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He sat on the brown leather couch in front of a trunk that served as a coffee table, the exposed brick wall punctuated by a simple gas fireplace. He pressed a button to start it and for the first time considered what his place might look like to Stefanie Ferguson. She loved Christmas and twinkly lights and fluffy, fuzzy decorative pillows. He imagined she equated his place with a morgue for all the personality it had.
“Mowr.”
Emmett turned his head to find Oscar, Sunday’s twenty-two-pound cat, swaggering into the room after almost tripping down the bottom two steps. Graceful, that cat was not. He was good-looking, though, his bright, round green eyes and uniquely patterned brown and darker brown fur making up for the clumsiness.
“Mowr,”Oscar repeated, too masculine to manage a dainty sound like “meow.”
“I know,” he told the cat. “You’re stuck with me for about a week. It sucks, but I promise I won’t let you die.”
Oscar slowly blinked, sitting at the foot of the stairs and curling his tail around his feet. A tail the cat forgot was there a few seconds later when he stepped on it, yowled and sprinted into the next room.
From his seat on the sofa, Emmett shook his head. How he’d ended up with his ex-girlfriend’s cat for the week was simple. She’d asked and he couldn’t think of a single reason to say no. He’d spent time with Oscar before and noticed he and the feline had a few things in common. They were both supersize, neither of them into frills, both single and both enjoyed chicken salad.
It wasn’t Sunday’s or Oscar’s fault that Emmett had returned home from his trip married, so he couldn’t very well kick Oscar out.
The water upstairs shut off and he wondered how long his wife would soak. Wondered if he should join her. He smiled at the rim of his glass at the idea of climbing into the water with her and overflowing the tub. He decided to give her a moment to herself. She deserved a break. He’d been in her space, and then inside her, since they arrived at his house.
His phone rang. He answered it without looking. That ringtone belonged to only one individual in his contact list.
“Hey, boss.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fire your ass,” Chase said in greeting.
“I’m better at watching your six than anyone on the planet.”
A long beat of silence and then, “You hurt her, Em, you’ll hear from me. Decorum, my position as mayor of this city and our friendship won’t stop me from beating the shit out of you.”
“Understood.” He’d never roughhoused with Chase, but Chase was no weakling. He worked out, and while the mayor wasn’t as wide as Emmett, he had reach. Emmett imagined if he did hurt Stef, he’d deserve whatever justice her brother doled out.
“Is any of it real? I need to know if she’s...serving a purpose for you or if you care about her.” Chase’s voice was steel, his tone the dangerous hum of a transformer about to blow.
“She’s an adult. And I’m not Blake. Give me some credit.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“I answer to you at work, not about my personal life.”
“Emmett.”
“Chase. I’ve been in your life for a long time. I care about everyone in your family. You shouldn’t have any worries as to whether I’d hurt her or not. I value your family more than my own life.”
Chase’s sigh was weighty. He had to know Emmett was telling the truth. Emmett placed loyalty above all else.
“If the scales start tipping,” Chase said, “if you notice that she’s beginning to care for you more than you will ever care for her, don’t drag her along. Let her go.”
Chase didn’t need to say more. He was talking about love. He meant if Stef started falling and Emmett wasn’t falling for her, that Emmett should let her go.
There was no fairer request than that.
“Promise me.” Chase’s voice was low. “Or it’ll be more than your career on the line. I’ll cut you out of my family so fast it’ll be like we never knew each other.”
Even issuing the threat, Emmett could hear in his friend’s voice that it was the last thing Chase wanted to do.
“If it comes to choosing between you and my family—”
“Your family comes first,” Emmett said, his heart cracking under the pressure of that realization.
He wasn’t family. He wasn’t blood. Blood in the Ferguson line mattered more than a friendship that spanned a decade. Hell, he’d been surprised Rider and Elle let him walk out of their home with their only daughter since he’d sullied the Ferguson family tree with a Keaton leaf.
Even though it killed him to say it, Emmett couldn’t blame Chase for defending his sister.
“I understand.”
