Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
Emmett
“Come on,” I say, patting the bed next to me. “It’s cold out there.”
With great effort, the four-month-old yellow lab on the floor leaps, her little back legs flopping behind her as she lands halfway on the bed.
I reach behind her and help to lift the rest of her body up, and she buries herself underneath the blankets to press her small, fluffy frame against mine for warmth.
I brought Clover home a week ago, and she’s been so good to have around. I had been trying to fill my time – and the void left somewhere inside of me – with meaningless sex and a couple of first dates that never turned into second ones.
I needed something else. Finding Clover was a late night doom-scrolling accident; I really wasn’t in the market for a dog, but I’m glad that I found this one.
Pulling the covers up over both of our heads, I pull her closer so I can get warmer. I could get out of bed and turn the heater up, but as soon as I lift the blankets, the winter air will rush underneath them and they’ll lose their almost-perfect warmth.
I must fall back asleep, because I’m ripped from a dream by the sound of my doorbell ringing a mile a goddamn minute. I throw the blankets off of me, met with a blast of cold air that rushes in to bite at my skin.
Pulling my favorite hoodie from the top of my dresser, I slip it over my head and make my way down the hall to open the door.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?” I laugh, looking at my family standing in the doorway.
“Bad word,” Macie scolds, pointing an accusatory finger at me as she shoves past me and into the house.
Dad files in past me next, stopping to lean close to my ear. “Don’t let her corner you,” he whispers. “She’s trying to set you up again.”
Rowan is singlehandedly responsible for the handful of dates that I’ve been on over the course of the past month.
She’s taken me on as her little pet project and is determined to ‘help me find love again.’ I gave it a solid effort at first, but none of them could compare to Nash.
No one, man or woman, has been able to make me feel… they just haven’t been right.
They’ll never be right, because they aren’t him.
In the kitchen, I grab a glass and a can of soda for the kid, and I put on a pot of coffee for the adults. Ro sidles up next to me, reaching into the cabinet next to me for three mugs.
“You still miss your mystery man,” she says, using her head to gesture toward the bracelet clasped around my wrist.
“Of course I do.” I reach for the carafe and pour a generous amount of coffee into each of the mugs.
“Well,” she muses, reaching for one of the mugs and blowing off the heat on the surface, “you could call one of your dates back and actually see them again.”
Shaking my head, I say, “No, I think I should probably just be on my own for a while.”
She sighs, stopping herself from saying what I know she wants to. Her heart is in the right place, and I know that she just wants me to find someone who can make me happy, but I can’t explain to her that I know exactly who I want, what I want; I just can’t have it.
I can’t explain to her that I stay in my office and lock the door when Nash comes to work because if I see him again, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Sometimes I think about punching him in the jaw, other times I miss him so much that I want to launch myself at him and taste his lips again.
I can’t explain to her that since the night that I walked out of his house, the nightmares have come back.
I definitely can’t explain to her that when I so much as think about him, my heart still races and I get a sharp, sickening pain in my stomach that makes it hard for me to breathe.
Gripping my mug tightly, I follow her to the living room, where Dad sits with the girls.
Macie has gotten herself involved in trying to play the acoustic guitar that I bought years ago and never even tried to learn how to play.
It’s basically hers at this point, but any time that she asks to take it home, Dad and Rowan both tell her no before I can so much as blink.
As I join my family, taking a seat on the floor next to Clover, Dad goes over the final plans for our charity gala. The past few that we’ve hosted have done exceptionally well, so a goal we’d set for this year was to branch out beyond our holiday events.
We’re aiming to hit a few causes at once, and the plan is actually pretty great; we’re hosting it at the art collective, so we decided on a fitting theme.
Invitations ask our guests to dress in costume as an artist or a famous piece, and we have several classes and auctions lined up, the proceeds from which will be part of the donations coming out of the event.
We only have a few days to finalize everything and make sure it’s perfect before doors open, but I think we’ll be fine. If reality is anything like the plan that we’ve laid out, the event will be a huge success, and I’ll be proud to have my name attached to it.
·
The doors to the collective open to a sea of people, each dressed in costume.
Many of them are extravagant displays solely intended to show off the wealth of the wearer, while others took a more subdued approach.
I dressed as Van Gogh; which really means that I threw on a slate blue suit and stuck a patch of gauze to my ear.
As excited as I was about this event, the sound of classical and opera music playing through the room has me wishing that I was anywhere else. I try to tune it out and convince myself that the music playing is the new Bad Omens album instead, but that only gets me so far.
I find Mariah and Logan sipping on drinks near the refreshments table and I sidle up to them, pulling Mariah’s glass from her hand to take a sip of her drink for myself.
They don’t normally come to these things; in fact, they actively avoid them.
I think Dad pushed them on it this time because Davis couldn’t be here.
He left a check for a quarter of a million bucks in his stead, which was nice, but it’s not entirely the same without him.
“So first of all, hon, that’s mine,” Mariah scolds as she takes her drink back from me.
I wrap her in a quick hug before turning to Logan and clapping my hand against his.
Outside of work stuff, we haven’t really spoken much since that day in the office.
It’s just been too weird, and every time I see him, it reminds me that he knows everything and that I had absolutely no say in it.
Something shifted between us the moment that memory card landed in my hand.
It would be a lie to say that I haven’t watched the video on the card; I have, probably five times since I last saw Nash.
At first, I just wanted to know how much Logan had seen, which was absolutely goddamn everything, thanks to the angle of the camera facing the mirror.
The other times were considerably more pathetic.
I cranked the volume up to hear Nash’s muffled voice degrading me while I got myself off, trying to match the motion of my hand with his in the video.
“I’m gonna get a drink,” I tell my friends.
“Ooo,” Mariah sings, “shots?”
“Hell yes.”
Her arm loops in mine as we trail toward the bar, passing one of the activities set up, which looks like it already has a line of attendees waiting to buy tickets to participate.
I move my eyes toward the silent auction at the other end of the space, which also has a line of people waiting, and my heart warms.
At the bar, I order each of us two shots and a cocktail.
We clink our shot glasses together before tapping the bottoms of them against the counter and throwing the vodka down our throats, rinsing and repeating with the next round.
It goes down smooth; even though he doesn’t drink much himself, Dad never skimps on the quality of the liquor when he hosts these things.
With our drinks in hand, Mariah and I move through the event, making a beeline to the designated area for donations so that I can write out a few checks, one to each of the charities we’re working with tonight.
Normally, aside from writing checks and schmoozing, I’d be dancing or flirting or getting people excited about the party, but that isn’t what tonight is for.
This is a considerably more subdued event, catered specifically to the wealthiest, stuffiest people in both our city and the next two over, and it shows.
This is an old money kind of event, and we’re drawing that old money out of them.
When we’re on our third round of drinks, a familiar voice spills out of the sound system.
The haunting tone of it rings through my ears and sends ice crawling across every inch of my skin.
My stomach tightens into a knot as the man sings, telling the story of his lost love and the flower that kept him sane.
I down what’s left of my drink and rest the glass on a nearby table.
“Give me a minute,” I tell Mariah with a hand on her shoulder.
I reach up to pull the gauze from my ear as I head to the far end of the building and into the administrative office, shutting the door behind me.
Clasping my fist in my hand, I pace around the room, occasionally moving my gaze to the speaker above me as I consider using the floor lamp in the corner of the room to smash it.
The image of my battered dashboard floods my mind, the same panic that I felt that night joining it in my bloodstream. “God damnit,” I whisper to myself as I brush my fingers through my hair.
A knock sounds at the door as Mariah lets herself in. “Really?” She giggles. “In your dad’s office?”