Page 32 of Cuffed (Everyday Heroes 1)
“You’ve never been able to say no to me, Emerson.”
“Oh. Please. Take your card back.” She shoves it back at me, but she’s laughing and that’s a good thing.
“Nope.” I take a step back. “You’ll call. I know you will.”
“I won’t.”
“You know you want to find out what happened to Miles O’Neal.”
Her head startles as she remembers the little boy who used to have the biggest crush on her. “Whatever,” she says as she slips the card into her pocket without looking at it. “For the record, Malone, I don’t fall for sweet talk anymore.”
“Then what do you fall for?”
Em freezes momentarily as she gets an odd look on her face that I can’t read before shaking her head. “I have to get back to work.”
Whoa. What? “Work?”
“Yeah. Work. I’m in the process of buying this place.”
“The airport?”
“Blue Skies, the skydiving school.”
“You are?”
“Yep.” She turns her back to me and tosses over her shoulder, “Later, Phony Maloney.”
So she is sticking around. Permanently.
Huh.
I watch her walk across the tarmac until she disappears inside the door of Blue Skies. Then I climb in my truck and start the engine but don’t leave.
Fuck if I know why I’m working so hard for this woman.
But I am.
After a bit, I reverse, pull out of the parking lot, and smile.
She didn’t correct me when I called her Emmy.
I guess I’ll take any victory I can get, because I have a feeling when it comes to Emerson Reeves, they are hard fought and few and far between.
The question is, what the hell is the victory for?
“You really need to clean this place, Em.”
I glance around the loft and shrug. I have a stack of clothes piled on a chair in the corner that I need to wash, there is a mess on the counter of the kitchenette—if I can call it that—and my bed’s unmade, which is usual.
“You’re the only one who visits, and since you already like me, it isn’t like I need to impress you,” I say to Desi as I pour some wine into her plastic glass.
“That’s highly debatable,” she says with a shake of her head and then begins to stack the paperwork on the card table, er, kitchen table—in some sort of order. “This
place isn’t exactly spacious. I’m sure it would look bigger if it were clean.”
“Yes, mother.” I lean back in one of my mismatched chairs and prop my feet on an opposing one. “Do you know how freaking exhausted I’ve been lately? Between Travis and Blue Skies and the loan, I feel like I don’t have time to breathe.”
“Then quit one of them.”
