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What the fu—” He sent one hand through his mop of blond curls like he wanted to pull them out by the fistful. “My ex-girlfriend used to try to get me to watch this crap. Let’s watch something on the Speed Channel. Now there’s some good television.”
    She let out a groan. “Nonstop Darwin Awards contestants are more valuable than a literary classic to you?”
    He glared at her. One eyebrow went up.
    “Make fun of me all you want, Opera Girl. I’m doing this for your own good.” Emily realized she would have to take up professional wrestling to recover control over her TV, and she was too hungry to keep squabbling with him at the moment. He clicked through channels at lightning speed. He settled on the NFL Network again. “Pizza is on its way. You can thank me later.”
    “Let me give you some cash.” She tried to rise from the couch. He pulled her back down by one elbow.
    “You’re going to hurt yourself.” He gestured toward the television. “Listen and learn, sugar. First of all, these are the special teams guys. They’re the toughest guys on any football team. They have no fear of giving up the body.”
    “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”
    “Watch the guy at the back, by the end zone. He wants to run to the opposing end zone, so he can score. All those guys want to rip his head off and shi— They want to stop him.”
    Emily watched a bunch of guys jump on the guy with the ball, grinding his face into the grass. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to care. Maybe it wasn’t as painful as it looked.
    “He just got up and ran away.”
    “He made it to the forty. He’s the man.”
    “They were trying to hurt him.”
    “Okay. Here comes the offense.”
    Brandon spent the next hour attempting to explain the intricacies of the NFL, and its endless rules to Emily. He was surprisingly patient. His tutorial was interrupted by the arrival of food, which he wouldn’t allow Emily to pay for.
    “There’s cash in my wallet,” she argued.
    “And your point would be?”
    “I can at least buy your dinner. You brought me home.”
    “Maybe other guys will let you do that, but I won’t.”
    After only a few bites of pizza, Emily leaned back against the couch. Her eyelids drooped. He took the plate out of her hand.
    “You need to go to bed. Come on, sugar.”
    “I don’t understand why you’re still calling me that, either.”
    Brandon didn’t answer. He helped her up, offering his arm. Emily felt a little steadier than earlier, but she took it. They crossed the living room at a glacial pace and climbed the stairs one at a time.
    “I think I need more medicine, too. My head—”
    “Hang on.”
    He swept her up in his arms. This time, though, she clasped her arms around his neck.
    “Last door on the left,” she said sleepily. She laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Thanks for the ride.”
    He put her down on the bed and threw the blanket from the foot of the bed over her.
    Emily’s room was a confection of lace, ruffles, and a rainbow of pink. Besides the four-poster bed, which was dressed with ruffles and flounces and lacy pillows, and the overstuffed easy chair and ottoman, which was covered with a print festooned with huge cabbage roses, she lay on a custom-made, floral-print quilt. She was exhausted, but she could only imagine his thoughts. Brandon had stumbled into some kind of parallel universe. Girly World: No Boys Allowed. She could only imagine how shocking it was in comparison with what he’d seen of the rest of her house.
    “Everything’s so soft,” he muttered.
    E MILY OPENED HER eyes to see Brandon sitting in her bedroom chair and watching CNN. He wore her coral pink silk bathrobe. It didn’t come close to fitting him. His damp hair and a wave of what she now knew as Brandon’s scent—clean male skin, a bit musky, and a hint of old-fashioned aftershave—announced he’d been in the shower.
    “My clothes will be done in the dryer pretty soon.”
    “I was