“EVERYTHING SEEMS TO BE IN ORDER,” Harold, the loan specialist, told us in his monotone voice before he cleared his throat. “Ms. Adams, if you’ll please sign there,” he said, pointing to the line for my signature on the paperwork.
I leaned forward and scrawled my name. Harold nodded with satisfaction.
“And Mr. Rhodes, if you’ll please sign there,” Harold said, pointing to the line beside my name.
Emmett leaned forward and paused.
This was it. This was the moment everything went wrong. I had been waiting for this moment all day. The floor was about to fall through or there’d be an earthquake or the pen would explode in his hand. Something would get in the way of Emmett cosigning on my loan.
He gave me a quick, cheeky grin and signed his name in scratchy loops before setting the pen down.
“Very good.” Harold collected the papers. “Thank you for your business.”
I waited. “That’s it?”
Harold blinked. “Were you expecting something else?”
Emmett raised an eyebrow at me, amused.
“No, I guess not.” I shrugged.
It wasn’t supposed to be this easy. I didn’t even have to work for it. Yes, I had to endure Emmett and play pretend with him, but let’s be real, it wasn’t that difficult.
And now I had the loan, so I could buy the restaurant as soon as Keiko returned from her most recent trip to Vancouver.
Harold wove his fingers together and shifted while Emmett stood up.
“We’ll get out of your hair. Thanks, Harold.” Emmett reached for my hand. “Come on, darling.”
I stared at where our hands were joined as I let him lead me out of the bank, but just before the doors, someone called his name.
“Emmett,” a woman about his mom’s age said, walking up to us. “Do you have a moment to sign the Backpack Buddies paperwork?”
“Sure.” He turned to me. “I’ll just be a second.” His fingers brushed my arm before he headed over.
I waited outside and a few minutes later, he joined me. “Sorry about that.”
I shook my head. “No problem. What’s Backpack Buddies?”
“It’s nothing. I’m hungry again.” He nodded his chin toward the main street, where tents and booths had been set up with local food and crafts. “Let’s wander through the farmer’s market.”
Something in his expression caught my attention though. Embarrassment? He wouldn’t meet my gaze. He was very focused.
“What is it?” I pressed.
He shook his head again and grabbed my hand. “Nothing. Do you think they have those waffles again?”
With my other hand, I slipped my phone out of my back pocket and googled ‘Backpack Buddies.’
“Backpack Buddies is a school program on Vancouver Island that provides backpacks of food for low-income school children so they may have nutritious meals for evenings and weekends,” I read as we walked toward the market, hand in hand. My insides melted like ice cream on a hot day.
Emmett groaned and rolled his eyes. “You’re nosy, you know that?”
“Emmett,” I said in a teasing tone.
He ignored me.
“Emmett,” I dropped his hand and tucked myself under his arm. “Are you secretly a good guy?”
His brow furrowed. “It’s for the tax write-off.”
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t.”
He looked at me and my stomach did a slow, delicious roll. His gaze settled on me, so comfortably warm. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged and looked away. “It’s sleazy, using that for the campaign. I want to focus on things I can do for the town.”
I couldn’t help the smile that crept onto my face. “Alright. I won’t say a word.”
He sent a quick glance to me. “Thanks.” His thumb absent-mindedly stroked my shoulder.
“Emmett?”
He glanced down at me. The side of his mouth hitched, tilting the little white scar, and my finger twitched. I wanted to trace that scar with my fingertip.
“Thanks for cosigning on my loan.” My throat tightened and I had the urge to shut my mouth but I knew I needed to say this. If it wasn’t for Emmett, Chuck would be swapping out Table Three for a stripper pole and installing neon lights behind the bar. I could go the route of kicking myself for every time I bought name-brand cookies instead of the cheap ones, every useless dollar spent on jewelry, but instead, I just felt grateful to Emmett for trusting me with the loan.
“I know I give you a lot of crap but…” I bit my lip and gave him a rueful smile. “I’d be screwed without you, so thanks. I promise to do what I can so you’re elected.” I swallowed. “I do think you’d do a better job than Isaac.”
He watched me with a little knowing smile on his face, like he knew a secret. His thumb still brushed my skin and I found it difficult to focus on anything else. “Thanks, Adams. I appreciate that. I know you’ll hold up your end of the bargain.” He chewed on his lip. “I trust you.”
My face was warm. This was a lot of seriousness for us.
I swallowed and my gaze dropped to his mouth again. “How’d you get that scar?”
“This?” He pointed to his lip.
I nodded.
“Wyatt and I were horsing around as kids in the living room and I slipped and hit my face on the coffee table.” His mouth tilted again. “I wish it was from something cooler, like skateboarding.”
I snorted, letting my gaze linger once more on the scar before grabbing his arm. “Come on, let’s go get you some green juice, or whatever.”
He laughed and let me pull him into the farmer’s market.
We wandered through the booths, saying hello to the vendors and buying veggies from local farms. The restaurant purchased from many of the vendors but they were usually so busy during deliveries that we didn’t have much time to chat, so it was nice to have a few moments to catch up. Emmett shook hands and held babies that were pushed into his arms and tasted the samples that were thrust into his mouth.
“Do you want to buy a raffle ticket?” a teenage girl asked, holding a string of them. “We’re raising money for our prom.”
“Sure.” I fished out my wallet.
“I’ll buy some, too,” Emmett told her. “When’s the prom?”
She accepted our money and handed the tickets over. “It’s tomorrow night.”
We thanked her and wandered on to the next booth.
“I wore a floor-length ice-blue dress to my prom,” I told Emmett. “My friends and I couldn’t get a limo because they were all booked up so we rented a horse and carriage.”
He nodded a quick hello to the booth owner and grinned at me. “That sounds fun.”
“It was. What about you, what was your prom like?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t go to mine.”
I reared back, touching his arm. “I’m sorry, what? You didn’t go to your prom? Were you in the hospital or something?”
The side of his mouth hitched up as he glanced over the little jars of honey on the table. “Nope. It just didn’t work out.”
I followed him to the fruit stand. “What does that mean?”
“My girlfriend in high school broke up with me the day before,” he said with a rueful smile while he placed apples in a bag, “and I didn’t want to go to prom and watch her make out with another guy.”
I frowned. Inside my chest, my heart twisted for him. “That’s terrible. What a shitty thing to do.”
He shrugged. “It’s fine, it was for the best. They’re happily married now so I can’t blame them. And I think he had a crush on her for a while and I didn’t know it.”
“I can’t believe you had a girlfriend.” I gave him a little teasing grin. “Thought you weren’t that kind of guy.”
He laughed. “Yeah, well, Nat helped me figure that out fast.”
Record scratch. I paused, narrowing my eyes.
“Nat? Will’s Nat?”
He nodded. “Yep. Will’s Nat.”
“Wow.” So Emmett dated a girl and then she dumped him for his best friend. “What do you mean, she helped you figure it out?”
My head raced with ideas. Pregnancy scare? Did Emmett get Nat pregnant, she wanted to keep it and he didn’t? The idea of Emmett getting anyone else pregnant sent jealous rage through my veins.
He sucked in a breath and inspected the apple in his hand before tucking it in the bag. “She had a plan, she wanted a family one day and didn’t see me as the kind of guy who could provide that. I didn’t care about that stuff.”
My heart split in half, thinking of a teenage version of Emmett, gangly and young, sitting home alone on his prom night, thinking about how he wasn’t good enough for Nat’s life plan.
He saw my sad expression and laughed. “Adams, it’s fine. Really. She apologized years later for dumping me the night before prom. Besides, I like being an uncle. Will’s a much better dad and husband than I’d ever be.”
My hand came to my chest, hearing those words. Is that why Emmett didn’t want a relationship? Because someone didn’t want him, she wanted his best friend instead?
I knew they were just teenagers when this happened. I knew this. I also knew Nat was a lovely person. She and Will had been into the restaurant for date night, and she was friendly, polite, and patient. People made mistakes. I had done things I wasn’t proud of.
But she had also made Emmett feel pain. She’d made him feel like he wasn’t worthy.
In an ugly place in the back of my mind, I wondered if he still had a thing for her. They were both in their mid-thirties and from what I had seen, Will and Nat were happily married. I had never seen Emmett and Nat together, though. Maybe he still carried a torch for her.
An idea struck me and I brightened up. “What are you doing tomorrow night?” I asked him.
“We have dinner with my family, remember?”
“Right.” Elizabeth had called and invited us to dinner at their place tomorrow. The whole family would be there. This might still work. “I’ll be right back.”
He gave me a curious look but nodded, and I walked away and pulled my phone out. After a quick call to Miri, during which she asked many questions about the upcoming wedding I wasn’t able to answer and I asked her my own questions, before I returned to Emmett, who was paying the fruit vendor.
“I have a proposition for you,” I told him as we wandered to the next stand.
“Okay.” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Let’s go to prom tomorrow night.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him. “We can get all dressed up, rent a limo, awkwardly slow dance amidst the scent of teen lust, it’ll be so fun.”
He looked uncertain. “I don’t know.”
“Come on,” I pleaded. I looped my arm through his as we walked. “I promise it’ll be fun. And a great campaign opportunity. Isaac never volunteers around town. Also, it’ll make Miri so happy.”
His gaze lingered on me and he smiled. “Well, if it’ll make Miri happy.”
I nodded, flushed and excited. “It will, it really will. This is going to be great.”
