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Emmy shook her head. Because she traveled so often she had a fast-pass for security which she kept in her wallet. It might not be the most secure place, but it meant she never lost the small, laminated card. It also meant she could leave for Chicago without needing to stop at home first.
“I can buy anything I need when I get there,” she assured him. Emmy glanced back down at her phone, where the photo of Tucker smiling looked very different from the Tucker in front of her. The real Tucker seemed tired, and his brow furrowed in unmasked concern.
“Are you—?”
“Please, Tucker. I want to go.”
He helped her to her feet without further arguments or any helpful suggestions, and led her to the unlocked Prius. It was an unusual choice of car for a rich and famous athlete. Based on the stereotype, Emmy had assumed he’d be driving a Porsche.
She also must have voiced this out loud, because Tucker smiled faintly—the expression a distant cousin to his usual toothy grin—and opened her door for her.
“You’d have to be an idiot to drive a nice car in San Francisco, unless you plan on keeping it under lock and key and never taking it out. I’d prefer to have a car I can use, not a museum piece.”
He had a valid point. Emmy’s own Honda hadn’t exactly been a gem when she’d arrived in her new city, but it had taken only a few weeks before she accepted there was no hope in hell of her maintaining any semblance of a paint job.
Her rear and front bumpers were scuffed and mildly dented from ill-judged parallel-parking attempts—and every attempt made at a ninety-degree incline was ill-judged. Her doors on both sides were dented from cyclists, and her side mirrors were scraped from people passing too close to her on the narrow streets. At first she’d thought she was doing something wrong, but after some investigation she discovered every car in the city had the same war wounds as hers.
Of course Tucker, a long-time resident, would know this about his own city. But it still surprised her he wasn’t flashier with his money.
“Very pragmatic,” she said, and her voice caught in her throat.
They drove in silence while she watched her phone, trying to will Melody to call her back. She’d even be grateful for a simple text at this point. Instead, the slim Samsung mocked her with its shiny black screen, and they continued their staring contest—she and the phone.
Their route to the airport took them by the Bay, over a stretch of road that was so surrounded by water it should have fallen in at some point, and the Felons Stadium sat near the pier like a red-bricked crown. It looked so different from the older buildings, too new and fresh to blend in. But the place was beautiful, and probably the single fanciest ballpark she’d ever set foot into.
And she was running away with no notice.
Solemnly, as Tucker took the airport exit and guided them away from the water, she called Chuck. She explained there was a family emergency and she would brief Jasper on anything he didn’t already know. When she hung up, she texted her assistant A.T. and said, Vince in hospital. Game on you. Call if you need me.
Tonight was the first of a four-game stretch against the Detroit Tigers, and Emmy was hoping to only miss one. Thinking about work was her way of coping with the scary reality of the situation. If she imagined herself missing a single game, that meant she’d get to Chicago and her dad would be fine.
If she made a contingency to be gone longer, she was opening herself up for the reality something could have gone really, really wrong. The notion of planning a funeral would rear its ugly head, along with settling hospital bills and sorting out her father’s estate. It was too much. Much too much to think about while in a car with someone who was barely even a friend.
But who could be so much more.
She still hadn’t called Simon.
Since she didn’t have a flight booked she didn’t know where they’d go, but Tucker pulled up in front of the Delta gate and stopped the car. “I checked flights before I came to get you. There’s a ticket reserved at the desk for a flight leaving in ninety minutes,” he told her.
Emmy wanted to cry. She’d been horrible to him, ignoring him, all because she couldn’t come to terms with what she felt for him. And here he was picking her up and driving her to the airport, taking care of her when she needed it. She didn’t know how to deal with his kindness right then because it just made her tired and sad.
“Thank you.”
Inside there was a long, twisting lineup to the ticket counter—not an unusual sight at SFX—and Emmy clenched her phone in her hands, nervously waiting for the people ahead of her to collect their boarding passes and move on.
When she got to the counter, she gave them her name and slid her ID across the counter.
“Will you be checking any bags?” the attendant asked.
“No.”
“And what about the gentleman traveling with you?”
That grabbed Emmy’s atten
tion away from her phone. “You must have the wrong booking. I’m traveling alone.”
“No,” came a strong, masculine voice from beside her. Tucker emerged from the crowd and stood by her side, handing the girl at the counter his own fast-pass. “I won’t be checking any baggage.”
