“Like what?”

“I mean… there was the incident where Joey woke up married to one of our teammate’s sisters. And they only realized they were married because a TikTok went viral and was blasted all over social media before they woke up the next morning. And then there’s Dominick, who landed his ass in jail last year on Christmas Eve…”

As I retold the stories in their most basic form, her brows rose in surprise.

“Heather never mentioned any of this to you?”

She was usually quick to defend us to anyone, and she’d called me for the inside scoop, a.k.a. truth, when both of these things happened so she could squash any rumors she heard.

“No.” Emmersyn shook her head. “I think I’d remember those conversations.”

I laughed and took a drink. “Okay, so the story needs work, but picture this for a moment.”

I spread my hands in two outward circles, pretending to craft a scene for her.

“Okay…”

“Imagine… we go through with us. We get married and invite photographers and hell, even some lifestyle and sports reporters or sports bloggers to cover this huge affair. With me so far?”

“Yep.” Her giant gulp of wine proved her words a lie, but I soldiered on.

“All right, so imagine, the next morning, Lincoln and his father wake up in Boston and their phones are pinging off the hook with Google alerts of your name, or his dad gets a call from somebody on his PR team about your wedding and your huge affair to a professional hockey player, who they would know you know because of Heather, right?

“They know that I know you, yes. And okay, so I like the idea of shocking the hell out of Lincoln like he shocked the hell out of me the other night. But what does this do besides piss them both off, and outside of never having to deal with Lincoln again, like I was planning on anyway, what benefit does this give me?”

“It gives you a fresh start.”

“In Vegas,” she deadpanned. “And I gotta say, based on today’s weather, I’m not really loving it.”

She had a point. Was it foolish to uproot her entire life? Hell, I could hire some guys, get her moved out of her apartment with Lincoln, and get her away from him. But that didn’t take care of her inheritance.

“It takes a while to adjust,” I said, in regard to the heat. “But let me ask you this. If you were to get on a plane tomorrow, pack up your shit and move out of the apartment with Lincoln? Where would you go? And would he be angry enough to follow you?”

I glanced at the cut by her eye. Couldn’t help it. Her finger followed and ran along the stitches there, making her cringe.

“What do you get out of this?”

“I get to help my sister’s friend.”

She gave me a dubious look and fingered her wineglass. “I know about Ava. How hard you took that divorce.”