“Spit it out, boss.” Emmett shut Chase’s office door and crossed to the middle of the room to stand before his best friend, arms folded.
His armor.
“How’s it going?” Chase asked, and Emmett lifted an eyebrow at the mild line of questioning.
“Peachy.”
“I’m serious.”
“The world is my oyster,” Emmett responded, his tone flat.
Chase offered a head shake and pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, what a mess.”
Whether he was talking about Emmett marrying Stef or about the Blake drama, it was hard to say.
“The heat’s off you for the immediate future. Relax in that.”
“I assume you’re attending the Sparkle & Shine gala with Stefanie tomorrow night?”
There was a segue.
“So I’m told.”
“Mimi and I will be there. Sonia Osborne sent me a pair of tickets. Evidently she’s a fan of the mayor.” He smoothed his tie and lifted his chin. Smugness was a good look on Chase. Emmett preferred it to his best friend threatening to kick him out of the only family he had.
That was the inevitable conclusion, wasn’t it? Stefanie poured her entire heart into everything she did—charity Christmas dinners, dressing for events...marriages. She was in deep—he could feel it. And the tragedy was that to keep his word to Chase, Emmett would have to eventually walk away. Because he didn’t have an “entire heart” to pour into anything—or anyone.
Dread crawled up his spine at the thought of losing it all. Again.
“Don’t look so downtrodden. It’s a party, not a natural disaster,” Chase said. “All you have to do is show up, have a few drinks and deliver a New Year’s kiss...to my sister.”
He tacked on that last bit as if it’d just occurred to him.
“That’s taking some getting used to.” Chase slid a glance at Emmett, who dropped his arms. “For both of us, I presume.”
Despite the hope in his friend’s voice, Emmett couldn’t agree.
“Stef and I have it down. We’re good.”
Chase’s eye twitched, but his words were encouraging. “I wouldn’t want her to be unhappy. Or you.”
“All due respect, boss, but she’s the important one.” Emmett was trained in the art of being unhappy. He could handle it if he had to be that way again.
“Agreed.” Chase’s desk phone purred at the same time Emmett’s cell phone buzzed. “Work calls.”
Emmett gripped the doorknob and checked his phone, pausing to read the message and decide what to do about it. Chase’s voice faded into the background.
The text lit both Emmett’s phone and his brain on fire.
The photo was Stefanie’s tall, sexy boots he’d grown so fond of. Toes pointing, a concrete square of sidewalk in the city beneath her feet, that pair of knee-high boots sent his mind straight to the gutter. The following text message blanked out everything else.
How about I wear these tonight? ONLY these.
“Em.” Chase’s voice crashed into his psyche.
Emmett tucked the phone into his pocket as guiltily as if Stef had sent him a nude selfie instead of a photo of her shoes.
“What?” he snapped.