Page 40 of Single All the Way

I forced a laugh, but it sounded as fake as it was. The room went serious in an instant.

“It’s just a joke,” West said.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Again, I tried to laugh, but the fact was, I’d had the thought last night about what if… What if I snuck up to Emerson’s room and seduced her? What if she let me? What if…

And then it’d hit me: I didn’t have any condoms anyway, so that couldn’t happen. In fact, I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t buy any for as long as she was in my house. Maybe that would help me keep my hands off her. Now I had a damn box full.

“Something happen between you and Emerson?” Max asked sincerely, all teasing gone.

“I told you she was my best friend’s wife,” I snapped, then caught how shitty my tone was. “Sorry.” I exhaled and said a dozen more swear words in my head. “Sensitive subject.”

“Emerson’s husband was your best friend?” Chance asked. He and Knox were the only ones who hadn’t grown up in Dragonfly Lake.

“From the time we were three years old,” I told him. “When he and Emerson moved away and I went to college, we lost touch a little. We were different from each other in a lot of ways, but we were tight even in high school.”

“He thinks Emerson is off-limits,” Max said to the group.

A few seconds of silence passed. Then Luke spoke up. “Blake’s gone. As awful as that is, it means Emerson is single.”

“I know she is,” I said.

“You have feelings for her?” Knox asked.

Denying it would be pointless. I nodded and said, “Sure fucking do. For some time now.” No sense in admittingsome timeequaled almost twenty years.

“I mean, she’s hot,” West said.

Hotdidn’t begin to encompass my attraction to Emerson, though hell yes, she was hot.

“Is she dating anyone?” Chance asked.

I ground my teeth together. “No.” Thank fuck.

“But she could,” Max said. “Because she’s single.”

I narrowed my eyes at him across the living room.

“Just laying it out there,” he continued. “If you don’t pursue her, how’s it going to feel to see her out with another guy?”

Like son-of-a-bitching shit.

“If something happened to me, I’d want Quincy to have a happy life,” Knox said. “I’d hate for her to be lonely for the rest of her years.”

“From what I knew of Blake, he’d feel the same way,” Max said.

“You really think it’d be okay to move in on my buddy’s wife?” I asked bluntly.

“I do,” Luke said without hesitation.

“The bigger question is whether Emerson’s interested,” Knox said.

“Say she is,” I said. “This town that talks about everything… It’s not going to see a thing wrong with me being with Blake’s woman?”

“First off, screw the town,” West said, “but yeah. Emerson’s got plenty of good years ahead of her. The chances of her not remarrying? I don’t know her, but I wouldn’t blink an eye if she did. Whether it’s to a friend of Blake’s or not. It’s a small town. Everybody knew him.”

“If you care about her, you should let her know,” Max said. “See where it goes.”

“I care about her.” I couldn’t see telling her the truth about that though.

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