the walls between them so his friend could have the girl he’d announced he wanted to marry. Since he started blaming her for—
He swallowed past a lump that tasted an awful lot like regret.
Since he’d stopped deserving those smiles that it always killed him just a little to see.
Throwing back another swallow, he had one consolation to keep him warm that night. If she married stupid Mitchel, at least Jase wouldn’t have to worry about being paired up with her for that wedding. Even if he was the right height.
Hell, he wouldn’t even be invited.
Because they weren’t friends.
Walking to the living room windows, he stared out at the night, the dark swath of Lake Michigan beyond the Drive. He threw back another slug.
A few dates.
Did she love that guy?
A knock sounded at his door.
Checking his watch, he saw it was after eleven.
Maybe one of the guys? They usually just let themselves up if the security door was open—and about half the time it was. But they’d have called first, and his phone was silent.
His steps slowed halfway to the door. It could be Lorna. The curvy brunette from upstairs who had a knack for knowing when he was in the mood for company.
Except tonight, he just wasn’t.
Walking the rest of the way to the front of the apartment and working out a friendly put-off, he swung the door open—and froze.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
His vision narrowed to one singular point before him.
The strawberry blond with the Audrey Hepburn style, standing in front of his door.
Alone.
“Emily,” he finally managed, her name coming out rough and low. His relief in seeing her there was disturbing in its magnitude.
“I didn’t know if… Maybe I shouldn’t ha—”
She didn’t have a chance to finish whatever she’d been about to say, because he reached for her, wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and pulled her into the kiss he couldn’t wait for. The kiss she eagerly returned, opening beneath him like she was as starved for the taste of him as he was for her. They’d barely closed the door before he had her pressed against it.