by Stella Rhys
Well. At least we used to.
When I got back to the couch, I was surprised to find that Aly had some rom-com on HBO that I’d never heard of before.
“Damn. You watch girly stuff now?” I asked as Ozzy trotted over to present Aly his favorite duck toy.
“Oh yeah. Fuckin’ love girly stuff now,” Aly said proudly, giggling as she played tug of war with Ozzy. “Rom-coms, reality shows – pretty much everything on Lifetime.”
I grinned. “You used to hate that shit with a passion.”
“Well, now I love it with a passion. I mean I always did, I just didn’t let myself – never mind. It’s starting.”
We shut up to watch and within the first five minutes, I knew this movie was going to be torture. A girl got dumped and then a scene later, she broke her heel on the street and landed on some guy I had a feeling she’d having sex with in about an hour.
But I was wrong. They wound up fucking way sooner than that.
And for a movie that was pretty fucking lame so far, the sex was surprisingly graphic.
“Oh… kay. Well then.” Aly laughed awkwardly when the scene cut straight from kissing outside to the guy shoving the girl onto his bed and burying his face in her cleavage.
I chewed back a grin. I swore I could feel Aly’s pulse creeping up next to me as the guy peeled off the girl’s shirt and started tugging at her bra. A part of me assumed they’d cut away, but the camera actually zoomed in when the girl’s naked tits popped out.
Aly was dead silent next to me.
I couldn’t help peering at her and laughing inwardly at the way she sat stiff as a board, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes unblinking at the screen. She was the definition of uncomfortable. Judging from how tight her throat was, she was holding her breath. I knew she was praying for the scene to end, so I had to smirk to myself when it only got hotter and heavier. It stretched on even after the guy put it in, his face contorting with exaggerated pleasure as he started thrusting.
“Unh… ahh… oh, fuck… yeah.”
Christ, I felt like I was watching porn.
We were quiet as mice as the living room suddenly filled with the sounds of moaning, groaning and grunting. From the corner of my eye, I caught Aly furiously chewing her nail. I knew she was trying to brave through it but the second the guy started jiggling the hell out of the girl’s tits she popped up.
“I’m gonna make a new tea.”
“Figured you might.”
She halted mid-step. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re awkward about watching a sex scene,” I said. “With me, at least. And that’s fine. I get it.”
“Get what? I’m not being awkward,” she denied hotly. “I just wanted a glass of water.”
“You just said you were going to make a new tea.”
“Well, maybe I wanted both!”
“Or maybe you can’t survive watching a girl getting her tits played with like that.”
Aly’s cheeks went pink as she glared. “Why would that bother me?” she asked. But before I could answer, she scoffed. “You know what, Emmett? Screw it!” she snapped, plopping back down on the couch. “You can wipe that smug look off your face, because I’m watching.”
“Aly, it’s fine,” I laughed. “We can fast-forward if you can’t handle it.”
“Can’t handle it? I’m an adult, Emmett, I assure you I can handle it,” Aly huffed.
Though I knew within seconds that she was regretting it.
Then again so was I because suddenly the guy was pushing the girl’s tits up and feeding them into his mouth. There was an extreme close-up as he stuck his tongue out and started licking the girl’s tight pink nipple, forcing me to remember that I’d done the same goddamned thing to Aly just a fucking week ago.
Dammit.
Suddenly, I was back to thinking of how fucking tight her pussy clenched around my fingers. My dick twitched under my sweats as I thought about that sweet little pussy being wet right now. Two feet from me. All I needed was a quick peek over to confirm that Aly was squirming like crazy in her seat.
Fuck. Yeah. She was wet. She had to be.
Knowing that, my heartbeat picked up, and despite my outward calm, I felt like a fucking animal. I was picturing myself ripping Aly’s clothes off and palming her pussy to feel how warm and wet she was. I could just imagine her sweet juices running down my palm as I fucked her with my fingers.
The stiller I sat, the dirtier my fantasies got.
I saw myself kneeling in front of her on this couch. I saw her legs draped over my shoulders, my fist pumping my cock as I swirled my tongue all over and tasted her pussy. I just wanted to hear her moan. I wanted to do everything I could to get those sexy little noises out of her again.
I was imagining her big tits draped in my cum when the scene finally cut and she released the breath she was holding.
My instinct was to smirk and give her shit, but I was still recovering myself. The tip of my cock was pulsing too hard and it didn’t get better when a scene later, I peered over to see Aly’s nipples were rock-hard under her shirt.
For Christ’s sake.
She was sitting so still, concentrating so hard on looking normal and unfazed that she didn’t even realize it. It actually made me feel guilty, especially when I peered over a scene later to see those tight peaks still standing up straight under her shirt, just begging to be sucked.
Jesus fuck.
I was going crazy here.
“Oh, that pup looks almost like Ozzy,” Aly cooed during a scene in which some Labrador bounded onscreen.
“Yeah,” I said even though the dog looked nothing like Ozzy. Aly was just desperate to say something, anything after our eternity of sex scene silence, and I would’ve called her out for it if I weren’t so fucking busy being a pervert. My cock was throbbing now that I’d snuck so many glances at her tits and imagined my tongue all over them again.
Fucking hell, Aly.
She was so oblivious – so fucking cute and sexy and completely fucking off-limits that I was actually relieved when a minute later, she checked the time on her phone and said, “I should get to bed.”
“Sure. Night,” I said.
“Goodnight, Emmett.”
And with that, Aly got up and left me alone in the living room, my dick hard and my jaw tight as I wondered how the fuck I was going to survive a whole goddamned summer of this.
9
ALY
“Wow. Someone’s surprisingly eager to get out,” Evie grinned as she watched me fly through closeout on Tuesday. “You finally getting excited to go home to that hottie?”
“Uh, no. Not exactly.”
I wasn’t so much excited as I was determined to get rid of the weirdness hanging in the air after last night’s movie fiasco. As far as playing it cool went, I’d totally failed and it was embarrassing. While Emmett sat totally unaffected next to me, I’d acted like a complete spaz, and it made me feel the need to normalize things between us.
Upon confessing as much to Evie, she laughed.
“So what’s your plan of attack to get back in the friend zone?” she asked, running the sales reports as I did final checks on the closing side work.
“Honestly, I don’t have one. I just figured hanging around him and having a conversation while acting completely normal would be good enough. I just want to prove to him that I’m fine. That I’m not like, actively wanting him.”
“Which you are. But – ooh! You know what you should do? Call him ‘dude’ as much as possible,” Evie suggested excitedly.
When I flashed a weird look, her excitement waned to a sigh.
“Mike has been calling me that these days and I fucking hate it,” she explained, making me pout. “It just makes me feel so… desexualized. Like he sees me as nothing more than a friend. ‘Cause honestly, has anyone in the history of having sex been like, ‘You have such beautiful breasts, dude,’ or ‘Mmm, dude, you feel amazing inside me?’”
> “Oh my God, Evie.”
I scrunched up my face because I didn’t want to laugh. This was her actual life we were talking about – she just did such a good job of turning it into comedy. It was a defense mechanism. I knew that.
But every time I tried to talk to Evie about her relationship with Mike, she asked for us to table it. And since I had my own off-limits conversation topics, I respected her wish.
“Alright. Calling him ‘dude.’ Definitely doing that,” I nodded, trailing Evie into the office where she dropped the money into the safe. “Are you heading home now?” I asked, grabbing our purses off their hooks.
“Nope. Couple’s therapy.”
“Oh. Right. Has that been helping?” I asked hopefully.
“Totally. Like, so much,” Evie said, flashing me that tight-lipped, crazy-eyed smile that meant yeah right, fat chance. I sighed and let my shoulders slump. “I’m sorry,” I said, defeated as Evie and I made our way out the restaurant.
“And you wonder why I’m dying for you to fuck Emmett,” she snorted as we stood outside to lock up. “My life outside this restaurant sucks. I need to live vicariously through somebody.”
“Well, if you want to live vicariously through me and Emmett being just friends, then by all means, because that’s how things are staying all summer. And till the end of time.”
“Mm-hm,” Evie said, flashing me that same tight-lipped, crazy-eyed smile as we headed for our cars.
There was some action movie blaring on the TV when I got home, so I was surprised to walk in the kitchen and find Emmett reading with intense focus at the counter. He had his laptop out and a backwards cap on his head. That paired with his baseball tee and sweats, and he looked like the quintessential jock I’d known as a teenager.
Really, Aly? I cursed myself for finding him so insanely attractive like this. It was like an admission that I’d had a crush on him in high school, and that made me feel all hot and prickly in my cheeks. Good job. Playing it super cool already, I berated myself just as Ozzy looked up from his toy and barked a hello.
The second he did, Emmett’s head snapped up.
“Hey!” he said, promptly shutting his laptop. I cocked my head slowly.
“That was… sketchy,” I laughed, though I was grateful for the moment because somehow, his being caught off-guard had me feeling more relaxed and confident.
It made me smirk and pin my narrowed eyes on Emmett as I went to the fridge to grab my bottle of water. Something about the way he leaned on top of his closed laptop was just so incredibly suspicious.
“Dude.” I shook my head. “What were you doing?”
‘Dude.’ Nailed it, I commended myself as Emmett cleared his throat.
“Nothing. Just work stuff.”
“What’s work stuff?” I uncapped my water and leaned across the opposite side of the counter. “I still don’t even know what you do for a living. What exactly is your job?”
“I just do stuff here and there,” Emmett answered so vaguely I had to grin, weirdly tantalized by his secretiveness.
“Holy shit, Emmett. What do you do for a living?” I pressed. “What are you – a hitman? A male stripper?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You think I could be a male stripper?”
He laughed as I blushed. And just like that, he had the upper hand again.
“Long story short, I invest in whatever stocks or properties Julian invests in,” Emmett finally said, his answer so normal my shoulders kind of slumped.
“Oh.” Nothing sketchy after all. “Good move though. Julian’s always been a genius, hasn’t he?”
“Pretty much. And now he owns the Empires. I’m sure you heard.”
“Uh, yeah, my dad basically flipped out the day that happened,” I snorted as I remembered the day.
My dad rarely called but he called me that day to literally scream into the phone that Julian Hoult – “Emmett’s older brother, and the same Julian you grew up going to Empires games with every Sunday” – had just bought “the whole goddamned team.” It was pretty big news in my family, and I was obviously excited, but I remembered feeling a deep dread as well.
Dad’s fixation with the entire Hoult family had finally waned over the years, but I knew that Julian’s purchase of our favorite baseball team would pretty much serve as new fuel for Dad’s Hoult-obsessed fire.
Which it did.
“Yeah, I can probably imagine your dad’s reaction,” Emmett chuckled with a wary glance at me. Clearing his throat, he changed the subject. “What about you though? How’s your spin-off going?”
“My spin-off?”
“Your restaurant. I figured you opened it to drive business back to the warehouse,” Emmett said. I cocked an eyebrow.
“Yes. That’s… exactly why I opened it, actually. Thank you for getting that. My parents were so upset that I didn’t just dunk all my money into sprucing up the warehouse.”
Before I opened up Stanton Family Market, there was just Stanton Family Seafood. It was one of the city’s prominent seafood wholesalers since my grandfather founded the company in 1941, and since I was a kid, its headquarters was a big, un-glamorous, viciously salty-smelling warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn. When my grandfather passed, my dad inherited the business, and for awhile, he continued selling seafood like shrimp and fish and lobster to the local restaurants that had been loyal to the company for decades.
But by the time I was in middle school, the business was struggling. New management at restaurants switched to new wholesalers. Old regulars started scaling back the size of their orders. Money was tight. I pretended not to know, but Dad borrowed cash from Emmett’s father twice when I was in high school – just to keep us and the business barely afloat.
“Yeah, I remember the warehouse doing… not so great for awhile,” Emmett admitted with a hint of guilt in his voice. “I used to overhear my dad talking to yours on the phone.”
“It’s okay. Everyone knew we were struggling. They were just merciful and pretended not to,” I shrugged, trying to look blithe though my face was burning for my dad.
He always tried so desperately to keep up with the Hoults. I actually didn’t find out till too late that all my childhood vacations to the Hamptons with Emmett’s family were damned near bankrupting Dad. He didn’t have the money they had, but he still tried so hard to keep that glamorous image.
It was no surprise that it eventually all fell through.
Dad couldn’t keep up with the Hoults’ lavish lifestyle, and after Emmett’s dad passed ten years ago, he no longer cared to try. He did, however, hold onto his dying company till about four years ago.
“So four years ago. That was when he finally bit the bullet?” Emmett asked.
“Yeah, he knew he had to sell, but he hated knowing he’d be selling to a competitor. He was like, ‘They won’t keep the name and we’ll just get wiped from history,’” I snorted, shaking my head. “So dramatic.”
“Well, that company was his pride and joy. Even I remember.”
“Yeah. His pride, his joy – the bane of his whole existence. I mean I did get it. I knew it hurt most because he wanted to make my grandpa proud and keep our family name alive.”
“So you bought the company to keep it going,” Emmett said, a faint smile touching the corner of his lips.
“Yep.” I had to grin a bit too because I was still fairly proud of myself for pulling this off. “I already had savings and I spent the next year busting my ass, working nonstop and living as frugally as possible so I could scrounge up the money to buy the company from Dad. But it wasn’t just buying the company I had to think about. I knew I needed something to revive the actual business, too.”
“And that was the restaurant, right?” Emmett guessed.
“Sure was,” I beamed.
I had dreamed up Stanton Family Market as a way to revitalize the company’s image. People saw us as old, outdated, and I wanted to change their minds. So I pulled all my old work connections, landed a miracle i
nvestor, and ran a few pop-up restaurants in less expensive locations before finally opening up in East Hampton.
I knew if I could make the café popular, I could make the company relevant again. So I created social media buzz with our over-the-top, admittedly overpriced smoked tuna and roe sandwiches, as well as our notoriously Instagram-able brunches, including that lobster claw Bloody Mary. I emailed a million food blogs and magazines to do write-ups about us. I was busting my ass to rebrand the Stanton Family name to something “cool and relevant.”
And within a year of doing that, our orders at the warehouse started going up again.
“That’s fucking nuts, Aly. Basically, you saved the shit out of your family business,” Emmett said, wearing a broad grin on his face. The fact that he sounded genuinely proud of me made my heart skip a beat. “So, do you ever plan on having a location that’s open for more than just the summer?”
“I’d love to. And I’ve thought about it a lot, but it would only make sense to do that in the city, and I just don’t have the money for that yet,” I said. “And for now, I should concentrate on this first location.”
“I gotta be honest, I looked it up the other day and you’ve got fuckin’ killer reviews,” Emmett grinned, watching me beam like an idiot. “I mean your dad has to be… I don’t know. Crazy happy? Over the moon?”
I smiled awkwardly. “Oh God, my dad is… embarrassingly proud,” I said in a rush before taking a swig of my water. I tried to think of a subject change but right in time, my phone buzzed. “Oh,” I laughed when I saw the text. “It’s your mom.”
“Really?” Emmett snorted as I read the message.
AUNT AUDREY: Oh no Aly!!! Emmett texted me that he’s actually staying in the Hamptons? I hope you’re not angry with me for promising you the house to yourself! He told me he’d be gone all summer!!
“Aww.” I giggled and showed Emmett the screen. As he laughed, I cocked my head. “Dude. Why did you tell your mom you’d be gone all summer?” I asked while texting Audrey some reassurance.
“Because she was trying to set me up with her friends’ daughters.”
