Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
EMMETT
When I pull into my private parking lot set beneath my apartment building, I angle the rearview mirror and examine the roof of my mouth.
I have never scarfed down chowder so damn fast in my life. Sure, I was hungry, having neglected lunch, but it wasn’t the hunger pains that drove me to eat way faster than the food was cooling.
Have I stepped into a parallel fucking universe?
Because Billie Freya Quinn went and got hot over the last three years, and regardless of the pregnancy, she turned all fucking woman.
It’s not that I’ve never seen or appreciated a stunning woman before. Of course I have. It’s just that I’ve never been attracted to someone who is wildly off-limits, her taunting beauty daring me to steal another glance as we ate in my best friend’s kitchen.
Mercifully, Billie didn’t stay downstairs for long, choosing a nap over torturing me for an extended period.
Not that she needed to be sitting opposite me for my brain to meander to places it should never venture.
Like conjuring up an image of her flushed cheeks when she first saw me or the perfect curve of her full lips when they tipped into a sweet smile.
“You shouldn’t have bought her the wine or checked out her ass when she bent down to look inside the gift bag,” I quietly berate myself, dropping my head to the steering wheel on my Jaguar.
“You used to play in water fights and blow up her inflatables for the pool,” I hiss to myself, hoping to embed the message deep inside my subconscious.
“This single life is driving you fucking crazy.” I keep going.
Things were way simpler when it was just fights with Maria and I spent countless nights sleeping in the spare bed, stroking my dick to thoughts of when we were happily married.
“Are you all right?”
Sawyer’s wide grin stares back at me when I startle and glance to the left, certain that I’m now hearing things to go with my sordid fantasies.
With the engine still running, I lower the driver’s window.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, voice flat, my head still resting against the steering wheel.
When Sawyer doesn’t immediately answer, my treacherous mind takes advantage of the pause, wandering back to Billie, deep red hair framing a perfect heart-shaped face.
I throw the driver’s door open, and Sawyer jumps out of the way.
“Whoa,” he gasps at my sudden movements. “It’s Valentine’s Day, and I came to check that you’re doing okay.” He pauses, looking concerned. “Jesus, buddy. What’s going on?”
I don’t answer, slamming the door and hitting Lock on my key fob. The engine powers down, and my window automatically closes as I stride toward the private elevator that leads directly to my penthouse.
Sawyer follows behind, and we both ride in silence.
Thankfully, I don’t have to put up a front in my former teammate’s presence; he’s the kind of guy who would never repeat what he witnesses.
He’s a vault, and I miss playing with him on the defensive line after he retired last season from the Blades.
We’d played together for nearly a decade, and he’s, without a doubt, one of the best defensemen the NHL has ever seen.
“Your place is looking better,” Sawyer voices as we both step into my apartment, and I instantly head for the kitchen, tossing my keys onto the white marble counter.
“Better how?” My reply is a touch irritable, but I’m confident that he won’t take my mood personally.
He knows I’m a miserable fucker at the best of times, especially after Maria.
His eyes rove the open-plan living space, landing on a single rubber plant, set in the corner of a stark white room. I moved in over six months ago and haven’t hung a single thing on the walls other than an eighty-inch flat screen above the fireplace.
“Homier,” he confirms, lips pressed together to stifle his amusement.
I snag a couple of Gatorades from the fridge and hand one to Sawyer.
He twists the cap off and downs half the bottle before moving over to the black leather couch that was already here when I moved in.
When we separated, I let Maria keep all the decor, opting for a clean break away from everything.
Truthfully, I haven’t hung a single picture because I don’t have any, other than a frame of my parents on their wedding day.
When Dad passed away and my brother, Beau, and I emptied their house in Rochester, that was the only item I wanted to keep.
Like Sawyer, I’m not especially close to my brother, and following my parents’ deaths, Beau has only gotten more distant, having moved to Florida with his family, while I stayed in New York, where we had been born and bred.
Maybe our similarities are why my former teammate and I get along so well—we’re both grumpy as fuck defensemen with difficult families.
Although Sawyer’s now happily married to Collins after the death of his late wife, Sophie.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s eating at you?” he asks from the couch as he grabs the TV remote from my coffee table and flicks to a random channel.
“Just make yourself at home.” I wave a hand in front of me and push off the counter, taking a seat next to him on the couch.
Of all the fucking programs to land on, it has to be the movie Pretty Woman.
Jesus, Billie could be a more petite, younger version of Julia Roberts.
“Collins’s favorite movie.” He points the remote at the screen.
That doesn’t surprise me; his pink-haired biker-chick wife is obsessed with the ’80s.
Sawyer briefly glances at me, pulling a deep breath into his lungs and releasing it slowly. “It will get easier—you know that, don’t you? Right now, all you know is a life with Maria as your wife. You will build a new one.”
Elbows braced on my knees, I lean forward and eye him carefully. Sawyer knows what he’s talking about; the guy has dealt with more grief than most. And that’s exactly what a divorce causes—grief.
“Will it though?” I drop my head between my shoulders, knowing he’s right but struggling to let his reassurance sink in.
“Yeah,” he simply replies. “It will. Having the divorce finalized is the closure you need. Up until that point, you were concentrating on legal paperwork and getting yourself set up in a new place. Now that it’s all sorted, your mind has the time to wander, and that’s when shit gets really difficult.
It was the same for me when Sophie died.
Once her funeral was done and people started going back to their everyday lives, that’s when reality really hit. ”
I remember it well. Sawyer was a fucking wreck, curling in on himself and shutting everyone and everything out. While I know that Maria hasn’t died, I’m still determined not to isolate myself. That shit doesn’t do anyone any good.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” I speak after maybe thirty seconds, thumbs pressing into the bridge of my nose.
I hesitate for a second before the words explode from me like a shaken-up soda bottle.
“I’m even crushing on my best friend’s daughter, convinced that she finds me attractive.
” I tag on a dark laugh because, Jesus, it sounded way more fucked up out loud than it had in my head.
When Sawyer doesn’t reply, I finally lift my gaze to look at him, cringe tightening every muscle in my jaw.
I can’t believe I just admitted that, even to him.
He pauses the movie, remote falling into his lap.
“Wait. Are you talking about Billie? As in Scott’s daughter?”
I just nod my head, speech stolen by firsthand embarrassment. Like many of my older teammates, Sawyer has met Scott and Billie a few times—granted, it was several years ago.
I cringe harder at what he must be thinking.
“Emmett, that’s—”
I hold up a hand to cut off whatever Sawyer was about to say. I don’t want to hear it.
“She turned twenty-one today, so I stopped by to drop off a gift, and … yeah.” I push a hand through my hair, slapping it against a thigh in frustration. “We hadn’t seen each other in years, and things were beyond awkward between us. Billie grew up, and I—”
“Grew in a different way?” Sawyer finishes my sentence, one cocky brow raised.
I point a finger at him. “Not funny.”
I can tell that he wants to fall over laughing, and honestly, I’d welcome the break in the tension if the roof of my mouth wasn’t still burning like a motherfucker.
“She’s my best friend’s daughter. The girl Maria and I used to take out for ice cream and went on vacation with.” My head is back between my shoulders as I release a maniacal groan. “We used to play ultimate frisbee on the beach.”
“Shit.” Sawyer winces.
“And she’s pregnant.”
“Shit,” he repeats. “Wait, what?! Is it yours?!”
“No, you idiot!” I announce, jumping to my feet at the horrifying thought. “It’s some prick’s from college who has basically screwed her over. That’s why she’s home in Brooklyn. She’s almost full-term, and there I was, checking out her ass in the living room.”
“Shit.”
I roll my eyes. “Can you stop saying that?”
He just shrugs. “I don’t know what else to say. Other than you know you can’t go there.”
I deadpan, almost offended that he could ever think I would. “Of course I fucking can’t. And that’s what I’m saying. I’m losing my goddamn mind over here.”
Sawyer considers my words carefully, tongue poking into his right cheek. “You need to get laid.”
“Already did. Didn’t work.”
His eyes bug out. “With whom?”
I take a seat back on the couch. “Some chick in Colorado and then again in Miami. One-night stands aren’t my thing.”
Sawyer laughs, and I know what’s coming. “Just best friend’s daughters.”
“Not helping,” I sing.
He clears his throat of humor and resets himself to a serious demeanor. “This isn’t exactly a huge problem. Just keep your distance from her, which sounds like that’ll be easy enough since she’ll be busy with baby shit in the next few weeks.”
“Have you forgotten my friendship with Scott and Freya?” I ask, sounding like a petulant teenager. I might as well be; I’m already checking out someone fourteen years younger than me.
He winces again. “How often would you typically head over to their place?”
“I don’t know. It was way less often when I was still married, but since I turned single … once, maybe twice a week.”
“Shit.”
I’m ready to throat-punch him.
“You’re just going to have to suck it up and control your eyes. You find her hot. Big deal. Like I said before, once that baby arrives, I doubt you’ll see all that much of her.” He snaps his fingers in a light-bulb moment. “And that’s your excuse right there.”
“What excuse?”
He just smiles like he solved the Enigma code. “You won’t want to impose on Billie and the new baby by going over on the regular. Suggest Scott meet you in town or at your place.”
Part of me wants to argue over how ridiculous this is.
Sure, Billie is hot, and my eyes betrayed me a couple of times today.
That doesn’t mean I have to shift my whole friendship with her dad because of that.
The last person I would ever be tempted to touch is Billie Quinn.
I value my life—and my fucking balls. That said, this does give me a great excuse to avoid bumping into Maria when she inevitably visits Freya, offering the clean break I really need.
“We’re supposed to be meeting up on Tuesday afternoon to watch a Champions League game.”
Sawyer motions to my TV. “Watch the game here.”
“Nothing would ever happen between us,” I say, clearing any niggling doubts Sawyer might have.
“Billie is more like a niece than anything else, and I’d set our friendship alight if Scott even knew what ran through my head a couple of hours ago.
” At this point, I want the ground to swallow me whole. “She’s pregnant, for God’s sake.”
A palm rests on my shoulder. “Like you said, buddy, your mind is everywhere after the split from Maria. You’re searching for signs of affection and reassurance that you’re not past it.
My best guess is, your brain is playing tricks on you, and it wasn’t the awkward exchange you think it is.
Still, no harm in keeping some distance and getting your shit together. ”
I nod lightly, convincing myself that he’s correct.
“Yeah. You’re right, man.” I pick up the remote and hit Play on the movie, Julia Roberts springing back to life. “This is all in my goddamn head.”