by Hazel Grace
I feel like I’m about to explode at any minute now. My brain can’t handle any more rabid emotions coursing through it, and I’m tired of thinking about everyone.
I need stronger weed.
“She’s not coming.” Kyson’s blunt statement immediately pisses me off. And of course, he’d know because Emmy and him talk all the time.
In fact, she talks to all of them all the time minus Blue, of course.
Emmy’s relationship with Mills, Marty, and Kyson is rock-solid. Nothing in this world could break it up. Blue is another story that we all know, and then we have me.
The husband who treats her like an estranged intruder that doesn’t belong anywhere near me.
My jaw tightens as a scoff rolls off my lips, gaining the attention of everyone.
Marty sends a murky glower in my direction. “I wonder why.”
I perk a brow. “Just because you two are butt buddies, doesn’t mean I need her involved in my shit,” I retort. “She couldn’t even get your crap together and right with Montgomery.”
Marty’s expression darkens at the mention of his fiasco and how I’m blaming it all on her. When really it was an honest mistake. Human error.
I make them all the time with her as the subject line and me as the body of the conversation.
“How the hell would you know? The way I remember it, you took off without so much as throwing up a peace sign and telling us all to go fuck ourselves.”
“You’re more than welcome to do that at any time,” I reply dryly. “However, she missed the fact that the man who was trying to kill your sister, had a son. How the fuck do you miss that?”
“People make mistakes. She didn’t do it purposely.”
I roll my eyes. “I’d rather you all go the hell home and let me—“
“Do it by myself,” Marty fills in, attempting to mock my tone. “Yo, I realize I might have a lot of pride, but you’re arrogant as fuck. We all may not want Emmy here with B723 but mine isn’t for the reason you think.”
“You don’t know what I think.”
“She doesn’t belong here because she shouldn’t be stuck with all of us fuckers,” Mills chimes in through a bite of his sandwich. “She deserves to be a princess or something like Grace Kelly.”
“She might one day,” Marty adds in, making sure he’s looking at me with his next words. “She told me about this rich prick that she met at a gala a few days ago.”
My body starts to undergo a raging meltdown where it involves Marty’s face embedded in the concrete and Mills’s mouth wired shut. I wait for my best friend to chime in on all the wonderful things about our counterpart, but he just continues to stare at me.
And what fucking rich clown is he talking about? That’s the main question here.
So, let’s back the fuck up here.
Emmy and I are married on a piece of paper. We got plastered, drunk feelings and thoughts were exchanged, and I’m the dumbass that came up with this grand master plan.
I’m also the odd man out on this conversation.
I’ve always been, but my reasons are more personal than I’d care to admit or voice.
It’s not that Emmy can’t handle her own because she can. I actually may even agree with Mills on the princess part because she helped Lockwood run a whole fucking country for four years.
However, I’m too selfish to ever allow someone to completely claim what has been mine even if I can’t open up to her. She deserves way better than me or anyone else.
I just won’t let her try.
Not completely anyway.
The thought of moving on, starting a new life, or living on some deserted island makes my heart thrash painfully in my chest. If she quits B723, that’s it. I’ll never hear or have a reason to see Emmy ever again. She’ll have disappeared out of my world for good. And all because I couldn’t and can’t express to her how much she occupies my entire mind and soul.
How much I love her.
“Good,” I compel deep from my throat. “Then maybe she’ll leave and the rest of us the fuck alone.”
My words are complete and utter bullshit. Emmy is the best and worst thing for our group. Her skill set is top-notch, but her emotions are her biggest weakness. We don’t deserve her but we all want to.
Marty slides off the tailgate, tossing his sandwich at Mills, who promptly catches it. Then my counterpart marches toward me with the familiar look of pissed that always seems to meet somewhere in our little chats.
“Gonna need you to start respecting her a little more than you do, dude,” he snarls, stopping when he’s only within arm’s length of me. “She gives a shit. It’s more than we could ever ask for. Unless—“ Something like disgust flashes over his face, his nose twisting from it. “—you just want one woman on the squad that has the empathy of a rock so you two could just keep fucking.“
I love B723. It’s like a damn episode of high school all over again with how quickly gossip travels between us. I hurt Emmy so much that I have no doubt she ran to Mills with how much she hated me.
I bump into Marty’s chest, giving him the only warning he’s gonna get for tonight.
“I suggest you shut your mouth. I’m a big boy. I don’t need to run my dick by you and how I use it.”
“You don’t need to ask for permission,” Mills agrees. “But keep it away from Emmy since you can’t seem to figure out shit to save your own damn life.”
He shows up at Marty’s side, brothers-in-arms, the famous two against one scenario.
“Kyson,” I warn slowly. “Come get your boys, or I’m gonna make them part of the ground.”
“They have a point,” my best friend relays. “You’re the only one that treats Em like…dude, you’re all over the place with her.”
I am because no one else got to experience her as I did. No one learned what it was like to sleep with her in your arms or listen to her breathing as she dreams.
“Is this the consensus?” I look them over as they apparently all team up on me. “I’m a piece of shit, and Emmy is the queen that rules B723?”
She’s also the heartbeat.
Emmy is the girl who brings you soup when you’re not feeling too hot and never forgets your birthday.
Once upon a time, I got to participate in it. I looked forward to getting off the clock and spending every spare moment I had with her.
Her smile drew me in every fucking time. Her body was something I could never get full from, and I might be a complete fuckhead for letting her go, but I keep telling myself it was for the best—for the both of us.
“You’ve always been a piece of shit,” Marty complains. “But she did nothing to deserve it.”
I mean…depends who you ask.
“Look who’s acting arrogant,” I muse off a smirk. “I believe I was the one who taught you this gig. Who took you under his wing. Don’t start to play all high and mighty on me now, Shelton.”
“Again, get fucked.”
My lips heave higher. “I did.”
Marty’s fist flies into my face before I can blink, impeding another fight where he starts it, and I sometimes end it.
Normally it finishes up at a stalemate, though.
However, instead of hitting Marty back, I slam my own fist into Mills’s nose for always throwing his two cents in.
He’s the annoying sidekick that has to chime in but never meets the consequences for it.
Mills stumbles backward, giving me room to respond to Marty with my five knuckles. He’s ready for it, takes it like he always does, then bends over to ram his broad shoulder into my stomach.
I barely stagger, digging my heels into the dirt and shoving him to regain my space.
This exchange sounds familiar. The last time we fought was over his blonde, and now we’re throwing blows over another. I told him to release his now wife, after he kept her hostage for weeks.
And speaking of messed up, Marty grabbed the wrong girl, found out she was innocent, and still retained her because
he couldn’t let her go.
Kyson suddenly steps in between Marty and I before I sucker-punch him in the ribs, getting back at him for ratting me out to everyone and blurting out my shit like a fucking child.
My best friend doesn’t retaliate, hitting me with dark cautionary not to touch him again. His brows are knitted so tightly that I wished he’d hit me. He and I have a lot of unfinished business when it comes to hiding things from each other while we’re both guilty of it.
“Move,” Marty rages, shoving him aside to come at me again.
I like Marty.
I really do, even though he and I are the two that argue the most. He’s loyal as hell, and if you’re within his realm of people he likes, you’re set for life with a friend that’ll go to the ends of the Earth for you.
We just like to talk a lot with our fists along with our words.
My jaw rattles as Marty hammers his weight into his next throw. Using my height to my advantage, I grip the shoulders of his shirt and fling him to the side, tripping him to get him on the ground and out of my way.
He wants to make me feel small when it comes to Emmy, but he doesn’t need to.
I already do.
Mills stands there without Marty as his shield, and I think I see him mutter the word shit as I reach for him, just to pop him in the same spot Marty just had me.
Kyson shoves me from the side, ordering me to stop, but I’m far from done.
I might be the bad guy in a lot of circumstances, but I’m not with Emmy. The things I say to her are to get her to back the hell off, which she has a hard time doing. She doesn’t need to try and coddle me like she does the rest of the guys because I’ve had a sample with a bad aftertaste.
“Three against one, brother,” Kyson recites. “Chill out.”
My lips curl into a menacing smile. “I’ve been waiting to beat all your asses for years.”
Marty tsks. “That’s pretty embarrassing that you haven’t yet.”
I gesture with my hand for him to stand in front of me. “Step right up, I’ll turn my friendly shit off and show you what I can really do with no filter.” Marty’s already on his feet before Kyson stands in his way.
“Alright, that’s enough,” he orders, extending his arms between us. “You’re both getting hard dicks from this, and it’s grossing me out.”
“I don’t know,” Mills replies, rubbing the side of his face where I hit him. “Y’all don’t do it for me.”
“Do you even know how to fight?” I snap. “You just stand there and take it like a bitch.”
He hits me with an unamused look. “I’d tell you to step the fuck up, but I don’t need you anymore upset than you already are.”
“From what?”
“From me kicking your entire ass.”
I move forward. “Then let me step the hell up and—“ Mills does the same, and when he’s close enough…he slaps me right across the face. “What the fuck?!”
He laughs, like full gut-wrenching laughter, and I cock my elbow back when a large hand grips my wrist and holds it there.
It’s fucking Marty, always somewhere where he shouldn’t be, and stepping in to save Mills from my wrath.
Jerking it out of his fingers, I shove it backward, connecting with, I think, the column of Marty’s neck, and I rush Mills.
He and I both fall, him hitting the hard ground as I pin him with both knees on either side.
Then he surprises me.
He reaches up and wraps both arms around my back, pulling me downward. Then takes a hand, coils around my shoulder before thrusting with his hips forward, flipping us both to the side where he gets the upper hand on me because now I’m underneath him.
Some Jujitsu shit that he learned back in the day.
It would’ve been helpful for me to remember that before I called him out on his lack of fighting me.
He rains down one punch to my cheekbone, sending my head to the side to make his point, then straightens his spine.
“Don’t underestimate me, asshole,” he grounds out before popping me in the balls with his knees like a fucking douchebag. “And that’s for Emmy.”
“You mother—“
“Kace!” The trailer door squeaks in protest of opening too many damn times and slams shut while I’m registering the woman’s voice who just called for me. Then it hurls into me.
Camilla.
Mills rises to his feet, eyes locked with mine before holding out his palm for me to take.
I do, accepting that we’re done with today. There are always other times for us to wail on each other when we need to let off some steam. It’s not conventional nor healthy, but it’s the way we operate.
At least we don’t use each other for target practice.
“Get away from him!” Mills is propelled backward by small hands and replaced with a sleepy-looking blonde that’s been back in my life for less than a week and made me feel more worthless than anything in the world.
“It’s alright, Cam,” I soothe, feeling my face and body begin to bruise. “We do this all the time.”
“Fight?” she asks through knitted brows. “They were all ganging up on you and—“
“They’re friends.”
“Friends don’t do things like that.”
“Kyson and I fucked around all the time.” I wave my hand dismissively in the air.
“You were teenage boys.”
“And now there are two more added to the group who are still teenage-minded.”
“Kace—“
“They’re my family, Camilla,” I ground out. “I don’t give a shit if you like it or not.”
“Awww,” Mills coos. “You finally admit it.”
I look past Cam’s shoulder to glower at him, to which he smiles at me like he didn’t just flip the script on my ass.
I jerk my head towards the trailer. “Go on ahead and get back inside. It’s cold out here.”
“But—“
“I’ll make you some breakfast. We have a lot to talk about.” Sadness clouds her features, but she does what I ask her to do anyway, rounding my body and taking off back inside.
Kyson, Mills, and Marty circle me as we watch her close the screen door behind her.
“She was an old girlfriend,” Marty exposes at my side. “And she went down a dark path that you couldn’t save her from. It’s what you’re trying to do with Emmy. Keep her not as fucked up as we are.”
“And not as dependent,” Kyson states. “Camilla needed Bish like air, then she replaced him with drugs, leading him and I to a crossroads.”
“What crossroads?” Mills asks.
“Choosing between Kyson and her,” I tell him because they should know, I guess. “He was going to take off from this shithole either way but waited until after he graduated high school for me to go with him. But I was so…in love with Camilla I didn’t want to leave.”
Marty turns to look at me. “What made you go then?”
“Family.”
“Hi, can I help you?” I stare at a beautiful woman with medium-brown hair, stunning blue eyes, and the bone structure of a goddess.
Her smile is infectious, warm, and kind as she patiently waits for me to speak.
Thing is, my jealousy is clogging my throat.
I’ve never seen jeans and a white top with ugly maroon buttons that go down the middle look so good on someone. The unheeding factor that she probably just threw that outfit on and looks like a million bucks makes me feel self-conscious that I spent way too much time in the mirror this morning trying to pick out the right thing to wear.
All over someone who doesn’t want me here in the first place but, alas, my dumbass is here again.
“Hi,” I manage to force from my lips. “I’m sorry, is Bishop here?”
“Should be back soon,” she replies cheerily. “He ran to grab some lunch.”
Right.
I bob my head. “Uhh...okay, well would you tell him—”
“Is that you, Ems?” Kyson�
�s voice infiltrates through my stumbling—God bless his soul— and shows up behind the woman. His usual and welcoming smile calming my nerves. “I was wondering when you were getting here.”
I return the gesture, but my lips don’t want to curl into something that matches the woman in front of me.
Oh no, she has me beat by a long shot. They are only at half-working capacity.
“Here I am,” I deadpan, trying to sound like my normal upbeat self. But inside, my heart just skidded and crashed into my ribcage.
This makes two women within a week that have been possibly linked to Bishop.
I want to kill him.
Kyson gestures to the woman still holding the screen door open. “This is Scarlett, Bishop’s sister. Scar, this is Emmy Lou, the only female that your brother works with that can handle his shit.”
Sister.
Ah, yes, he’s mentioned one of those vaguely before, and embarrassingly enough, I’ve never met my husband’s family before.
Scarlett’s perfectly shaped brows clash as though she doesn’t like the fact that I have a vagina who does indeed work with her brother until she surprises me with, “Oh my God, is he mean to you?”
“I’m extremely good to her.” Bishop’s voice and lie behind me sets my whole body buzzing from head to toe.
God, his voice is a weapon to me.
I surrender to it every single freaking time.
I didn’t hear a car pull up, my jealously ramping up too loudly in my head, I guess for me to take heed of my surroundings.
I hear the sound of his boots hitting the stained porch then his massive frame brushes up against mine, sending my next inhale fluttering away.
“Em, only gets the best, don’t you?” I mindlessly glimpse up at him like a fly to shit.
At first, he appears like he truly believes that he’s not a complete asshole to me. Until his brow perks underneath his black hat like he’s expecting me to accept his fib just to save face with his sister.
Which—not gonna lie—I’m thrilled about.
“Sure,” I reply, not bothering to make my response believable. It’s not my job. I then extend my hand. “It’s really nice to meet you, Scarlett.”
