“Well, I only moved in today, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for you.”
Collins is no longer looking at me, head turned and eyes fixed on my kitchen area.
“E-Emmett?” is all that leaves her mouth.
She focuses back on me, motioning between me and the man standing in my apartment, a guy I’m guessing she knows.
Emmett’s steely-gray eyes don’t blink, bewilderment written right across his face.
“Wait.” He points to me and then Collins. “Do you guys know each other?”
My mind races, initial thoughts of Collins being the girl Emmett was referring to as “hot” that time I caught sight of his text chat. I clear that thought immediately. The huge diamond ring she’s wearing is a reminder that she’s very much taken.
When her shocked expression turns scheming, I realize that she’s connecting the dots.
“Hang on a minute.” She holds up a hand and gives me a knowing glance, coupled with a wink. “Is Emmett the good person who you … you know?”
My cheeks burn under the weight of her words. Sure, she didn’t give away any details about our conversation the other week, but she also doesn’t need to. It doesn’t take a genius to decipher her facial expression and my flaming cheeks to figure out that I have a crush on the New York Blades defenseman and my dad’s best friend.
“How do you know each other?” My question is designed to take the heat off me.
Clearing his throat, Emmett takes a couple of steps down to our level, walking toward us until we’re in a kind of triangle.
“Collins is married to one of my closest friends and former teammate, Sawyer Bryce.” He holds his hand out, motioning to Collins. “Billie Quinn, meet Collins Bryce.”
The only one who doesn’t look like they want the ground to swallow them whole is Collins. And that doesn’t surprise me since I get a hunch that very little knocks this girl off-balance.
“Billie and I already met at Rise Up a week or so ago,” Collins clarifies for Emmett.
She doesn’t look away from me, making it very hard for me to hide the truth behind my attempts to play this cool.
Emmett is exactly the person I was talking to her about, and she knows it.
She clicks her tongue, setting her eyes on my front door. “Okay, well, I’m going to head back home now.” She pulls up the hood on the raincoat and makes to leave, stopping just before she slides the dead bolt across the door. “I don’t know what’s going on, and to be honest, it’s none of my business.” She turns to look at us both, her previous playful demeanor now more serious. “But I’m guessing by the looks on your faces that I’m the last personwho was supposed to show up, or maybe it’s more that I interrupted something.”
Emmett pulls at the back of his neck. “Billie and I are friends, and I was helping her move in.”
There isn’t any judgment in Collins’s voice as she pulls the door open and holds her gaze on me. “Like I’ve said to many of my friends on a number of occasions, a man’s eyes never lie, even if their mouth does.”
After the click of my apartment door, there’s nothing but silence between us both.
The tension is palpable, unbearable, a thousand words passing between our lingering glances.
But here’s the deal: just because Collins believes that Emmett has a thing for me, that doesn’t necessarily make it true. And it for sure doesn’t make it any less awkward as I bite on the inside of my cheek, trying—and failing—to find words to breach the impasse between us.
Right before Collins showed up, he had his hand under my chin, our light banter having morphed into something new and more serious.
I don’t want to lose my friendship with Emmett, and I’m determined not to run away with the idea that he’s here, in my apartment, for any other reason than he’s a friend trying to help me believe everything he said in the kitchen.
“Billie, I think we need to talk.” When Emmett finally speaks, his voice sounds deflated, flat, and frustrated.
Everything I feared about this situation is playing out right before me. He’s figured out that I have the hots for him, and like a fucking schoolgirl crushing on her PE teacher, I brace for his inevitable exit from my life.
A line has been crossed, and I’m the one who fucked up.
On a deep swallow, I force myself to look at him. “Go ahead.”
One hand is back in the pocket of his sweatpants, and as he moves closer to me, every inch of my skin feels like it’s been shocked with a zap of electricity.
