“Right. And I already ordered some from my favorite spot in the city. It’ll be waiting for us at my suite,” he said, watching me very slowly cock my head in confusion. “At the stadium,” Emmett clarified, laughing at the way I blinked twice before reacting with a stunned look on my face.
“Wait. We’re… going to the city?” I froze. “To watch the game at Empire Stadium?”
Emmett hit me with that sexy grin and said, “Yeah,” while casually strolling out the door I was still standing in. Flabbergasted, my hand still gripping the doorknob, I turned and watched his gorgeously muscled backside amble down the steps. When I didn’t follow, he peered over his shoulder and confused as I was, I couldn’t help noting how handsome he was. He looked fucking irresistible turned fully around, hands in his pockets as he chuckled and asked, “What?”
“I – I don’t know.” I really didn’t. “It’s just… the city’s more than two hours away. Isn’t it? The game will be over by the time we get there.”
“It would be if we were taking a car, wouldn’t it?” Emmett asked as he nodded toward his truck with amusement. “Now come on. I gotta get us to our ride.”
A helicopter.
Our ride to the city was a fucking helicopter.
I didn’t even try to act remotely calm or composed as I skipped across the helipad toward our extremely loud but incredibly shiny, all-black ride.
Holy fuck, holy fuck.
Is this really happening?
I had to ask myself the question over and over. I was used to taking the Hampton Jitney anytime I wanted to go into the city, but I generally limited my trips because coughing up nearly fifty bucks for a one-way ride kind of sucked. So considering even the bus was a luxury to me, this was freaking amazing.
Unreal, really.
“How is this your life?” I shouted over the sound of the blade slapping well over our heads.
“What?”
“Never mind!”
I didn’t bother asking any more stupid questions once we got in. I had better things to do anyway, like watch us lift off the ground and take in the views of the water.
It was just a forty-minute ride, and it felt even shorter because I was so busy staring out the window and taking pictures the whole time. I was so stunned I didn’t even pay much mind to the fact that Emmett was taking pictures of me taking pictures. Back in the day, I hated every time he found me so thoroughly amusing. But this was fine. I didn’t have the capacity to cop any sort of attitude with him, even if it was a joking one. I was just too blown away.
“Oh my God. I forgot there was more,” I laughed at myself after we landed and got into a car to take us to Empire Stadium. I was still coming down from the exhilaration of seeing the city from the sky. The aerial view was so beautiful that it made me miss home for the first time in awhile.
I’d spent the first sixteen years of my life in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but then I spent the next ten everywhere else. After everything that happened, I was happy to live literally anywhere but New York. It wasn’t till four years ago that I came back, working my ass off at a million jobs to save money before finally moving to Sag Harbor, where Evie lived with Mike.
“Aly.”
Emmett’s voice brought me back to reality, and when I turned to face him, I found his eyes on me, and his hand reaching for mine.
“Can I steal you from the window for a sec?” he asked, wearing the most adorably exhausted look on his face.
“Sure. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’ve just been waiting to put my hands all over you since I woke up this morning, and I don’t think I can last any longer.”
My lashes fluttered and I let out the breathiest “oh” to ever come out of my mouth. I chewed hard on my lip as I took his hand, because I could feel the biggest, dopiest smile twitching at the corners of my mouth. I did my best to contain it but it broke free when Emmett pulled me swiftly onto his lap, locking his crystal blue eyes on mine.
“Hey,” he grinned, melting me on the spot.
“Hi.”
“Waiting for you to come home today was the longest eight hours of my life.”
Lord. His blunt honesty was so fucking cute I had to look down to laugh. I couldn’t let Emmett see me looking this happy and relieved. I was afraid of giving away the fact that I’d been racking my brain over him all day, anxiously over-reading our every interaction or lack thereof since being together in bed together last night. I had really convinced myself that he was feeling just meh about me – that his fascination had waned shortly after we finished having sex. I thought delivery and the game meant that Emmett was ready to calm things down and start tempering my expectations.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong.