I closed Josh’s door quietly and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my purse on the kitchen cabinet. I grabbed it from the counter and almost made it out the door.
“Walk of shame?” Jagger joked from his bedroom door.
My skin flushed hot, but I threw him a jaunty salute. “Jagger.”
He laughed, his head thrown back in abandonment. Yeah, I could see why the girls went for him. He screamed reckless in a way that caught the eye. Just not my eye. “Ember, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Josh is fucking crazy over you.”
Joy beat through my embarrassment. “I’m pretty crazy about him, too. Where did he skip off to this morning?”
Jagger’s face dropped all expression for the barest of moments, but I caught it before a smooth smile took its place. “Scholarship stuff.”
“Scholarship stuff? What do you mean?”
His eyes fell away, and my stomach went with them. “It’s just something he has to do for his scholarship. He’ll be home tomorrow.”
What could Josh be doing that Jagger wouldn’t want to tell me about? “Right,” I muttered absentmindedly and turned for the door. My feet caught a stray bag of hockey gear, nearly sending me tumbling to the ground. Thankfully, I caught myself. Hockey gear. “Wait. Don’t you have a game tonight?”
He reached over and pulled the bag out of my way. “Yeah.”
“Josh is missing a game? That’s not like him. Why would he miss a game?”
Jagger cleared his throat. “Coach is fine with it. He knows how Josh’s scholarship works.”
“But why would he miss a game if he’s on a hockey scholarship?” Nothing made sense, and the way Jagger purposely dodged my questions didn’t make me feel any better.
He closed off his expression and stepped back, cracking his neck in a stretch. “Yeah, so anyway, Josh will be back tomorrow night. I know he’ll be dying to see you. He really cares about you, Ember. I’ve never seen him like this, not with any girl.”
I melted. Was I really going to let whatever was going on with Josh’s scholarship kill my morning-after buzz? Hell no. If something was wrong, he’d tell me. Just don’t let him be injured. There was no way he’d take it if they took him off the ice for an injury. Was his leg more hurt than he let on? I’d have to ask him tomorrow night.
“Thanks for not making this all awkward, Jagger.” He gave me a smile and a wave. I waved back and let myself out of the apartment, turning to mine. I reached into my purse for my keys. Shit. Sam drove my car home last night. Right. I knocked on the door, and she answered a few minutes later.
“Wow. You look . . .” There were simply no words for Sam’s appearance. Or smell.
“Don’t even. You went home with Josh-freaking-Walker and I decided, after I got home, alone, that I was going back out to have a good time. No lectures, I took a cab.” She waddled like a penguin back to the darkened living room. I smiled at the drawn curtains.
“Medicate and hydrate?” I tossed my purse onto the counter.
She saluted me with a Dasani and nodded to the bottle of Excedrin next to her. “Besides, I may look like crap, but at least I’m not wearing what I went out in last night.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “So dish, because if you spent the night in Josh’s bed, I want freaking details.”
I threw up my index finger at her and slid into my bedroom, tossing yesterday’s clothes into the hamper and pulling on comfy pj pants and a tank. From the looks of Sam, we weren’t going anywhere today.
The chair made a whooshing sound as I plopped my full weight into it, throwing my legs over the arm. “Yes. I spent the night with Josh.”
Sam squealed and then grimaced, pushing her fingers into her temple. “Stupid tequila. Is he as yummy in bed as he looks?”
The smile that spread across my face may as well have been its own entity for all that I couldn’t contain it. “He is perfect. Everything.”
“I’m so freaking jealous!”
I laughed. “I just can’t believe it happened, you know? I mean, Josh! He makes me forget everything. I don’t need a schedule with him, or a plan, and things can be insane, and wonderful, and out of control because I know he’s not going to let me fall.” The words tumbled so quickly from my lips, but Sam interpreted my rant with a gleeful laugh.
“You love him!” She clapped her hands together with a smile that lit the room. “You trust him, and for once you’re not molding yourself into whatever some guy wants.”
That sweet feeling hit my heart again, like it was reminding me it belonged to Josh. “I don’t have to be anyone else. He loves me, and I love him.”
She jumped across the coffee table, scattering magazines to the floor, and lunged at me in a bear hug. “I’m so happy for you!”
“I’m happy for me, too!”
We collapsed into a fit of giggles for a moment before Sam winced. “Ugh. My head. Let’s talk about your new love life in soft tones the rest of the day. I want to know how that body of his stacks up.”
My neck was crimped when a knock on the door sounded. I threw my history book on the table. So much for getting studying done; I’d fallen asleep with the book on my lap. The clock read 4:45 p.m. Sam was racked out on the couch with a Diva-embroidered sleeping mask, sleeping off her hangover. She’d be screwed if she wasn’t recovered by tomorrow morning. Those kids she tutored in math Sunday afternoons could be brutal even when she wasn’t hungover.