Page 113 of Family Bonds- Emma & Warren

“What’s going on?” her father asked, moving closer.

“Emma is struggling with the attention she got today now that it’s out there about her relationship with Warren and who she is.”

“It’s not that so much,” she said. “It’s just the typical mean girl group that wants to know information for their own gain. Then there was Warren coming over to see me twice and getting called back on the field by his coach. He’s always said that he didn’t want distractions in life and I feel maybe I’m one for him when I’m here.”

She’d told him she wasn’t coming to every game. There was no reason for it.

She didn’t want to sit in the stands and it cost way too much to buy this private suite each time. They’d argued over who was paying for it. Since her family was in it, she wanted to pay for it and he wouldn’t let her.

She didn’t know if someone finding out would have embarrassed him.

He didn’t like that she brought that up either.

It’s not like she had more than him. She didn’t, not even close.

At least not now.

“That’s something the two of you are going to have to work out,” her mother said. “It looks like they are getting ready to bring the teams out.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I need to watch Warren come out. Oh my, it’s so sexy when he runs out ready to battle.”

“I can run out like that,” Egan said, laughing. “I do that to my helicopter all the time. Blake loves it.”

“In your Birks,” Eli said. “Yeah, that’d be a sight to see.”

She turned to look and Egan did have Birks on his feet, but they were closed-toe brown leather ones rather than the summer sandal-type he was famous for always wearing.

Emma looked around this suite and had to laugh. The amount of wealth in it was much more than any of the players on the field, yet no one looked it.

They were all wearing jeans and team gear of some form. No one had fancy dressy clothing on, even if their jewelry and accessories hinted at their wealth.

To her, they looked like everyday ordinary people.

And when Warren connected with DeMarcus on the opening drive for a sixty-yard touchdown, they were all jumping and cheering.

“We’re on TV, Emma,” Chelsea said.

She looked up at the screen in the suite to see that, yes, she and her family were front and center for millions to see right now.

At the end of the game, they’d been viewed more than a dozen times and she wondered how many ruffled feathers that would cause.

32

FEW PEOPLE UNDERSTAND

“Why are you mad?” Warren asked Emma three weeks later at her house.

“I don’t like people commenting that we’re having trouble because I haven’t been at your last few games,” she said, crossing her arms. “Give me a break.”

He let out a sigh.

He hadn’t seen that. “Don’t look at that shit,” he said. “There isn’t any trouble, is there?”

He was trying to figure that out himself.

He hadn’t seen her since she came to the game with her family.

There were three more games in that time. A home Thursday game that she didn’t come to, an away Sunday that he knew she wouldn’t go to, and then last week they were home again.