6. Emma
Emma
"Get back here, little mermaid. Theo's already eyeing your half of the watermelon."
The water was warm.
I was floating on my back, my arms spun out wide, my hair fanning around my face. My body was weightless. Long, lean, unbruised. There was no dull ache in my joints, no leaden weight sitting squarely on my chest. I was sixteen, and the water just loved me.
"Let him have it. I'm not getting out of here," I called back.
"How generous." A voice cut through the haze from the shore. Deep, rumbling, bright with a laugh.
I tilted my head back, the water lapping softly at my temples, and there he was.
Standing at the edge of the weathered wooden dock, the sun positioned right behind his head like a halo.
He had those broad, golden-brown shoulders and wet blond hair that stuck to his forehead, flashing a grin so wide I could see it from three lanes away.
He was eighteen, maybe nineteen, wearing nothing but faded board shorts, holding a dripping slice of red fruit in one hand while shielding his eyes with the other.
"You're gonna prune, Em."
"Good. Mermaids are supposed to look like raisins."
He laughed, a rich, clean sound that traveled straight across the surface of the water, blending into the cry of the gulls and the distant, rhythmic crash of the surf.
I closed my eyes and let myself sink just an inch deeper, keeping only my nose and mouth above the line, the entire universe reduced to warmth.
Then the water turned.
One second the world was honey; the next, it was ink.
The warmth bled out of the cove as if someone had pulled a plug in the ocean floor, replaced by a violent, paralyzing cold that locked my thighs.
I tried to kick, but my legs felt like stone.
I opened my mouth to scream for him, but the black water rushed the gate, filling my throat, my lungs, heavy and freezing.
I was dropping. Fast. The sky above shrank to a coin of white, getting smaller.
I'm going to drown here.
This was how it ended.
My eyes snapped open.
The ceiling was a stark, perfect white. Unfamiliar.
A blade of morning light cut through the gap in the heavy curtains, falling across a duvet so plush and soft it felt like a mockery of the room I'd spent the last twelve hours in.
My heart was still pounding a frantic rhythm, my fingernails dug so deep into the mattress fabric that my fingers ached. For three long, terrifying seconds, my brain stayed trapped in the dark water.
Then the reality of the previous night flooded in.
The rain. The dead weight of a locked door.
My phone screen dying at three percent. The absolute, burning humiliation of that single phone call.
A black SUV cutting through the storm. And then Ralph—his massive hand reaching down into the dark to pull me off the wet concrete.
I was in Ralph Brandt's guest room. I was wearing Ralph Brandt's clothes. I was hiding under Ralph Brandt's sheets.
I was twenty-eight years old, and the only stable ground left under my feet belonged to a man I had spent three years pretending didn't exist.
I pulled the duvet all the way to my chin, staring at the ceiling until my eyes burned.
Every muscle in my torso felt wrung out, the ache that follows hours of crying, leaving nothing behind but a hollow, buzzing exhaustion.
The gray hoodie I was wearing carried a scent I recognized but couldn't name.
Sandalwood, maybe, layered under clean cotton.
But what I couldn't stop thinking about was the music.
Those Spanish boleros in the car. When those heavy, scratched-up strings had first filled the dark cabin, it felt like a direct hit to my chest, warm where I'd braced for pain.
It was the exact soundtrack of a time when I still believed the world was wide open.
For twenty minutes on that freeway, my shoulders came down from around my ears, and I let my head fall back against the seat and just listened.
You're still in there.
I swung my legs out from under the duvet, my bare feet hitting the cool, pristine hardwood.
The house was enormous and dead to the world, flooded with that pale, geometric gray light that only hits modern L.A.
homes after a storm. I padded down the hall, the open-concept layout making me feel small and exposed.
The kitchen looked like a spread from an architectural digest—spotless marble, an empty fruit bowl, a single glass mug sitting perfectly inverted on the drying rack.
My phone was resting on the counter, propped neatly on a small charging stand, the black cable plugged into its base. He'd done that. Sometime in the dead of night, after he'd left me with the hot chocolate, he'd come out here, found my dead device, and taken care of it.
I picked it up. Six fourteen in the morning. Full battery.
The lock screen was a graveyard of missed connections. A text sent at midnight.
Nadia
Did you get out safe? Text me or I'm calling the cops, Emma. I'm not joking.
I typed back.
Emma
I'm safe. Long story. Staying at a friend's. I'll call you soon.
Then I looked at the long hallway leading back toward the master suite.
I needed to leave. Right now. Before the sun got any higher, before he woke up. I could handle being a disaster in the dark; I couldn't handle being a charity case in the daylight.
I went back to the guest room. Grabbing the handle of my suitcase, I tiptoed back down the hall, holding my breath as I passed his closed door.
My hand was less than an inch from the front doorknob when my phone buzzed in my back pocket.
I pulled it out, my thumb scanning the screen. The name on the notification made my stomach drop.
James
So you ran to Ralph? That's cute. Bet your brother's lap dog came running the second Theo snapped his fingers.
You couldn't keep a relationship together so now you're sleeping at another man's house.
Classic Emma. Always need someone to carry you because you can't stand on your own two feet.
Enjoy it while it lasts. He'll get bored when he realizes what the rest of us already know.
My vision swam, though not with tears. It was the sheer physical impact of his voice re-entering my mind, rewriting reality, locking the handcuffs back onto my wrists.
Can't stand on your own two feet.
I knew the psychological mechanics of it; my therapist had practically drawn me a map of how he dismantled my autonomy just to play the savior. But knowing a bullet is lead doesn't make it hurt any less when it hits you.
I reached for the deadbolt, my hand trembling so violently I couldn't get a grip on the metal.
Then a large, warm palm closed over mine, pinning my fingers to the lock.
I spun around so fast my suitcase tipped over, clattering loudly against the baseboard.
Ralph was standing right there, close enough that the heat radiating off him hit my cold face. He was shirtless, low-slung gray sweatpants hanging on his hips, his hair a wild, dark tangle from sleep. And he was wearing glasses. I'd never seen him in glasses before.
They made him look strangely accessible—less like an untouchable Olympic athlete and more like a human being who had just crawled out of bed.
For one detached, stupid second, my brain ignored the panic attack and fixated on those frames.
Since when did Ralph wear glasses?
They were annoyingly handsome on him, softening a jawline I had no business noticing at six in the morning.
His eyes tracked from my pale face down to the fallen suitcase, then to the phone still vibrating against my palm.
He didn't ask a single question. He just reached out with a slow movement, took the phone right out of my hand as if it were a fragile piece of glass, and walked it over to the kitchen island, setting it face-down on the stone.
"Hey!" I scrambled after him, my voice cracking. "Give that back."
"No," he said, leaning against the edge of the counter, his broad chest rising and falling with a slow, steady rhythm.
"Ralph, I'm leaving. Let me go."
"Where?"
"I have options. I'm not... I'm not a vagrant. I can find a motel."
"I didn't call you a vagrant, Emma."
"Then stop looking at me like that!" My voice was rising, escaping my control. I was small, messy, and exposed under the bright kitchen glass. "I am not doing this. I'm not going to be your good deed for the month. I won't be managed, Ralph."
He didn't flinch. He just held my gaze through those unfamiliar lenses until I wanted to hide behind my own hair.
"Nobody is managing you," he said softly.
"Then let me walk out that door."
"What did the text say?"
"Nothing."
"Emma."
"It doesn't matter!" I yelled, the tears finally breaking through. "It doesn't matter what he says!"
"Then why are your hands doing that?"
I looked down. My fingers were shaking so hard they looked like strings being plucked. I balled them into fists, pressing them against my thighs to force them still.
Ralph studied me. There was no pity on his face—not the kind I'd grown to despise over the last three years. He wasn't looking at a broken thing he needed to fix for his own ego; he was just looking at me.
"You're not running back to a man who locks you out in a storm," he said, "And you're sure as hell not running away from me just because he taught you to believe that every kindness is a trap."
I didn't have an answer for that.
"I don't even know who you are anymore," I lied, staring at his bare chest, the small scar near his collarbone from a childhood bike wreck.
"You knew exactly who I was last night." He stepped an inch closer, his voice dropping into something impossibly gentle. "You had several numbers on that phone, Em. You scrolled past every single one of them until you hit mine. That wasn't a mistake. That was instinct. You knew I'd come."
I had nothing left. I stood there in his massive hoodie, undone, because he'd said the one thing I was trying not to know.
"Stay," he said. "You don't owe me a damn thing. You're exhausted, the coffee's regular, and you don't have to rebuild your entire life before seven on a Saturday."
I swallowed hard, looking anywhere but his eyes. "I don't want to be in your way, Ralph. Your life is... you have a timeline. You have the trials."
"Emma, I live by myself in a house with five empty bedrooms," he said dryly. "Trust me. You'd have to actively try to be in my way."
Before I could respond, a heavy, rapid succession of knocks rattled the front door. Three loud, impatient thuds that vibrated through the hardwood floor under my feet, followed by a voice that made everything stop.
"Ralph! Open up, man. I see your truck in the driveway. Why are you ignoring my texts?"
Every drop of warmth drained from my face.
I turned to Ralph. His shoulders had gone rigid, his eyes widening behind his glasses. This wasn't on his calendar. He hadn't planned this.
The voice called out again, louder this time, accompanied by the jiggle of the doorknob. "Come on, man, I've got Abbie waiting for me to return for breakfast. Open the door!"
Theo.
My brother.