Page 48 of Redeeming Harmony

Knock it off, asshole.

Right. The curvy goddess sitting across from him only wanted to be friends.

“I should go,” Emma said.

“Can we start over?” he asked. “Pretend like I’d never been an asshole who wouldn’t stop hitting on you?”

When she didn’t immediately stand up and leave, he held his hand out over the table. “Hey, I’m Lucas. I work for Stark Entertainment as a game developer, and yes, I’m from Willington, but don’t hold that against me.”

She hesitated before reaching out and giving his hand a shake. “I’m Emma. I own Twisted Stitches on Main Street.”

“I’ve been there,” he said. “Picked up some yarn for my mom for her birthday. She loved it, by the way.”

“Does your mom knit or crochet?” Emma asked.

“She’s a knitter,” Lucas said. “Although her arthritis has gotten really bad the last few years, and she’s given up a lot of the more complicated knitting.”

He took a sip of soda. “She can still knit lap blankets with large needles and bulky yarn, but I know she finds it boring. She was making herself this cool looking shawl, and she had to stop because it was too much for her hands.”

“That must be hard for her,” Emma said.

“It is.” Lucas shook off his melancholy and smiled at Emma. “What got you interested in gaming?”

“Mario and Luigi,” she said.

“Ah, yes, the Mario brothers are the gateway drug of the gaming world,” he said. “They sucked in about a good fifty percent of my coworkers.”

“And the other fifty percent?” she said.

“Old school, like me. Pacman, Donkey Kong, and Dig Dug,” he said.

She laughed. “Where did you even play those games?”

“My dad owned an arcade in the mid-eighties,” Lucas said.

“Seriously?” Emma’s face lit up. “Does he still own it?”

“No. Dad held on for a little longer than most arcades. He didn’t close doors until ninety-eight, but eventually, there wasn’t enough business after Playstation hit the scene. I was only nine when he closed the arcade, but I’d spent enough time there that gaming was already my passion. Dad kept a few of the more popular arcade games in our basement and me and my friends played them all the time, well into our teens. It drove my mom crazy, but Dad always told her that it was better to listen to the sound of arcade games drifting up from the basement than wonder where her kid was all weekend.”

“He made a good point,” Emma said.

“True, but my mom liked to point out that I was a total nerd and would have been at home with or without the arcade games.”

Emma laughed. “Your mom said that?”

He grinned. “Yep. She’s what my dad calls, frighteningly blunt.”

“Was it true? Were you a nerd?”

“Such a nerd,” he said.

She stared at him, her gaze lingering on his shoulders and chest and then his mouth before she looked away. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“It’s true. I was short and skinny with braces and my hair… oh God, don’t even get me started on my hair. My best friend, Connor, rescued me from my nerd prison. He was a hardcore athlete, and he got me into baseball.”

“It’s like a requirement that every male in the Falls or Willington plays baseball,” Emma said with a grin.

“Very true. I was already playing baseball, but Connor definitely helped me improve, and by senior year, the braces were gone, I’d gotten rid of the Bieber haircut, and I’d started to fill out some. I wasn’t the well-muscled god sitting across from you today, but the ladies were starting to notice me.”

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