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The man sleeping below her rolled and cracked an eyelid, showing a big brown eye. A smile crept onto his lips, and he opened the other eyelid, this one a beautiful blue so crisp it rivaled the sky outside.
“You’re up,” he mumbled.
“You’re Tucker,” she replied.
Tucker wasn’t too sure what to make of Emmy’s announcement. Of course he was Tucker, who else would he be?
Emmy—who usually looked put together even with a ponytail—was mussed, her hair a tangled mess and her mascara smudged under her eyes.
She was still beautiful to him.
He groaned as he stretched, his body reminding him no man over six feet tall and thirty years of age should sleep on a couch no matter how comfortable it seemed at the time. He was stiff and his shoulder had wedged into the cushions, making it cramp up when he tried to lift it over his head.
The couch hadn’t been his intended sleeping spot when he’d put Emmy to sleep in his room the night before. He meant to sleep in the guestroom and leave her his bed, but he’d stayed up too late looking at the footage of other games and dozed off on the couch.
At least he was wearing more than he usually would have at home. He’d had the good sense to throw on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms so he wasn’t at risk of flashing Little Tucker to Emmy when he shucked off the blanket he’d tangled himself in and got to his feet. All the same her cheeks flushed as if he were stark naked.
He inspected himself to confirm he was, in fact, dressed. Her blush wasn’t the result of any accidental nudity on his part—he wasn’t even sporting morning wood. Yet her gaze was transfixed on his abdomen. If he could reduce a woman to stunned silence with his abs, there might be something to say for regular visits to the ballpark gym.
“Um…” She stared down at her feet, playing with the hem of her shirt to avoid meeting his gaze. “I’m not sure how to, um…”
“How much of last night do you remember?” He padded by her and into the large kitchen where he had a Felons warm-up hoodie tossed on the back of one of the barstools. To keep her from blushing to death he put it on, and she raised her eyes, looking at him shyly through her lashes. For a woman who was so confident and spirited in her day-to-day life, it was endearing to see her out of sorts. He played with the idea of making her think something had happened between them to see how flustered she could get, but before he could say, You said I did things to you no man ever had, she spoke first.
“I think the last thing I remember was drinking with Alex. After I broke up with Simon.”
Tucker knew that part already, having received a dozen or more texts from Alex over the course of the evening beseeching the pitcher to come to the bar and be Emmy’s immediate rebound guy. So the news she had terminated her relationship wasn’t actually news, but hearing it from her made him respond in a way he hadn’t expected.
Happiness. Pure, unadulterated, buoyant glee.
He’d been pumped when Alex told him Emmy was one of the single again and insisted this was the ideal opportunity for Tucker to make his move. Alex wasn’t forthcoming with his reasons for thinking Tucker couldn’t fail, but Tucker suspected Emmy must have said something in her boozy state. Whatever it was, he didn’t know, but he meant to find out.
“Oh. You broke up with Simon?” There was no limit to the number of times he could hear those words.
“It was time.”
He nodded, unable to say anything that wouldn’t sound self-serving. Inside his head he trumpeted a loud, Yahooooooo!
“So you remember drinking with Alex?”
“Yeah, and not much else,” she admitted, embarrassment evident in her tone and the way she refused to look right at him.
“You thought this was Alex’s condo, didn’t you?”
Emmy found the nearest barstool and sat on it, her knees pointing towards him but her gaze focused on the refrigerator.
“Yeah.”
Tucker leaned against the countertop, stealthily turning on the coffeemaker with a nudge of his elbow, and crossed his arms over his chest, intent on getting her to look at him if it killed them both.
“Are you disappointed it’s not?”
Emmy’s head snapped up, and she stared at him slack-jawed. “Of course not!”
When she saw his wry grin, she realized she’d been had, but he was grateful she didn’t glance away again. The brewer on the counter burbled to life, and
the coffee began to pour into the pot, filling the kitchen with the rich fragrance of good San Francisco coffee. Chicago could keep its pizza. The City by the Bay would have his love forever because of the coffee. Funny how he hadn’t loved San Fran coffee until Emmy told him how much she had.
Her stomach growled, and he chuckled in response.
