26. Emmy
Did I know Liam would be here? Of course not. I’m not psychic.
Just because it was his friend’s bar and he told me he’s here a lot doesn’t mean there was any guarantee that I’d run into him.
And I don’t care that he’s here anyway. I have bigger fish to fry, because Chloe just pointed out some idiot named Troy, who’s eye-fucking me within an inch of his life.
Oh, and he happens to be Bradley’s boyfriend.
“Bradley Grimm?” I confirm as the bartender delivers our drinks and when Chloe nods, I sigh. I’ve got an Ivy League education, an investment portfolio any retiree would envy, yet my best means of revenge once again requires offering my vagina to a man I don’t even like. Not really a step forward for womankind, but we all do what we must. “Well then, you may be leaving here alone, then.”
“Okay, wait,” Chloe whispers. “So what did Bradley do?”
“It’s a long story,” I say.
Mostly though, it’s just a story I don’t want to tell. I was so goddamn pathetic. So desperate for someone to date me or befriend me that I’d have believed anything. And so I did believe anything, and I’ll never live down the shame of it.
The silver lining is that I’m now prettier than Bradley, wealthier than Bradley, better employed than Bradley. Oh, and I’m about to acquire her boyfriend, so there’s that too.
Chloe waves Troy and his friends over and introduces us. “You must be new around here,” Troy says, “because I would have noticed a girl who looks like you.”
Troy is the kind of attractive that won’t age well, and he’s obviously a cheater. I wonder if it would hurt Bradley more not to interfere, but no—I want to see the look on her face when I tell her. She needs to realize her actions had consequences.
“My mom lives down here,” I say. “She had knee surgery, so I came back to help her out for a while.”
He leans closer. “Wow, so you’re the kind of girl who comes home to take care of her sick mom. What a keeper.”
Yes, that’s so me.
“Now I just need to convince you to stay,” he adds.
I bite down on a smile. “How exactly do you plan to do that?”
“I got all kinds of ways, baby,” he purrs.
Ick.
He finds us a table. I sip my beer while Chloe tells us some story about peeing herself during yoga and try very hard to pretend Liam isn’t here, isn’t sitting across the room like some kind of really hot priest who inspires lust while making you feel guilty about that lust at the same time.
When our first and second beers are done, Chloe goes to the dance floor, Troy goes to the bar to get another round and I go to the bathroom. I reapply my lipstick in the mirror, noting with genuine satisfaction that I don’t at all look like a woman certain she’s about to make a huge mistake.
And then I step out of the bathroom and Liam waits—all long-legged ease, broad-shouldered, and so pretty. It just pisses me off.
I walk past him, but his hand wraps gently around my bicep to stop me.
“Why are you throwing yourself at Bradley’s boyfriend?” he demands. “Was sleeping with your mom’s doctor not enough?”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t sleep with anyone. And I’m not throwing myself at that guy. If you haven’t noticed, he’s doing all the work.”
“This is all about Bradley, isn’t it? That’s why you’re putting in the grocery store…just another of your grudges.”
It sounds petty as hell when he describes it like that, and it’s not petty at all. “Don’t you ever tire of trying to be my moral compass? Enjoy your search for a soulmate and stop judging me for the fact that I don’t want one.”
I pull, but he doesn’t let go, instead turning me so my back is to the wall and he is in front of me, his hand on my hip both heavy and light at the same time, crowding me in.
“I wasn’t judging you, princess,” he says, stepping closer. His mouth drags from my temple to my cheek, warm, light as air. I give a tiny, involuntary gasp. “I just want you to stop giving away something we both know ought to be mine.”
I arch toward him involuntarily, wanting more. Trying to breathe in the smell of his soap, wishing I could glue myself to him when I should be walking away.
“I thought you wanted meals, not snacks,” I whisper. I’m breathless, my pulse ticking fast in my throat.
“I think you can be both,” he says, his lips close enough to brush mine. “And I know that’s crazy. But I can’t seem to stop thinking it.”
“I won’t be, Liam,” I reply. “I’m definitely leaving, and this isn’t what I want.”
His hands mold to my waist as he presses against me, as his mouth lands fully on mine—warm, heavy, full of need. His whole body is taut, restrained, but barely so, and I gasp for air as his tongue tangles with mine.
I’ve been kissed more times than I can count, and this is better than all of them. A mix of contrasts: hard and soft, sweet and dirty, a beginning and an end. This isn’t a requisite step in some ten-point plan to get me in bed—it’s a kiss just for its own sake.
His nostrils flare as he steps back. “Don’t go home with him, Emmy,” he warns, and it should annoy me, but that hint of fever and possession in his gaze before he walks away makes my knees weak instead. By the time I recover myself enough to follow, he and his friend are walking out of the bar.
“I was scared you weren’t coming back,” says Troy when I return to the table and take my seat next to Chloe. He has the same face and the same smile and the same body, and he is no longer who he was before. He was chips and now he’s sandpaper, so unpalatable I can’t imagine what I saw in him.
But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Liam win. I’m not. He’s not ruining this for me, with his bullshit about meals instead of snacks.
“I ran into a friend. Not a friend,” I correct. “A colleague.”
I smile, but my heart is no longer in it. Chloe’s boyfriend texts to say he’s home, and as she gathers her things to leave, her eyes dart from me to Troy. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply. But I’m still shell-shocked by that kiss. I certainly hadn’t expected it, hadn’t asked for it…but I’ve been wanting it. For months, I’ve wanted it.
I think you could be both.
Fuck.
“Actually,” I say, grabbing my purse, “I’ll walk out with you.”
Troy pleads with me to stay, and I tell him maybe another night. As I walk out of the bar with Chloe, I’m angry at myself for blowing this chance to punish Bradley.
And for the second time in a single day, I’m also sick with relief.
* * *
This dress doesn’t fit.
I used my babysitting money to buy it in a store that was full of other girls shopping together, or shopping with their moms. Beside me, on the other side of the partition, I could hear a mother fretting over the fit of the dress her daughter was trying on. “You look beautiful, hon, but why don’t we go up a size and have it taken in? That’s better than wearing a dress that’s too tight all night—believe me.” And the daughter was inexplicably annoyed. She’d had no clue how lucky she was to have someone who cared enough to put in that much work, who’d come with her to shop, who could offer an opinion that wasn’t laced with small barbs.
Me? I didn’t even tell my mother I was coming tonight. It was easier than enduring her questions, her derision.
And now I’m standing on the steps of Lucas Hall in a dress that’s way too tight because it was the largest size they had, waiting for a boy I really wanted to impress—which seems less likely by the second, with the way I’m sweating.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
James
I’m so sorry. We’re finally off 280. My mom says we should be there in about twenty minutes.
My shoulders sag. God, another twenty minutes? It would be one thing if I could have waited at home, but no…instead, I’m on full display in front of everyone, stuffed into this dress, my feet pinched by these cheap high heels. Everyone who walks past stares as if I’ve wound up here by accident. Of course they do. They can’t believe for a fucking minute that Emmy the Semi could get a date.
I’m sorry it’s been such a long drive. I can’t wait to see you!
James
It’s all worth it. I can’t believe it’s finally happening. I’m so fucking nervous.
Same. We’ll be nervous together.
* * *
I wake sweating,as if I’m still tugging at that tight dress, still waiting, still trying to ignore everyone laughing as they pass.
And then I’m bitterly disappointed in myself.
I had my shot last night, and I didn’t take it. All because…what? Because Liam kissed me? Because he asked me not to? It’s easy to take the moral high ground when you’re not the one with an axe to grind. It’s easy when you’re not the one who wakes up drenched in sweat from terrible memories.
Would Liam ever truly understand what my life was like back then? That I spent every day being ridiculed and taunted, and then came home to a mother who was even worse?
Of course he wouldn’t. He thinks this whole thing with Bradley and the rest of them is just some petty bullshit on my part. He doesn’t understand that my past is like a scarlet A I’m forced to wear, and the only way I right the balance is by making sure all of them are forced to wear their shame too. One day, when they realize how they’ve caused their own suffering, none of us will be laughing. But not if I keep letting Liam get his way. Not if I keep letting him stop me from punishing Bradley and taking my mother down a peg.
And maybe it’s all a trick. Maybe this has been a long con on his part, one he began late last winter, to convince me not to take Lucas Hall. He’s slowly and insidiously bending me into someone I’m not.
I close my eyes, though, and think of that kiss, of the way his lips pressed harder and his hands staked a claim. I press my fingers to my mouth.
I think you can be both, he said. I shouldn’t believe a word of it, butit felt real. It felt really, really real.
But I’ve thought that before, haven’t I? And I’ve always come to regret it.
Liam is not going to ruin this for me. I’m done letting anyone in this town trick me into believing impossible things.
* * *
He’sin the backyard early on Monday, getting set up.
I follow Snowflake out to the deck, tugging my sweatshirt down over my sleep shorts.
He drops the plywood he’s carrying and his gaze meets mine. There’s something in the way he looks at me—something gentle and feral at the same time—that makes me wish I was a different girl.
For a moment, I want to abandon this entire plan.
“I slept with Troy,” I announce. “A tiger can’t change her spots.”
My stomach drops at the flash of pain in his eyes. Some small voice in my head—a child’s voice—screams at me to take my lie back.
But instead, I just walk into the house, emptier than I was when I left, with a ridiculous desire to burst into tears when things with Liam were never going to work out anyway.
They really weren’t.