Happiness. Pure, unadulterated, buoyant glee.
He’d been pumped when Alex told him Emmy was one of the single again and insisted this was the ideal opportunity for Tucker to make his move. Alex wasn’t forthcoming with his reasons for thinking Tucker couldn’t fail, but Tucker suspected Emmy must have said something in her boozy state. Whatever it was, he didn’t know, but he meant to find out.
“Oh. You broke up with Simon?” There was no limit to the number of times he could hear those words.
“It was time.”
He nodded, unable to say anything that wouldn’t sound self-serving. Inside his head he trumpeted a loud, Yahooooooo!
“So you remember drinking with Alex?”
“Yeah, and not much else,” she admitted, embarrassment evident in her tone and the way she refused to look right at him.
“You thought this was Alex’s condo, didn’t you?”
Emmy found the nearest barstool and sat on it, her knees pointing towards him but her gaze focused on the refrigerator.
“Yeah.”
Tucker leaned against the countertop, stealthily turning on the coffeemaker with a nudge of his elbow, and crossed his arms over his chest, intent on getting her to look at him if it killed them both.
“Are you disappointed it’s not?”
Emmy’s head snapped up, and she stared at him slack-jawed. “Of course not!”
When she saw his wry grin, she realized she’d been had, but he was grateful she didn’t glance away again. The brewer on the counter burbled to life, and the coffee began to pour into the pot, filling the kitchen with the rich fragrance of good San Francisco coffee. Chicago could keep its pizza. The City by the Bay would have his love forever because of the coffee. Funny how he hadn’t loved San Fran coffee until Emmy told him how much she had.
Her stomach growled, and he chuckled in response.
“Do you think you could handle some food?”
She made a face and started shaking her head, but her stomach protested, gurgling loudly.
“That’s humiliating,” she said, crestfallen.
“Nah. You should hear mine after a full day of training. You’d think there was a family of angry bears in it.” He filled a cup of coffee for her before the pot was done brewing and passed her the steaming mug. “No sugar or milk. Black is best for what’s going on in there.” He tapped her forehead and smiled. “Trust me.”
“You’re an expert on dealing with hangovers?”
“I’ve had one or two in my time. Champagne is the worst, but beer and shots aren’t a cakewalk by any means. I’ve been on the receiving end of an Alex-sponsored drink-a-thon before. I know what you’re going through.” A wink, not unlike the one he’d given her during the previous evening’s game, showed he wasn’t judging her for getting her drink on.
Sometimes you just had to do it, and if Emmy had felt like finding some solace at the bottom of a bottle with Tucker’s best friend by her side, well, she wouldn’t be the only person in this room who had done it.
Emmy accepted him at his word and drank back a big mouthful of coffee. She winced at the bitterness—he tended to use a darker roast espresso—but took another sip as soon as it was done. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Now let’s get some food in you.”
“And maybe you can tell me how I ended up here?”
“Maybe.” Tucker went to the fridge and pulled out eggs, cheese and butter, then grabbed a loaf of rye bread from the pantry and set about making breakfast as if the woman of his dreams wasn’t six feet away watching his every move.
He used a glass to cut holes out of the middle of each slice of bread, then buttered the slice and threw it in a hot pan. While the butter sizzled, he cracked one egg into each of the bread holes, and once he’d flipped it, sprinkled the shredded cheddar cheese over each piece. The kitchen smelled warmer when he was done, like toast and pizza. He presented Emmy a clean white plate with two slices, then put the remaining three on his own plate.
“I’ve never seen Toad in a Hole made with cheese before,” she remarked.
“Then you haven’t seen it made right before. And it’s called eggs in a basket.”
She had another big gulp of coffee, the green-gray tone of her skin becoming rosier and more healthy by the minute. Balancing the plate on her knees rather than turning her back to him, she used the side of the fork he’d given her to break apart the bread, letting the gooey yellow center of the egg yolk seep out onto her plate. She proceeded to drag her toast bite through the yolk before popping it in her mouth.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman make such a big show of eating before, and it made him sad for all the women he’d shared meals with in the past. Emmy made a satisfied groan, and the sound went straight from his ears to his groin, bringing to mind a dozen other ways he might get her to make that sound again.