“Tell me,” I say, lifting my beer and finishing it in a gulp, “did we ever have serious conversations? Intense ones?” I tilt my head. “Did we ever fight?”
Emery’s gaze breaks away to the right as she thinks. Finally, she looks back at me and says, “Not really.”
“So… we’ve been married for three years, but we never fought?”
She exhales slowly. “I honestly can’t think of a single time we even argued.”
“That seems…”
“Maladaptive?” she finishes for me.
It’s my turn to nod.
With a sheepish shrug, she admits, “I think maybe we’re both a bit nonconfrontational.”
Grinning at her, I murmur, “You think?”
Emery laughs, and the breaking of the tension feels so good, I reach around her waist, pulling her into a hug. She stretches, pressing her face to my neck, and I do the same, for once letting myself take a deep, full breath of her.
Longing blooms hot and expansive in my chest, and I tighten my hold on her, taking one more huff before releasing her. “You good?” I ask.
“Yeah. You?”
“Ready to kick your ass again,” I tell her.
Emery tilts her head back and laughs. “Oh, Lukey, I gave you that one.” She tucks a wayward curl of hair back into her updo. “Just so you know.”
“Is that right.”
With another laugh, she reaches for the rack and arranges the balls in the triangle, sliding it back and forth into position. Chalking her cue again, she looks up at me. “Am I good to break?”
“Go for it.”
Emery bends over, her brows pulling down in concentration, and I’m instantly transfixed. Enamored. There’s an entire world outside that I need to explore, but I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else. I love hanging out with Emery. I wonder if, before, on our Sunny Sundays, we were like this—relishing the day, playful, flirty, without a care in the world. I fucking hope so.
But somehow, I sense this is different than what we had in that other life. Because, despite my fevered attraction to her, this time we’re becoming friends. Emery is slowly becoming my best friend, and I have the strong belief that I’d never had that thought before.
29LUCA
The moment we get home, exhaustion slaps us both directly in the face. But when Emery goes for her bundle of pillows and blankets for the couch, I feel the words rise up and rocket out of me: “Sleep in the bed. With me.”
Best friend or not, she’s still hot as sin.
She stares at me, eyes a little glassy from her drinks, weighing this.
“You won’t sleep well out here,” I say quietly.
Em pulls her lips between her teeth, sucking in a deep breath. “Yeah, I know.” She holds my gaze, confessing, “It’s hard to sleep alone.”
Oh.
Heat spreads from my gut up into my chest and down to my groin. We’ve felt the chemistry between us, and of course we’ve talked about what our sex life looked like before. Now the idea of sharing a bed is planted in my mind and sending my pulse thundering.
“We’ve talked about this, Luca,” she says.
“It’s time to renegotiate.”
“I don’t want you to feel pressured to—”
