“Did you get your taxes submitted?” Emma asked.
Lindsey scoffed. "Of course I did. I definitely didn’t binge the second season of The Office instead of filling out the last six mind-numbing forms.”
"I swear you're drawing it out on purpose just so you can complain about it," Emma murmured, her attention only half on the conversation as she sprayed more mist onto the glass filled with locally brewed root beer to make it look freshly fizzed.
"You might be onto something," Lindsey agreed with a smirk. “What would I even talk about if every annoying chore in my life was finished?”
Emma yawned as she straightened, finally satisfied the glass looked as good as it was going to get.
Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “Out late last night?”
“It was a rager. So much tossing and turning. Night sweating.” Emma shrugged. “I know you're envious, but not everyone can have the exhilarating life I lead.”
“All I heard was night sweating. What were you thinking about?”
Emma laughed and shook her head, but her lip twitch gave her away.
Vaughn’s eyes widened. “It’s that guy, isn’t it? The one you were texting Sunday.”
“No, stop, there’s no guy.” Emma walked around the table to get a better view of the computer monitor as Lindsey snapped away. She pretended to be entranced with the images of the glass filled with caramel liquid, but Vaughn saw right through it.
He perched on the counter next to her and tapped his fingers on the laminated surface. “I need to see this pretty man. Immediately.”
Emma blew out a breath but didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “No, trust me. That won’t be helpful to this conversation.” Vaughn leaned in. “He’s…good-looking.”
“I assumed. Rob was smitten. But how good-looking are we talking? Henry Cavill?”
Emma frowned. “Mixed with a little Ryan Reynolds.”
Lindsey turned from the camera. “I wasn’t going to say this in front of your parents since they raised three of them, but we swore off hockey players, Emma. Remember?”
“You’ve never dated a hockey player.”
Lindsey sighed. “I meant the royal ‘we,’ as in mostly you, but I didn’t want you to feel singled out.”
Fair. After Alex, theyhadsworn off hockey players. For good. Emma turned and leaned on the counter. “He was messaging about the game. That’s it.” She wasn’t ready to admit what she’d asked Tyler to do on Friday, not even to these two.
Listening to her twelve o’clock ideas had been, predictably, stupid. She’d thought about messaging Tyler that morning and telling him she shouldn’t be allowed to have her phone past eleven but hadn’t followed through. The only thing more embarrassing than asking someone to be your fake boyfriend for an hour was texting them to cancel your fake relationship.
She’d tell Lindsey and Vaughn the whole story after the fact. Maybe a year after. When it would be funny and not childish because it had happened in the past, andshe’d grown up so much since then.
“I think we’ve got this one. Let’s move on to the hot chocolate.” Lindsey moved to switch out the filters on the lights.
Vaughn whipped out his phone. “Does Tyler have socials?”
Emma groaned. “He has a few pictures online.”She wished there were more than that.After googling him last night when she crawled into bed, she’d only found one other picture from a Calgary Sun article back in January. It showed him wearing all his hockey gear on the ice, which wasn’t exactly what she’d been hoping for.
“Last name?” Vaughn stared at his screen.
“Bowen.”
Emma didn’t know where Tyler had lived before moving here, and she couldn’t very well text him to ask that. She definitely couldn’t ask anyone on the team without arousing suspicion after what happened at the pub the other night.
Emma moved the white porcelain mug from the counter, careful not to slosh the creamy chocolate up the sides. Time to add some steam. She grabbed a tampon, microwaved it for a few seconds, and hid it behind the cup, allowing tendrils of steam to rise up convincingly.
Vaughn switched out the backdrop and added a stack of aesthetic books and a sprig of lavender.
“Nice touch.” Emma winked at him.
