Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Emmett
Nestling the last of my shoes snugly between the rest, I take one more look around the room to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything important. My eyes land on the pouting eight-year-old sitting cross legged on my bed with a tub of pink and blue spun sugar resting in her lap.
“You can’t be sad while you’re eating cotton candy,” I tell her as I drop down next to her, squishing her cheeks between my fingers. “It’s against the law. I checked.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she whines.
“It’s time for me to go home.” I pull a chunk of the flavored sugar out of the tub and stuff it into my mouth, letting it melt onto my tongue. “I’m just a quick car ride or phone call away, okay?”
Her little face twists together even more and she dips her head down into her lap. When it comes to the guilt trip game, this kid is good. “I can’t drive a car yet,” she mumbles.
“You really think I won’t come get you if you want to come over?” I ask, mussing her hair. “It’s gonna be just the same as it was before. I’m just going back to my house. Want me to get us a couple of soccer nets to put up in the yard?”
That does it. Her head lifts up, her eyes go wide, and an excited smile crosses her face. “And a basketball one too?”
“Sure thing, dude. But you gotta promise you’ll actually come use them, because I can’t play without you.
” I hold my pinkie finger up and she wraps hers around it, giving it a single firm shake.
I never really did the whole pinkie swear thing until she and Rowan became part of the family, and now it’s so ingrained as the way that we all make each other promises that it just comes as a reflex.
“Now, I need your help closing this suitcase, supergirl.”
Throwing the top of the suitcase over itself, she hoists her tiny frame on top of it and uses her weight to hold the case shut while I pull the zipper around with a laugh.
I never really wanted siblings at all when I was a kid; I always figured the more that I had my dad to myself, the better.
I had friends, I didn’t need some other kid living in my house with me and stealing attention that was supposed to be mine.
Now that I have Macie and Sarah, there’s a part of me that feels like Little Emmett missed out on something important. I love those girls more than anything in this world. God help anyone who ever tries to hurt them.
With the last suitcase packed, I lift it by the handle, stopping to grab another on the way out of the door, and I cart the pair of them downstairs.
My feet pad over the marble tile while my family sits quietly, watching me take my bags out.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that I was walking to my own funeral or something, between the silence and the somber faces.
“Ready to go?” Rowan asks, throwing her purse over her shoulder and reaching for her cane.
I nod and step toward my dad, and his arms wrap around me in a crushing hug that lasts a lot longer than I expect it to. “Thank you,” I tell him, clapping him on the back.
He pulls away and plants his hands on my shoulders, still squeezing. “You call me,” he orders. “Any time.”
“And you text before you show up,” I joke, patting his arm. When the humor doesn’t reach his face, I give him a nod and promise him, “I’ll call.”
·
Rowan’s car pulls up behind mine on the driveway, loaded down with the groceries that we stopped for on the way.
I grab as many bags as I can carry in one trip and make my way toward the door with her on my heel, understanding already having been reached between us that she is to go in, sit down, and not do anything else for the next hour.
“Ooooh, what’d you get?” She asks as she weaves around me. She drops down to grab a package sitting in front of the door, looking it over as she lets us into the house.
“You have zero boundaries, woman,” I laugh. “It could be a value-pack of condoms and a vibrating cock ring, for all you know.”
Her brow arches at me. “Gross. Did you actually order that?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I had,” I answer, dropping the bags onto the island counter. I gesture toward the package. “Open it, let’s see.”
She carefully pulls the lid off of the sleek black box, acting as if whatever is inside is going to bite her or otherwise scar her for life.
Removing the lid reveals that the box is filled with black roses, packed tightly together with a strip of gold fabric around the base; there are at least a dozen inside, maybe more.
On top of them rests a smaller box, black like the first.
Ro’s eyes fly open as she reaches for the smaller box. “Who is sending you David Yurman?” She gushes, and a heat splashes through me, bringing a panic with it that stabs into my chest like a fire poker. She plucks the included card from the flowers and turns it over in her hand.
“Oh, you don’t—”
“’Pretty boys deserve pretty things,’” she reads.
“‘Welcome home.’” She turns the card over one more time, then abandons it to look at every surface of each of the boxes, I assume looking for a name that I thank fucking god isn’t on either of them.
“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend!
Open the box!” She shrieks, excitedly slapping me on the arm.
Laughing – both at Rowan’s reaction and with relief – I slide the lid off of the small, thin box. Sitting inside of it is a thin curb chain bracelet.
I’ve never had someone buy me jewelry before; or flowers, for that matter.
I don’t know if it’s because women think that flowers are a feminine thing, or because they think that we do, but I’ve only ever seen one of my friends get flowers from a girl he was seeing.
He loved it so much, he proposed to her just a couple of weeks later.
Ro snatches the bracelet from my hand and drapes it around my wrist, securing it with the clasp. “She must be pretty serious about you,” she tells me. “It’s not the ex with the sticky fingers, right?”
“God no,” I answer. “That ship didn’t just sail, it sank. On fire. With the entire crew on board.”
The ex in question was one of only three semi-serious girlfriends I’ve ever had, and the breakup was a mess; I met her at a party, which should have been the first red flag, and we’d been together for a little over a year when she decided to ‘borrow’ a few of my valuables and hock them for cash that she didn’t actually need; if she did need it, she could have just told me.
I would have helped her out without a second thought.
Grand theft charges didn’t really bode all that well for our relationship lasting.
I bailed her out a couple of days later because I’m not a complete asshole; it was just a matter of showing her that you can’t do shit like that to people and not expect consequences. Yeah, I have a stupid amount of money, but I’m still a person, for Christ’s sake.
Cackling, Rowan moves to unload a bag of groceries, and I smack her hand away in reminder of our deal. I take over, pulling things out of the bags and setting them near their designated place in the kitchen.
“So,” she says, moving to sit on the couch, “are you gonna tell me about her?”
Oh, let’s see; ‘she’ is not a girl at all, and I didn’t realize that we were actually seeing each other – at least not to the point of sending gifts to one another.
There’s also the fact that he and my dad hate each other, and I still really don’t know why.
Oh, and remember how I judged you so harshly for being with someone so much older than you?
Well, I can put my foot in my mouth over that any time, now.
Other than that, it’s going swell.
“It’s still new,” I settle on instead. “I don’t want to jinx anything.”
“It’s new and she’s sending you David freaking Yurman?”
“And calling me pretty,” I add with a wink. “Don’t forget the part about me being pretty.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes dodging questions and putting away everything that we brought in, excluding the suitcases, which I just drop in the laundry room to make life easier for Tomorrow Emmett. Today Emmett wants a shower, a bowl, and some food.
With Ro finally on her way home, I drop down onto the couch, pulling out my phone, and I dial Nash’s number. It rings long enough that I prepare myself to leave a message before I finally hear his voice in the receiver.
“Pretty boy,” he purrs in greeting. It’s definitely not an insult anymore.
“You sent me gifts.”
“You made it home, then,” he says. “Are you alone?”
“Mhm. I’m about to—” I hear a click, and the line goes dead. “Hello? Did you just hang up on me?”
He absolutely did.
I chuckle. He’s such an asshole. Part of me really enjoys this little game between us, though.
Throwing my feet over the edge of the couch, I stand and make my way toward the bathroom to take a shower.
I know you get just as clean in any shower, but it feels like a deeper clean finally bathing in your own space; just like I’m sure I’ll sleep better tonight because I’ll be in my own bed for the first time in… god, it’s been a long time.
After the best shower I’ve had in the past few months – okay, maybe there were one or two that were better – I throw on a pair of baggy sweats and grab my pot setup, making my way out into the living room.
I plan to get wonderfully high and watch some stupid cartoons, because it’s my house and I don’t have to worry about bothering anybody else or being stoned in front of any small children.
I’m stopped short by the sight of a bright-ass orange Rolls Royce sitting on my driveway. “You idiot,” I laugh to myself. I could open the door and let him know that I’m excited he’s here; but I don’t. You hang up on me, you can wait outside while I watch Ren & Stimpy from the pilot episode.