He opened his mouth, but Emma turned away, staggering up the last step, breathing like a lunatic. The good news was that she’d done it. The bad news was that she’d just come face-to-face with a man leaning against the wall, feet casually crossed, a set of keys in his hand.
She might’ve yelped in surprise, but frankly, she was too tired. Besides, she knew him. All six feet of lean muscles and unruly hair the color of a doe’s fur, which, was to say, every color under the sun: all shades of brown, mahogany, even some red and blond. Clearly only finger tousled, like he didn’t have time to be bothered.
Hard-Ass PT, aka Simon Armstrong.
Why did she know exactly how many strands were blond and red and brown? They’d spent hundreds of hours together over the past year. In each other’s space, his hands on her body. For most of those hours, she’d been in so much pain she doubted he’d ever noticed her spiked heart rate for what it was.
A reluctant reawakening of her body.
Not that he’d given her any indication of a return interest. Nope, he’d been nothing but professional. She was good at reading people, but Simon had a poker face she’d kill for—not to mention dark lashes over eyes that were as hard to name as the color of his hair. Greens and browns and golds swirled together in what was technically hazel, but seemed too tame of a word. Those see-all eyes of his could express a wide gamut of emotions from a quiet patience to an intensity that burned. At the moment, though, he seemed amused as he stood there, clearly having heard the conversation coming up the stairs.
“Sounds like you three need a moment,” he said.
The old Emma would’ve died of embarrassment. But Emma 2.0 didn’t do embarrassment. She no longer gave a shit what people thought. Or so she reminded herself as she lifted her chin. Pride before the fall and all that.
The exes squared came up behind her with their faux worry. Or maybe it was real worry. That was the beauty of her new attitude—she didn’t care.
“How did you find this place anyway?” Ned asked, not yet seeing Simon. “Thought you couldn’t find an apartment anywhere in Wildstone that would take you with your yearlong income lapse.”
“I got lucky.” It’d been much more than luck. Simon had told her about the available apartment and said that he could help facilitate her approval. Which meant he wasn’t all hard-ass . . .
She’d gratefully jumped on it.
The building had once been a single Victorian home, but being in such close proximity to the beach had made it crazy valuable. Somewhere in the 1950s it’d been separated into four apartments, two up, two down. Emma was moving into apartment 2A, because unfortunately, nothing had been available on the bottom floor. It didn’t matter, she was beyond grateful for it because, as it turned out, Ned was right—nobody wanted to rent to a woman with no current source of income other than a few part-time hours at Paw Pals, the local doggy day care where she gave dog training classes.
Luckily, she’d received an insurance settlement from the accident, which she’d vowed not to touch unless it was for a life-changing reason, but in the end, she’d decided not having a roof over her head was a life-changing reason, so she’d used some of it to pay first and last and security deposit on this place.
Simon smiled at Hog. “Hey, big guy.”
Hog was afraid of most men. Emma had tried to get his history, but it was sketchy at best. Her guess was that he’d been abused, most likely by a male. Now there was only one man Hog automatically melted for, and that was Simon.
Emma understood the melting on a core level, though after all these months she was so good at ignoring it that Simon had never even noticed.
He didn’t notice now either as he crouched to Hog’s level. Her big doofus of a dog let his legs slide out from beneath him, hitting the floor, making the foundation shake like an earthquake.
Simon just laughed and used both hands to rub up and down Hog’s belly, promptly melting him into a puddle of goo. Emma understood that too. Those big, warm hands of Simon’s had melted her too, plenty of times. Not that he’d noticed that either. Which was when she realized what felt weird—she’d never seen him outside of a PT session, or in anything other than what she considered his PT uniform of a form-fitted performance long-sleeved T-shirt and basketball shorts or sweats. Today he was in Levi’s with a hole across one knee, an army-green Henley, and battered sneakers. He had a few days of scruff going and she could see a few tats sticking out from where he had his sleeves shoved up to his elbows.
He looked . . . real.
And disarmingly handsome, which wasn’t good. He had a way of making her feel things she had no business feeling—not for her PT and not for men in general. All it did was make her want something she couldn’t have, leaving her with one more ache in her body she didn’t need.
Simon was still loving up on Hog, clearly clueless to her thoughts. After all, theirs was a strictly professional relationship, even if after all these months they also felt like friends. Which they weren’t, because she wasn’t on the friend train. Or any train that involved a relationship thanks to a myriad of reasons like her cheating ex, the accident . . . her physical limitations.
Ned eyed Simon carefully before turning to Emma. “You’re dating already?”
She nearly laughed. Dating? She was barely breathing. And besides, as already noted, she wasn’t on the relationship train, thank you very much. “No longer your concern,” she said. “Simon, this is Ted.”
“Ned,” her ex corrected.
Emma shrugged and pointed at her head, like sorry, coma . . .
Simon rose to his full height and smiled at her, clearly enjoying her using her temporary disability to her benefit. Ignoring the very slight flutter in her belly at the unexpected smile—very slight!—she rolled her eyes.
Ned held a hand out to Simon. “I’m Emma’s fiancé.”
“Ex-fiancé,” Cindy said very quietly, without a single hint of how she felt about the slip, Freudian or otherwise. “And I’m Cindy, Emma’s best friend.”
“Also an ex,” Emma said.
Cindy winced.
Emma reached out for the keys, belatedly realizing her fingers were trembling from getting up the stairs on her own steam.
Simon looked at those fingers, then into her eyes and . . . didn’t hand over the keys.
And here was the thing. He was perceptive. Too perceptive. She turned away.
“I don’t see you being able to handle those stairs every single day,” Ned said. “It’s too much for you.”
“Agreed.” Cindy nodded. “You should come back home, Emmie.”
That place was no more home to her now than the hospital or rehab had been. And if one more person called her “Emmie” she was going to lose it entirely. She turned again and found Simon watching her, amusement gone. “You okay?”
At his question, Ned looked at her and frowned. “You really are pale, Emmie. Are you okay?”
“Great, actually,” Emma said. “Think you guys could go down to Ned’s car and unload my boxes while I finish up the paperwork?”
Simon lifted a brow. He knew there was no further paperwork, but thankfully he didn’t contradict her, and her exes squared went back down the stairs.