In a Rush (Friendship, Rhode Island #2)

by Kate Canterbary

The least I could do was take the field every Friday night and play the game of my life. My father needed that joy, that hope. We all needed it. And I’d needed the purpose. But then we rearranged our lives again, and that time it was to make room for grief and loss. Those Friday nights turned into a tribute. Every game was played in his honor, a memorial service in many parts. My family—the whole town, really—had grieved and celebrated his life through those games but it’d never worked that way for me. When the scholarships rolled in, I went as far from home as I could get. As far from the soft-eyed expressions and “Your dad’s up there cheering you on!” as I could get.

Draft day was—well, fuck, I’d dissociated through most of it but my origin story video nearly drowned itself in its own tears. Now I was on the board for the leading ALS foundation in the US. I was their celebrity spokesperson and helped raise millions of dollars for them each year and matched every penny. I appeared in their commercials along with a photo montage of my dad coaching my peewee teams and I voiced a line about me carrying on his legacy of sportsmanship that made my stomach drop every time I heard it.

“Think of it this way,” I said. “If I hadn’t entered the draft against your very specific advice, I wouldn’t be buying these teams which means I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me.” I turned my head and rubbed my face against her belly. She pushed her fingers through my hair. I wanted to pry my ribs open and show her my heart because I’d swear to god it only beat like this for her. “I’m not complaining. You don’t have to either.” “I’ll stop bringing it up,” she said, “if you stop doing things you hate.” “I don’t hate football.” When she didn’t volley that comment back to me, I added, “I started seeing a sports therapist three—four?—years ago. Whenever we lost to Minnesota in the Super Bowl.” “That was five years ago, my friend.” “Shit, really?”

“I started seeing this guy a couple of months after because I couldn’t reconcile the loss. It wasn’t—it didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t add up.” “You did choke pretty hard in the third quarter.” “I thought you didn’t watch my games.” “It was like you forgot how to read your coverage and couldn’t find your receivers on the field.” “Love you too,” I said. She gave me a smirked smile that made me think of lemony sunshine and sinking my teeth into her thigh. “He helped me think about things differently. To separate out all the things I’d packed into football and figure out which ones I need, which ones I don’t.” “Has it helped?” “I signed a contract extension, didn’t I?”

I shifted to wrap an arm around her waist. “You’re the only person who ever noticed that it wasn’t my choice. I never forgot that, even when I did the exact opposite of what you wanted.” “I just wanted you to—gah. Never mind. I’m happy it’s better for you and I’m happy there are good things waiting for you in the future.” You’re the only good thing that matters.

“I haven’t figured out things at home either.” “We’ll figure it out together.” I burrowed into her belly again. I loved how soft and luscious she felt. “We always do.” She ran the backs of her fingers from my forehead to my chin and up again, and I thought I was going to float away. I hadn’t been this chill in a decade. Longer, probably. “It’s fun being your fake fiancée,” she continued. “I’ve missed hanging out with you and now I get to do it while glaring at anyone who shakes their boobs in your face.” “I don’t think that…happened,” was all I could say. “I know you’re not blind, Ryan. You’re fully aware it happens all the time.”

“We make a good team,” she said, reaching for her glass on the nightstand. “And drinking absurdly expensive wine in fancy hotels with you isn’t bad either.” “We are a good team,” I said, watching as her tongue peeked out to catch a drop of wine. “I always knew we would be.”

Emme was not in a good mood when she woke up the next morning. She emerged from the shower wearing a hotel robe that didn’t look like it fit too well and her hair twisted up in a towel. A cloud of steam billowed out behind her like a personal army of fog. She barely spoke to me as we packed for the airport, and tossed a few pillows to the floor that’d angered her in some way. I figured she was hungover.

“I’m cold,” Emme said, snatching a hooded sweater out of my hands. “Need to borrow this.” She returned a few minutes later wearing the sweater with a pair of leggings. She looked…amazing. So good I couldn’t speak. I had to turn around while she dried her hair so she wouldn’t see the smile on my face.

But when we boarded the plane, Emme more or less collapsed into her seat and curled herself into a ball. I didn’t know what to make of that. I kept an eye on her as we took off, glancing over the frame of my iPad every few minutes. Once we were airborne, she pulled the hood up, tucked her knees into the sweater, and dropped her head to her folded arms. She was pale, none of her usual rosiness riding high on her cheeks. Even her lips were pale. I leaned forward, my arms braced on my thighs. “What’s goin’ on over there, Muggsy?” She shook her head but kept her eyes closed. “Cramps.” Ah. Well. Okay. I could work with that. She’d always had a bad time with cramps. Gone in for surgery during college because of it too. Endometriosis.

“Take these,” I said, holding a glass of water for her. She accepted it with shaky fingers. “Good girl. How about some blankets?” I slipped my hand under the sweater and pressed my palm to the small of her back. She’d always liked that when she had cramps in high school. She’d called me her hot water bottle.

“You’re so warm,” she groaned. “Then come sit with me while the meds kick in,” I said. She considered this for several long seconds before giving me a resigned shrug. “Only if you tell me if it’s uncomfortable for you.” I was more likely to chew my arm off, but I said, “Yeah.” I reclined the seat all the way back and Emme settled on her side, her head on my chest and a leg thrown over one of mine. I tucked the blanket around her and rubbed her back while she dozed.

I stared at the ring on her finger as she slept. I’d spent an entire week looking for the right one. Jakobi almost strangled me. Apparently, other people didn’t need to visit eighteen jewelers in four cities to find the right ring. I doubted other people were hoping their fake fiancée actually fell in love with them before the jig was up. Emme shifted a few times, which was only fair because I was about as soft as a concrete basement. Eventually, after some blanket fluffing and several frustrated huffs about the armrest being in her way, she ended up straddling my thigh. We could’ve gotten away with this the same way we got away with a lot of the handsy shit we did—by systematically ignoring it—but something about this was different from kissing for cameras and jaw massages. And that something was the way I started rocking her against my thigh as I rubbed her back. At first I was just trying to shift the position of my irritable hip, but her breath caught and she pressed her face deep into my shoulder when we connected at a certain angle. So I did it again. It was gentle, barely more than a nudge when I stroked my palm up her spine. I kept that up for a few minutes, saying not a fucking word and keeping my gaze on the ceiling. The last thing we needed was some eye contact to make this too real. Then Emme decided to participate. When my hand moved up her back, she rolled her hips to meet the pressure. There was no way she didn’t notice my sharp inhale or the hard flex of my...

But I couldn’t think about anything but the warm, glorious place where she rubbed herself against my leg. My joggers were thin enough that I could feel the heat radiating out of her and I was hit with a staggering need to slip my hand under those leggings and find out how wet she was. I didn’t, but god, I wanted to. I wanted so much. Wanted to get a handful of her ass and show her exactly how to ride this out. Wanted her tits in my face. Wanted to take her hand and show her how hard she’d made me. But she learned all about hard when she started sliding her leg up and down my shaft. I shifted a hand to her hip to give it to her just the way she needed and the responding groan that vibrated through her body almost had me popping off. I had to wait, had to hold out, but she wasn’t making it easy.

I knew how those hips would bounce on my dick, how they’d jiggle when I pounded into her from behind. In my head, I had her stripped of everything but my sweater. I nipped at her breasts through the wool while she sank down on me. Kissed her neck, her jaw, her shoulders while she bucked and screamed. Held her tight while she came, even tighter while I came.

My hold on her hip was unforgiving, my fingers digging into the plush skin there and driving her harder, faster. But she met every rock with a roll of her own, with shuddering breaths and deep, perfect moans. I wanted to say something. Anything. I wanted her to know how gorgeous she was, how incredible she felt, how much I wanted this—how I’d always wanted this. Though it didn’t matter what I wanted because Emme’s thighs tightened around me as she whispered, “Oh god, oh god, oh god. Yes, fuck, yes.” “That’s right,” I said, low and easy like we weren’t rewriting everything we were to each other. “Let me make you feel better.”

She dragged the flat of her thigh over my cock with enough pressure and friction to make me forget my name. Something like “Right there” and “Don’t you fucking stop” babbled out of me as I came so hard and so long I was concerned I’d damaged something. Never before had I felt my body hollow itself out—and then keep going.

Her skin was damp under my palm and I loved how hard she’d worked for it. Even though she’d kept her face from me, she wasn’t shy. There was nothing shy about dry humping. My shirt was soaked like I’d been hit with several water balloons and I could survive the discomfort but Emme was having a hell of a time staying out of the mess. After one last kiss to her hair, I climbed out of the seat and tucked the blanket around her. “I’m gonna change. Stay right here.”

I couldn’t bully my way in—no more than I already had—just because rubbing up against her while fully clothed was the best sex of my life.

It wasn’t enough to fake sleeping through the last hour of the flight. No, I had to take this game of avoidance to the most unhinged level possible. I sat up with a theatrical stretch and yawn and “Oh wow, we’re already landing?” when the plane hit the runway. As if I hadn’t been counting down the seconds during the descent.

“The rain is part of the problem,” she said, stepping up to the SUV. “That’s why I needed all the rice.” “What do you mean, you needed rice?” I pushed the door open and shuffled closer to Ryan. He only gripped my thigh tighter, as if that would help anything. “To save your laptop.” She heaved a twenty-pound bag of basmati rice onto the seat. “Because it’s raining inside too.”

With a nod, Ryan said, “Time to go.” Pulled out his phone and swiped through a few screens. “Grab anything you can salvage. I’ll have Bowen pull around in a few minutes.” I picked up a shirt I’d left on the bed, now caked with plaster and other debris I couldn’t identify. I didn’t even know how to clean something that’d drowned in gross ceiling water. It smelled like an old basement. Was there a special detergent for that or was it more like fifty washes with the regular stuff? Another chunk of ceiling hit the floor with a squelch and I glanced at Ryan. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Phone pressed to his ear, Ryan said, “Get whatever you need so you can leave in the next five minutes. I’m taking you home with me.” I motioned to the ruptures in the ceiling. “But⁠—” “You can’t stay here, Muggsy. You know that.”

“We’re going to get everything fixed, and replace anything you lost.” “Yeah, but how? How does that happen? My landlord is a guy in a bodega. We’re not talking about responsive property management here.” “You’re not saying anything I don’t already know,” he said, eyeing the wedges of gouda and brie. “That kind of damage takes time to fix. It’s not going to be resolved this week. Probably not this month.” He shrugged like this was fine. “So, stay here.”

“But this is your place.” “Legally, it’ll be yours soon enough.”

“Listen. You have two options,” Ryan said to me, taking real care to organize the cheddars. “One, we leave now to pick up a new laptop for you and then swing by some shops for your—for whatever you need.” “And the second option?” I asked. He closed the fridge and turned, meeting my gaze. “Or I call Marcie and Wren right now and tell them to have everything you need delivered tonight. It might take Wren a few days to replace your entire wardrobe but she can get you taken care of for tomorrow.” “I can’t let you do that,”

“Yes, you can.” He folded his arms over his chest as he stared at me. “You can argue with me about it all you want but that’s not going to solve any of these problems and it won’t make you feel better so don’t.” He turned, opened a drawer. He pulled out a small bottle and shook two tablets into his hand. “Come here. It’s time for another dose. You need to stay ahead of the pain.”

“What’ll it be? Are we going out or am I making a call?” I knew the money was nothing to him. Some clothes, a laptop—it was pocket change. And I knew that if our roles were reversed—if I was famous and outrageously wealthy and he was a refugee of his flooded apartment—I’d haunt the shit out of him until he let me help. I’d be so fucking mad if he tried to put on a brave, self-sufficient face about it. And that was why I stopped fighting him. Why I didn’t pull out my pride and let it be the only thing keeping me warm while I suffered. “I guess you can call them.” “That’s my girl,” he said, a slight smile pulling at his lips.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder at me, clocked my hunched stance with a scowl. “Just so you know, there’s a soaking tub the size of a swimming pool in my bathroom and it has eighty-four jets. It’s brought me back from the dead more than a few times.” That was an opening if I’d ever seen one. “If that’s your way of asking me to get naked in your room, you should’ve said something a lot sooner.” Several wedges of cheese tumbled out of his hands and hit the floor. He dropped his head as a raspy breath rattled out of him. “Emmeline.” “It was always going to be weird,” I said. “I just kicked it in the ass to get it moving. Now we can get it over with.”

“I can leave. If you’d be more comfortable.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Where would you even go?” “I have a place near the stadium. I usually stay there unless I have a reason to be in the city.” I shook my head. “I don’t want you to leave.” “Why?” A moment passed and then another while I searched for the words. He turned his attention to another bag and I got the distinct sense he didn’t want to look at me right now. I laced my fingers together, aware all over again of my ring—and the lines we’d crossed today. In all these years, we’d never done anything like that. Although. Although… We’d kissed—a lot. And not only when there were eyes on us. We’d shared a bed—a few times. And we always ended up climbing each other in the night like vines.

I crossed to the island, grabbed a bag from his hands and tossed it aside. I reached for him, a hand on the back of his neck, the other cupping his granite jaw. Pushing up on my toes, I touched my lips to his. It wasn’t really a kiss, it was a gentle brush and Hi. I’m here. He sucked in a sudden breath and he lifted the arms that’d been frozen at his sides to my waist, holding me tight against him. His teeth grazed my bottom lip and it felt like Good. I’ve been waiting. We stared at each other for a moment, the silence tight around us until I said, “Stay. I want you here.” His jaw softened under my palm. I pressed one kiss to his lips before he picked me up and deposited me on the countertop. He stepped between my legs, saying, “Did you really think I’d leave?”

“You would though. If I said it was what I wanted.” “But you don’t want that.” I shook my head. He left a line of kisses from my jaw to the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder. “Who would yell at me about jam farming if you left?” He dropped his head to my shoulder with a sigh. “Jam doesn’t grow on trees, Muggsy.” “But peaches do and they make really nice preserves.”

“I mean it though. Stay wherever you want. Take my room. Kick me out for all I care.” “I’m not kicking you out of your bedroom, you incorrigible man.” “I’m on the road most of this week anyway and I do have the better bathtub.” With a breath, I put some space between us. “Where are you going?” “Minnesota.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m meeting with a group of strength and conditioning coaches. Trying to get my arm in shape.” “Oh, that’s a relief,” I murmured. “I thought I was the only one who’d noticed your pass completion rate had dipped.” He dropped his hands on either side of me and stared straight into my eyes. “I love how hard you ride me.” His tongue peeked out, just a bit, and ran along the line of his teeth. “About my stats.”

“Someone has to.”

We could’ve stayed there until we closed the distance and crashed into each other again but a brutal stab of pain shot through my back, between my hips, and down my legs. The only way to withstand this was to curl in on myself and breathe like I could exhale the hellcat currently possessing my uterus.

Ryan pulled me into him and stroked a hand down my back. “I’m going to get the bath started,” he said, his lips on my temple. “I’ll bring your things in there so you can change. You can keep everything there—if you want.” A breath shuddered out of me and I nodded. “Give me some time to think about it.” “Can I watch while you think?” “In the bath? No.”

“Good try but no. I don’t have a spare minute for anything like that. I’m positively overbooked at bath time. I need to cry, panic about what I’m going to teach this week, and then zone out while obsessing about pointless things. I couldn’t squeeze you in even if I wanted to.” “And you don’t want to?” He asked this in a plain, unassuming way. There was no heat, no innuendo. No expectation. And I loved that so much because I knew my response wouldn’t change anything between us. There wouldn’t be pressure or disappointment. There wouldn’t be any loaded comments about the weekend ahead or the next time we traveled for one of his events. We’d be okay if we never crossed another line together—and that was everything I needed.

“Not right now.” I motioned to my abdomen. “There’s a teardown project taking place in my uterus. Authorized personnel only.” He reached between us, pressed a hand to my belly. He was so deliciously warm, I couldn’t help but lean deeper into his touch. “Is there something you need? Supplies or anything else?” I shook my head. “No, but…thanks. For everything. You really didn’t have to do all of this for me and Ines.” “It wasn’t like I was going to leave you two there.” He kissed my temple, my forehead. “At least not without a canoe.” “That would’ve solved many problems though invented a few others.” “Couldn’t have that.” He scooped me off the counter, set me on my feet. “Come on. Let me introduce you to all the different pain-relief bath soaks I keep on hand.” “No hotter words have ever been spoken,” I said, lacing my fingers with his.

Emme chose the room upstairs.

I remembered two things from my four years of high school. The first was the dark, suffocating blanket of my father’s illness and the way I still felt trapped beneath it every time I went home. The second, and the one that stuck with me like an old splinter, was sitting by while Emme bounced from relationship to relationship. She dated a lot though never seriously. Nothing lasted more than a month or two and it always ended when there was a threshold she wasn’t interested in crossing. Some thresholds were big, others nothing at all. But she only crossed the lines she chose to cross.

And I knew now that if I wanted Emme, I had to let her make the decisions. If I wanted her to wrap herself around me the way she had this morning, if I ever wanted to feel her shake and pant with pleasure again, I had to wait until she was ready. I had to give her time to cross the line. If there was one thing I had when it came to Emmeline Ahlborg, it was patience. After fifteen years of watching her date the weakest link in every chain, a week or two was nothing. I could do that in my fantasy-soaked sleep.

But I knew there was something undeniably right, something specific about her that fit me like a key in a rusty old lock when I told her to watch out for Kincaid and she replied, “You mean the punk with the slippery hands and slow feet? Yeah, he outed himself as a dick waffle this morning. I asked him if this was his first season on the field. Surprises all around because it’s not. Then I asked whether he knew he wasn’t supposed to be throwing interceptions.” She leaned in, close enough for me to smell the citrus on her. Close enough for that scent to imprint itself on my nervous system. “He made some noise about me not understanding the game and I told him to worry less about my understanding and more about the yards lost to all his sacks.”

I had to play. It didn’t matter whether this irreverent, fast-talking, half-pint of a girl had crashed into my life and all I wanted was to stay close enough to her that she might touch me again and make me feel a million confusing things at once. She made it seem like we were the only ones in the world, and that world wasn’t nearly as terrible as the one I went home to every night. I had to play and she didn’t go out with players.

I learned every nook and facet of jealousy. I taught myself how to swallow down desire and walk away from possessive envy. I stewed in resentment of the guys she dated—always the most deplorable candidates the species had to offer—but I never let myself resent her. The thing about that key was that when it broke, it stayed inside me. Waiting for her to come back, to find the remnants and finally turn it. I’d already asked for so much and probably taken more than I deserved. I wasn’t going to rush her tonight. Not when I was going to ask for much more very soon.

The first thing Jakobi said when he answered my call that night was, “You’re in so much trouble.” “That’s the least useful thing you’ve said all day.” “That little lady has you wrapped around every one of her fingers and all her toes,” he drawled. “And you love it.”

The truth was I didn’t have an exit strategy with Emme. My best guess was that it would blow up in my face and destroy every shred of connection we shared. But if that didn’t happen and we managed to survive the next few months, maybe we’d keep the fun going a little longer. Maybe we’d just stay together. Forever.

“I see what I want and I go for it. I see the win before the game even starts and I put everything into clinching it,” he said. “You see what you want and spend fifteen years running down the clock. You wait until the win is in sight.” “A win is a win,” I said, annoyed to find any shred of accuracy in his words. “Come on, now. We both know that’s not true.”

while I liked sex and I’d had plenty of it with a handful of satisfying partners over the years, I’d never done that before. The specifics of it aside, I wasn’t one to initiate. I could drop a hint—or a hand high on his thigh—but I didn’t take the lead or provide a ton of direction between the sheets. It wasn’t the most mature thing to admit but I was more comfortable letting my partner tell me what he wanted than making my desire the focus. I didn’t have any big reason for it other than the fact I didn’t trust most people enough to be completely vulnerable in that way. Apparently I trusted Ryan enough to mount his leg.

“But I made it all about me.” “Well done,” she replied. “I admire that kind of energy.” “But it wasn’t—you know—reciprocal.” She arched a brow. “He didn’t finish?” “Oh, he did,” I said, bobbing my head at the memory of the very soggy shirt to go with the equally soggy joggers. Thank god for carry-on luggage. “But I didn’t do anything for him to⁠—” “Let Auntie Jamie stop you right there.” She dropped her hands to my shoulders. “Emme, my love, my glorious, silly tempest, I promise you did everything right. If he was able to reach completion”—she spread her hands out in front of her—“without you lifting a finger, you did so many things right that you’ve won sex.” “I’ve won sex?” “Yes, you’ve won. You’re the best. And you might’ve won sex but that boy of yours is realizing he won at life. He gets engaged and comes in his pants all in one weekend? He’s searching up mating bonds and wondering if you have any other hidden powers.”

Couldn’t forget the way he’d gripped my waist and moved me like he knew how my body worked better than I did. The way he’d said, Don’t you fucking stop like he was desperate for me. I’d wanted to creep down the stairs, slide into his bed, and hear it all over again. I felt Jamie peering at me, her dark brows low. “You liked it, right? It was good for you?” I stared down at my ring. “I had no idea it could be that good.” “It’s amazing what you can accomplish without even getting your pants off.” She gave my forearm a squeeze. “What did he think about your hair?”

On his last trip to the penthouse, Bowen handed me a small leather case. “From Mr. Ralston,” he said. I unzipped the case to find another black credit card, a spare set of access cards for the building and garage, and a shiny new phone. Before I could figure out how to respond to any of this, my phone—the real one, not the platinum-dipped status symbol—flashed with my stepmother’s face.