Chapter 4 #2
Emily had set up camp on the other end of the sectional, a mess of takeout boxes and napkins between us.
I was marooned on my side, awkwardly propped at a humiliating forty-five-degree angle by a fortress of throw pillows she’d engineered to keep the weight off my pelvic floor.
The TV was on, muted, playing some sports recap show that I pointedly ignored.
We just ate, the only sounds the soft crunch of carrots and the occasional sigh of satisfaction.
This was easy. Comfortable. The way it had always been with us.
“This injury is a disaster for my dating life,” I said, wiping sauce from my chin. “I don’t think ‘recovering from a catastrophic groin injury’ is a good look.”
Emily snorted, dipping a carrot stick into a tub of blue cheese. “Please. You’ll have even more women lining up now that everyone knows you’re hung. You’ll have so many volunteer nurses you’ll be turning them away. I hate to say it, but Elliott was right about that.”
“Ideal setup, really,” I said. “Groin injury, helpless on the couch, ice pack in the general vicinity of my dignity. I should’ve done this years ago. Career-ending move, genuinely great for my personal life.”
Emily smiled, but it was the patient kind. The kind that didn’t take the bait.
She just looked at me and ate her carrot stick.
No idea why that pushed me over the edge.
“Yeah, but that’s the problem, isn’t it?” The words were out before I could stop them. “They don’t want to play nurse for Finn. They want to do it for Finn Taylor, the Stallions’ wide receiver.”
She paused, her carrot stick hovering. “What’s the difference?”
“One is a guy who can’t even ice himself properly,” I said, gesturing vaguely at my lower half. “The other is a legend.”
“They’re the same person,” she assured.
“No one’s interested in the man behind the jersey. They just want a piece of the fame. A story to tell their friends.” I tossed a cleaned bone back into the box.
Emily’s expression turned thoughtful. “That’s pretty much why I don’t date.”
I blinked. “You don’t date because women want to wear my jersey and I won’t let them because that’s a hard limit for me?”
She cracked up for real this time, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“No, dummy. I don’t date because… I don’t know.
I’m too busy, for one. And the guys I meet…
they don’t fit.” She shrugged, looking down at her hands.
“They’re either intimidated by my job, or they see it as some kind of power-couple networking opportunity.
Nobody seems to just want… me. The person who makes chocolate bonbons for fun, enjoys terrible reality TV, and falls asleep on the couch with legal briefs. ”
She had this thing she did when she was content. Her lips relaxed and she stopped blinking quite as much. I’d seen it maybe a hundred times.
I’d never admitted I noticed before.
“You like me,” I realized. “Without the jersey.”
She knew me before the first contract, before the headlines, before the number eight became a brand.
She’d seen me fail my driver’s test, helped me cram for a history final I was sure I’d flunk, and never once looked at me like I was anything other than just…
Finn. The guy who dug good wings and hated losing at Mario Kart.
She had always, always seen me as I was.
The wings were gone. Neither of us reached for more carrots. That was how I knew something had shifted.
“Of course, I like you, you idiot. Why else would I be here?”
“Pity?” I asked.
She made a horrible impression of a buzzer sound. “Nope.”
“Because Elliott said to?”
She shook her head. “I love my brother. But I wouldn’t move in with any of his players to help them if I didn’t actually like them as humans.”
She had a tiny smudge of barbecue sauce at the corner of her mouth, right next to the edge of her pink lips.
My thumb moved before my brain did. It got maybe six inches before I caught myself.
Whoa.
I blinked hard. These pain killers were no joke.
But the thought didn’t leave. It just sat there, inconvenient. She glanced over at me, her expression gentle, and I couldn’t quite look away.
The easy quiet wasn’t so easy anymore.
I shifted, my uninjured muscles tensing. Leaned forward just an inch.
Her lips parted on a shallow breath, and she didn’t pull back. If anything, she leaned in, too.
That faint smudge of barbecue sauce still marked the corner of her lip. And I wanted to taste it.
This was it. A line we’d never even acknowledged was there, and I was about to sprint right over it.
Elliott and I had rules. Ironclad, best-friend rules. Kissing his sister guaranteed a spectacular, friendship-nuking mess.
My hands knew what to do before my head caught up. That was either instinct or a very bad idea. With me? Probably both.
Just do it, Taylor.
I moved in closer. She didn’t pull away.
And then my phone, sitting on the coffee table between us, buzzed. Elliott had genuinely terrible timing.
Elliott’s name glowed on the screen like he knew I was about to move in on his sister.
Emily cleared her throat, glancing away as she started gathering empty napkin balls. “You should probably get that.”
But I didn’t move. I just stared at the phone, then back at her.
Elliott had genuinely terrible timing. Had to give him that.
My phone stopped buzzing. Elliott’s name sat there. I didn’t pick it up. And Emily was suddenly very interested in something on the other side of the room.
I didn’t want to want her.
It was messy and against the rules.
Elliott’s rules for my recovery, sure, but more importantly the ones neither of us had ever said out loud.