“Turns out you have the NFL Network, so I think I can handle another twenty-four hours here,” he announced as he stopped on a channel she’d never seen before.
“You might not be here another twenty-four minutes. Don’t you have a TV at home?” She wrapped her arms around her midsection. She wished she could come up with something more witty and cutting to say. She was so sure he would kiss her, and then he hadn’t.
“What’s a ‘sack’?” he mimicked, referring to her question at the hospital. “My work’s cut out for me, sugar. You know nothing about football. You need some help, and I’m the man for the job.” He turned the volume up a bit. “Finally. I feel right at home.”
“Well, good for you, Brandon. I can take care of myself now. Thanks for coming over.”
“Sure you can. There’s nothing in your refrigerator except beer and soda, a few condiments, a box of baking soda, and some kind of science project in a Chinese food container.” He shook his head. “I’m guessing you don’t cook.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
He laughed. The sound bounced around her living room. She had to laugh, too. The sudden explosion of joy on his face, the way his entire body shook, made her wonder what else she could say to make him laugh again.
He used the remote like a laser pointer.
“Okay. Here’s a prime teaching opportunity. It’s the Sharks versus the Minutemen from last year. We kicked their as— We beat them, badly. We can watch this, and then you can figure out what you’re making me for dinner.”
Emily found herself temporarily speechless again. He seemed to delight in saying whatever it might be that left her completely bewildered.
“We’re not getting into a restaurant tonight,” he said. “I’m hungry, and I’m stuck here.”
“You’re not stuck anywhere!” She clutched her head. God, it hurt.
“Your head wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t yell,” he said solicitously, wagging his finger. He seemed to be using Emily’s last nerve as a trampoline. The only thing that saved him at that moment was the fact she preferred staying out of prison.
“I could pay your cab fare back to your car, and you can go wherever you’d like,” she pointed out.
His dimple flashed as he gave her an unrepentant grin. “That’s not going to work for me.”
He got to his feet, pulled her cordless phone off its base, and wandered into the kitchen. Emily wondered if he was always this exasperating. She should have walked over to the front door, pulled it open, and ordered him out, but she knew she probably wouldn’t be able to stand up that long.
He returned to the living room a few minutes later with a soda for her and a beer for himself. She wasn’t watching football anymore.
“I can’t believe you changed the channel,” he informed her in mock outrage. “This is a chick flick.”
“It’s Pride and Prejudice. That’s Colin Firth.” Emily pointed at the television. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who Colin Firth is.”
Brandon looked adorably confused. “Maybe he played for the Canadian Football League.”
“No. He’s a classically trained actor.”
Now it was his turn to rub his face with both hands. She heard him muttering something almost unintelligible that contained the phrases “women,” “Valentine’s Day,” and “girly men with lace sleeves.”
“He’s the definitive Mr. Darcy, you know.”
“Definitive. What the fu—” He sent one hand through his mop of blond curls like he wanted to pull them out by the fistful. “My ex-girlfriend used to try to get me to watch this crap. Let’s watch something on the Speed Channel. Now there’s some good television.”
She let out a groan. “Nonstop Darwin Awards contestants are more valuable than a literary classic to you?”
He glared at her. One eyebrow went up.
“Make fun of me all you want, Opera Girl. I’m doing this for your own good.” Emily realized she would have to take up professional wrestling to recover control over her TV, and she was too hungry to keep squabbling with him at the moment. He clicked through channels at lightning speed. He settled on the NFL Network again. “Pizza is on its way. You can thank me later.”
“Let me give you some cash.” She tried to rise from the couch. He pulled her back down by one elbow.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.” He gestured toward the television. “Listen and learn, sugar. First of all, these are the special teams guys. They’re the toughest guys on any football team. They have no fear of giving up the body.”
“I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”
“Watch the guy at the back, by the end zone. He wants to run to the opposing end zone, so he can score. All those guys want to rip his head off and shi— They want to stop him.”
Emily watched a bunch of guys jump on the guy with the ball, grinding his face into the grass. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to care. Maybe it wasn’t as painful as it looked.
“He just got up and ran away.”
“He made it to the forty. He’s the man.”
“They were trying to hurt him.”
“Okay. Here comes the offense.”
Brandon spent the next hour attempting to explain the intricacies of the NFL, and its endless rules to Emily. He was surprisingly patient. His tutorial was interrupted by the arrival of food, which he wouldn’t allow Emily to pay for.
“There’s cash in my wallet,” she argued.
“And your point would be?”
“I can at least buy your dinner. You brought me home.”
“Maybe other guys will let you do that, but I won’t.”
After only a few bites of pizza, Emily leaned back against the couch. Her eyelids drooped. He took the plate out of her hand.
“You need to go to bed. Come on, sugar.”
“I don’t understand why you’re still calling me that, either.”
Brandon didn’t answer. He helped her up, offering his arm. Emily felt a little steadier than earlier, but she took it. They crossed the living room at a glacial pace and climbed the stairs one at a time.
“I think I need more medicine, too. My head—”
“Hang on.”
He swept her up in his arms. This time, though, she clasped her arms around his neck.
“Last door on the left,” she said sleepily. She laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Thanks for the ride.”
He put her down on the bed and threw the blanket from the foot of the bed over her.
Emily’s room was a confection of lace, ruffles, and a rainbow of pink. Besides the four-poster bed, which was dressed with ruffles and flounces and lacy pillows, and the overstuffed easy chair and ottoman, which was covered with a print festooned with huge cabbage roses, she lay on a custom-made, floral-print quilt. She was exhausted, but she could only imagine his thoughts. Brandon had stumbled into some kind of parallel universe. Girly World: No Boys Allowed. She could only imagine how shocking it was in comparison with what he’d seen of the rest of her house.
“Everything’s so soft,” he muttered.
EMILY OPENED HER eyes to see Brandon sitting in her bedroom chair and watching CNN. He wore her coral pink silk bathrobe. It didn’t come close to fitting him. His damp hair and a wave of what she now knew as Brandon’s scent—clean male skin, a bit musky, and a hint of old-fashioned aftershave—announced he’d been in the shower.
“My clothes will be done in the dryer pretty soon.”
“I was wondering if pink silk was a new look for you.”
“There isn’t a pair of sweats in this house,” he complained. “It’s not like I could go naked.”
He propped his crossed ankles on the edge of Emily’s bed. She tried not to stare at the sculpted chest covered in darker blond curls or let her eyes stray further down.
“You went through my closet. That’s private. What are you still doing here?” she said.
“You were out for a while.”
“Brandon, I’m fine.
You don’t have to stay. Your girlfriend must be crazy mad. You should call her.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Well, then, who sent you all the stuff I dropped off today?”
“Not a big deal—”
Emily interrupted him. “Let’s go back to my original question.”
“The doctor told me to watch you. Apparently, I’m the only person in the country who doesn’t have a date tonight,” he joked. “I have to be here.”
She craned her neck to look at the clock radio, which he was currently blocking. “It’s eleven-thirty. I’m imposing on you.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be,” he responded. He didn’t meet her eyes. Emily resolved that when his clothes were done he was leaving, whether he knew it or not.
She pushed herself out of bed. She was still a little woozy, but she needed to get up and do some things. She headed toward the staircase, bracing herself against the wall with one hand.
He hurried into the hallway. His arm snaked around her waist.
“Let’s go together.”
Emily resisted the impulse to melt into his side. She reminded herself that she didn’t know him. He wasn’t part of her life. He’d go back to the Victoria’s Secret models or whoever else he dated, and she would still be alone.
“I’m fine. I can do this.” She missed a step. He caught her before she fell. “Oops.”
“That’s right. You’re just fine.” he scolded. “You’re going back to bed before you kill yourself. I’ll get whatever it is you were after.”
She climbed back into her pink paradise a few moments later. He brought the Coke she requested and a beer for himself. He also ditched her silk bathrobe in favor of his own clean clothes. He sat down in the chair across from her bed again.
“So, let’s talk about the woman who sent you all the stuff earlier.” Emily hoped she sounded chipper.
He groaned. “Let’s not.”
“It was a pretty nice valentine.”
The beer bottle dangled from his fingertips as he leaned forward.
“I can see that you aren’t going to let this go until we talk about it, so here are the facts. There is no girlfriend. She and I broke up a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t working. She seems to think that if she follows me around, sends me stuff, and pesters me enough, I’ll change my mind. I won’t. I’ve told her this. She’s not listening.” He blew out a breath, and took a long swig of beer. “Happy now?”
“She must make the big bucks. Just the candy cost a fortune.”
“She’s a model.”
Emily put her empty glass down on the nightstand and chewed her lower lip. She couldn’t even look at him.
“Do you ever date anyone, well, normal?”
“Please explain.”
“Non-models.”
“Not recently.”
This could not be the same guy that took care of her for the past several hours. Shallow, and well, shallow. Warning alarms went off in her head. Well, in the part of her head that wasn’t dazed because of his nearness, and the part that wasn’t still feeling woozy.
Emily saw him studying her from the corner of her eye. She revised her earlier impression—Brandon might have been a lot of things, but stupid didn’t seem to be one of them. He leaned back in the chair once more, and crossed his arms.
“Let’s talk about your love life.”
“Oh, let’s not.” She resisted the impulse to pull the blankets over her head till he was gone.
“Maybe I need to call your Valentine’s date, and tell him you’re unavoidably detained.”
Considering the fact that a boyfriend would have made his appearance long before now, Emily decided to go with the truth.
“No such luck.” She tried to make her voice light.
“I’m surprised at that, sugar.” Emily shrugged her shoulders, and he continued. “It seems to me there would be a line around the block.”
Speaking of lines, she wondered if that one had worked for him lately.
“I’m pretty busy. There isn’t a lot of time to date,” she pointed out.
He didn’t need to know she hadn’t had a date in a year, and that before James she had hardly dated at all. She was too busy with her career. There was also the added benefit that by not dating, nobody got close enough to hurt her again.
“I might have to take a page out of your playbook.”
The stretch and yawn she gave him was Oscar-worthy.
“Ah. You’re tired,” he said.
Emily wasn’t at the moment, but it would get her out of this conversation. She scooted down in the bed and pulled the blankets up to her nose.
“When you leave, please lock up after yourself.” He was watching her again. The look on his face was inscrutable. “Thank you so much for taking care of me. Goodnight.”
“I heard that speech a while ago. I’m not going anywhere, sugar.”
A FEW HOURS later, Brandon shook Emily’s shoulder and spoke into her ear. “Wake up.” He sat down next to her on the bed.
“Absolutely not.” She sounded outraged. She tried to pull the blankets over her head again, but he was too fast for her.
“Let’s get you some medication. Sit up.”
He gave her a dose, and set the glass and bottle of pain reliever on the nightstand. He tugged the blankets up around her shoulders and fluffed the pillows around her head. “Now you can sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me a story?” He heard the slight note of sarcasm in her tone, but he found himself chuckling again.
“Maybe I should.” He took one of her hands in both of his. “Once upon a time, there was a diva who knew nothing about football.”
“That’s not true. I know what a runback is.”
“Yes, you do.” His voice was quiet in the dimness of her room. “You’re practically an expert. Back to the story.” He thought for a moment. “The diva had a bad experience with a huge bunch of Mylar balloons, and she needed the handsome prince’s help.”
Emily let out a snort. He ignored it.
“Of course, the handsome prince was exhausted after a brutal workout with his teammates, but a few balloons didn’t scare him. Oh, no. He managed to save the diva from herself, even though she fought him all the way. She argued, and was generally disagreeable about the whole thing. He, of course, overlooked this.”
“I was not.”
“You just proved my point.”
“That’s not true.”
“Shh. You’ll make your headache worse,” he soothed.
“Like I can sleep now,” Emily muttered darkly.
“Of course you can. Close your eyes.”
She was falling asleep, but she had a few more things to say to him.
“You should go home and get some sleep. I’ll be fine. Thank you again.”
“Don’t you worry about me. You get better,” he said.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said.
“You, too, sugar.”
He walked to the other side of her room, settled into the chair, and threw the pink cashmere blanket from the foot of her bed over himself. She snuggled further into her blankets. Tomorrow morning, he’d be gone.
EMILY AWOKE WITH a gasp. She wasn’t alone.
It took a few seconds, but her eyes adjusted enough to the pearly light of dawn peeking through the blinds to spot Brandon, asleep in her bedroom chair. The cashmere blanket he’d thrown over himself didn’t come close to covering him. He’d curled himself into the chair, resting his head at a weird angle against the upholstery. His neck would be sore when he woke up. His feet hung over the edge of the ottoman. He didn’t look especially comfortable. She’d spent the night in her warm, soft, cozy bed, and he’d slept sitting up. For her.
To say it was a surprise that he was still there was an understatement. Even more, she was touched. Anyone else on the planet would have decided she was going to live and gone home to a much more comfortable bed, but he’d stayed.
She shoved herself out of bed, pulling the blankets off as she went. She extracted a sand-colored woven-cotton blanket from the pile. It was still warm from her body heat. She tiptoed across the room.
She draped the blanket over him as carefully as she could. He stirred a little, but he didn’t open his eyes. She watched him sleep for a few moments. Maybe she should wake him up and tell him to go back to sleep in the bed for a while.
Maybe she needed to go downstairs, make some coffee, and get a grip on herself.
A short time later Emily was nibbling on a bagel and cream cheese she had found in the refrigerator when heavy footfalls sounded on the staircase.
“Good morning.”
“Morning,” he mumbled. He looked a bit dazed. “Coffee.”
“It’ll be done in just a few minutes,” she reassured him. “How’s your neck?”
He rubbed it a little. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
He invaded the kitchen, found a mug in the cupboard over the sink, pulled the carafe out of the coffee maker, and stuck his mug under the stream. He replaced the carafe without spilling a drop. He sauntered to the other side of the kitchen. He wore a pair of navy-blue shorts, which matched his navy blue boxer briefs. She looked anywhere but at his bare chest, the vertical line of hair on his abdomen that vanished under the waistband of the shorts, and a six pack she wanted to lick.
“Navy blue?” she asked.
“I like blue.” He rubbed his eyes.
“Oh.”
“Billowing white cotton.” He indicated her nightgown.
“I like it.”
“It’s kind of . . . virginal.” He glanced at the kitchen floor, and a faint flush spread over his cheekbones. “And much hotter than most of the lingerie I’ve seen,” he said.
Blitzing Emily Page 4