Page 23 of Beautiful Harmony

Emma grinned at Lucas, who muted his mic and said, “If you tell them you’re teaching me to knit, I’ll sabotage your gaming chair, Emma.”

Her smile widened. “I’m teaching a friend who is not Lucas to knit.”

Nathan laughed. “Aw, Lucas is learning a new hobby. That’s so cute.”

“Can I put my order in for a new hat now?” Wyatt said.

“Wait, is teaching to knit a euphemism for you’re gonna bang?” Jesse asked.

“No,” Emma said, her face turning pink and the little bit Lucas could see of her birthmark darkening.

Lucas unmuted his mic. “It is. It totally is.”

“Knew it,” Jesse said.

“I’m going to stab you with a knitting needle, Lucas,” Emma said.

“Ooh, foreplay,” Jesse said, making Nathan and Wyatt laugh.

As Emma’s blush deepened, Wyatt said, “All right, have a good night, everyone. See you next Friday.”

They logged off, and Lucas grinned at Emma when she grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and chucked it at his head. “I really am going to stab you with your own damn knitting needle.”

He laughed and then stood and stretched, wishing like hell that just once Emma would check out his body. But she never did, and tonight was no different. Instead, she turned off the screen and tucked away her headset and controller. “Grab your knitting, and we’ll go to the kitchen. The light is better in there.”

His aching ass grumbled at him as Emma picked up the kitchen chair he’d been sitting on and carried it out of the room. He snagged the plastic bag with his knitting supplies and followed her.

She poured them both glasses of iced tea and sat down. “Okay, let’s do this.”

She was all no-nonsense and brisk business, and he reminded himself for about the thousandth time that this was about learning to knit, not an excuse to be close to Emma.

* * *

“It’s impossible.”Lucas chucked his knitting on the table with real frustration before downing the last of his iced tea. “I can’t get the tension right.”

“It’s only been an hour,” Emma said. “Knitting takes practice.”

“Sure, but have you ever had a student with this tight of tension?” Lucas asked. “There were two other brand new people to knitting on Tuesday, and they both had zero issues with tension.”

“Everyone is different. Don’t compare yourself to others, Lucas,” she said.

She took the pathetic six rows he’d managed to produce in the last hour and examined it. She started to tuck her hair behind her ears before stopping with a glance at him. He kept his face neutral, but he wished not for the first time that she didn’t think she had to keep her hair in her face to hide her birthmark. But he didn’t know how to bring it up without upsetting her, so he kept quiet as she knitted another couple of rows with a real effort to get through his too-tight tension.

“Okay, try again.”

“What’s the point?” He knew he sounded like a sulky baby, but his dream of surprising his mom with a finished scarf had died in the last half hour, and it was a bitter defeat.

She studied him for a few seconds. “Why do you want to learn to knit, Lucas?”

“Nothing wrong with learning a new hobby,” he said.

She stared at him, her pretty blue eyes burrowing into him like they always did and missing nothing. “Does it have something to do with your mom?”

He fidgeted in his chair like a little kid, weirdly embarrassed to tell her the truth. It sounded stupid now that he thought about it. His mother loved to knit, and that was what she missed the most. Lucas finishing her scarf for her wouldn’t bring back her ability to knit.

“My mom loved you, by the way,” he said. “She thought you were great.”

“I liked her too,” Emma said. “She’s lovely and has a killer style.”

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