DECEIT (B723)

by Hazel Grace

  “Emmy, this is Madelyn and her father, Hardy…my brother.” I glance at Bishop, whose expression has materialized into aggravation. “Madelyn, this is…Emmy Lou. She works with me.”

  “Why do you have two names?” Madelyn asks, staring at me like she’s seeing into the depths of my soul.

  Poor girl doesn’t want to do that. She’ll get lost in the thing; it’s a mess.

  “People are sometimes born with two names, Maddy,” Hardy answers for me. “It makes them special…and extremely pretty.”

  Bishop plucks the box holding his niece’s toy, and half-ass examines it. “Look, Madelyn, we can practice shooting your father with it.”

  Mills chuckles at my side and I watch Hardy smirk, walking over to Scarlett at his brother’s side just to ruffle her hair. She swats his hand away, mouth full with food, as Hardy examines the rest of the table, falling onto Camilla next.

  “Now, you’re another one I haven’t met before.”

  Bishop’s eyes suddenly lock with Kyson’s, passing along a silent message that only they can decipher.

  They grew up together. They took care of each other. They ride together. They can read each other's thoughts, apparently.

  “I’m Camilla,” she replies for herself. “I grew up with Kace.”

  “Huh, no shit.”

  “Language, Hard,” Scarlet lightly scolds him.

  “Yeah…” Camilla locks her focus on Bish. “We were high school sweethearts.”

  Bishop’s face turns deadly as he slices his gaze to her, causing Madelyn to begin squirming. He doesn’t realize it, but he might be squeezing the poor thing from how pissed he looks.

  “Hey, Madelyn,” I chime in, breaking through the tension. “Wanna go practice? I’ll teach you how to be stealthy.”

  The heavy attention of the table descends on me, and I rise over it, feeling Bishop’s fixed stare follow me.

  “What’s ste—step—“

  “Stealth,” Bishop fills in for her before leaning in to whisper loud enough for us all to hear. “It means to be sneaky.”

  Madelyn’s blue eyes light up. “I wanna learn!”

  I coerce a smile, wanting air that isn’t so stifled. “Let’s go. I’ll teach you everything you’ll need to know to beat the guys.”

  Madelyn waits for me to round the table to stand at her side and takes my hand, leading me down a hallway to what I’m assuming is her room.

  It’s better than sitting with the hoe in the other room.

  Emmy’s car wouldn’t start.

  And I may or may not be the reason for it not turning over and her slamming her palm against the steering wheel several times before I came out to “assist” her with my sister.

  Emmy claims that it’s been running fine. She’s had no problems with it and keeps up with her oil changes and tune-ups.

  Except it can’t run when one of the sparks plugs are missing, and I might have it residing in the pocket of my jeans right now.

  I said it before, and I’ll say it again—Emmy Lou isn’t leaving my fucking sight to spend several hours in her hotel room while she complies with some stupid ass idea of going to the Hamptons alone.

  And while I could just simply explain that to her, I’d rather keep the peace for my sister’s sake, my brother’s waning curiosity, and my sanity.

  Except said sanity is wearing thin when my little brother has been flirting, staring, and making every effort in the book to be next to her at any given moment.

  If I caught him in Madelyn’s room with her one more time to “check in on them” I was going to make him part of the wall.

  My brother’s chivalry was also getting on my fucking nerves when he offered up his bed for her to sleep on. Though, thankfully, my little blonde is more intelligent than that and decided to take the couch in my living room.

  Since my sleeping spot—my house—was now taken over and being tampered with Emmy’s scent and fucking body, I took solace in my bedroom for maybe an hour of rest. When my eyes crack open to the sound of the front door squeaking and softly slamming shut.

  Pushing myself off the bed, I pace the floor for several minutes, raking my hands through my hair and battling with myself on even leaving my room.

  She’s probably uncomfortable with being here and pissed about her car but, fuck me, I lose in my own civil war and silently open my door to make sure she’s okay.

  I’m fully aware that I have a hard time staying away. That half of me doesn’t want to steer clear of the vortex that is Emmy Lou Rhodes.

  I don’t need a blunt when she’s around. She gets me all sorts of fucked up, like when she played with my niece this evening and created thoughts of her being the mother of my children in the future.

  Kindness is easy for Emmy.

  Allowing me to publicly being her husband isn’t.

  Stepping off my porch, the cool air brushes my skin as the crickets do their thing like they always do. My gaze searches around the front yard to find it empty and lacking a short blonde that consumes my lack of sleep.

  She must’ve taken a walk, which would be fine if she knew the area and we weren’t in the middle of nowhere for her to take a midnight stroll.

  I draw a step to get onto the gravel road to look either way when I hear a grunt then a faint mewl of pain coming from someone.

  The shuffling of rocks sounds to my left and I instantly move, rounding Emmy’s big-ass jeep to find two bodies lit up from the moon overhead.

  Emmy is the first thing I notice in the distance, dressed in the white top that my sister gave her to sleep in, when her little elbow swings backward and her fist connects with something in front of her.

  A body stumbles back, almost matching her petite frame, but it’s a tad taller, thinner, and…Camilla?

  My eyes bulge before I’m stomping my ass over there to make sure I’m seeing shit straight.

  Emmy careens backward before digging her bare feet in the sharp and dirty rocks of my driveway. Hands clenched at her sides, she uncoils and stands at her full height. She must see Camilla’s next move because she hunches down to dodge it then delivers a fistful of knuckles to her opponent’s ribs.

  “You fucking bitch,” Camilla roars out, sending my heart ridged and skipping like a stone across the top of water.

  For a moment in time, she would’ve been the person I was about to protect. The one I’d lay down everything for because she was the first woman I’d ever loved, to who I’d given anything to.

  Camilla was supposed to be it for me.

  Everything.

  Then I made her into nothing and continued on with my life only to find someone who caused my heart to brim over again in a long time.

  “Emmy.” Her name isn’t clipped off my lips with animosity but confusion.

  How in the fuck did she run into my ex, and why is she throwing hands?

  When I reach her, I’m almost scared to wrap my arms around her.

  Not because she could hurt me physically but because I don’t want to startle her. Because Emmy’s hostility is something I rarely see come out.

  Also, it’s because I know there are more hidden reasons why she’s so upset.

  Camilla registers my voice, locating me, and drops her defensive stance while taking a safe step back.

  Emmy, on the other hand, is at the ready, just how she was trained to be.

  Never trust that something is what it seems.

  Isn’t that the fucking truth?

  “What are you doing?” My question is directed at no one in particular. However, neither of them gives a shit to answer it. “Camilla?”

  Her eyes flick to me, and she shrugs before pointing at Emmy. “Ask your buddy. The bitch came flying at me like a lunatic.”

  I frown, waiting for my little bombshell to turn around to defend herself, but she doesn’t.

  She doesn’t care.

  She doesn’t give a flying fuck that she looks and sounds like a psychopath who just flipped her shit on someone she barely knows
.

  “Why are you here?” I press as Camilla rolls her shoulders at my question because I specifically told her to stay the fuck away from my house.

  She showed up earlier uninvited and only stayed because of my sister’s insistent hospitality. Now, it appears like the same shit, same Camilla.

  She doesn’t listen to dick.

  “I came to talk to you,” she imparts, taking half a step forward, but Emmy moves to block it.

  My God, no matter what I do to this woman, she always has my back.

  “Go home,” I order flatly, wanting to get rid of my ex so I can talk to my recent one.

  Cam points another accusing finger at Emmy. “She attacked me.”

  “I’ll handle it.” Camilla’s features harden as her thumb comes up to graze underneath her nostrils, displaying blood on the tip.

  “Yeah…get your bitch in line.” She keeps her laser-focus locked on Emmy. “Next time, I’ll be ready.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” Emmy mutters. “Remember what I said.”

  Camilla scoffs and steps forward.

  She shouldn’t.

  That’s where Emmy has the upper hand on everyone. She appears sweet and lovable. The kind of girl that wouldn’t hurt a fly. The type of chick that doesn’t dabble in violence and death for the protection of their country.

  She’s one of us. She’s part of me.

  “You won’t be telling me what to do,” Camilla snarls back, forever ignoring what I want her to do. “You hold no authority around here.”

  “Actually, she does.” I erase some space between Emmy and I. “She’s my fucking wife.”

  Camilla’s head slowly turns to me, and with the limited amount of light, I can still see the disbelief in her eyes.

  I guess when you spend so much time in the dark, it gets easier to see in it. Plus, the idea of my being married would be hard for anyone to believe.

  Cam pivots and starts down my long driveway, not waiting for another word of how my life has changed.

  I told her it did. The woman in front of me’s title says it all.

  Camilla used to dream about it; we spoke about it enough, and I almost gave it to her, but she royally fucked it up for the both of us.

  Meanwhile, Emmy stole my attention and captured what I thought was long gone.

  What I believed was destroyed.

  It was crazy to realize that my beating heart that was tattered and scarred was still able to crave and need for the woman who is my wife.

  Emmy still remains grounded to her spot, watching Camilla disappear into the darkness of the night. Since her back is to me, still not acknowledging my presence, I don’t know if her face equals Cam’s somewhat battered one, but I don’t make a move to examine it.

  I wait for her to come to me.

  But stubbornness is a big hurdle that both of us have yet to jump. She won’t open up to me anymore because I hurt her. She’s locked her emotions away without a key.

  She cemented the damn shit.

  The moment Emmy can’t see anything anymore, she suddenly spins and walks past me, not bothering to utter a single word to explain herself.

  I follow.

  I trail behind because I’m still registering what the hell happened. What she’s doing and how she started this shit.

  “Emmy.” My voice is stern and pregnant with a need for a conversation which is surprising because usually, I’d rather not have them at all.

  She slows down then turns, cocking that beautiful face to the side, and my eyes scan over her features, looking for blood or bruises. “Yes?”

  I erase the space in the middle of us, using the sparse lighting of the porch to get a good look at her, but it’s useless and ineffective.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was fighting,” she drones. “What did it look like I was doing?”

  “Do I really need to ask why so you fill me in on the details?”

  She lifts her shoulders. “No, I found out who she was. I learned that she was your high school sweetheart, that she lived here, and that she got hooked on cocaine, and I filled in the rest of the blanks myself. She’s more than likely the reason why you’re so shut off. Some of the reasons why you and I didn’t and don’t work. You don’t get close to anything besides Kyson because he’s familiar and safe.”

  She takes a deep breath, her body moving along with it as she raises a hand to her temple and begins to rub it.

  “And I don’t give a fuck if you’re mad,” she continues flatly while her tone remains gentle. “I don’t give a shit if you think I’m an overbearing brat with a need to get into everyone’s business. That’s what I do. I overstep, hack and violate people’s lives. I’m good at it. It’s why I’m here.”

  I stare at her, and for once, I got nothing to say.

  Everything she just called me out on are facts. Brutal and ugly truths that made me into who I am today.

  “She’s a problem.” I open my mouth to tell her she’d not, especially when Emmy destroyed a love that isn’t anymore between myself and my ex. That Em is all that I want, but she continues. “One that was never solved. One that you might not ever face. However…since I’m on a fucking roll here, I took the liberty of shedding some light on how badly she fucked up with you. That her still drug problem isn’t something that she needs to bring in your life, so you have to start making decisions and relive the things I can only imagine that she put you through.”

  “Just stay out of it, Ems,” I say through my taut jaw. I’m not mad at her. I just don’t want her to waste her damn time as I had. “She’s nothing. And I don’t want you—“

  “Too late.” My nostrils expand, but I don’t make a move to grab her.

  No, I don’t trust myself enough.

  “Emmy, stop. Let it go, please.”

  “I wish…” Her honey irises glimmer with sadness. “I wish you would’ve told me. I wish you would’ve trusted me.”

  Shame fills my brain because I do, and I don’t.

  At the end of the day, I do because Emmy is my partner in B723, but I don’t because she has the power to devastate me.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I mutter because it’s too late. “It all comes down to the same thing.”

  “As in?”

  I scoff. She doesn’t want me to relive shit in the past. “Forget it.”

  “And here we go—“ She folds her arms defensively over her chest. “—you wanna say something, but you’re too much of a chicken shit to tell me how you truly feel.”

  “Why is that such a thing for you? Why do you always feel a need to fix me? Are you that fucking bored, Emmy? Maybe I should’ve divorced you so you could go bother someone else.”

  My gut takes the punch of my words as if she delivered them to me.

  The dryness in my tone portraying that I don’t need Emmy when I’m a fucking sucker for her.

  I’m not entirely sure if it’s impossible to get over her because I see her almost every day or if there is a steel tether that won’t break free off either of us.

  “I’ll draw the papers up tonight,” she upbraids, raising her chin higher to show that I didn’t just hurt her feelings. “This time…sign them. It’s literally the best thing you could ever do for me. The best way to show me that, at one time, you cared.”

  “And just because I didn’t show it the way you wanted me to means I didn’t?”

  Emmy freezes, staring at me like I’m feeding her more lies. That it’s not possible that I could be capable of such an emotion.

  “You didn’t,” she mutters. “You didn’t because you didn’t fight.”

  “I fought with you all the time.”

  “No, you didn’t fight off the demons in your head. And now it’s too late. Though—“ A mirthless chuckle rumbles from deep in her throat. ”—you made sure that I was going to be just as miserable as you always are.”

  “Well, now that you’re talking to someone else, you can easily forget me and keep me out o
f your overbearing ass need to administer whatever it is that makes you sleep better at night. I’m half the reason our relationship was fucked from the get. I wasn’t ready to give you up, no matter how selfish and jacked up it was.”

  Emmy’s jaw slowly begins to drop, speechless to the fact that has been lingering between us for years. The one I was too proud to bring up and too fucked up to admit out loud.

  Emmy takes a small step away from me, probably suffocating on my confession before I’m blasted in the face by her tiny fingers.

  Ladies and gentlemen, Emmy Lou Rhodes does not slap.

  She straight-up forms five knuckles and swings as hard as she can; consequences and regret be damned.

  My palm seizes her little weapon of fury, and she doesn’t fight me over it.

  No, she endures my face transforming into blood-pumping fury.

  “What the fuck?”

  Emmy loosens her hands, careful not to overexert herself in case she needs her energy like I’m going to hurt her or something.

  It comes natural but never in a million years would I ever harm a hair on Emmy’s head unless it’s through my fingers as I suck on her mouth or she bobs on my hard cock.

  “You really are a stupid motherfucker,” she says as if it’s a confession. “For years, I’ve tried to figure it out. I’ve dissected all the ways of how you could turn a cold shoulder in my direction. And here we are.”

  “Words, Rhodes, I need them. Explain.”

  “You didn’t want anyone else to have me? Who could, you? What the fuck were you going to do to me but glower and evade me like a skin-eating plague? You would rather watch me go through life without someone so that you could sleep at night?”

  She jerks her wrist, but I hold on tight, not ready to let her go yet. Not set to face the dumb as shit realization that…she might be right, and I’ve spent years hating her ass for pushing me to become someone who didn’t focus on the past but the future.

  And for what exactly?

  Because I was terrified that my attraction and the taut pull between us would snap me back into how I felt when Camilla terrorized and shattered my heart.

  Am I that weak?

  For Emmy, yeah, plain and simple.

  I want her.