Page 46 of The Wild Card

“I like you too.” Emmie grins at her.

I load the bags into the cart while Emmie pays for her half. She insisted on separate transactions—something about keeping track of her cookbook expenses.

When we walk out into the parking lot, the sun is warm, and she’s still talking—something about how she needs to find a better fish market, how the salmon here is fine but not great, how there’s a place in Fort Worth that’s worth the drive.

I’m not really listening to the words.

I’m listening to her voice—the rise and fall of it, the way she gestures with her hands, the way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s thinking.

She catches me looking. “What?” She smiles.

“Nothing.” I unlock the truck. “I was thinking about the fish market.”

“Uh-huh.” She doesn’t believe me. But she doesn’t push it either.

We load the groceries. She climbs into the passenger seat, already pulling out her phone to check something for her recipe.

I sit behind the wheel for a moment—just a moment. This is dangerous. Not the fake dating. Not the contract. This.

Sunday mornings. Grocery stores. Watching her squeeze avocados and befriend cashiers and fill the silence with warmth I didn’t ask for.

I’m pretty sure fake girlfriends aren’t supposed to make you feel like this.

Something that feels a lot like panic starts climbing up my throat.

I start the truck and pull out of the parking lot before it can reach the surface.

Chapter Eleven

First Cuddle

Crew

Emmie’s been in the kitchen for an hour, doing whatever she does with spices and sauces that I can’t pronounce. The whole apartment smells like garlic, lemon, and something herby that’s probably rosemary. Under normal circumstances, I’d already be hovering near the stove, waiting for her to shove a wooden spoon in my face and demand that I try something.

Tonight, I’m on the couch, staring at my laptop without actually seeing it.

“Dinner’s ready,” she calls.

I don’t move.

She appears in my peripheral vision, dish towel over her shoulder, that little crease between her eyebrows indicating she’s worried. “Hey. You okay?”

“Fine.”

“You’ve been staring at that screen for forty minutes. You haven’t scrolled once.”

I close the laptop. “I’m not hungry.” I release a long, slow breath.

I don’t know why I ever thought this would work. My idea of a good time is lifting heavy things for ninety minutes to quiet my brain. Now Emmie is here with her scented candles and her cheerful energy and her constant cooking and chattering and cuddling requests and I just … can’t. The very idea of it fills me with panic.

“Crew.” She says my name like it’s an argument. “You’re not surviving on those protein drinks.”

“I said I’m not—”

“Nope.” She grabs my laptop and sets it on the coffee table, then takes my hand and pulls. She’s surprisingly strong for someone her size. “Kitchen. Now. You’re eating.”

I could resist. I’m twice her weight and trained in hand-to-hand combat. But she’s looking at me with those hazel eyes, stubborn yet soft at the same time, and I find myself standing, following her to the kitchen, and sitting down at the table like a trained dog.