by Tia Souders
The air was thick. Tension lingered, ready to snap, growing since Emmett’s discovery of her inspirational notes.
Intent on ignoring it, Jinny cranked the radio, but only static pumped out of the ancient speakers. With a sigh, she flicked it back off and crammed another gummy bear in her mouth.
“If you couldn’t be a sports therapist for the Pumas, or a physical therapist at all, what would you do?” Emmett glanced at her.
It was a serious question, one she had asked herself a million times before, but had no real answer for it.
For a moment, she wished she had feigned sleep. The longer she spent with him in this car, the more uncomfortable she became, and not the snappy, you’re-irritating-me-to-death discomfort. Instead, it was like the plucking of guitar strings below her ribs, a slow strumming of something inside her that she didn’t want to feel.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“Come on. You must’ve thought about it,” he persisted.
She had. The truth was if she couldn’t work in sports therapy, she’d be nothing. It was always her plan, always her dream, and without it, she had no idea who she was. “I’d do nothing. Probably be a hobo or something.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She turned to him. “No, I’m serious. I have no idea. There was never a backup plan for me. I went from the childhood fantasy of being an actress, or whatever little kids want to be, to sports therapist. My family was always very sports-centric. We’re competitive. It’s what we do. From the time I was little, I was groomed to love it. I knew I’d never go pro though. That just wasn’t for me. I was decent when I played in high school, but not gifted. Somewhere along the line, I learned of sports physical therapy, and there was no going back.”
“We’re a lot alike, you and I.”
“We’re nothing alike.”
He shook his head. “There are differences in my background, but like you, basketball was everything to me. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else but playing ball. The only difference for me is that I know it’ll end eventually. I could just retire once it does. I’ve invested well enough. I’ve made more money already than some will in their lifetime, but…I think I’d like to coach.”
“Yeah?” Jinny asked, taking him in.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Did we just have a normal conversation?”
He laughed as Jinny snuggled down in her seat, biting back a smile.
∞∞∞
“Chocolate or vanilla?” Jinny asked.
Emmett scoffed. “Vanilla.”
“You’re inhuman.”
∞∞∞
“The most important question of them all,” Jinny said. “In Stranger Things—please don’t tell me you haven’t watched it. If not, you can get out of my car right now.”
“I’ve watched it.”
“Whew, okay. Who should Nancy end up with? Steve Harrington or Jonathan Byers?”
“Is that even a real question?”
Jinny held her breath, waiting for his answer.
“Harrington.”
She sighed. “Yes! I mean, I get how they made Jonathan all sad and the underdog and all, but…come on. Especially when Steve comes back and helps the kids.”
“Did you really take me for the Jonathan type?”
Jinny quirked her lips. “No. You’re definitely a Steve.”
“Thank you.”
∞∞∞
“So, what’s the real reason you volunteered to drive with me?” Jinny asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I have my theories and suspicions. All of them end with you throwing my body in the ditch or a dark alley or leaving me waving helplessly on the side of the road.”
Emmett shook his head and chuckled. “I volunteered because your car is so nice.”
She punched him in the arm.
“Ow. Okay.” He raised a hand and grew quiet.
For a moment, Jinny thought he was going to say something serious. Then he grinned and said, “Because I knew at some point over the next thirty-odd hours, you’d wind up kissing me.”
She smacked him again.
∞∞∞
Emmett
“Greatest fear?” Emmett asked, and Jinny eyed him like he was stupid.
“Flying, duh.”
“That’s it? Flying?”
“I chose to forgo a flight that would’ve taken four hours in favor of driving for thirty hours in a car with you. That’s how afraid of flying I am.”
“Point made.”
“What about you? I can’t wait to hear it. It’s spiders, isn’t it?”
When Emmett said nothing, she cooed. “Oh, it is! I love it. Big-bad Emmett Hall is afraid of a wee little spider.” She pitched forward, clutching her stomach with glee.
“Nope. Not it.”
She straightened, her laughter fading. “Then what?”
“Germs.”
Jinny cocked her head, looking unimpressed. “Germs? No.”
“Yes. Definitely germs.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Look, I’m serious. The real reason I agreed so quickly to not stopping for the night is because, unless it’s a hotel I’ve meticulously checked out, I can’t do it.”
She raised a brow.
“I swear. If we had stopped, I would’ve taken the hotel towels, because at least they bleach them, and lined the top of my bed with them. I would’ve either froze or used the hoodie I packed as a blanket.”
Laughter bubbled in her chest. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
She shook her head, seemingly in disbelief.
“I’m not ashamed to say that I call ahead and ensure that I have a room with fresh blankets. Ones that have been actually washed between guests. I pay extra for it.”
“How do you know they actually do it? Maybe they just say they do.”
“I’m banking on the fact there are still honest people in the world. That, and clearly this is your first NBA trip because the staff bends over backward to ensure we’re happy.”
Jinny rolled her eyes. “Of course, since you’re practically royalty and all.”
“Practically.”
“What about all the women? Don’t you worry about their germs?”
“First of all, most of the women I hang out with are fleeting dates, nothing more. Taking out different women is an excuse not to be alone, while also not having to get serious.”
Jinny tucked her legs underneath her. “So let me get his straight. You’re saying you don’t actually hook up with most of those women?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“What about the blonde at your PT appointment that morning?”
“I took her to breakfast prior to my appointment.” And he may or may not have brought her along in an attempt to make Jinny jealous, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Okay, so, if what you’re saying is true, and you’re really not the player you seem to be, then why not anyone serious? Why not just find someone you actually like?”
Because he’d already found her.
He rubbed a hand over the ache in his neck. “Have you seen my choices?”
“I’m not 100% following, but if you’re referring to the vapid mass of silicone and plastic that tends to nip at your heels, then yes. But I thought you liked that kind of thing?”
Emmett shook his head. “A lot of the guys don’t care. They’ll use the women that follow them around and don’t think twice. They use their celebrity as a tool to get what they want. But most of those women are only after our money, or the title that comes with dating an NBA athlete. I’m not trying to say that all the women that try to get with us are bad or that none of them care, but, in my experience, it’s not worth the time it takes to find out which ones can be serious and which ones can’t.” He shrugged. “I’ve gotten burned once or twice when I thought she was actually into me and not the kind of lifestyle I could offer. So,
I give them what they want by taking them out a couple times, letting them snap their selfies, and that’s the end of it. None of them are too brokenhearted, which is saying a lot.”
“That’s…” Jinny trailed off, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Cold-hearted? Maybe.”
“I was going to say…kind of depressing.”
Emmett swallowed. Great. The last thing he wanted was for Jinny to feel sorry for him. Pity definitely wasn’t what he was going for. “It’s fine.”
“Do you want to find someone, though?”
Emmett took the ramp for a rest stop. When he parked and turned the ignition off, he turned to her. “Remember during our session, when I told you that you were just dating all those losers to bide your time until you were ready for the right man to come along?”
She nodded.
“That’s what I’m doing, waiting for the right woman to come along,” he said softly, letting his words hover in the air between them.
CHAPTER seventeen
Jinny
The last couple of hours were stifling, and not just because it was in the upper eighties outside and her air conditioning only wheezed the occasional puff of cool air. The heat had more to do with the man next to her.
Over the course of the last thirty hours, he had single-handedly smashed every preconceived notion she had of him. He tore them to shreds, obliterated them with ridiculously endearing anecdotes about his family, his perspective on life, or random things about himself she would never have guessed in a million years.
He was basically every woman’s fantasy come to life.
He wasn’t the arrogant jerk she’d thought he was. He wasn’t self-centered or a player. Quite the opposite.
His favorite holiday was Thanksgiving because it wasn’t commercialized and had nothing to do with presents. Although, he loved buying presents. The bigger surprise the gift was, the better. He read at least a couple pages from a book every single night before he went to bed or he couldn’t fall asleep. Oreos were his downfall, and, as a kid, his most treasured possession was a stuffed dog named Wuff-Wuff.
These little bits of him, these pieces that turned him from the man she loathed into the one sitting beside her—sound asleep with a boyish expression on his face—were like mini grenades, creating chinks in her armor. Very few people surprised Jinny, but Emmett was managing it quite well.
She came to a red light and stopped, glancing over at him. The soft sound of his breathing filled the car. His mouth was slightly parted, his lashes dark against the top of his ridiculously perfect cheekbones. The thick layer of stubble covering his jaw was so enticing she had to grip the wheel to stop herself from reaching out and running a finger over it.
He was proof that appearances didn’t tell the whole story. Proof that perception could shape misconception. And she had no idea what to do with this information.
A part of her was scared of what would happen once they arrived in Vegas. In five more hours, they’d waltz into the MGM hotel, and then what? Would their temporary truce fall apart? Would they go back to goading each other and getting under each other’s skin? Would she go back to hating him? Did she want to?
She needed time to wrap her head around her conflicted feelings, to decipher them and analyze them to pieces until she knew exactly what she should do. But with each passing mile, time slipped further from her grasp. They’d reach their destination and no longer be stuck together in this small space. Any moment, Emmett would wake and turn those hazel eyes on her and she’d be no more capable of translating the Morse code in her brain than she was in this moment.
She swallowed as she turned back to the road. The light turned green and she accelerated.
An hour later, Emmett stirred beside her. The first remnants of morning sun shined through the windshield, making him squint as he blinked his eyes open. Her stomach flopped to the floor by the gas pedal as he turned his gaze to her.
He yawned and stretched, bringing his arms high above his head and arching his back. The muscles in his arms flickered and flexed with the movement, and when her gaze dropped to his torso, catching sight of a sliver of tanned, rippled abs, her stomach clenched. She swallowed and turned her gaze away so fast it was a miracle she didn’t get whiplash.
He rubbed his eyes with his curled fists, while Jinny winced and reached to the back of her neck with one hand, massaging the pinched muscles.
“Oh, man. I’m sorry,” he said. “We should’ve switched a while back, but I was out. Why don’t you find a place to stop, and I can drive?”
He mistook her discomfort and the crick in her neck as fatigue from driving. How cute.
She wondered what he would say if he knew the truth. Oh, no. I’m fine. Really. I just got a strain from staring too hard at your abs, then I pulled a muscle in an effort to make it look like I wasn’t staring. No biggie. Carry on with your stretching.
When she said nothing, he glanced out the window. “Where are we? It’s hot as Hades in here.”
“Somewhere in Arizona,” she said, shrugging.
Emmett nodded as if this made sense.
“The air doesn’t work very well. Sorry.” She grimaced and felt his gaze boring into the side of her face, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t be faced with his eyes and his dimples, not while her brain was in overdrive. She needed to prepare herself first, put the invisible force field back up to stifle her attraction.
“Want to grab some breakfast? I could use about a truckload of coffee.”
Jinny nodded a little too eagerly and bit her lip. Getting out of the car sounded like a good idea at the moment.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” he asked.
Jinny huffed. “I’m driving.”
She noticed his eyes narrow. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Hmm,” he hummed.
Something rumbled and Jinny felt the car shimmy beneath her. She frowned, glancing down at her dash.
“What was that?” Emmett asked, glancing behind them, as if expecting to see a body on the road.
Jinny opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a loud grinding noise followed by a series of popping. She jumped in her seat as the car started to slow on its own accord.
Uh-oh.
She glanced around at their surroundings, which were sparse, to say the least. They had left a small town about ten miles back and were currently on a stretch of highway in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. This was the place cars went to die. Cars like her beloved Betsy. As if to punctuate her thoughts, a plume of smoke puffed from the hood, and they slowed to a complete halt.
She pounded the steering wheel. “No!” she wailed.
Oh, come on. Betsy, don’t do this to me now! Couldn’t you breakdown when, oh, I don’t know, I was completely alone? I would’ve gladly risked being picked up by a creepy trucker with a claw hand if it meant not having to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with Emmett right now. Not when I feel so weird inside.
“Huh,” Emmett said like he had expected this all along. “I’ll get out and take a look, but I have a feeling we’re not getting back on the road any time soon.”
He got out of the car, closing his door behind him with an ominous thud, leaving her in the tomb of her car with nothing but his scent.
He tapped on the hood, waiting for her to open it. A few minutes later, he returned and placed his arms on the roof of the car, leaning down to the passenger side window. “You want the bad news or the good news first?”
She glanced at his sweat-dampened sideburns and his mussed-up hair and swallowed. “Good news,” she said. She needed it.
“Well, we have plenty of time for breakfast.”
“What? That’s the good news?”
He shrugged. “The bad news is there are no restaurants in sight and your engine’s shot.”
He said it like it was no big deal.<
br />
“How far back was the town?” he asked.
“Ten miles, maybe? Not too far,” she said, desperate.
He nodded and placed his hands on the roof of her car. “The other bad news,” he said, glancing around at the open expanse of nothing, “is that, even if we’re lucky enough to find a shop back there, I doubt anywhere will be open on a Sunday.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?” she asked, incredulous.
Emmett fished in the pocket of his gym shorts and pulled out a pack of gum. He unwrapped a piece with a slow, easy calm that made Jinny want to strangle him. He brought the stick of gum up to his mouth and curled it onto his tongue.
Her stomach clenched.
When he noticed her watching him, he held the pack out. “Want some?”
No, she didn’t want some. Gah! She took back everything nice she’d thought about him minutes before. He was the most infuriatingly cruel man on the face of the planet.
Jinny got out of the car and slammed her door shut. She placed a loving hand on the roof of her car and gave ol’ Betsy a pat. This might be farewell, but it’s not goodbye.
She grabbed her suitcase from the trunk, tossed Emmett his bag, and began walking before she realized something she had missed, something she had forgotten. She turned back around to him. Apparently, Emmett hadn’t forgotten.
Of course, he didn’t forget! It’s his knee.
“We can’t walk ten-plus miles,” she said, stating the obvious. “Not with your knee.”
Emmett ambled toward the edge of the road and took a seat on a giant boulder. “Looks like we’re going to have to hitch a ride into town.”
Jinny huffed and dropped her bag on the pavement, and made her way toward him. She plopped down onto the dry earth, not even attempting to sit on the tiny edge of rock left over after Emmett’s giant body hogged it all.
Several minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness, and the only thing to pass by them on the road was a tumbleweed. Meanwhile, Jinny’s thoughts grew more panicked by the moment. She tried calling Dean, but in this desolate place, she didn’t even have so much as one bar on her phone. The call refused to go through no matter how many times she tried. Regardless, she knew the Pumas’ flight didn’t get in until that evening, anyway.