She comes back, carrying a bag of frozen corn.
“Looks like I’m out of ice,” she says. “This’ll work just as well, though.”
“Okay,” I answer, and she sits down across from me, gently pressing the cold bag against my skin.
“I’m so sorry about all of this,” she says. “I wish he would just forget that he’s my father and just leave me alone.”
I reach up to take the bag, but Emma doesn’t move her hand when mine touches it.
“I’ve got it,” she says. “You just try to relax.”
She’s looking into my eyes—well, my eye, really, with concern on her face.
“I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to get away from that man,” she says. “When I was a kid, I’d hide or run to a friend’s house when things got really bad, but now… I don’t know, there just doesn’t seem like there’s anything I can do to get him to leave me alone.”
“Have you thought about just paying him off so he’ll go away?” I ask.
It’s not a good idea, but it is an option.
“I’m not getting sucked back into that,” she says. “I think Ben proved pretty clearly that a person who’s sucking money from you isn’t a person you can trust to leave you in peace.”
“Okay,” I answer.
She’s running the fingers of her free hand through my hair, and whether it’s the tenderness of the moment or the adrenaline of the last one, I’m starting to find myself incredibly turned on.
“What are you doing tonight?” I ask.
“I’m planning on locking the doors, unplugging the cable box, and throwing back a couple dozen shots,” she says. “You’re more than welcome to join me.”
“All right,” I smile. “You know,” I tell her, “you look beautiful tonight.”
She scoffs and says, “I look like shit.”
Her hair is a bit disheveled from trying to pull me and her father apart, and her eyes are still a bit puffy from crying after the press conference, but I’m not lying when I say, “Really, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so attractive.”
“Well, thank you,” she says, and pulls the bag of corn from my eye a moment. “How does it feel?”
“It’s not so bad,” I tell her. “The cold is helping.”
“That’s good,” she says, and her hand that was going through my hair is now rubbing my back. “I just wish life wasn’t so screwed up,” she says. “Wouldn’t it just be nice if people didn’t try to screw each other?”
“Depends on the usage of the word,” I joke.
“Clever,” she says. “Okay, not really, but it was the first word that came into my head.”
She puts the bag of corn back against my face, and I’m putting my hand on her upper thigh, saying, “I’m sorry all this is happening.”
“It is what it is,” she says. “Not much we can do about it but deal with it.”
“Yeah,” I respond, and just stare into her bright blue eyes.
I catch her gaze and she looks back at me with kind, loving eyes.
“You know,” I tell her, “it’s been a pretty rough day.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It really has.”
“I was thinking maybe I could take care of you, too,” I tell her.