by Emilia Finn
“He’s also an asshole, and has problems with loyalty.”
“You’re not loyal?” Allyson glares. “Makes sense, considering that first chick, and the girl with the Risotto.”
“No,” Emma scowls. “The opposite. He’s too fucking loyal, to a woman who is trashier than a panda in an alleyway. They had feelings one time, and now he feels like he can’t dump her into a volcano like she deserves.”
“So who’s…” Allyson points toward the hall. “Who was that?”
“Yeah, Rob.” Emma lifts a dangerous brow. “Who was that?”
“That was my bad,” Luke inserts sheepishly. “Risotto was here last night, I booted her out, then I took him out and got him plastered on cheap booze.”
I stare into Emma’s eyes, pleading and begging her to give me a second in privacy to explain. When she doesn’t smack me again, I figure moratorium. It’ll be short, it’ll be important, but she’s allowing it, so for Luke’s sake, I force a tight grin and look back to Allyson.
“Seems I wasn’t the only one. Jäger and Miss Dixie’s? Seriously.”
“That’s a whole ‘nother bag of what the fuck.” Emma crosses the room and shakes her head at the llama. “What the hell did you do?”
“I have a headache.” Allyson presses her hands to her face. “It hurts like a train is running over my brain, then backing up and doing it again.”
“Here.” Luke snags a bottle of water from the fridge, hip-bumps Emma aside with a smile, slams the fridge again, then he reaches up and grabs a bottle of ibuprofen from the cupboard above. “Come back to the room. We’re going to rest,” he says to me. “Be quiet, and don’t murder anybody.”
“I don’t murder anyone ever.” I scowl.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he replies on a laugh.
He grabs Allyson’s hand and pulls her into the hall, then two seconds later, Kelly bustles out and stops in the doorway with rosy red cheeks and a little fear in her eyes.
“I’ll just get out of here.”
“Great idea,” Emma swings the door open and waits for Kelly to pass through, then slamming it again, her eyes come back to me, narrowed and mean. “The fuck, Robert? Do you enjoy digging this hole deeper?”
“We didn’t sleep together.” I race to the heart of what she wants to know. “Swear on everything, we didn’t. She’s nice, we hung out, ninety-nine percent of everything we talked about was you, which is why she didn’t freak the way Allyson did when she saw you.”
“And Allyson?” she asks. “Who the eff is Allyson?”
Scoffing, I go to the fridge and take out a bottle of water for myself, then I offer another to Em. She shakes her head, so I toss it back in and slam the door. “She’s…” I tip the water back and give myself a second to think. “I suspect she’s important. Luke’s been talking about her a bit lately, and she’s no ditz. She’s got spine, so we’re gonna reserve judgment and see what happens.”
“You didn’t sleep with anybody last night?”
“No.” I stare deep into Em’s eyes. “I did not. I didn’t touch anyone, didn’t kiss anyone, didn’t do anything that would hurt you. What I did do was leave the club with Kelly, and the whole night, I talked about you, because I guess my drunk brain couldn’t hold it all in.”
“Did you get word yet that your dad and my dad are fighting on the lawn back at the estate?”
I pause mid-sip and meet her gaze. “Huh?”
She nods and makes her way into the living room.
I follow, because that’s what I do. I follow EmKat wherever she goes.
Dropping down onto the couch, I mirror her, and accept her feet in my lap when she brings them up. We’re pretending everything is cool. For now, anyway. Everything is cool.
“I accidentally told my dad that you and I slept together, so…”
“What?” I explode, and twist in my seat, like I’m afraid Bobby is standing at my back with a fucking meat cleaver. “Are you insane? You couldn’t let me talk to him in private, break it to him easily? Ask for his fucking permission?”
“You wanted to ask his permission to sleep with me?”
“No, crazy! I wanted to ask his permission to ma—” My words die a painful death. Choked off and starved of life.
Em’s eyes flash wide in the same moment my heart gives a painful thud.
“Um… I mean…”
“Another time, huh?” She tries to force her lips into a smile, but it falls flat. “Another lifetime.”
“EmKat…” I straighten out on the couch again, face her front-on, and sigh. “I’m really, really sorry I messed everything up. I never intended for this to happen, I swear.”
“I know.” Reaching out, she takes my hand and twines our fingers together. “You never set out to hurt me. And you never set out to hurt yourself either. It’s just…” she shrugs. “It’s how it all turned out.”
“EmKat?”
Her hand tightens around mine, and almost silently, she sniffles. “Mm?”
“I love you, forever.”
Nodding, she melts into the couch and rests her head against my shoulder.
One could say she’s snuggling in and hugging me, but the truth is, she’s making it so I can’t see her face. Her eyes. The windows to her soul.
“Yeah. Love you too. Thanks for not kicking me out, Fart.”
Rob
Time Heals All Wounds; And Other Sundry Clichés
Grace’s baby, I don’t think anyone will be surprised to find out, is not my child. She went through with the amnio – the baby is fine, according to what the doctors could find from such tests – she’s keeping it, and at some point in the next twenty years, I’m going to be walking Main Street, and I’ll see this child who was sort of almost mine at one point in time.
It’s strange, actually, to think of this odd set of circumstances. I’m not the baby’s father, but still, for a month there, I thought I was. For a whole month, I dreamt and fantasized, I planned and shopped.
My room now has packages tossed into the back of the closet; onesies that I found online and ordered, but, due to timing, weren’t delivered until after the bombs had stopped falling, and it was all gone again. Rattles that I picked up while walking the aisles of Jonah’s store. Pacifiers that intrigued me; the different sizes, the different shapes, some are orthodontist-approved, and some are not.
It was my way of coping during that month of uncertainty… But now here I sit, on the other side of it all. Grace’s belly continues to grow, and it has nothing to do with me.
It feels odd to mourn something that was never mine, but alas, it’s how this whole mess is going down, and that’s okay. It’s okay to process however I need to.
The guy who is that baby’s father now has a detailed rap sheet, orders to stay the hell away from Grace and the baby, and if he so much as sneezes near them in the next ten years, he’s gonna spend a little time behind bars. Which means Grace is single-momming it. But her mom is by her side, picking up the slack and helping out.
An exercise in humility for the one-time, sort-of cheerleading star.
All of these are things I know because gossip in small towns is like a virus spreading across the globe: all it takes is one guy coughing on someone else, and next thing you know, that shit is everywhere.
Well, not all gossip. Almost everyone knows about me and EmKat and the almost-relationship we shared. Everyone, of course, except Luke. Because like the ice cream statue was once a thing we would hide and keep from the owner, I guess the Rob-and-Emma secret is the new statue, and Luke is Miss Dixie.
Small-town folks need small-town things to keep them occupied. It’s handy that Luke and Allyson tried to return the llama, mistakenly got drunk first, and eventually lost him again. Since he’s gone without a trace, and the cops are in a frantic search for the poor thing, everyone needs something else to keep them entertained.
I guess keeping things from my crazy brother is that thing.
He’ll figure it out eventua
lly.
The cold weather is barreling down on us fast. The first flurries of the season begin to swirl in the air. And as for me… well… I’m healing myself, because until I do, I refuse to give my broken fragments to someone else and expect her to fix them.
That shit isn’t fair, and of all the people in the world, Emma Kincaid deserves a man who is whole and unscarred from someone else’s crimes.
Luckily for me, she’s still my best friend, and I see her every single day, just like it was always supposed to be.
Even if she’s still pissed at me twenty-three hours a day.
“Robert! Let’s go.” Emma slams her fist to my bedroom door so the whole thing rattles on the hinges. “I have five hours open for you, then Chute has an appointment, and you miss out. If you make me late, I’m gonna write my name on your ass and make it so you never get a girlfriend again.”
Suits me. Hers is the only name I want on my body anyway.
Finishing up a fast text, I slip my phone into my pocket and head across my room before Emma tears the door from the wall. I swing it open a mere second before her next knock; her fist is in the air, her face contorted and mean.
“I’m ready. Geez, lady.”
“Lady?” she snarls. “You’re eating into your own time right now, Fart. Five hours! That’s all I’ve written you in for.”
“You’d go overtime for me.”
I throw my arm over her shoulders and head along the hall. My phone buzzes in my pocket – texts that I can’t read, or I risk Emma maiming me – but I ignore those and smile when we pass the living room and find Luke and Ally laid out on the couch where Em and I usually hang.
I called it right; Ally is important. I’m pretty sure she’s gonna stick. Having her around – a therapist-in-training, I might add – comes with its own perks. I get to slide a little of my own baggage into regular conversations, and Ally will talk them through with me and pretend she has no clue that we’re not discussing hypotheticals. Ultimately, I have a therapist helping me along in my healing, but it’s unofficial, unpaid, and I can brush it off if someone just so happens to ask.
We can’t have two Hart boys in therapy at the same time. The town gossip mills would burn up from overuse.
“We’re going to the shop,” Emma says as we pass the couple. “I’m tattooing ‘Rob has herpes’ on his ass, in case you guys wanna watch.”
“Pass,” Luke mumbles and does things to Ally beneath the blanket. But just like Ally is discreet about my shit, I keep my trap shut about hers. “Make it extra large,” he adds. “Add a drop shadow. And if you wanna go all out, add a drawing of a skunk’s ass. I think it’ll really perk it up.”
“I’ll see what we have time to work in,” Em says. “See you guys in a bit.”
“See ya.” Luke throws a hand in the air, a peace symbol, and a get lost all in one, but I don’t miss the flash in my peripherals, as I lead Emma out the apartment door and into the hall, of Luke bounding up from the couch and tossing his blanket like it’s on fire.
Shaking my head, I close the door before Emma sees his bullshit – though of course, she’d barely raise a brow at it – and turning back to the hall, we slow and smile for Mrs. Mabel when she pokes her head through her doorway.
“Hi, Mrs. Mabel.” Emma reaches out for a fast handhold. Just a second, a barely-there touch, but it means something to the elderly lady who still bakes for my brother and I – even knowing that I’ve been a complete and utter dick to Emma this year.
I’m fairly certain Em told her everything.
“Where are you kids off to?” she asks. “Out to find that godforsaken llama?”
“Ha,” Em chuckles. “It’s gone. Vanished! I lay awake late at night wondering if we’ll ever see him again.”
The woman rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re all cut up about it, young lady. I don’t know if you know this, but I went to school with Miss Dixie. She was a couple grades below me.”
“Really?” I ask. “I didn’t know that. Was she a bitch back then, too?”
“Well of course,” the old woman sniggers. “She was mean as a snake, and sneaky like one too. She always wanted the attention, and when she didn’t get it, she’d get vindictive and snarly.” She tilts her head a little to the side and smirks. “Kinda like someone else we know.”
“Ha!” Emma hip-bumps me and takes a step forward. We’re on a schedule, of course. My five-hour slot is now down to four hours and fifty-five minutes. “Burn on Grace-the-slut. You’ve got real good taste in women, Fart. Maybe you should go see if Miss Dixie wants a romp too.”
I roll my eyes and purse my lips, all for Mrs. Mabel’s sake. “Thank you, ladies. But I’d rather not discuss that. Emma? Four hours and fifty-four minutes?”
“Oh yeah! Time to run. We’ll be back later tonight, Mrs. Mabel. Ask Rob to show you his new ink when you see him.”
Mabel wrinkles her lips and looks me up and down. “More gang affiliations, I see. You’re bringing the property values down, you know?”
“Woman!” Em laughs. “I’m charging him out the ass per hour for my artwork. If anything, we’re bringing property values up. Count the hours of ink on his and Luke’s bodies, Mrs. Mabel. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars.”
“Or a ton of wasted time,” she shoots back with a playful smirk. “Get along now. I have a Bundt cake in the oven, and if the bottom burns, I’m going to toss it at you both from the balcony.”
“Probably knock someone out with it,” I laugh. “Enjoy your cake, Mrs. Mabel. See you later tonight.”
I follow along in EmKat’s wake, watch her ass in tight jeans as she moves, and glance up with lightning-fast speed when she peeks over her shoulder to catch my gaze.
Emma and I are completely platonic. Our moratorium went on for those weeks when we were more, then the shit hit the fan, now we’re back to us, like it all never happened. And though that’s more than I could have ever hoped for, I kinda want more.
But unlike Em and her adrenaline obsession, I know how to take things slow and steady.
At the bottom of the stairs, we push through the glass front doors and into the cold outside. The leaves have dropped away from the trees, and though the grass still lives, it’s bordering on brown, and awaits the nightly frosts that will eventually become inches and inches of snow.
We’re just weeks out from this year’s Stacked Deck tournament. I’m set to fight, though I can’t say my heart is in it. Ben and Will and Bry are all fighting in my division this year, and maybe I’m big, maybe I’m good at what I do, and hell, maybe I could even beat those guys, but it won’t be easy. They’ll smash my face in and make it hard to eat for the next two months, and honestly, I’m not all that keen for it.
So I’m training, and I’ll step up, but the chances of me trying hard enough to come even close to the belt is nonexistent. A man like me knows when to fold in a game of cards.
“My truck?” I ask. I speak mostly to myself as I lead her away from her not-a-racecar, and toward mine.
I open the driver’s side door, help lift her, and once she’s in and scoots across, I climb up next, and shiver when the cold gets into my bones.
Switching the engine on first to get the heater going, I then pull my seatbelt on, and take a deep breath when Em does the same, and the heat hitting her loose hair sends the scent of her shampoo wafting through the cab.
Emma smells like sex and candy, like Christmas and my birthday all rolled up into one.
“How long is Chute’s appointment once you’re done with me?”
She shrugs and settles in close to my side so she can wrap herself around my arm. “He wants something small, so probably a couple hours.”
“A couple hours?” I laugh and push the truck into gear. “Small and a couple hours aren’t really the same thing, EmKat.”
“Small, for Chute,” she explains, “is a couple hours. It’s not like he’s getting a tramp stamp.”
“I’m not ashamed of mine.” I li
ft my nose in the air – pride – and amble onto the street.
My truck is old, rattly, but it’s a part of me, just as much as my friendship with Em is. It was the first vehicle I ever bought, straight out of high school, and the day I bought it, Em rode with me, test drove it with me, and haggled with the guy who eventually slashed off almost half of his asking price.
She’s ruthless and mean when it comes to negotiations.
“So, I was thinking about Christmas this year,” I say, soft and noncommittal, even as nerves batter inside my stomach. “Um… like, the week between Christmas and New Year’s.”
“Yeah?” Em is barely paying attention to me. Instead, she’s studying the lights that line the street, the Christmas decorations that sit atop the poles. “What are you thinking about?”
“Well, actually, I was thinking of going away.”
“Oh yeah?” Still, she doesn’t look at me. “Even though you’ll be fighting in the tournament? You’re gonna be pretty sore, cooped up in the truck for however far you’re traveling.”
“Plane, actually.”
I drop small words, but they’re keys. They’re important.
“Um, there was this sale recently on flights that was basically impossible to pass up. Almost free. But the catch is, they’re the red-eye heading out on Christmas night… and the return is the red-eye on New Year’s. As in,” I clear my throat. “The ball would drop while I’m in the air.”
Em thinks on that for a minute, chewing her bottom lip, and still not looking at me. “Unfortunate timing, I guess. But I mean, if the prices were too good to pass up…”
“Right.” I slow at the intersection crossing Main Street, and when we get lucky and the light flashes green within seconds of stopping, I hit the gas and keep on going. “Crappy timing, but the price was crazy cheap, and the destination, I think, is too cool. Especially in the winter.”
We move through this sleepy town as snow begins to drift down. From one street to the next, past Miss Dixie’s – no statue stands guard at the front – around the next corner, and past the Checkmate building.