Sean knew who Tyler was.Heknew who he was. He didn’t know how to give Emma what she deserved, even if every cell in his body screamed out how much he wanted to. That meant he had to cut this off.
Tonight.
ChapterEighteen
Emma and Tylerwaited for Troy and Gina at the VIP entrance on the northeast side of the Saddledome. Emma had changed out of her dress at the restaurant into jeans and a long-sleeve shirt for the game, which she’d brought in her backpack. She hadn’t been able to decide on an outfit and was glad she’d decided to split the evening.
She’d be lying if she didn’t admit she enjoyed how Tyler looked at her when he picked her up, and then again in the restaurant. Her pulse quickened, thinking about the way he’d held her before their main dishes arrived.
He was hurting. That much was obvious. After what happened in the storage room, she hated that she cared. No, of course, she cared. She hated that Tyler breaking the rules and making her feel things she didn’t want to feel made it obvious howmuchshe cared.
Troy and Gina walked up to the door, flashed their tickets, and the four of them strode into the bustling arena. Troy and Gina wrapped their arms around each other as they stepped into the elevator. Tyler and Emma stood across from them with arms hanging at their sides.He didn’t take her hand.Of course he didn’t after she’d treated him that way in the car.
“What a night, eh? Good food, excellent company, and hockey. Nothing better in my book.” Troy planted a kiss on Gina’s temple.
“Thank you so much for this.” Emma smiled in gratitude. She’d been able to summon anger and hold a standoffish front right up until she’d seen Troy at the restaurant. Had he even eaten more than a few bites? He seemed to be aging years by the day, and the visual reminder of suffering and looming loss crushed her wall of indignation to dust.
Which meant she had to stare the thoughts lingering behind those bricks straight in the face. What if I gave in? What if I told Tyler how I felt? That thought wound tight springs in her chest.
Tyler didn’t want what she wanted. He loved the attention from women, the laissez-faire life, and he’d told her directly that she was exactly the kind of girl he couldn’t keep. Or at least the kind Troy Bowen didn’t think him capable of keeping.Couldn’t or didn’t want to?That seemed like an important distinction.
Emma pondered this as they found their seats behind the plexiglass among the sea of red Flames jerseys. What if Tyler hadn’t wanted to hold onto girls like her in the past . . . but he wanted it now? Was it possible that he was over the pink bras and Jell-O shots? Not that she was against pink bras, she had one but didn’t wearonlythat and dance on bartops. What if what Tyler wanted,what he was capable of,and what he did were correlated but not causal?
He had been the one to seek her out. He’d broken the rules. He’d kissed her. In the car he said he missed her and that he found her attractive. Had he been trying to tell her something all this time, and she’d been so caught up in holding back that she’d missed something real?
Emma’s skin began to hum as the teams took to the ice, the blades on their skates carving intricate patterns into the frozen surface. She could barely pay attention. She took her cues from the crowd and cheered, then groaned when she was supposed to.
Troy and Tyler analyzed plays and argued about strategies. It took the duration of a power play for enough pressure to build in Emma’s midsection that she finally reached out and twined her fingers in Tyler’s.
He flinched, losing his train of thought momentarily, then picked back up as he relaxed his hand around hers. Her heart rate jumped up another notch.This wasn’t the same.He was holding back, and in seconds she’d flipped from wishing she could walk away from Tyler Bowen permanently to worrying she’d already done it.
Images of him laughing with that blond’s fingernails scraping his skin or him walking into One Place with Ginger on his arm flashed through her mind, and the mixture of ground lamb, hummus, and cucumber tomato salad roiled in her stomach.
Troy started to fade mid-way through the second period, and Gina insisted they head home. She took Troy’s arm after he embraced both Tyler and Emma, then walked with him back the way they came. Troy laughing and Gina putting a hand on his back to steady him.
Emma wasn’t any better than Gina. She wasn’t better than Ginger, or even pink-bra-on-the-bar-girl. Who wouldn’t want to be in Tyler’s orbit? To feel like for one brief moment in time, he shone for only them? The only difference was Emma knew what it felt like to have to float through space alone. Or worse, to still be circling when men like him turned to face another direction.
They sat back in their seats.
“We don’t have to stay,” Emma murmured, laying her hands flat on her lap.
“Since when does Emma Thompson leave a Flames game when the score is tied?” he teased. Emma looked up at the jumbotron. She hadn’t even noticed the score. Tyler stretched his arm over the back of her seat. “We can go if you want. I know this wasn’t in your schedule for tonight.”
Emma fought to keep her breathing even. She could talk to him in the car on the way home if they left. But trying to be real with him now would be next to impossible. Here she sat, staring at two men pummeling each other next to the blue line, barely able to keep tears from pooling in her eyes.
“Let’s stay.” She choked out, settling into her seat, pretending to be entranced. She didn’t know if Tyler bought it, but he didn’t argue.
Emma bought a drink so she’d have something to do with her hands, then kept her eyes glued to the rink. A Canucks player made a daring deke to slip past two Flames defensemen. "Was that Boeser?” Tyler leaned forward to see the back of his jersey. “He’s too pretty to make plays like that.”
Emma snorted. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.” Tyler grinned, and she couldn’t help herself. “You’d think the Flames D-line would be more motivated to press him.” Tyler laughed out loud.
The game continued, and the Flames made a breakaway play. A fast pass to Gaudreau saw him slipping the puck between a Canuck's skates and then firing a wrist shot, only to be deflected off the goalie's pad.
Emma groaned. "Gaudreau should've passed. He had Tkachuk wide open on the left."
Tyler clicked his tongue. “Those who can’t do, yell from the sidelines.”
Emma flipped him the bird, and Tyler slapped her hand away. She elbowed him in the ribs, then sat a little closer to his side of her seat than before.
