Page 115 of Family Bonds- Emma & Warren

“I do,” he admitted. “So that’s the only reason you aren’t going?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s fun and exciting and I enjoy the time we get to spend together. Next week you’re away, but the following weekend you’re home. I’ll buy the suite for that. I promise. I’ll see who else wants to go so we fill it up. Maybe I’ll have Lily in there with me and the kids.”

He laughed. “She’d like that.”

“And Tiff and her friends won’t,” she said, smirking. “I’m being mean and petty, and I don’t care. I don’t like the way some of those WAGs treat others. It’s like high school again. So yeah, there you go. Another reason it’s not so much fun to go on the field. I just want to be in the suite away from people. Call it me being a hermit again, I don’t know. It’s my version of it.”

“That’s it?” he said. “Nothing else?”

“Nope,” she said. “I still love you if you still love me.”

“I wouldn’t sit on video calls with you all the time if I didn’t,” he said, smirking.

Because he’d love nothing more than to have her at his house with him instead of on a computer screen.

But he couldn’t ask that of her.

Hell, the minute he stepped foot in her house, he felt this crazy relaxation vibe come over him he hadn’t even realized he was missing.

He could understand why she didn’t like leaving the island.

And the fact that she had left it so much when she never did before should prove her love for him.

“I know you don’t care to do that,” she said. “And I know you want more time together. My mother has pointed out I can write anywhere, but I just don’t feel right sitting in your house all daylong alone while you’re gone. Would you feel comfortable being here without me all day?”

“Yes,” he said.

She’d been bending down to pick up Lucky, who still hadn’t come to see him yet. The cat was pouting too that it’d been so long since they’d visited.

But when Emma only came for two days or two nights, she wasn’t bringing the cat, rather having someone just check in on him or drop him at her parents’ house.

He understood that. If they were at the stadium all day long the cat was nervous in the house alone. Might as well be alone in its own house.

“What?” she asked. “I thought you’d say no.”

“You thought wrong,” he said. “Bring him to me.”

She walked Lucky over to him and he took the gray cat out of her hands. He was getting big.

“I’m not sure if he’ll stay with you or not,” she said.

“He’ll be fine. And I said I could be here without you because I understand why you never want to leave. There is something about this place that I can’t put my finger on.”

“It takes the tension out of your shoulders,” she said. “Doesn’t it? Even when storms are brewing out there, it’s still relaxing.”

“It is,” he said. “I know you don’t feel that way about my house.”

“I’m not trying to insult you or be mean,” she said. “It’s just not the same.”

He understood. He’d only lived there about eighteen months himself and he had to admit it wasn’t as comfortable as it could be.

He’d spent so much of his life living in places that he knew were temporary that he didn’t always let his guard down enough.

“It’s not,” he said. “What can I do to make it more comfortable for you?”

“Nothing,” she said, laughing. “You don’t need to do that. If you decide you want to live there when your contract is done, then we’ll think about it. But for now, that’s getting ahead of ourselves.”

Which meant she was still thinking of a future with him.