Engulfing Emma (The Men on Fire Series)

by Samantha Christy

  GOODNIGHT, MISS LOCKHART

  I can still hear those words in my nightmare.

  I wad up a bunch of toilet paper, wet it down, and wipe off the red lipstick. It smears horribly, and I have to use almost an entire roll to get it clean.

  I’m not sure why I kept the words there for so long. For some reason, I couldn’t get myself to remove them. Not until the nightmare.

  I close the toilet lid and sit on it, confused by my thoughts. I’m getting too close to him. I should date other people. Not that Brett and I are dating—but what we’re doing is dangerously close. My friends are always telling me about men they could set me up with. I used to let them. Before the robbery. Before Brett. Maybe it’s time I let them again.

  “You can do this,” I tell myself. I stand and look in the mirror. “Guys do it all the time. They have sex. They play the field. They date multiple women. Or not date them. Whatever. It’s all good. You are a modern woman.”

  Before I leave the room, however, I touch the mirror, regretting that I erased his words.

  I walk over to the window. Leo’s room is dark, as is Bonnie’s. But the television is on in Brett’s living room. I can see the flickering of light. I wonder what he’s thinking right now. Is he thinking about the other night? Because I am.

  Which is exactly why I need to let Becca set me up with one of Jordan’s friends.

  I make a mental note to call her tomorrow.

  There is movement in Brett’s window and against the flickering light of the TV, I see him, bare-chested, swaying back and forth with Leo in his arms. It looks like Leo’s crying, and Brett is … singing?

  My insides get all warm and gooey, seeing him sing to his crying son in the middle of the night.

  He stops at the window and looks over at my house. I know he can’t see me. All my lights are off. But it’s almost as if he knows I’m watching because he just stands and stares, rocking his son.

  Leo eventually falls asleep and Brett moves out of sight. The TV goes off, and then there’s a soft glow from Leo’s room. A minute later, Brett draws the curtains.

  I climb back into bed as my phone vibrates with a text message.

  Brett: Goodnight, Miss Lockhart

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Brett

  The past few weeks have been confusing at best. Sex with Emma is incredible. But I can tell she’s fighting her feelings. She never lets me stay in her bed after, which oddly, I’ve become okay with because it means I get to talk with Evie.

  At first it was strange, having a twelve-year-old waiting for me to get done having sex with her mother. And maybe it should still be strange. I mean, she’s twelve. But for some reason it’s not.

  Evie waits for me in the kitchen. It’s become our thing: cookies and milk. Sometimes Enid joins us. But never Emma. She remains unaware that I visit with her family.

  While part of me feels guilty for that, the other part, the part that enjoys finding out who Emma is and where she came from, looks forward to our chats.

  While eating breakfast, I check if Emma sent me a text. She never does unless I send her one first. And sometimes not even then.

  I’m still upset by what I saw through Leo’s window last night. A man walked Emma to her door and then kissed her on the cheek. Is she dating? He didn’t go inside, but it definitely looked like a date. They talked for a minute, him with his hands in his pockets like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. It’s exactly what I did the time I walked Emma home from the school.

  Have other men been in her bed? Do they leave lipstick messages on her mirror like me?

  She must wipe them off after I leave. I’ve never seen one of my messages on the mirror. Not even when we hooked up two nights in a row last week. Does she erase them so Enid and Evie don’t see them? Or is it because of other guys?

  Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe she erases them because they’re stupid and juvenile. I haven’t done this in years. I guess I thought it was romantic or something. But as far as I can tell, romance is not what Emma is looking for. From me, at least. Maybe that’s where the man from last night comes in.

  “You okay?” Bonnie asks, bringing Leo into the kitchen. “You’re stabbing at your eggs like they aren’t already dead.”

  I push my plate aside. “I’m fine.” I nod to the stove. “I made breakfast if you’re hungry.”

  She puts Leo in his highchair and spoons eggs on a plate for him. Then she pours a cup of coffee and sits at the table. “You are obviously not fine, Brett.”

  I shrug.

  “Does it have anything to do with the woman across the street?”

  I look up in surprise, then remember Enid telling me they play euchre together.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, getting up from the table. “I’m going to take Leo to Central Park, so we’ll be gone most of the day. Are you still good with watching him tonight?”

  “Of course,” she says, ruffling his hair.

  “How’s the tooth coming in, buddy? Did you sleep well last night?”

  Leo forks some eggs into his mouth and says, “Toof.”

  That tooth has been coming in for what seems like weeks. It’s a big one. He often wakes up at night. Sometimes when I’m up with him, I look out the window. Occasionally someone is looking back.

  Tonight, Emma and I are supposed to go to a rooftop party that’s fifty floors up. It’s not a date, she says in my head. It’s an exercise. Funny, however, that after all our exercises, we end up in bed. I’m not sure how I feel about that now, knowing she’s been dating someone else.

  Thinking about her going to dinner with another man makes my skin crawl. Thinking about her doing what we do together in bed makes me insane. So I try not to. Except that I spent the better part of last night doing just that.

  I gaze lovingly at Leo. “You want to go to Central Park today? Denver said he’d meet us there with Joey.”

  He claps his hands. He knows exactly who Joey is. Sometimes it amazes me they get along so well. Most toddlers play side-by-side but not necessarily together. Leo and Joey are different. They play with each other. Even more surprising, they share.

  “We’ll leave after I get a shower.” I spoon some eggs onto a plate for Bonnie and place them in front of her. Then I give Leo and Bonnie a kiss on the head before going up to get ready.

  ~ ~ ~

  “You’re acting strange,” Emma says in the cab on our way to the cocktail party.

  If I’ve had any minor victories when it comes to Emma, it’s that she now rides with me to our destinations.

  “I’m just tired,” I tell her. “Leo’s been teething.”

  “Oh, I remember that. Evelyn would keep me up for hours, even when I put that nasty gel on her gums.”

  “Leo hates that stuff. I think it makes him cry harder than the actual tooth breaking through. The baby Tylenol helps, but it takes a while to kick in.”

  “Do you think you’ll have more kids?” she asks.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe, if the right woman came along.” Guilt immediately consumes me given the company I’m with. “I mean not that you aren’t … But we aren’t … well, you know what I mean.”

  She smiles sadly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “What about you? Do you want more kids?”

  “I don’t know. I was so young when I had Evelyn, I feel like we kind of grew up together. I suppose it would be different having a child in my twenties or thirties. Evelyn wants a sibling. She’s even hinted lately about being okay with having a stepfather someday.”

  I have to bite my tongue. Evie and I get along great, but could she want me as more than her friend? In all honesty, I can’t imagine a finer girl to have as a stepchild. Then again, with her mom dating other men, the odds of that happening are getting slimmer by the day.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Emma asks. “You seem off tonight.”

  “I’m the one who should be asking you that. We’re about to go up fif
ty stories.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” she says.

  The cab pulls up to the building, and I swipe my debit card before getting out. “It’s my goal to get you to the top of the Empire State Building before the end of the month.”

  “Ha! Good luck with that. There’s not enough chardonnay in New York City to make that happen.”

  “There’s really not that much difference between fifty floors and one hundred.”

  “You mean, if the building collapses, we’re still toast.”

  I shoot her a scolding look.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the dead.”

  “What I mean is you’ve already gone up in buildings that have thirty to forty floors, and we’re about to go to one with fifty. Once you’ve done those, it should be no big deal.”

  She stares me down. “Are you really not scared of anything?”

  I don’t tell her that I wasn’t. That after conquering my fear of tall buildings, I wasn’t afraid of anything until meeting her. But now, my biggest fear is being without her. How, in only a month’s time, have I grown attached to a woman who’s incapable of attachments?

  “I’m scared of a lot of things,” I tell her. “Projectile vomiting, gum on the underside of tables, loogies falling on me from above.”

  She laughs. “Who knew you were such a germaphobe?”

  I nod to the bar next door. “Want to get a drink first?”

  “Nope. I need to do this without the help of alcohol.”

  “Okay then, let’s do this.” I hold the door for her.

  Her steps get slower as we approach the elevator. The doors open, but she moves aside, allowing the people behind us to enter.

  “You comin’?” the woman operating the elevator asks.

  Emma doesn’t move.

  “You go on ahead,” I say. “We’ll catch the next one.”

  Emma backs up against the wall. “I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous. I’ll be okay. We’ll take the next one.”

  The second elevator door opens. Emma looks behind us as if to allow others to pass again, but there’s nobody else waiting.

  “You going all the way up?” the operator asks. “This one’s the express.”

  “Are we going up?” I ask Emma.

  She nods but doesn’t move. I take her hand in mine and lead her inside.

  “Evenin’,” the man says, pushing the rooftop button before sitting on his chair.

  I’ve often wondered why buildings have elevator attendants, let alone those with only one stop. “Good evening.”

  The doors close and Emma steps forward in a panic, trying to get them to open again. “No,” she cries softly. “I changed my mind.”

  I squeeze her hand harder.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” the attendant says, “It’s the express. If you don’t want to get off up top, I can take you back down as soon as we get there.”

  Her eyes go wide in terror. “You don’t understand.”

  “Emma,” I say, pulling her back into the corner. “It’s going to be all right. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  She belts out a painful laugh. “As if you can keep a building from collapsing. Or a plane from … oh, God, why did I do this?”

  She starts to shake and her breathing accelerates. I see on the illuminated display that there are thirty floors to go. I’m afraid she’s close to hyperventilating.

  “Breathe, Emma. Remember your breathing?”

  She doesn’t seem to hear me as she watches the numbers count up.

  The attendant appears completely helpless as Emma has a panic attack.

  “Excuse us,” I say to him, right before I push Emma against the wall and kiss her.

  I try to ignore the fact that we have an audience as I shove my tongue in her mouth in hopes of distracting her. She resists at first, squirming against me, but as I slide my hands up and down her sides and then up the back of her neck, she starts to relax. I know she’s going to survive the trip when she threads her fingers through my hair and kisses me back.

  The attendant clears his throat and the elevator stops. “Rooftop,” he says loudly.

  I pull away from Emma, wiping her smeared lipstick with my thumb. “We’re here.” I turn to the operator. “Sorry about that.”

  He shrugs. “I’ve seen worse. Do you want to go back down, miss?”

  She looks at me, unsure of herself.

  “We’re already here,” I say. “Might as well stay a minute. We can always catch the next one.”

  She lets out a breath. “Where’s the bar?”

  I move aside so she can exit in front of me.

  “Seriously,” she says, looking back at the elevator as the doors close. “Chardonnay. Now.”

  A waiter approaches us with glasses of champagne on a tray. I take two of them and hand one to Emma. “Will this do?”

  She drinks it in three swallows.

  “I guess that’s a yes.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she says, motioning to the elevator.

  “It worked, didn’t it? You were having a panic attack. I didn’t know what else to do.” I wipe the lipstick off my thumb with a napkin and show it to her. “I got most of it, but you might want to hit the restroom to freshen up. It’s right over there. Do you want me to walk you?”

  She shakes her head and hands me the empty glass. “I’m fine. But if you can wrangle up another one of these, I’d be grateful.”

  “You got it.”

  She’s much calmer than when we were on the elevator. We’re fifty stories up; why isn’t she afraid to be here? Surely the alcohol didn’t take effect that quickly. While she’s in the bathroom, I flag down a waiter for more champagne.

  He looks at me curiously. “Brett Cash?”

  “Yes. Have we met?”

  “I’m Andrew Neal. You work with my cousin, Justin. We had drinks together last year at a Nighthawks game.”

  I hold out my hand before I realize he can’t shake it because he’s carrying a tray. I chuckle. “Sorry. Nice to see you again. You work here?”

  “I moonlight here during the summers,” he says. “I’m a teacher. Eighth-grade history.”

  “What a coincidence. I’m here with a teacher.”

  “Emma,” he says looking over my shoulder.

  “That’s right. Do you know her?”

  Before he can answer, Emma joins us. “Andrew, hi,” she says, looking uncomfortable.

  “Hey,” he says. “I called, but you didn’t …” He looks at me and then back at her. “I’d better get back to work.”

  He walks away before I can get a glass from him.

  “That became awkward quickly,” I say. “Did you two used to date or something?” When she doesn’t respond, it dawns on me. “Did you go out with him recently? As in the last month?”

  She snatches a glass of champagne from a waitress going by and sips, avoiding my eyes. “I may have.”

  Shit. He wasn’t the man who walked her home last night either. “How many guys have you gone out with while we’ve been…”

  She still doesn’t look at me.

  “Shit.” I flag down a waitress, pick up a glass, and chug it.

  “I’m not going out with anyone. Not really,” she says. “And you shouldn’t be surprised. I told you from the beginning that I couldn’t date you.”

  “You’re not going out with them,” I repeat woodenly, anger rising from the pit of my stomach. “You’re just fucking them?” Her jaw drops, and I can tell she’s about to lay into me. “Don’t answer that. We’re nothing to each other, so why shouldn’t you date?” I look at my empty glass. “Ready for another?”

  “Brett, you’re being unreasonable. We made it all the way here. Can’t we be civil and have a little fun?”

  Andrew is crossing the room. I scowl. “Sure, let’s have some fun.”

  I yank her against me and give her a kiss. With tongue. She doesn’t fight it, like I thought she
would. We break apart just as Andrew goes by, staring at us.

  I lift my chin at him. “Andy. How’s it hangin’?”

  Emma has a hard time not laughing. “You’re terrible.”

  I smile, knowing she’s okay with what I just did. “So, you never called him back, huh?”

  She shakes her head.

  “And the guy who walked you home last night, will you call him back?”

  She looks surprised.

  “What, like you don’t do the same damn thing? Remember that time you thought I was kissing Amanda?”

  “You were kissing Amanda.”

  “Do we need to go over this again?”

  “I didn’t kiss Monty like you kissed Amanda.”

  “I didn’t kiss Amanda,” I say, irritated. “And Monty? What the hell kind of name is that? Is he a teacher, too?”

  “Banker.”

  “Andy the teacher and Monty the banker. Is that it?”

  She chews on her lip.

  “There’s more?”

  She takes another drink. “Antonio.”

  Three of them? “So what does good ol’ Tony do?”

  “He sells insurance.”

  “Jesus, Emma. Could you have found three guys more boring than that?” I sound like an insecure asshole, but I don’t care.

  “Being a teacher is not boring,” she says defensively.

  Andrew is glancing at us from across the room, so I slip an arm around her waist and lean close enough to whisper in her ear. “Do any of them kiss you the way I do? Do you like their tongues as much as you like mine?”

  I kiss the tender spot just under her ear.

  “You’re not playing fair,” she says when I pull away.

  I take a fresh drink from a passing waitress and raise my glass. “All’s fair in love and war.”

  She raises a brow at me. “Which do you think this is, love or war?”

  I lean into her and say, “You tell me.”

  I watch the movement of her throat as she swallows.