Chapter 9 Her, In My Window Seat Emmett
Three and a half years ago: Am I unhinged or in love?
EVERY FAMILY HAS THAT ONE person who’s a little unhinged, a little off their rocker. And if you don’t know who that person is in your family, then I hate to tell you this, but it’s you.
One thing’s for sure, though: it had never, not ever, been me. Not in the family I was born into, and not in my hockey family.
And then I met Cara.
I can’t take my eyes off her. Literally, I can’t. I think about her all the time. I can’t stop talking about her. I’m planning a goddamn wedding, and we’ve been together two months.
I’m obsessed. I’m unhinged.
The scariest part? I don’t have a single fuck to give.
“Emmett? Are you listening to me?”
Not a fucking chance. “Uh-huh.”
“Really? Because you haven’t looked at this once.” She taps the journal laid out on the café table between us and rolls her eyes, picking up her latte so she can sip it. “It’s almost like you only asked me to help you house hunt to humor me, not because you actually want my input.”
“That’s not true.” It really isn’t, but it sounds like a lie, because I’m distracted and my stare has only moved between her eyes and her lips for the last twenty minutes while Cara’s been showing me all the work she put into finding the perfect house for us.
Uh, me. The perfect house for me. Not us. Yeah, definitely.
Cara holds my gaze for a moment, color dotting her cheeks, before she closes her binder, fingers spreading wide, almost like she wants to protect it, or maybe hide it.
“Did I do too much?” The words are quiet, and she clears her throat as she slides the binder off the table, starts packing it in her bag.
“I love decorating. And planning. I’ve got a Pinterest board dedicated to every room in my dream home, what I’d use it for, how I’d furnish it…
” She waves a hand through the air before lifting her mug to her mouth again, and I don’t think she’s ever gone this long without meeting my eyes.
“I get carried away easily. If you want me to hang back from the viewings while you go ahead with the Realtor, that’s—”
“Not okay. That’s not what I want. And no, you didn’t do too much. Well, maybe, but only because this is incredible and so fucking detailed and you should definitely be getting paid for this level of work.”
A smile pulls at her mouth. “Believe that might be considered prostitution, Mr. Brodie.”
I clasp her hand in mine, holding it on the table between us.
“There’s no one else I want to house hunt with, Cara.
If I seem distracted, it’s because I spent hours going through this binder last night when I got home and found you passed out on the couch with it.
I looked at every picture, every listing, all your scribbled notes about paint palettes and furniture.
You thought of everything, firefly, and I promise you, I noticed every damn detail. ”
There’s that color again, rosy and vibrant as it paints her cheeks. “Which one is your favorite?”
I hold my hand out until Cara deposits her binder there, and flip to the fourth section, a pink tab with an address written in perfect handwriting. I tap on the photo of the four-bedroom modern Victorian in North Vancouver, skirting the bottom of Mount Fromme.
Cara squeals, slapping her hands down on the binder. “Mine too!”
I figured, because this section has nearly twice as many pages as the others, like she couldn’t stop herself from imagining what life would look like there, planning a future. A future with me. And as we pull up to the house in North Vancouver twenty minutes later, I can’t help but picture it too.
I look to Cara. “I’m nervous. Is that weird?”
Cara waves me off. “Psssh. You gotta manifest, Emmett. This house is going to be perfect.” She taps the space between my eyes. “Manifest, baby.”
The front door swings open, and an older woman with a massive grin steps out. “Cara! Welcome! And is this the lucky man?”
“The luckiest,” I say, shaking her hand as we step inside. We slip out of our shoes, and I step behind Cara, sliding her coat down her arms, my mouth at her ear. “Gonna manifest you naked and cuffed to my bed later, begging for me to finally let you come.”
“Oh, baby.” Her soft hand glides over my jaw, and she sweeps a feather-soft kiss across my lips. “I don’t beg, but you do.”
The Realtor, Erika, who Cara’s done two events for, shows us through every room once, then twice.
When Cara starts her third lap, I hang behind to chat through some important details with Erika, like closing dates and seven-figure numbers.
After a quick phone call with the sellers, Erika graciously and eagerly agrees to give Cara and me an hour alone.
I find my queen upstairs in the front bedroom, standing at the oversized bay window.
“It’s stunning,” she whispers with awe, fingers drifting over the intricately carved wood trim, the built-in bookshelves.
“You love this window.”
She stopped in front of it on the two tours before this, just staring silently.
A soft smile touches her lips. “Mémère had one, with big, gorgeous bookshelves surrounding it just like this. She told me a million times how Pépère built the shelves himself, which I thought was funny. He built the whole house himself.” That smile falls just a bit, the corners turned down with the weight of her memories.
“It was my favorite place in the whole house. We had afternoon tea there after school each day, and on days I slept over, Pépère would sit with me in the window, read me one bedtime story after another. He would always say it was the last one, but he was never able to say no to me.”
“Can’t imagine that,” I murmur, snaking my arm around her waist, pressing a kiss to her hair.
“When I finally let him put the books away, we’d look up at the stars, and he’d sing me ‘Twinkle Twinkle.’ He always said that if his sky only had three stars, they’d be Mémère, my mom, and me, and that would be all he’d need.
” A lone tear skates down her cheek, and she swipes it away so fast I nearly wonder if it was real.
“Anyway.” She nods, lower lip sliding between her teeth. “Yeah, this is my favorite room.”
“What would you use it for?”
“What would I use it for? Um…” She walks around the room like she’s looking for inspiration, but the binder in my hand tells me she already found it. “Well, you could use it for, um… a trophy room.”
“Mmm. Pass.”
“Gaming room slash office? Desk over there, cozy but sleek recliners over there, and—”
“Nah. What else you got?”
Color blooms in her cheeks. “Well, if you have kids—”
“If we have kids,” I correct, and she in no way succeeds at hiding her grin.
“If we have kids—”
“When we have kids,” I correct again, and she rolls her eyes, knocking me in the arm.
“When we have kids… a nursery. Shelves filled with all the books we’ll read them, sitting in the window, where the sun will shine through each morning and kiss their cheeks, where all the stars will dance above them night after night.
We’ll sing songs and we’ll dance and we’ll laugh and we’ll grow.
And when we put them to bed each night—”
I catch her around the waist as she spins around the room, hauling her against my chest, cupping her cheek as my thumb moves over her lower lip. “I’ll tell them that if the only stars in my sky were them and their mama, that would be all I need.”
Cara tosses her arms around my neck, fingers sinking into my hair. “Keep talking like that, and Erika’s gonna walk in on us practicing making babies.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
She giggles, capturing my mouth with a slow kiss, and I just go for it, blurting out my next words instead of overthinking them. “I bought the house.”
“You…” She releases me, eyes wide. “What?”
“I bought the house.”
“When?”
“Uh, like, ten minutes ago, when I handed Erika a check for the deposit.”
“Emmett, you… I…” Her mouth closes, then opens again. Closes. Opens. Closes, and she shakes her head, a breathtaking smile splitting her cheeks as she launches herself at me, hugging me tight. “Congratulations, baby. You’re a homeowner!”
“Thanks. Congratulations to you too, firefly.”
Slowly, she slips down my body. “What?”
“Yeah, five weeks before we move in.” I give her a gentle nudge in the shoulder. “You gonna be able to pack up all those clothes and shoes on such short notice?”