Page 90 of Beating Heart
I took another pull from my bottle and pushed the thought away.
She was leaving. We knew what this was.
I was the king of keeping it casual.
I’d be fine when she left.
“Just enjoy it, brother. You deserve to have some fun. And Emerson is cool as hell. Don’t overthink it.” Romeo shrugged.
Yeah, he was right. I wasn’t going to overthink it.
“You’re just saying that because she told you that her brothers and her cousins are obsessed with you, Golden Boy,” Kingston said as he shook his head. “I saw his head double in size right in front of me.”
Romeo flipped him the bird and barked out a laugh. “And you jumped right in that selfie so fast with me, you didn’t miss a beat.”
Emerson had sent a selfie of her with Romeo to her family group text.
“Hey. I’m the photogenic one.”
Emerson’s brother, Easton, whom I’d already met, ended up FaceTiming his sister after she’d sent the photo.
“Yeah, well, her brother nearly lost his shit when he realized Lincoln Hendrix was Ro’s brother,” River said, with a wicked grin on his face. Romeo’s brother, Lincoln, was the quarterback for the New York Thunderbirds.
“He played for San Francisco for years before heading to New York, so he’s still got a lot of fans out this way.” Romeo nodded, proud as hell of his brother. “And Clark Chadwick is a fucking legend on the ice, so they’re clearly an athletic family.”
Emerson’s brother was one of the best centers in the league, and the guys had flipped out when they’d realized that he was her brother.
They were all teasing her about it now and giving her a hard time.
It was like Emerson had been part of this group forever.
She fit right in.
“I think you have the best style. There is no one cooler than you,” Emerson said, as my son came out of the bathroom with his hair slicked back and enough gel to make it look like it had a glass coating over it.
“I think you’re really cool,” he said, walking straight over to her and placing a hand on her cheek. The kid had game, no doubt about it. But his relationship with Emerson was different than it was with anyone else. I wasn’t sure what it was, but their connection was impossible to miss. He talked to her about everything. It had surprised me because normally he just liked to flirt and be funny, but he went deep with her. He talked about his mom and the disappointment he felt that she’d left. He talked about things that happened at school that bothered him. Things he didn’t talk about with me. I’d hear them chatting when I was cooking dinner or when we were out on the boat and I was driving.
I was always listening.
It made me happy that he was so comfortable with her, but it also terrified me.
Tara had left him when he was a baby. I knew it hurt that he didn’t have a mother in his life like all of his friends did. So, I’d always been cautious about who I let into his life. But I’d let her all the way in, and now I was fucking worried about how he’d handle it when she left.
With Tara, he didn’t have an emotional attachment. He just had to deal with the fact that he didn’t know her, and she hadn’t stuck around.
With Emerson, there were feelings. Real feelings.
“No one has ever called me cool,” she said over her laughter as she patted her legs, and he climbed onto her lap.
“You’re a doctor, and you’re pretty. You make me laugh, and you make the best cupcakes and unicorn Rice Krispie treats. You have pretty hair, and you can play all the sports as good as Pops and my uncles. That’s cool, Sunny.”
“Thanks, angel face,” she said with a chuckle, because she had a nickname of her own for him now. “Maybe you can mention that to the boys today?”
Cutler wanted to meet her brothers and her cousins, so they were doing a Zoom call with all of them. They’d had it planned for days, and it was all my boy could talk about. And I was standing here like an asshole, not knowing what the hell to do.
Her laptop was open as she started typing something, which I assumed meant she was logging in. It only took a few seconds before she and Cutler started waving at the screen.
“Is this the infamous Beefcake?” one of the guys said.
