Southern Hotshot (North Carolina Highlands 2)

Emma pushes the sleeves of my sweatshirt up to her elbows. Her skin there is covered in freckles. “Understandable.”

“This is something I’ve never told anyone,” I say. I’m already in over my head here, so no point in holding back now. “But there’s another reason I didn’t fight longer than I did. The rumors Olly spread about me—they weren’t entirely untrue. I knew in my gut that my body wasn’t the same after the injury. Neither was my head. I couldn’t get into the game the way I had before. Maybe I was scared or tired or whatever, but the first thing I felt after the rage died down was relief.”

Emma frowns. “Why keep that a secret?”

I search her eyes. Heart thumping inside my chest. “Why do you always ask such good, awful questions?”

“Because I care.”

“I really did feel ashamed.” I tip back my wine. Emma’s already halfway through her glass, and I need to catch up. “I did feel like I was letting the team down. Although the reality is my gut very likely saved me from the kind of injury Beau’s dealing with right now. But still, that shame, the feeling that I fell short—it’s real.”

“You don’t need to tell me. Shame’s been my constant companion for as long as I can remember.”

“How did you finally kick its ass?”

Emma’s throat dips as she swallows her wine. My body pulses. She smells like me—my shampoo and my soap.

“When I do, I’ll let you know.” She smiles. “Therapy helps. So does time. I give way fewer shits about what people think of me as I’ve gotten older. But I guess it comes down to being brave enough to acknowledge who you really are and what you really want, and honoring that instead of fighting it. Thinking of it as sacred and good, rather than something that’s shameful, something that should be ignored or swept under the rug or bottled up. It’s living your truth.”

I’m full-on gulping my wine now. “And what’s my truth?”

She thinks for a minute before responding. “You talk a lot about your dad. I don’t know much about him, except that he passed when y’all were young.”

Aw, shit, I’m gonna cry again. “I was eighteen.”

“That’s awful. I don’t know what else to say except that I’m really, really sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“But I have a sneaking suspicion it’s got to do with him—who you are, and what you feel like you’re missing. When he died, what died with him?”

My eyes won’t quit burning. The sensation is familiar now, and I don’t fight it.

Emma and I both startle at the ding of the timer in the kitchen.

“Saved by lasagna,” I say, getting up. Just because I don’t fight the tears doesn’t mean I’m not glad I don’t have to explain why they’re there in the first place.

What I don’t say is the loneliness I’ve felt for years goes away whenever I’m with Emma.

I don’t say it’s because I think she’s the only person who’s cared enough to get to know me—to dig past the bullshit to the real me—since Daddy.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emma

I know I’m going to sleep with Samuel one bite into my lasagna.

It’s like the cheesy, carby goodness meets my tongue and the last of my defenses comes tumbling down.

Maybe I knew it the minute I climbed into his truck.

The minute he told me what he’d never told anyone else.

Or maybe I knew it the minute we met.

Whatever the case, it’s happening. I want to fight it. And right up until the end of my shower, I was fighting, valiantly, reminding myself over and over that my whole life is at stake. Every dream. Every dollar.

I fought to remind myself of how he behaved that night in his kitchen.

But then his confession happened, and now this lasagna and this fucking wine, and I have never wanted in my life something more than to be with this man in every sense of the word.

I’m begging you, I silently tell him as I sink my teeth into a garlic knot, don’t break me.

“Good?” Samuel asks, blue eyes flicking to mine.

He looks eager. A little nervous. Totally fucking adorable.

“Insane. You’re a pretty amazing cook, Samuel.”

He suggested we do dinner indoor picnic style, which I was totally on board with. So we’re eating on a bear skin rug—“it’s fake, I promise”—in front of the family room’s massive fireplace. It’s laughably over the top and incredibly, temptingly romantic. Snow falling outside the picture windows, the frozen swirl a delicious contrast to the cozy, buzzy warmth sinking into my bones.

Samuel wants to take good care of me. Tonight, I’ll let him.

Just tonight.

Something deep down tells me that’s a promise I won’t be able to keep. But it’s the assurance I need to make my professional and personal desires square up right now.

I go with it.

The disappointment I felt earlier is nowhere to be seen.