Page 84 of Almost Ours

I turn towards her. “What?”

She waves one gloved hand towards the pitch. “Take your pick.”

“Of what?”

“The boys. They’re a good-looking bunch, aren’t they?”

“Emma, you’ve got a boyfriend out there.”

“I know. He’s the one I’m mainly looking at.”

“Mainly?”

“I’m not blind, Ruby. I can appreciate pretty things.”

I slap the back of my hand against her arm. “You’re disgusting.”

“I’m only looking. It’s not like I’m planning on shagging any. Well, except one.”

“Oh.” I wrinkle my nose. “That’s beyond gross. Never talk about shagging Oscar ever again.”

Her smile widens as she takes another drink. “Speaking of your brother, he won’t stop talking about the new boy.”

My stomach gives this pathetic little dip. There mere mention of Josh is affecting me now. Great. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Thinks he’s going to make a real difference for the team. Do you know which one he is?”

My eyes find Josh instantly.

He’s high on the left, almost level with the full-back marking him, mud smeared down one side of his blue and white shirt and one sock sitting lower around his calf than the other. He watches Oscar bring the ball through midfield, and then he starts moving, anticipating where he needs to be.

“Yeah. He’s number eight,” I breathe out, and my voice comes out strangled enough that Emma shoots me an extremely knowing look.

“Right, right. And he’s the tall one?”

“Mmhm. Yeah.” Why can I not be normal about him?

Emma presses her lips together really hard, and I can practically see her deciding how she wants to say whatever has just popped into her head, which is odd for Emma because I’ve always known her to just sort of burst out whatever is on her mind. There is no filter. No pretence. She is who she is and she speaks her mind without ever being cruel about it. It’s something I really admire.

Until she bows her head and looks all conspiratorial, blinking through her eyelashes at me. “He asked your brother if you were single, you know?”

I gape at her. “He what?”

“He asked Oscar if you were single.”

“You’re joking?”

“I’m really not. Oscar came back from the pub in a right tizz about it.”

“But Josh already knew I was single.” My attention flies back towards the pitch, where he’s just received the ball from Oscar and knocked it on towards one of the forwards. “I told him. Ages ago. Wait. What? What exactly did he say to Oscar? Actually, what the hell did Oscar say to him?”

Emma lifts one shoulder, but there’s a mischievous glint in her eye that makes me want to rip my own hair out. “Oscar just said that he asked if you were single and then he did what he does best and warned him not to mess you around.”

My heart ricochets in my chest. “Oh, shit.”

“That was pretty much my response.”

Inwardly, I groan and outwardly I fight to breathe right. My brother would threaten the first boy I’ve been interested in for years, and I don’t even need Emma to tell me the exact words to know he probably made the whole thing sound far more serious and embarrassing than it needed to be.