Gray shook his hand, then pulled him in for a side hug. “No one I’d rather do it with.”
“We better call Levi and tell him we love him too,” Emmitt joked. “We don’t need him whining like a little girl tonight during the ball game.”
* * *
Emmitt headed toward the lobby with an extra skip in his step and an official letter from Gray’s office in his back pocket. He wouldn’t be diving out of planes or spending time on the front line anytime soon, but the more he thought about it, the more he warmed up to the idea of slowing things down a bit.
Make no mistake, Emmitt was itching to get back to work, but that didn’t mean walking away from what he’d found in Rome. Something special was happening here, and he’d be damned if he didn’t see where it led.
Gray offered to e-mail his company directly, but Emmitt told him to hold off for a couple hours. Carmen deserved to hear the news from Emmitt. And not some “Doctor is sending clearance. Please overnight my things” text. She deserved an apology. So he found a quiet cove off the lobby and dialed her direct line.
“Carmen Lowell,” Carmen answered, her voice so bright it had Emmitt’s chest pinching painfully. Not because he was about to say he was sorry, but because he’d been given a glimpse of the other side of goodbye through Annie and Paisley, and he was ashamed to admit that, when it came to Carmen, he’d acted no better than Clark or Sam.
He was sure there were quite a few other women over the years who would consider themselves part of that list.
“Hey Carmen, it’s Emmitt.”
There was a long pause and he could practically hear her deflate until, when she spoke, she had all the warmth of a cardboard box. “If you’re calling to sweet-talk me into changing my mind, you’re wasting your time.”
“Actually, my doctor’s office is sending over the letter today. I’ve been cleared,” he said. “And I wanted to tell you before you heard it from HR.”
An exasperated laugh muddled through the earpiece. “Why am I not surprised? Emmitt Bradley always gets his way, no matter how it complicates everyone’s life. How old was the nurse you sweet-talked?”
Okay, he deserved that one. “Actually, Gray’s the one who cleared me, so you know there was no sweet-talking or shenanigans.”
“Then you’re okay?” she breathed.
“I have to take it easy—no extreme assignments for a few months—but I’m okay,” he said. “I know I gave you shit for benching me, but it was the right call. I needed time to heal and decide my next steps.”
“I’m happy to hear that, Emmitt, I really am.” The sincere concern in her tone humbled him, made him uncomfortable because he didn’t deserve her concern. “And it wasn’t my call to bench you. That came from the top down. I admit, I enjoyed being the one to put a temporary hole in your sail. So I guess you’re calling because you need your things?”
“Actually, I’m calling because I wanted to say sorry.”
“For telling the other journalists I was throwing a Carm-trum,” she accused. “Thanks for that, by the way. I don’t think the junior journalists had heard that term before.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone since the explosion.” But he hadn’t squashed the term that one of the younger journalists, who felt Carmen wasn’t giving him big-enough assignments, had coined. “But I’m sorry that I implied you were anything but professional. I’m also sorry for the way things ended.”
“Seriously, Emmitt, it’s okay, it was a long time ago and I’ve moved on.” She waved it off, as he’d seen her do so many times when forced to deal with one of the hundred a-holes she managed or encountered while simply doing her job.
“It’s not okay,” he told her. “When I ran into you at Mahoney’s I was too busy thinking how hard it was seeing you again. I didn’t stop to consider how you were feeling. I should have, just like I should have handled the situation differently.”
Carmen went silent, probably trying to figure out if he was BSing her. With their past interactions, he didn’t blame her.
When she finally spoke, her voice was full of surprise and something warmer that he hadn’t heard from her in years. “I’m actually at a loss for words, and you know how rare that is for me. I have a response to everything.”
Emmitt leaned against the wall and smiled. Speaking