by Stella Rhys
But instead he took me by surprise.
“I’m kind of only here to be a dick,” Drew rasped.
My eyes fluttered over to him. “What?”
He’d just knocked back the last of his drink – his third in less than an hour – so his eyes were bleary and his voice was a bit slurred.
“Yeah, so I’m pretty sure you know this since you two have been eye-banging all night, but Emmett wants you.” His gaze drifted off for a second as he laughed to himself. “Like… bad.”
I blinked. “I, um… yes. I do know.” I frowned as I watched Drew rattle the ice in his empty glass and drunkenly lose his thought. “So, you’re here because what? You just want to fuck with him?” I asked, desperate to keep him on track.
“Yeah. That’s pretty much what we do to each other,” he laughed. “Though, actually,” he corrected himself. “I am here to enjoy the fact that you’re my date, ‘cause you do look beautiful and that dress is… pretty fuckin’ killer,” he grinned, letting his sleepy gaze fall down the front of Evie’s nude dress. But clearing his throat, he sat back up. “But that said, I’m not actually trying to take you home tonight. Unless Emmett magically loses interest in you, which… I assure you he won’t… I’m just here to torture him as payback for some petty shit. That make any sense or did I drink too much? ‘Cause I just drank a lot.”
I managed a laugh, feeling vaguely though not entirely relieved. “Um… I think that makes some sense. Why are you drinking so fast though?” I whispered.
“’Cause that’s what it takes to survive a night with this Beth chick,” he said, handing me my margarita. “So bottoms up. ‘Cause she’s still going on about Oaxaca.”
We shared a laugh as Britt took another five minutes to wrap up her story about her Mexican mezcal tour.
“Oh my God, it was amazing. Actually, I still have some distributor contacts in case you’re interested in carrying their mezcal at your restaurant, Aly,” Britt said with a smile.
“Oh.” I was surprised, since it was actually a nice, genuine offer. “Well, that’s really kind of you but I feel like most of the booze people seem to want at the restaurant is wine, beer and Bloody Marys on the weekend,” I said, watching Britt visibly deflate at my rejection of her offer. “But hey, who knows,” I brightened. “Maybe I’ll order some for my dad. He loves mezcal. I should definitely have at least a bottle for the day he visits.”
Britt’s eyes lit up as she cocked her head. “You’ve been open for more than three months and your dad hasn’t visited yet?” Her laugh was incredulous. “Isn’t opening your first restaurant kind of a big deal for you?”
“Oh.” I paused, blinking as I wondered how the hell the conversation got here. “Yes. It is a big deal.”
“Does your dad live far away?”
“I’d say so,” I answered slowly, trying to give a casual shrug. A knot formed in my throat, and I attempted to put on a good face for Britt, but my smile was already quivering at the edges.
“What state does he live in?”
“Oh, he’s… not out of state. He lives in New York. In Brooklyn. But you know, it’s more than a two hour drive away.”
“Pshhh, that’s nothing when it comes to visiting your own daughter! Especially when she’s at like, a huge turning point in her life,” Britt exclaimed. “But maybe that’s just me? I’m just like, so close to my dad. I can’t even imagine him not wanting to visit me if I – ”
“Hey.” Emmett’s first word of the night came to cut her off brusquely. “Why don’t you stop talking about that? Recommend me another drink or something,” he muttered, sounding annoyed.
“Ooh! You bet!” Britt perked up immediately, grabbing the cocktail menu. But before she went to reading it, she looked up at me with a pout on her glossy lips. “I’m really sorry about your dad, Aly. It sucks that he just refuses to see you.”
Heat coursed through my veins and I stared at Britt as she looked down at the menu.
I wanted to ask myself what the fuck had just happened, but then I remembered that Britt was seated at the raw bar the third time my dad canceled his reservation.
In anticipation of him, I’d had the entire staff set up the nice corner table with a three-tiered pastry stand, a pitcher of fresh OJ and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot on ice. When I finally finished running around the kitchen and the dining room to make sure everything was place, I went to catch a breather in the office and text my dad for his ETA.
It was at that point that I saw he’d sent a five-word text thirty minutes ago.
Tired. Gonna take a raincheck.
No “sorry” included.
I’d kept it together in the office, and had every intention of doing so in the dining room. But the second I told Evie and felt her arms around me, I started crying.
Something Britt unfortunately witnessed.
“What the hell was that?” Drew whispered in my ear. Even in his drunken state, he could tell I was seething.
“Nothing.” I turned away to dab the wetness in my eye with my knuckle. I hated that I’d actually let the comment get to me but I also couldn’t fathom how Britt could be so malicious to someone she barely knew. “It was just… a low blow to piss me off,” I muttered between my chattering teeth.
Drew rubbed his eyes, frowning across the table then at me.
“Well, why don’t we piss her off right back?”
I bit down hard to stop my teeth from chattering. “What do you suggest?”
“Something that requires pissing off Emmett too,” Drew replied. “That okay?”
With a bitter shrug, I said, “Do what you gotta do.”
And within seconds, I gasped because Drew’s lips were on my neck.
My eyes shot wide open, promptly met with the fire of Emmett’s gaze. The hollow of his cheeks flexed as he clenched his jaw tight, and his chest visibly tensed as Drew kissed up my neck for another second or two before pulling away.
“Drew.” The stern warning in Emmett’s voice sent a shudder to my thighs. “Let me talk to you for a second,” he muttered, nodding out the booth.
Drew flashed a grin of drunken content. He was the epitome of disrespect as he said, “Nah, bro, I’m good,” before returning his attention to me. He brought his mouth close to my ear before murmuring his giddy question. “He pissed?”
“I think so,” I breathed, stunned.
“How ‘bout her?”
“I – I don’t know.”
“All good. I got this,” Drew said. Facing forward, he took a drink of my margarita before turning back with a grin. “I get any salt on my lips?” he asked.
I was rattled. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but I still peered down to check.
The second I did, Drew’s rough hand caught my jaw and he closed his hot mouth over mine, kissing me for a solid two seconds before I heard Emmett jerk forward in his seat and actually growl at Britt.
“Get out. Please.”
She protested with an indignant squeak but apparently obliged because before I knew it, Drew was being ripped away from me laughing.
“Whoa, hey – what’s this?” he feigned shock but gave me a puckish, tongue-out grin as Emmett literally dragged his long body out of the booth. Holy fuck. On his feet, Drew dusted off his front and faked half-convincing fury as he demanded to know what was going on.
But Emmett was no longer looking at him. His hot stare was once again fixed on me, and this time, there was a look of finality to it – like his patience was officially exhausted.
“Meet me outside,” he muttered, collecting my purse off the table. “I’m taking you home.”
17
ALY
It was a tense ride home to say the least.
Funny enough, it was the same car and the same driver who’d taken us home after we “met” at the club, but the air in the backseat was a stark contrast to that night.
Instead of hot and heavy, we were silent and still. I sat on my side and Emmett sat on his, his legs
spread wide, his elbow propped on the window as he stared out at passing cars.
Wringing my hands, I watched him, trying to figure out what I could possibly say to get us talking. There were clearly a million things hanging in the air – long-buried topics of conversation that had finally wrestled their ways back to the forefronts of our minds.
I didn’t know where to start, so eventually, I just blurted something out.
“Bet you didn’t know that he hadn’t visited me yet,” I said, forcing a laugh like it was something funny. But appropriately, my laugh came out bitter.
My heart beat fast when Emmett looked at me, and it hammered even faster when he said nothing.
“Pretty embarrassing to think about,” I whispered, shaking my head at myself. “I didn’t want to make him the enemy because that would mean I’d spent my life trying to please the bad guy,” I murmured. My gaze floated off to stare at nothing as I felt more than a decade’s worth of confession starting to tumble from my lips. “I mean every decision I’ve ever made – chopping my hair, rejecting girly stuff, copying everything you did for as long as I could – it was all in the hopes of winning his approval,” I murmured, forcing a laugh as my tears blurred the red of the traffic lights out the windshield. “And God, I just hate to think it.” A teardrop fell down my cheek as I rolled my eyes at myself. “I hate to think that for the past four years, I’ve busted my ass and dedicated my whole life to saving this company for nothing. Because I’m pretty sure I only did it for a last shot at his approval. Just for the fighting chance that he might finally like me as much as he likes you.”
There.
I said it.
The words were out and now I felt numb. And small. And stupid. They were all the things I was used to feeling around Emmett, because no matter how hard I tried, and how little he did, I was always second best.
I was my father’s only child, but I wasn’t his favorite. Not even close.
My bottom lip wobbled as Emmett finally spoke, his whisper piercing the stillness in the air.
“I was never comfortable with it, Aly. None of us were.”
I closed my eyes. God. So embarrassing.
“We all saw the way he treated you, and trust me, we hated it. Me and Mom especially,” Emmett said. “I hated that he came to my games instead of your plays. I hated the way he just lost interest in a conversation when you started talking. It was so fucked up and awkward. I mean as a kid, I’m pretty sure I thought it was funny. But by the time I was in high school, I remember thinking it was weird that your dad was so obsessed with hearing about my teammates or whoever I was dating or anything going on in my life.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see Emmett looking at me, but I couldn’t look back.
“I knew something was screwed up, Aly. But our dads – they grew up together, and my dad could only see yours through rose-colored glasses. And I was a stupid, lazy kid so I just tried to ignore it. I didn’t bother myself with how you were probably hurting. It was too much trouble for me. The one time I talked to my dad about yours, he got pissed at me for being disrespectful, and I hated when he was mad at me. I didn’t know how to handle it.”
“Because you weren’t used to it. You were his favorite. You were everyone’s favorite. You had no idea what it was like to be born into another person’s shadow,” I said, tears falling into my hands as I dropped my eyes into my lap. “I never had a chance to be someone who mattered. Even in school with my closest friends, I felt like no one liked me for me. People only hung out with me to hear about you – what our vacations were like together, what you were like outside of school. When I went up to adults, they looked tired of me before I even started talking. They were just anticipating me complaining about something you did, some prank you pulled on me, and it annoyed them to have to discipline you. Because everyone loved you most. My dad included.”
I was still staring through a wall of tears when I heard the shift of Emmett moving closer to me. He cupped my face in his hands, his lips close to mine as he whispered I’m sorry on repeat.
“I didn’t know. I had no idea it was this bad for you, Aly,” he said, shaking his head. “Everything was just a joke to me then. I didn’t know what pain felt like. I couldn’t empathize. I was a fucking idiot, and I’m so sorry.”
I cried harder at the sound of him saying sorry. The sincerity of his words felt so good, but they only neutralized the pain of the memories flickering vividly through my brain.
“I hated that you gave him the excuse to finally get rid of me,” I muttered, flashing back to that dramatic day at the end of junior year. I stared at my hands on Emmett’s chest, avoiding his stare because I’d felt it harden as we moved toward the topic of our big fight. “What you did that day… when you ratted me out. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew you were right, but I convinced myself you only did it to torture me like you always did. You took away half my friends by hooking up with them – I figured you were just trying to take away another thing that I loved.”
“You didn’t love Scott,” Emmett corrected me, his voice steely.
My heart thumped at the mention of the guy’s name. It had been so long since anyone around me had said it out loud. Just hearing it again made my face burn from my cheeks to my ears.
“Of course I didn’t love him, Emmett. I was just lonely. Constantly,” I whispered, my throat wobbling as I forced myself to look him in the eye. “I didn’t have real friends. I didn’t have a dad who wanted to even look in my direction. My mom was constantly defending him. Mr. Scott was just… my first time experiencing someone who was interested in me. Someone who was actually interested in listening to me.”
His attention had been so flattering back then. I didn’t consider that our relationship was wrong. I thought people just “didn’t understand our bond.” What started between us was friendship, and it was the only thing I had to look forward to at the time. Mr. Scott taught English and World Film, and sometime during sophomore year, I’d developed the habit of sitting in his room after the last bell and watching old movies as he graded papers in the dark.
Other days, when he didn’t have so much work to do, he’d just listen to me vent. And thanks to Emmett, I had plenty to vent about.
It wasn’t till junior year that Scott started acting differently. I’d caught him eyeing my body before, but now he was letting me catch him. He mentioned how much I’d changed over the summer. And one day after school – it was a winter day, and I’d been crying over something Emmett did – Mr. Scott kissed me.
It was my first kiss.
And it felt so nice.
It felt magical. All of it did, really. Somehow, I only found it romantic that Scott forced me to keep us a secret, and I thought nothing of the fact that he’d spent a year not so subtly trying to ask me to have sex.
The day Emmett walked in on us was the second day of what Mr. Scott had called us “easing into things.”
“He was thirty-five years old and he had his fucking hand between your legs,” Emmett growled, setting my cheeks on fire. “He was a fucking predator and I still fantasize about beating the fucking shit out of him. Maybe I should have done it differently, but I’ll never regret what I did that day.”
I could see that moment clearly again.
I remembered the way the color drained from Emmett’s face when he saw us. I remembered how he stood still for the longest second in history before charging forward, using all six feet and two inches of his lean muscle to completely body Mr. Scott. I didn’t even know what exactly he did. It was just a blur that ended in Scott on the ground and Emmett in my face, demanding what the fuck I was thinking while trying to drag me out of the room.
When I resisted, he ran out and told the first person he saw about what he’d just witnessed.
That person happened to be a teacher, but the girls down the hall weren’t. They were gossipy sophomores who told everyone what they heard, and from that day forward, I became the freak. The leper.
A couple friends stuck by me. They swooned over what Emmett did, but they comforted me over what happened for a week, or however long it was till that morning that Dad told me not to go to school.
He didn’t even sit me down before dropping the bombshell.
I was staying home for the final two weeks of junior year, and I’d be attending senior year at a boarding school in Canada.
“You’re going to stay with Aunt Carla for the summer. I’ve got too much to worry about to handle you when you’re this out of control,” he said before going to work.
I still remembered that because the truth was, despite what I’d done with Mr. Scott, I wasn’t out of control.
I came home at the same time every day, did my homework, helped Mom with dinner, and went to bed before midnight. My friends only came over for a few hours at a time, and I never ever went to parties.
I wasn’t out of control.
I was just lost and lonely. And maybe a little neglected. But rather than look for what led to this, Dad used the situation as his excuse to give up on me. He’d never wanted me, never cared for me and now, thanks to Emmett ratting me out, he finally had his reason to stop having to deal with me.
And since it hurt more than I could bear, I placed all blame on Emmett. It was easier that way.
Over the years, I twisted the details of what happened to me. I made up false memories of Dad being worried. Crying over what had happened to me. I pretended that he sent me away because he didn’t want me near the pain of what happened to me at school.
It was easy to live by those lies when I cut off all contact with Emmett. He sent me messages on Facebook, but I deactivated my account. He tried passing messages through my mom, but I told her to never speak of him again.
By the time I graduated college, I’d made a new life and a new social circle for myself. I went back to seeing my parents every once in awhile, even talking about the game with Dad on the phone. Hearing him laugh with me felt nice. Talking sports felt normal. It made it easier to pretend we’d always been like this.
