AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Men in the bar didn’t seem to share his apprehension. He overheard more than one comment volunteering to service her. Tucker cut a glance to Emmy, who had slid onto the barstool and was pretending not to hear any of it.
“What’ll it be?” A Spanish-looking bartender sidled up, his sleek black hair pulled into a ponytail. He didn’t sound rushed, but there was a precision to his words that projected urgency.
Emmy ordered a beer for herself and looked expectantly to Tucker, who added, “Sam Adams. And some menus?”
The bartender nodded and slid two somewhat-clean, plastic-covered menus across the bar to them and vanished to collect their drinks.
“You ever been here before?” Emmy asked once the beers had been delivered.
“Yeah, but it’s been years. You’ll have to tell me what’s good.”
“It’s all good.” She laughed and took a sip of her drink. “How can you come to Chicago as often as you do and not visit here every single time? I love this place.”
Tucker let himself swell with pride briefly, having picked the restaurant well. “I don’t know. I don’t explore a lot anymore. Once you’ve been to a city a few times, you stop getting the same tourist itch. You come, play, head back to the hotel. Rinse and repeat as necessary then go do it in the next city.”
Emmy must have had a sense of that mentality. She’d traveled with the Sox for four years. There was no way she still got the same thrill from visiting the same fifteen cities over and over. You can only go to Baltimore or Oakland so many times before they stop being fascinating.
At least Oakland would be a lot closer to home for her now.
And closer to him.
Funny how he hadn’t known her before that spring but the idea of her being away from him made a knot form in his stomach he didn’t know how to get rid of.
“That makes me really sad,” she commented, steering them back to the subject at hand. “I lived in Chicago, grew up here, and I still go to my favorite places at least once a year.”
“Like what?”
“The Lincoln Park Zoo, for one. The most fun you can have in Chicago for free.” Emmy nodded at her own statement, making him believe it though he hadn’t tried to argue. “Shedd Aquarium, obviously. And the Natural History Museum. Sometimes I’ll walk the riverfront from Navy Pier in the morning and end up at the museum. You can kill an entire day in Chicago that way.”
“What if we didn’t have a day?” Tucker took a swig off his beer, trying to pretend he hadn’t said we. “What if…someone only had an hour or two?”
She fiddled with the label on her bottle, hazel eyes gazing thoughtfully into the air. “Let me get back to you.”
The bartender returned and gave them an expectant stare.
“Do you trust me?” Emmy asked Tucker.
“I do.”
She looked back at the bartender. “We’ll have the small deep-dish, extra cheese, with Canadian bacon, ground beef, garlic and banana peppers.”
The man nodded and plopped a caddy on the bar in front of them with napkins, dried parmesan and a container of hot pepper flakes.
“Banana peppers?” Tucker asked.
“You said you trusted me.”
“I did. I do.”
“Then believe me. You’ll love this.”
“And here I thought you were just ordering the garlic to keep me from trying to kiss you.”
Emmy choked on her beer. Tucker was starting to see a trend of him attempting to murder her with his own poor choice of words.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, handing her a stack of napkins.
Emmy wiped a small wet spot of beer off her chin and checked the front of her shirt to see if she’d missed any. “You said this was just dinner.” Her voice was soft and low. It wasn’t accusatory, but he still felt guilty.
