11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Molly
I pulled into the driveway behind Emmett and Preston, leaving enough space for them to open the backdoors of Preston’s Suburban.
Gripping my steering wheel, I took a massive breath.
This was it.
We were moving my things into their house.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, Lynn rejected my manuscript, and now I was living with my brother’s best friend and another man who was a veritable stranger.
But maybe this was what I needed. A swift kick in the butt to get me moving along.
Juliet had told me a few times in not-so-subtle ways I needed to live my life.
I was living my life, though. That was the thing no one acknowledged about people who lived quieter lives.
Just because they were quiet and kept to themselves, didn’t mean they weren’t actually living.
As Preston got out of the driver’s side, his white t-shirt stretching across his back as he shut his door, I sucked in a breath, my head spinning. He looked good.
And so what if I felt more alive than I had yesterday morning?
A quiet life where I kept to myself and wrote books for Rose had been perfectly satisfactory. But maybe Juliet wasn’t totally wrong because as I respectfully gawked at Emmett stepping out of the passenger side, my heart jump started.
How long had it been dormant? As heat bloomed up my arms and across my chest, I wondered if maybe my heart had never beat before. If maybe I was running on residual juices and now, I was actually aware of the world around me.
The sky did look bluer than I remembered ever seeing it.
As Emmett stalked to the back doors of Preston’s SUV, I forced myself to stop ogling. But his biceps flexed as he grabbed the handle and I pressed my thighs together, hitting my elbow against my horn in my haste to relieve the way my clit sprang awake at the sight of him.
“No,” I muttered, ducking my head.
But he knew it was me.
Their neighborhood was quiet, and my bumper was literally inches from him.
I covered my eyes and slowly, slowly, slowly lifted my head, peeking between my fingers to see if he even noticed.
And he was gone.
Great. I scared him away.
I flopped against the headrest and groaned.
I jumped as someone knocked on my window. My hand flew to my mouth, barely stifling a scream.
Separated by only a thin panel of glass, Emmett was standing right outside my car door, an amused gleam in his eye as he nodded his chin toward my door handle.
And I thought leaving was the worst thing he could do. Nope. Now I had to talk to him and come up with some reason I blasted his eardrums with my horn.
Groaning inwardly, I opened the door—carefully, so I didn’t smack him with it and round out the first few minutes as his roommate with another mess up.
“Hi,” I said, smiling too big. My cheeks hurt, but I couldn’t stop. Excuses rushed through my head. I could tell him I had a medical emergency, or that this was a new car, and my old one didn’t have a horn or that—
“Impatient to get moved in, Rookie?” He leaned his arm across the top of my doorframe, ducking his head underneath to grin at me.
So, I hadn’t imagined the nickname.
Last night, I might have maybe played around with the green vibrator while I imagined him telling me they’d make sure I was taken care of over and over.
He meant regarding what I needed to know for the manuscript, but my vagina had other thoughts about what he meant between the lines. And that made it impossible to sleep.
Thank goodness I hadn’t taken care of business before they got there. Otherwise, it could’ve still been damp—from washing it off, of course. But what would Emmett have thought if he opened my drawer and found a glistening vibrator displayed on a satin pouch?
More heat spread through my body and the spicy, heady scent of his cologne flooded my car. I kind of hoped it would stay there, lingering around me wherever I went.
That freaked me out. I never noticed cologne or cared about a man leaning into my car—although none of the ones who tried had looked like Emmett.
Maybe just living with two men would teach me more about romance than all of my experiences had so far.
And it wasn’t as if I was oblivious to the whole concept.
I could remember my mom sobbing at every romcom she watched.
She’d always look up, eyes red, cheeks splotchy, and give me a watery smile before telling me, “Molly, watch these movies. They’re about as realistic as dogs sliding down rainbows, but shit if they’re not sweet.
They’re the closest thing to real love we’ll ever see in our life. ”
And then my dad would call and demand something from her and she’d scream at him with her bedroom door open until Lucas came home and took me outside to play basketball.
Sometimes Preston was there and, for a few minutes at least, it wouldn’t matter that even over in Preston’s driveway we could hear the muffled sounds of our parents’ argument.
“Doing okay?” Emmett frowned and leaned so close he crowded out the memories of my childhood.
“Medical emergency,” I muttered.
His eyes widened, and he reached for my seatbelt. I shook my head, pushing his hand away. My breath caught in my throat, and I was trying to tell him it was a joke when another car pulled in next to mine.
Lucas hopped out and strolled over. I could only imagine how this looked from his angle. I was in my tiny car—or maybe it was average sized. That morning it was a typical sedan, but with Emmett cramming himself in to free me from a fake emergency, there was absolutely no breathing room.
I was losing oxygen as karma for joking about something you’re not supposed to joke about. I sucked in a breath and my nipple grazed his muscles, sending goosebumps down my arms and across my belly.
No. This was all going wrong.
He eased my hand to the side and unbuckled my seatbelt. “We need to get you out of here. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Everything okay?” Lucas asked.
“No.” Emmett stood, raking his hands through his hair as he sighed.
“She muttered medical emergency and then stopped talking.” And just when I thought I was free, he dove back into the car with even more gusto.
“I’m trying to get her out of here, but she’s resisting me, and I don’t want to hurt her. ”
“I’ve got it,” Lucas said. “Can you get Henry out of the back? Take him inside and we’ll be there in a minute.”
“On it,” Emmett said, sliding out of my personal space.
My brother took up the spot Emmett had just occupied. I wanted to sink to the floorboards and die.
“Medical emergency?” He scowled, and I smiled sheepishly.
“I accidentally honked in his ear and couldn’t think of what else to say.”
Lucas grinned, chuckling as he shook his head. “So, you made up a medical condition?”
“It was—”
“It’s good to see you crushing on someone, Molls,” he said, tugging my hand and pulling me to my feet.
“I’m not—this isn’t—”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on or why you didn’t tell me you were moving in with Preston, but I’m glad to see you living your life.”
There were those pesky words again: living my life.
“I have been living.”
He frowned and wiped his hand down his face. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just, Juliet has Romeo—”
“Which is why I’m moving in here,” I said, testing out the water.
Preston definitely told Lucas I was moving in because he wasn’t shocked to see me—or my stuff—here. If he told my brother everything, Preston was a dead man. But if he just told him the bare bones of it, I’d let him survive another day.
“Yeah, Preston told me about Juliet getting a new place.” He frowned and grabbed a box out of my backseat. “I don’t get why you didn’t tell me, though.”
“I got home really late,” I stammered, the blood draining from my legs. “I was going to call you this morning.”
“Hey,” he said, balancing the box and bumping my shoulder. “You don’t have to answer to me. I just wish you would have talked to me about it so I didn’t find out from someone else.”
“I’m sorry.” My stomach twisted, and I tried to push down the feeling as I grabbed a thick bag of clothes, looping the hangers over my fingers.
“No. I’m sorry. Stuff has been busy with—” He hesitated, his eyes narrowing before he swallowed and smiled at me. “Trying to balance my schedule with Rebecca’s while making sure Henry is taken care of has been…hard.”
“If you need help—”
“No. You already do too much for me.”
“I really don’t mind. And most of it’s spending time with Henry. That’s hardly a chore.”
He smiled, tilting his head. “Don’t use Henry to foster your procrastination.”
“What am I procrastinating?”
“I know you have a manuscript to work on—”
“You do?”
Preston was walking out of the house, and I contemplated tripping him. He knew I didn’t want my brother to know about the disastrous meeting with Lynn.
“Yeah? You’re always working on a manuscript?” Lucas said, head tilted.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Maybe you are having a medical emergency.” He eyed me suspiciously, but turned his attention to Preston. “If my sister’s bothering you, just call me.”Preston took the bag of clothes from me, his mouth curving up in the corner as our fingers tangled. “I can handle your sister.”
Lava replaced the blood in my veins and my knees buckled as I walked back to the car, acting like I was grabbing the next box, but really, I needed a minute to catch my breath and get my internal temperature under control.
My double-crossing body seemed to forget that it was Preston Ledger who touched my hand.
But maybe this wasn’t the Preston Ledger I grew up knowing.
Before I could pull myself together, Lucas was chatting with Emmett, strolling out to grab another box.
Damn them and their hockey stamina.