Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Emmett
My teeth gnaw anxiously at the pad of my thumb while the little green bar on the screen in front of me fills up, millimeter by agonizing millimeter.
Minutes feel like hours until the bar finally fills, replaced by the word SUBMITTED, and my thesis is finally on its way, out of my hands.
I push my chair away from the table and stand, pulling my hands over my head to stretch my back, and I heave a breath of relief that I’ve finally crossed it off of my to-do list. My breathing comes a little easier as I close the screen of my laptop and tuck it under my arm, heading out into the living room.
“Is it done?” Ro asks me, scooching to the edge of her seat.
I hold my free arm out to my side victoriously and announce, “It’s done.”
Dad jumps out of his chair and strides over to wrap his arms around me, clapping me on the back. “I am so proud of you, bud,” he tells me, and I can feel a heavy weight drop from my shoulders.
I haven’t heard from Nash since that morning in the kitchen, and I’ve been on edge for the past week; worried that what happened between us was just a tool to him, that he would tell my dad and.
..well, I don’t know, but I was preparing myself for the ax to drop.
I even brought some random girl home to have obnoxiously loud sex with, so if Nash did say something about us, I could call him a liar and have some sort of proof to back it up.
Now that I know he hasn’t said anything to Dad, his silence is even more confusing.
He seemed to seek me out before, and now he’s just… gone.
I stuff the thought into a tiny box in my mind and push it into the corner to collect dust, bringing myself back to this moment; celebrating a win with my family, and letting myself bask in their pride.
Uncle Davis shoulders through the door thirty minutes later with his arms loaded down with grocery bags and a giant box of beers, beaming.
“Cover your ears, Macie darlin’,” he orders, and she obeys, smacking her palms over her ears.
He sets the heavy load down next to the door and rushes me like a goddamn linebacker, throwing an arm around my neck.
“Fuckin’ crushed it, Hoss!” He shouts with his his fingers ruffling my hair. “Didn’t doubt ya for a second.”
“I haven’t walked yet,” I remind him – and my dad.
“No shit,” he chuckles. “When you do, it’s gonna be a way bigger party than some burgers on the grill.”
Rowan gasps from her chair and I catch her eye. “No,” I tell her, pointing as I try not to laugh.
“Oh yes,” she nods. “I’m planning your graduation party.”
“We’ll host it at the collective,” Dad adds, as if this is even a remotely good idea.
“Guys—”
They aren’t hearing me anymore; they’ve all gathered around each other, talking over one another with all of the ideas that they have. The only person not giving their input on this party is Sarah, and that’s probably only because she can’t form real words yet.
I take the few steps over to the box of beers my uncle brought and I pull one out, twisting off the metal cap. Plopping into one of the plush armchairs, I bring the beer to my mouth, smiling to myself as I listen to my family chatter away.
·
After a week of listening to party planning and another spent waiting to hear anything from Nash, it feels damn good to get out of the house.
“We should have brought some girls,” Logan gripes while we wait for our drinks. “Place is dead.”
The time on my phone shows that it’s after midnight. There are definitely less people here than I expected this late, but it’s also a weeknight, and most people aren’t going to nightclubs when they have other obligations to wake up to.
“Sorry,” I tell him.
I check the time again. We’ve been at Arcane since nine. I made sure to be seen on the cameras, and I left my name with one of the bartenders; he should know that I’m here by now. It’s been almost two weeks since I last heard anything from him.
“Come on,” Logan calls to me, picking up his beer. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going home alone tonight.”
If there’s one thing Logan will do at any establishment where women might be present for a fun time, it’s creeping.
I thought I was bad until I started going for nights out with him.
The man will pluck a random woman from thin air and leave with her.
He works the blue collar angle, and it tends to work in his favor.
I’m not interested in taking someone home tonight, though. I came here for one reason, and one reason only. As my friend leaves to find some poor soul to bother, I flag down another one of the bartenders and hand him a fifty dollar bill. “Is the owner here tonight?” I ask.
“Nah, hasn’t been by in a week,” he shrugs as he pulls the bill from my hand and stuffs it into his breast pocket. “You a friend?”
“No.”
I look down at my phone with my finger hovering over Nash’s number, and I finally decide to dial. Pressing the phone to my ear, I walk through the club to find wherever Logan ran off to, listening to the trilling in my ear until Nash’s voice comes through the speaker.
“You’ve reached Nash Montgomery,” he says. “I’m unavailable to take your call. If it’s important, leave a short message and a contact number, and I’ll reach out to you when I’m able to.”
Asshole.
I shove the phone back into my pocket and clap my friend on the shoulder. “Find anyone?”
“Slim pickings, man,” he tells me. “Maybe the blonde over there.”
Following his gaze, I check out the woman that he’s pointing to; roughly our age, maybe a couple years younger, dancing with another woman who looks to be her friend.
The friend is hot, too; a little more meat on her bones than the blonde and her hair is a cherry shade of red that stands out because of her all-black outfit.
Could be fun.
“Alright,” I shrug. “I’m down.”
We approach the two of them, offering to buy their next round, and each of us find a way to work our individual charms on them until they have fresh drinks in their hands and agree to dance with us.
Despite dancing with us, the girls try to keep close together; I figure it’s that ‘safety in numbers’ thing our friends do when we go out.
I get it. There are some real creeps out there, and I’m friends with one of them, apparently.
An hour of dancing and drinking later, I’m climbing into an Uber with the red-haired girl and trailing my hand up and down her exposed thigh while we cruise toward her place.
It’s a small studio apartment that we have to take an elevator to reach; a small kitchen sits on one side of the room and her bed is laid out on the other.
She doesn’t have much else in the way of furniture, save a small TV set up and a love seat couch.
We make record time stripping off our clothes before we’re on each other, our tongues tangling together as we climb onto the bed in the open space of the apartment.
I lean back onto the massive pile of pillows at the head of the bed as I roll on a condom and she pulls a leg over top of me, straddling me before lowering herself onto my cock with a gasp.
I grab onto her hips, guiding her movements while she rides me like a fucking horse, only lifting myself to grip her nipple gently between my teeth. Her fist tangles in my hair as she holds me there, moaning loudly at the contact, and her hips buck faster against mine.
She feels incredible, and she does this flexing thing with her pussy every now and then that squeezes my dick and makes my eyes roll to the back of my head with a loud moan; but I can’t help myself from glancing over to my phone on the nightstand to see if anyone is calling.
To see if Nash is calling.
He got me to tell him everything; I let him peek in at my darkness, and then he up and fucking vanished, just like Anna did.
I wrap my arm around the redhead’s waist and flip us, pinning her beneath me.
I drive into her hard and fast, and she cries out when I don’t let up.
Instead, I grab onto the back of the bed frame behind her and use it for support, letting out a growl while I fuck her as if she’s nothing more than an object.
I’m so goddamn angry.
Is he that much of a prick, that he would actually listen to someone’s trauma and do it to them all over again?
No, he couldn’t. He was so pissed at me when he thought I’d hurt myself. He wouldn’t do that to me.
I’m pulled from my thoughts by the redhead scratching at my back as she cries out, her pussy tightening around my dick while she comes.
I stay buried inside of her, trying to bring myself to just cross over the finish line, but my focus is completely broken.
No matter how hard I try to center myself, no matter what fantasy I try to feed my mind, it just won’t come.
I offer her a few lurching thrusts and groan out simulated pleasure, putting on a big display of collapsing next to her afterward and making sure to get rid of the condom before she can see that it’s empty.
This doesn’t happen to me. I’m not the guy who can’t perform. I’ve never not been able to come.
I don’t waste much time getting my clothes back on and getting the hell out of the apartment, checking my phone one more time to see that I have no missed calls before ordering myself a ride home.
Thankfully, the driver doesn’t talk much when I climb in; only as many words as it takes to confirm who I am and where I’m going.
A sudden panic rises in my chest as a thought comes to mind halfway back to Dad’s house.
What if Nash is like me?