Page 54 of Playing for Keeps

“Max, I’m not sure,” Grace said again, softer now. “It could’ve been nothing, but it looked real enough to make me worry.”

I swallowed hard. “Thanks for telling me.”

She squeezed my hand. “I hope I’m wrong.”

Then she left.

I sat there for a long time after, not moving, just staring.

Emma.

She wouldn’t do that.

She wasn’t someone who used people when it suited her. Emma was different. Smart. Warm. She had looked me in the eye that night at Will’s place, right before she left, right after that kiss, and there was nothing fake in it. I had felt it. Hell, the whole room had probably felt it.

But Grace… There was no reason for Grace to make this up. And if she was sure enough to come here and sit me down like that.

Christ.

Maybe this was why Emma wouldn’t say yes to a date. Why she had been so careful with her words, pulling back every time I tried to push a little further.

I stood and paced through the living room, fast enough that the floorboards creaked under my feet. I shoved a hand through my hair and spun around, hitting my shin on the edge of the coffee table. Pain shot through me, sharp and grounding, but it didn’t to a damn thing to calm down my heart.

No. Emma wouldn’t use me like that. Not for fun. Not for research. Except…

Hadn’t she told Grace she wanted to write about something truly Canadian? That she didn’t know anything about hockey? And then Grace had put us together, and all of a sudden I was the perfect window for her to see the sport. Easy access. Convenient.

Fuck. Was I just convenient?

I remembered how Emma had looked at me at the gala. How her legs had touched mine on the couch at Will’s. How her laugh made a part of me I thought was frozen feel like it was finally cracking open.

No way that was fake.

But Grace saw what she saw. And Grace doesn’t exaggerate.

My hands curled into fists.

I dropped into a chair with too much force. It scraped loudly against the floor. I bent forward, elbows on my knees, pressing my palms into my eyes. If Emma had been stringing me along while another guy was kissing her in lecture halls and reminiscing about Quebec… then I was an idiot. Worse than that, I was a fool, letting myself believe in her eyes, her smile, and the way she leaned into me like it meant something.

My chest burned.

How could she do this?

How the fuck could she do this?

And yet, beneath the anger, a whisper still tried to tell me maybe Grace was wrong. Maybe Emma had an explanation. But the whisper wasn’t loud enough to drown out the image of her standing close to some guy, letting him talk about Quebec like it was theirs.

By the time I went to bed, I was still nowhere near calm.

All I knew was that I couldn’t stop seeing her face when she kissed me. I couldn’t stop hearing Grace say that she had seen her with someone else. I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe, just maybe, I had been building a story in my head that was never mine to begin with.

And that thought gutted me.

29

EMMA

“For heaven’s sake,” I muttered, snatching my bathrobe from the hook. I wrapped it tightly around me and cinched the belt with a quick tug. Then I hurried through the house, leaving damp crescents on the floorboards. The bell shrieked again. Whoever it was had no intention of going away.