Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
The box from Mike's Pastry sat on Emmy's passenger seat, white cardboard tied with red and white string, and she'd been parked on Marlborough Street for four minutes.
Four minutes of staring at the brownstone and telling herself this was fine. Professional. She was here to complete a questionnaire, not to—
Not to anything.
Emmy grabbed the cannolis and got out of the car.
Grant had moved after West got married. She knew that abstractly—had heard West mention it, something about Grant finally getting his own place instead of rattling around in the condo they'd shared since Grant's rookie year. But she'd never seen it. Never had a reason to.
The street was quiet, lined with trees just starting to turn, the kind of Back Bay block that felt removed from the city even though downtown was a fifteen-minute walk.
Old brick, black iron railings, gas lamps that had been converted to electric but still flickered like they remembered their origins.
The brownstone itself was a double-wide, which meant Grant owned both units—more space than any single person needed, but private.
No shared walls. No neighbors hearing your business.
Very Grant.
Emmy climbed the front steps, her heels clicking on worn stone, and rang the bell.
Grant opened the door in a faded t-shirt and jeans, barefoot, and the domesticity of it hit her somewhere under her ribs.
"Hey." He stepped back to let her in. "You found it."
"GPS is a miracle of modern technology." She held up the bakery box. "Cannolis. From Mike's."
"The North End?" The corner of his mouth pulled into a smile she hadn't seen before—or hadn't let herself notice. Not his press conference smile. Not even his family dinner smile. Something older.
"Best in the city. Someone told me that once."
"Someone smart." He took the box. "Come in. Dinner's almost ready."
She followed him inside, and then stopped.
She'd expected—what? Chrome and leather. The kind of place that looked like a hotel suite, professionally decorated and utterly impersonal. The kind of place that matched the Grant Knight on billboards.
This wasn't that.
The entryway opened into a living room with high ceilings and original molding, architectural details that would make a real estate agent weep. But it wasn't the bones that stopped her—it was what he'd done with them.
Books everywhere, spines cracked, some bristling with Post-it flags in three different colors.
A leather couch that had seen better days, a blanket thrown over one arm.
Game film paused on the TV—she recognized the formation, the Miami defense from last week.
Weights in the corner, a foam roller, the detritus of a body that was also a job.
The space was clean but not staged. Lived in. Male. Real.
And photos. On the bookshelf, on the mantle above a fireplace that looked functional.
His parents—Emmy recognized them from the frames that used to sit in the Knight house when she was little, before the accident.
West's wedding, Grant in a tux with his arm around her brother.
Team photos, candid shots from practice.
One photo of a teenage Emmy making a face at the camera, her braces catching the light. She didn't remember it being taken.
"When did you—" She pointed at it, thrown.
"West's graduation party. You were trying to photobomb the team picture." Grant was in the kitchen, checking whatever was on the stove. "You made that face right before your mom dragged you away."
Emmy stared at the photo. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Braces. Terrible hair. Caught mid-laugh, completely unguarded.
He'd kept it. Framed it. Put it on his mantle next to pictures of his dead parents and his best friend's wedding.
"I didn't know you had this," she said, and heard herself sound strange.
"Found it when I was unpacking." Grant's back was to her, stirring something. "Seemed like it belonged."
Emmy didn't know what to do with that. So she did what she always did—kept moving, kept cataloging, kept her brain busy enough that her heart couldn't catch up.
"You can sit," Grant said, glancing over his shoulder. "You're hovering."
"I'm not hovering. I'm observing." But she moved to the dining table—set for two with real plates, tucked into a bay window that looked out onto a small private garden. "You cooked."
"I said I would."
"Since when do you cook?"
"Since my mom taught me." He said it simply, without drama, turning back to the stove. "Before."
Before. Before the accident. Before his rookie year. Before the Woodhouse family became the only one he had left.
He moved around the kitchen—confident, unhurried, his hands sure in a way that had nothing to do with football.
"Wine?" He pulled a bottle from the counter. "I don't mind."
"I'm fine with water." She wasn't going to sit here drinking alone while he watched. "Thanks, though."
He nodded, filled two glasses from the tap, and brought them to the table along with a bowl of pasta and a plate of grilled chicken he must have had warming in the oven.
The pasta smelled like it had no business being in a brownstone kitchen.
Simple—garlic, olive oil, parmesan, fresh basil—but the kind of simple that takes twenty years to learn.
"My mom's recipe," he said, sitting across from her.
"It's incredible." Emmy twirled another forkful. "Seriously. You've been holding out on us. All those Sunday dinners and you let Serle do all the work."
"Serle would commit a felony if I touched her kitchen."
"Fair point."
They ate. The conversation came easier than she'd expected—careful at first, tiptoeing around the golf tournament, around the flowers and her three-word thank you and the silence that had followed.
But then settling into something almost normal.
The playoff picture taking shape, his stats putting him in serious MVP conversations for the first time in three years.
Her parents' latest feud over her mother's manuscript dust. The ultrasound photo West had shown her, the tiny heartbeat that made her father cry and then immediately Google "infant CPR certification. "
Normal. Except for the awareness humming underneath everything. Except for the way Emmy kept noticing how the lamplight caught his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders in that soft t-shirt, the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention.
Except for the questionnaire in her bag, waiting.
They finished dinner. Grant cleared the plates while Emmy opened the cannoli box, and they moved to his leather couch with pastry and coffee. Emmy tucked herself into the corner, cannoli balanced on a napkin, trying to figure out how to bring up the reason she was actually here.
Grant solved that problem for her.
"So." He leaned back against the cushions, one arm stretched along the back of the couch, completely at ease. "Why are you really here, Em?"
Emmy's cannoli suddenly required her full attention. "I told you. Questionnaire stuff."
"You could have emailed me a questionnaire."
"These aren't those kind of questions."
"What kind of questions are they?"
Emmy set down the cannoli. Took a breath. "There's a section of your intake form I skipped. When I filled it out."
Grant waited.
"The, um." She could feel the heat starting to climb her neck. "The intimacy section."
His eyebrows rose a fraction—just enough that she caught it—but his voice stayed even. "Okay."
"Cecelia says it's one of the top predictors of relationship longevity. We can't make informed matches without it." Emmy was definitely blushing now. "I just need to ask you some questions. About your... preferences."
"You're cold." Grant was already moving, reaching for the blanket draped over the arm of the couch. He crossed the distance between them and settled it over her lap himself, his hands brushing her knees through the wool. "You've been shivering since you sat down."
She hadn't noticed. But he was right—the brownstone ran cooler than her apartment, and she'd worn a silk blouse that did nothing against the October chill. The blanket carried a faint scent of laundry detergent and something else. Something that was just him.
"Thanks," she managed.
"So." Grant settled back, giving her his full attention. Those steady eyes and the patience of a man used to reading a play before it developed. "Intimacy questions."
"Right." Emmy pulled the questionnaire and a notebook from her bag. The words blurred slightly. "Okay. First question—"
"Wait."
She looked up.
"I'll answer," he said. "But you have to answer too."
"What? No. That's not—I'm not the client."
"You want me to bare my soul about my bedroom preferences to someone who won't play fair?" The corner of his mouth twitched. "That doesn't seem right."
"This is professional."
"Then professionally speaking, I need to feel comfortable. Reciprocity helps."
He was teasing her. She could see it in his eyes, that glint he got when he'd wound her up and was enjoying the view. But underneath the teasing was something else. A challenge. A way to make this less clinical and more—
More them.
"Fine," Emmy heard herself say. "Fine. Reciprocity. But I'm expensing the therapy I'm going to need after this."
Grant's smile widened. "Deal."
Emmy looked at the first question. Took a breath.
"How important is physical compatibility in a long-term relationship? Scale of one to ten."
"Nine." Grant didn't hesitate. "Maybe ten."
"That's—" Emmy blinked. "Really?"
"Sex is important to me." He said it the way he'd say the earth is round. "Physical intimacy in a committed relationship builds emotional security. It's not separate from the other stuff. It's part of it."
Emmy stared at the questionnaire. Her pen wasn't moving.
"Your turn," Grant said.
"Five," Emmy said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Five."
"It's important, obviously, but it's not—I mean, there are other things that matter more. Emotional connection. Shared values. Communication."