Page 38 of Family Bonds- Emma & Warren

She’d already said she never left the island. He didn’t live on the island.

“I think it’s a reasonable question,” he said. “Training camp starts at the end of July. I’m not going to be able to get away as much. Before that though, I’ll be at the facility working out and meeting with coaches.”

“What do you do now?” she asked, looking at his toned arms in his fitted black T-shirt.

He looked rakish to her.

She pursed her lips, wondering where that word came from to pop into her head.

“Meaning, where do I work out?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“At home. I’ve got a big gym in the lower level of my house.”

“I bet you watch a lot of games in a big theater room too,” she said. “As part of your training.”

“I do,” he said. “During the season. Not as much now, but I will. Things will change from last year to this year. Tells and moves that a defense had last year won’t necessarily be the same this year.”

“Interesting,” she said. “So that means you’ve got to change things or moves too?”

“Some things, yes,” he said. “I can’t always change my natural mechanics, but plays will change. That’s a given.”

“You have to learn all new plays? How many plays are we talking about?”

He laughed. “Is this research for your book?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe later on. I’m not sure. Right now I want to know about you.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the loveseat in her sunroom. “There are hundreds of plays in a full playbook each year. For each game I could use a hundred or so throwing, twenty or thirty running ones. I’m not sure I keep track.”

“And you have to call all those plays yourself?”

“No,” he said. “There are coaches that do that. But I have to know the plays they are calling.”

“I don’t think I realized how smart players had to be to know those things.”

“We aren’t all just a bunch of dumb jocks.”

“I honestly played little sports,” she said. “I was the nerdy kid with my face in a book.”

“I don’t think there is anything nerdy about you,” he said.

“Not really,” she said. “But I’m not very athletic either. Roark played sports.”

“Did you go to school on the island at all?” he asked.

“No. We lived in Boston because of my father’s job. I’ve spent a lot of my life here and pretty much all my summers. I just love it. It’s the lifestyle I always wanted. It’s nothing like what you live.”

Which was something she’d been thinking about for the past twenty-four hours.

She wasn’t so sure she could give up this life of hers.

She could work anywhere, she knew that, but she didn’t know if she wanted to.

Did that make her selfish?

Probably.