Page 27 of Last Night Was Fun

Two more faces appeared above her: Silas and the girl with the pink hair.

“Did you hit your head?” Pink Hair spoke the first words Emmy had ever heard her say.

Emmy shook her head and tried to sit up again. “No. Just my butt when I fell. Ouch!” she cried when Pink Hair touched her leg.

“Dude, you can, like,seethe imprint of the ball’s stitching,” Pedro said.

“Not helping, Torres,” Gabe muttered.

“What are you doing?” Emmy asked Pink Hair as she probed her leg. “Who are you?”

“This is my girlfriend, Mae,” Silas said.

“You have a girlfriend?” Pedro asked as Mae pushed him out of the way.

Apparently, Emmy wasn’t the only one who didn’t talk about her personal life at work.

“Yes. She’s an EMT,” Silas said.

Emmy winced with another gasp of pain when Mae squeezedher thigh. “I doubt anything is broken, but you might want to get an X-ray just in case. Otherwise, it will bruise like hell but heal in time,” Mae said.

Emmy risked a glance at her leg that was already turning purple. She had a particularly nasty comment ready to hurl at Gabe, but when she looked up and saw the pure anguish on his face, the utter remorse, she swallowed it.

“Jeez, Olson. You look likeyou’rethe one who just took a line drive to the leg,” she said.

“Emmy, I am so sorry. That was a total accident, you have to believe me.”

There was her first name again. The sound of it on his lips did something funny to her chest that she might have spent more time thinking about if it weren’t for the flaming pain radiating out from her thigh into every cell.

She snorted as Mae scooped her hands under her arms and helped her to sit. “Yeah, I know it was an accident. Like you have that good of aim.”

She expected him to smirk, but the concerned crease folding his brow wouldn’t budge.

“Here, let’s help her up,” Mae said. “Do you think you can walk?” Emmy felt the other woman’s strong arms boost her off the ground. Surely Mae was accustomed to maneuvering bodies as an EMT, but a second set of hands grabbed her and finished the job with far less effort.

“I got her,” Gabe said, and suddenly, Emmy was vertical, feeling blood fight its way to her head and trying to balance on one leg. “Give me your arm.” He looped her arm over his shoulders and had to stoop over to support her given their height difference. It was all very awkward and inefficient, but it occurred to Emmy that other than a handshake the day they’d met and the occasional and accidental arm or knee graze, she’d never really touched Gabe Olson before.

The heat of his firm body was a welcome balm in the night thathad grown cool and foggy. She could feel tiny calluses on his palm where he gripped her wrist on the arm looped over his shoulders. Their hips kept bumping off each other like buoys with every delicate step. They were making far less progress than the struggle was worth, but Emmy found herself unwilling to move out of his grip.

“Thank you,” she muttered to him, embarrassed for having been taken out by a baseball and by how much she liked the feel of his body against hers. She would erase this night from memory for both reasons.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again.

“You can stop apologizing. It was an accident,” she said through gritted teeth. Her left leg was still useless. Its only function seemed to be throbbing in furious pain.

They’d made a pitiful amount of progress back toward the dugout when Pedro whipped around from in front of them.

“Um, guys? We gotta go.” He pointed up at the field level, where lights had flicked on. Someone was marching down the stadium steps with a flashlight.

“Oh shit,” Silas hissed from behind them.

Everyone in the group took off running for cover. Emmy felt Gabe’s momentum shift forward on the same instinct, but her body dangling at his side stopped him.

“I can’t—” she said with a shake of her head. “This is as fast as I can go.”

He glanced down at her like a soldier who’d just been told tosave yourselfby a fallen comrade. His jaw clenched with a determined grit.

And then he scooped her up into his arms.