Asher is a smart guy and obviously knows I’m lying, but luckily for me he’s also an intuitive guy and seems to understand not to push the issue. Instead, he kicks back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“Go right ahead and make yourself comfortable,” I say dryly, mostly because that’s what he expects me to say. In actuality, I like the company.
Asher and I hit it off right away when we met last year. He was the first real friend I made, probably ever, who wasn’t either connected to my hockey life or someone Ben brought into my world. For some reason, I don’t have the same kind of insecurities around his friendship that I do with almost everyone else I’m close to. I don’t always wonder in the back of my mind whether he’s going to walk away. His friendship makes me feel at ease, and I’m stupidly grateful for it.
Except the shit-eating grin he’s currently aiming in my direction tells me there’s an eighty percent chance I’m not going to be grateful for this conversation.
“Can I help you?”
“So, you went running with Emma last week, huh?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “How do you know?”
“Uh, I’m married to one of the fearsome foursome. How do you think I know?”
“She told you?”
“Did you hear me say I’m married to Julie? That means I know everything she knows, dude. That’s how it works.”
I super don’t think that’s how it works—especially when the woman he’s married to is the fiercely independent andsometimes scary as fuck Julie Parker—but I don’t say anything. Because if he knows about the run, that means Emma told Julie, which means she’s talking about me, and I find I don’t hate that one single bit.
I shrug, playing it cool, mostly because I want to know what Emma told Julie, so I need Asher to tell me what he knows. And yes, I know I’m a thirty-seven-year-old man who currently sounds like a middle schooler waiting for the girl he likes to pass him a note in study hall. I’m not proud.
“Yeah, I ran into her on the Frick Park trails and we ended up running a couple miles together. It was nice.”
“Nice? That’s all you’re going to give me? The girl I am almost positive you have been tits over ass for the entire time you’ve known her, the one who barely talks to you unless it’s about work, talks to you for the entire length of a run and all you have to say is,nice?”
“I’m not tits over ass for her,” I mumble.
Except I think maybe, possibly, I am, because without warning a memory of sitting next to Emma on her couch the night of the storm invades my mind. Thinking about her has everything inside me settling, and I have the sudden urge to unload every messy and confusing feeling I’ve ever had for Emma.
“Uh, tell that to your face right now.”
I wonder how much to say. Eight years ago is off-limits—Emma gets to decide whether she wants to share that and with who—but I think I can talk about now without talking about then. It’s worth a shot. I feel a frisson of guilt that I’m about to tell Asher things I’ve never told Ben. But Asher doesn’t have the same history with me and with Emma that Ben does, and that makes him an easier person to talk to.
“My relationship with Emma is…complicated,” I start. Asher just leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his chin propped on his hands, waiting for me to continue.
“I’ve always felt more with her. I don’t know how to explain it, really, except to say I’ve always kind of recognized her. Maybe it’s because we both grew up without parents. I don’t know. But there’s something about her that’s always gotten to me. She’s never been comfortable around me, unless we’re talking about work, so I’ve always made sure there’s a lot of that. More than necessary, probably.”
“I fucking knew it,” Asher exclaims, sitting up straight and pointing at me. “You totally could have hired an accountant to do the camp financials. Probably should have. But you gave it to her so you had an excuse to see her more.”
I grimace a little because, yeah. I did do that. And if I think back, there are a lot of those. Small things I could have either done myself or given to our in-house counsel. Questions I could have easily found the answer to another way. All reasons to be in her orbit. To dial her number. To hear her talk to me in the only way she would.
“Yeah.” I run a hand over my face and lean back in my desk chair.
“But something changed, right? You ran together. You talked to her. I assume she talked to you.”
“She did. I liked it. And later that night when I picked her up during the storm and brought her home, she talked to me some more. Like, really talked to?—”
“Hold on,” Asher interrupts. “Later that night? A storm? I don’t know anything about later that night.”
I toss him a grin, pulling a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of my desk drawer and reaching in for a handful.
“Is it possible there are some things Julie knows that you don’t know?”
“Yeah.” Asher lets out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh that has me snickering. “I may be married to her, but my girl is as loyal as they come, and Emma, Hallie, and Molly are her sisters. When it comes to them, she’s a vault. But lucky for me, I have you. So tell me everything. But first, hand over the cereal. If you’re eating second breakfast and it’s the best cereal in the entire world, then I am too.”
“Damn right it is,” I mumble through a mouthful, handing the box over. I’m a fan of all cereal, especially if it’s made for kids and has some kind of cartoon on the box. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the gold medal of cereals.
