Page 49 of Ruthless Edge

She doesn't move at all. The ice pack stays against my lip and her eyes drop to it, then come back up and we're close enough that there's nothing between us but the cold of the ice and whatever she's deciding right now. I lean in inch by inch, giving her every chance to move away, but she doesn’t. Maybe it’s in my head, but I think she even leans in too.

"Emma," someone calls. "We need you for the tent breakdown."

“Coming!” She pulls back. Stands up. Hands me the ice pack and smooths the front of her shirt and doesn't look at me for a second.

"Keep that on it," she says.

"Emma—"

She walks back toward the tents and I sit in the folding chair with the ice pack against my lip and watch her go.

She took care of me.

She checked my face. She got the ice pack. She sat close enough that I could see every individual eyelash. She put her hands on me and she went still when I put mine on her and she didn't move away.

We almost kissed. Right there in the first aid area with an ice pack between us, and a fat lip. We were close enough that I felt it, and she felt it too, and she didn't leave until someone interrupted us.

That has to mean something.

Three years of wrong turns and bad timing, and something, finally, almost happened.

I can work with that.

I have seven weeks until this gala. Seven weeks of committee meetings, venue calls, sponsorship lists, and every one of them is another opportunity. She's running out of reasons not to be with me, and I am going to be there every time one of them falls away.

Owen Bennett can go find somebody else's girl to be confident about.

Emma's going to be mine.

Chapter Thirteen

Emma

The last few weeks have disappeared into classes and an endless stream of gala planning with Knox. We've spent more time together than I want to think about, and with the gala getting dangerously close, there hasn't been much room for anything else. Until tonight. Until this much needed party. Paige's house is loud and warm and packed with people who all seem to know each other in that loose, overlapping way that happens when five social people live together and have all invited their own circles.

I've been here enough times to know the layout and the rhythms of it. Paige and her roommates keep it nice, the kind of house that looks lived-in without looking neglected, and tonight every room is doing something different. Music in the living room. Louder conversation in the kitchen. Someone's found the back porch. Paige and I have claimed two oversized chairs in the corner of the living room that are good for sitting at a party without being in the middle of a party.

I have a cup of jungle juice that I don't really want and she has one she very much does, and within ten minutes we've gotten through all the necessary surface conversation and landed where we were always going to land. Which is on the very men I’ve been trying, and failing, to stop thinking about.

"Owen's good for you," Paige says. Not unkindly. Just factually. "He's smart and he's consistent and he had the balls to go after what he wanted… you, which is a lot more than most men do nowadays. With their late night texts to, ‘just drop by,’ and not ever wanting to go out on a proper date. Men! Utter idiotic pigs! But not Owen. He sounds like one of the good ones."

"I know."

"And whatever Knox is doing right now—" she gestures vaguely, "—not saying what he wants, not acting like a boy who deserves you⁠—"

"I’m honestly not even sure he wants me."

"Emma."

"I know what you're saying."

She looks at me like she thinks I'm being deliberately obtuse. "He's complicated. He comes with three years of your anger attached to him. Owen doesn't."

I look at my drink. "You're right."

"I know I'm right."

"Owen makes sense on paper."