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CHAPTER 5

EMERSON

Victor, the doorman in Gunnar’s building, eyes me with curiosity. Which is fair because my clothes are two days old, and all I have is a cello and a purse. At least I fit in the tiny Uber that came to fetch me at the airport. Not sure how they would have picked up someone with any more luggage than this instrument.

The apartment is in a neighborhood called Lawrenceville, which my driver says is really hip and cool and the place to be for young people in Pittsburgh. And honestly, the building is incredible. I don’t know what they mowed down to build it, but it’s brand-new construction with a lounge, a game room, and a place to store kayaks. Kayaks! Nobody in Manhattan kept kayaks…at least nobody I ever had access to.

There's an ATM in the lobby, which strikes me as odd but certainly convenient. With trembling fingers, I insert my credit card, keying in a few hundred dollars I'll need for basic necessities after my Velvet Mirage payment. The screen flashes red: ACCOUNT ACCESS DENIED. I try a smaller amount—same message. My chest tightens as I attempt a quick twenty bucks. Nothing.

I glance around the fancy lobby, suddenly feeling like an imposter. Without access to my money, I'm exactly what my father called me - worthless. The credit card makes a satisfying sound as it hits the bottom of the trash can, but my hands won't stop shaking.

I spin on my heel and approach the desk. "You must be Victor." I force brightness into my voice. His eyebrows lift. "I'm Emerson. Gunnar Stag said he'd leave a key for me?"

When Victor lets me into the apartment, I thank him and look around. This whole adventure feels much less cool now that I’m here, with nothing, in a space that smells like the man I apparently married in a drunken bout of rebellion. Who gets married just to piss off their father?

Gunnar texted me that I should make myself at home and that the entire guest room is mine. He mentioned a third room that I could use for studio space if I wanted. There’s a central living space with a kitchen along one wall and an island separating it from the living room. He’s got a table and chairs, both heaped with neatly-folded laundry, and an overstuffed couch facing a massive television. A sliding door leads out to a balcony I can’t quite see through the slatted blinds.

I peek in the first door down the hall, and it’s heaped with random trophies and medals, presumably from Gunnar’s hockey career. I set my cello next to a stack of wooden plaques and shut the door. I’ll have to see about soundproofing the walls in there. I like the idea of having someplace to practice right here where I’m staying.

Apart from the whole “living with a stranger I married” issue, the move to Pittsburgh actually seems like it could be good. There are a lot of arts and cultural opportunities here—a ballet, a symphony…opportunities my father would smile at. So, of course, I won’t be pursuing them.

But I did spend time on the plane looking into other music organizations. There is an alternative group called String Fury. They play rock music on cellos and the upright bass. I’m practically salivating at the idea of connecting with them, volunteering for some of their educational programming, and teaching in their summer camps. I just have to figure out how to make it all happen.

The next door is a bathroom, while the one opposite it is clearly a guest room furnished as if it’s a rental property—sparse, functional, and impersonal. I assume the last door at the end of the hall is the primary bedroom... Gunnar’s space. I resist the urge to snoop in there and sniff his bath products.

Since I have nothing to unpack, I toss my purse on the dresser in my windowless guest room. I strip and hop into the shower in the hall bathroom, and as I’m drying off with a plush towel, unsure what clothes to put on, I hear the door open and close.

“Hello? Mrs. Stag?”

I poke my head in the hall and quickly wrap a towel around myself. “Don’t call me that. I’m keeping my name.”

He grins. “So, you made it.” Gunnar scratches his neck, looking uncomfortable in jeans and a polo shirt with PITTSBURGH FURY embroidered around a hockey logo. I love the idea of us both working for organizations with Fury in the name. Not that I work for String Fury. Yet. But he should ditch the jeans and polo…gah! I cannot be ogling the professional athlete I married on a drunken whim. I cannot. As if I’d have any idea what to do with a man once he took off his clothes. Speaking of…

I step out of the bathroom, still in the towel. “I have an issue.”

After Gunnar procures a pair of boxer briefs and a hoodie for me to wear, we sit on his couch to figure out how to create a starter wardrobe for me until I can send for some of my things from my parents’ apartment in the city. I’m not entirely convinced my father won’t have it all burned just to teach me a lesson. There’s not really anything back there that I’d mourn if he did.

Gunnar slides a shiny silver laptop toward me and says his password is GOALIE, where the ‘o’ is a zero and the ‘I’ is an exclamation point. This is also the password for his Wi-Fi and, apparently, the mailbox downstairs. “You run a tight ship,” I joke, shaking my head while pulling up a web browser.

“My cousins are always giving me shit about getting hacked. I figure I’ll cross that bridge eventually.” Gunnar looks over my shoulder, smelling excellent despite also having endured a cross-country flight. Maybe he showered at the hockey place. Perhaps he just always smells awesome. “My credit card should be saved in the checkout for Nordstrom.” Gunnar reaches around me to type a login with one of his thick fingers. I need to stop staring at his hands.

I clear my throat. “You shop at Nordstrom?”

He chuckles. “They do alterations. I need special sizes for basically everything.” He holds up a foot. “Even socks.”

“How large are you?” I eye his bass-sized chest and thick thighs before my stomach starts flipping again, and I pull my eyes back to the computer screen.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, wife?” Gunnar nudges me with his shoulder, and I shake my head. I’ve always assumed some combination of factors made it so I never thought too much about men’s bodies or what I might do with one at my fingertips. Pressure to perfect my craft, concern about my parents, their insistence that I have the wrong body type for men of our social standing…it all added up to a total lack of interest. And now my body seems to want to make up for lost time with this stranger I married. I’ve been thinking impure thoughts about him, and they ramped up when he offered to seduce me, probably out of a sense of obligation. Gunnar mentions again that money is no object. I frown.

“I don’t need to use your credit card. I told you I have the money from my Vegas gig.” Not that it will last much longer.

“And I told you, you can use mine.” But then his face softens, and he elaborates. “I don’t want to control you, Emerson, that’s not what I mean. You’re helping me out big time. The least I can do is buy you some clothes.”

He waggles his eyebrows, looking too adorable for me to stay upset about this. He’s not wrong…I heard how his agent insisted we have to put on a big show about being wildly in love and that Gunnar is supposed to shower me with gifts. “Okay,” I accept. He flashes dimples at me, and I wonder how much of a lie it is to claim infatuation with this man.

I order ten black shirts, ten pairs of my favorite black pants, and ten pairs of generic socks. I click over to order some underwear and bras, and when I glance at Gunnar, he’s turned bright red and sprung up from the couch like it was on fire. “Something bite you?” I realize I enjoy teasing him. He’s like a giant, friendly pit bull…all muscles and emotions.

He smirks at me. “Emerson, I’m going to let you be while you order what you need. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving and going to get some food going.” He walks toward the kitchen and halts. “Do you have allergies or anything?”

“I eat it all.” Which can finally be true, with nobody here to sneer at my size or ask me if I really need a third bite of carbs. What will he cook for me? I don’t care. And I love that. I smile as his face transforms into a more relaxed state. Gunnar clangs around the stove while I finish on the Nordstrom site and order some toiletries from a nearby drugstore. If this were New York, I’d walk to get them, but I splurge for same-day delivery since I have no idea how to navigate this city, which leads me to downloading a transit app and loading up a digital bus pass. I’m feeling pretty accomplished when the smell of onions, garlic, and cooking meat hits my senses. “Wow,” I tell my husband, sliding onto a stool at the island in his kitchen. Our kitchen? “That smells amazing.”

I realize I haven’t eaten in a long time, and I am incredibly eager for Gunnar to finish plating the chicken, spinach, and mushrooms he has whipped into a fragrant tease. He slides me a fork and a heaping portion and then sits beside me with an even larger mountain of food on his plate. We eat ravenously for a few minutes—both of our hangovers gone just in time for jet lag to set in.

Gunnar swallows the last bite of his food and glances at my plate, where I’ve not made nearly as big of a dent. “I need to tell you about my family.” He swirls a water glass in a circle, staring out the window at the city below.

“Okay. It sounded like your parents are not thrilled about this.” I gesture between us.

He sighs. “It’s not that at all. They’ll love you.” I know his words are generic, but something about the way he says it has me vibrating inside. What would it feel like for parents to dote on me rather than view me as an extension of their image? Gunnar reaches for my food when it’s clear I’m not able to continue working on it. He takes another big bite and shakes his head. “The issue is that I got married without them there. The Stag family is … sort of aggressively affectionate.” He rolls his eyes.

I purse my lips. “I have zero experience with that.”

He pats my hand. “Well, buckle up, babe. You need to know that they’re all going to want to meet you. And by want, I mean they’re going to insert themselves and overwhelm you and possibly show up here with very little notice.”

I dab at my mouth with a paper napkin from a stand at the edge of the counter and hand a napkin to Gunnar, who has now finished all remaining morsels of food from both our plates. “That doesn’t sound too bad. I think I saw your brothers, right? So that’s half the family.”

Gunnar laughs, and my brows shoot up. He places a hand on mine and squeezes before hopping up to grab our empty plates. “Emerson. Sweetheart. That wasn’t even all of my brothers. The Stag family moves in a giant herd—there are dozens of us.”

I arch a brow and lean on my elbows as he starts washing dishes. I wriggle in my seat, fully aware that I’m wearing a pair of his underwear because that’s all that would fit me, as this hulking man washes dishes after cooking for me. “Dozens? Seriously?”

Gunnar pauses, and I watch his lips move as he counts. “Yeah, including you. I think we are at two dozen, which is plural for dozens. Boom!”

My face must betray my hesitation at the idea of meeting multiple dozen Gunnar-sized people. I’m used to being scolded for my size, for taking up space when I’m meant to be serene and blend into the background. What would it be like actually to feel small in a room full of people? Do they all have Gunnar-sized personalities? He keeps scrubbing the pan and tells me his father has three brothers, each with a wife. “So that’s eight. Then, Uncle Hawk’s mom and her wife make ten adults.”

“Aren’t you an adult?” I flutter my eyelashes at him because, of course, I understand he’s divvying up generations.

“Not quite,” he insists. “Anyway, my family has four kids, plus six guy cousins and my cousin Birdie. And actually, my cousins Wes and Wyatt have serious girlfriends whom we consider family, which brings the total higher. Oh!” He claps and stares into the middle distance like he’s thinking of something happy. “My brother Odin’s keeping his lady, Thora. So, wifey, you’re twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five.” I straighten my spine and press my palms into the counter. That’s not just a guy and his parents. That’s a whole web of family members now roped into this stunt. I press my lips together, thinking about what his agent told him about all the deals he’s trying to secure. “Are you sure you want to do this? Are those endorsements really worth lying to dozens of Stags? How will we convince them that we’re madly in love?”

Gunnar groans, slumps over the sink, and then lifts his head to meet my eye. “I don’t know, dude. Brian says it’s important. The truth is, I just have this sense, and I need to see this through. Fuck it, right?”

I bite my lip because I did say that. Something is happening here, and it feels really huge, but I don’t have the words to describe it. I’m attracted to Gunnar physically, without question. But I’m sheltered enough when it comes to men that I know I can’t embarrass myself and suggest we try anything physical. The mere thought of presenting my awkward virginity to this virile specimen of sexuality leaves me nauseous.

Gunnar is still staring into my face, questioning. He says, “I don’t think it’ll be that hard to get them to think I’m hot for you, Emerson.” He winks.

My eyes fly wide, and I shake my head. “That’s not … we don’t have to talk about that.”

Gunnar brings the dish sponge to his chest like he’s offering an oath. “You are absolutely safe with me, Emerson. But also, I meant what I said in Vegas. I’m happy to seduce you. Just say the word.” When I scoff, his cheeks turn pink above his scruff. “Shit. Do you not like dudes?”

I puff out an incredulous sound. “I like men just fine.” He makes a face I can only describe as sexy, and I groan. “Look, I’m super exhausted, and I’ve only known you a day. I just … need to go to bed, I think.”

He places his hands on the edge of the sink and nods. “Sleep tight, Emerson.”

I stare at the man I married, watching as he finishes the dishes. “Night, Gunnar.” I slide off the stool and walk into my new room, my body buzzing with confusion and anticipation.