At least now I’m not stripped down to nothing but skin while she slathers ointment on my ass from the poison ivy I’d gotten while camping the one and only time she convinced me to slum it in the woods. She’d spent the entire time laughing at my expense and joking about selling the pictures of my inflamed ass cheeks to the highest bidder.
I press a kiss to the top of Emaly’s head, which smells like the same jasmine and honeysuckle shampoo it always does. Floral and clean and…her. My best friend. “What are you doing here?” I ask again, peeling away and giving her a thorough once-over.
She smiles at me, making our fifteen-inch height difference comical as always. “I tried calling and texting you, but you didn’t answer.”
I look behind me at my phone, which isn’t plugged into the charger. I’d gotten so fed up trying to search for Winter’s social media that I must have forgotten.
“My bad,” I tell her sheepishly. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” she cuts me off knowingly. Her hand comes up to cup my jaw, her thumb rubbing against the stubble covering my chin. “But I know the meeting with my father didn’t go well, so I wanted to come see howyouare.”
She called and asked how it went the second I’d gotten home. My bet is that she tracked my location from the sports complex to the house. I didn’t bother to sugarcoat the truth. Things between her father and me aren’t good. But I don’t want her to concern herself with something that I did to myself. This is on me and only me.
“I told you not to worry,” I remind her, putting my hand on top of hers and leaning into her palm. “You didn’t need to come all this way.”
We have a house in San Diego, California, where she usually resides. It’s not often that she travels, because she has everything she needs on the West Coast. She’d visit me at my place in Pittsburgh once in a while or see her parents when they stayed at their Queens estate in the city. But over the past few years, her trips have become few and far between.
In her parents’ minds, that’s my fault.
This trip comes not long after helping me move into this place, which is exactly why she knows where my bedroom is. It’s surprising that she’d leave work so soon after taking time off to help me settle in.
“Where is Ronnie?” I ask, looking behind her. The house is quiet—too quiet.
Emaly’s smile is sleepy. “In California. I wanted to come alone. I figured I would spend time with you and then see my parents. Perhaps I could calm my father down a bit.” Her throat bobs with a swallow. “Is it…is it true he’s trying to fire you?”
Damn the media for blasting those stupid reports everywhere.
I shake my head. “It isn’t that simple. There’s a board that has to decide the fate of the players on each team. Most of them agree that this isn’t an infraction of my contract, but a personal matter that should be handled off the ice. While some of them agree I need a reality check to stop spreading negative press that overshadows the Fireflies’ first season, they don’t think there’s a justifiable reason for me to lose my position.”
Her chest deflates with a relieved breath. “I was hoping you’d say that.” Her lanky arms wrap around my waist in a tight hug. “I’m going to talk to him anyway.”
I frown. “And say what exactly?”
She can’t tell him the truth.
As if she knows that, her shoulders go limp and her hold on me loosens. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I tried to come up with something on the plane, but didn’t get very far in the planning process.”
When she pulls away, I look down at her with interest. “How far did you get?”
“Well, first I was going to fly here,” she tells me with a sheepish smile.
“Accomplished,” I note.
“Then,” she continues, “I was going to make sure you were okay and maybe convince you to make me breakfast in the morning. I can’t get my scrambled eggs as fluffy as yours.”
Chuckling, I nod along. “Lucky for you, I just ordered groceries.”
She beams. “Then…” She wets her lips. “I guess that’s it. I haven’t even thought about what I’d say to my parents besides ‘hello.’”
My eyebrows quirk up. “You never were very good at strategy.”
She scoffs, swatting me. “Be nice to me, Thomas Xavior Moskins! I rubbed ointment on your ass. I deserve respect.”
I knew she was going to bring that up. “When are you going to stop using that against me? It wasyourfault I had to shit in the woods. We both know I’m not the camping type.”
Her giggle warms my chest. “I thought you’d like it. I didn’t realize you’d find theonepatch of poison ivy at the campsite.”
I roll my eyes because we’ve had this discussion. There was a lot of poison ivy around, we just didn’t know it. “I prefer indoor plumbing and toilet paper, but I appreciate the adventure.”
