Page 109 of Emmett

“No one knows,” he answers with a deep belly laugh that warms every inch of my skin. “It’s so goddamn stupid.”

Despite neither of us actually enjoying the movie, we stay exactly where we are, watching the entire through until the credits begin to roll across the screen.

“Do you remember the first time that we met?” I ask him.

“It was only a couple years ago,” he laughs, “of course I do.”

I shake my head. “No, you weren’t working with your father yet, it was at an event. You must have been, what, sixteen?”

“Seventeen,” he corrects as the memory comes back to him. “Dad had gone after someone for selling pictures of me to some gossip site and he didn’t want me alone at the house. I was so pissed at him for dragging me to that thing.”

“It showed,” I chuckle. “Do you remember the first and only thing that you said to me that night?” He shakes his head. “I must have been zoned out or staring in your direction, because you looked at me and said ‘what the fuck areyoulooking at, Sasquatch?’”

That beautiful, full laugh pours of of him so loudly and with so much force that it shakes my body, and I can’t help but to join in it.

“That tracks for me, honestly,” he says. “I was an asshole for a while.”

“You had fire.”

“And you’re made of it, menace,” he laughs.

•

As long as I’ve known Colt Fowler, I don’t believe that I’ve ever been inside any of his homes. Stepping onto his marble flooring feels a bit like stepping into enemy territory, and for the first time, I feel as though I’m at a disadvantage. The stack of greasy pizzas on my arm may as well be a pavise and my oxford a gambeson.

I follow Emmett into the kitchen, where his stepmother-friend is busy piping icing onto the tops of cookies.

“You made it!” She shouts, I assume to Emmett, until she rounds the island and wraps her arms around me. “I’m glad you came.”

“I— thank you,” I tell her, shooting Emmett a questioning look which he simply answers with a smile.

As I offer an uncomfortable pat to her back, she taps the pizza boxes and tells me, “Those can go on the counter over there, and those,” she says, gesturing toward the cases of beer and soda in Emmett’s hands, “can go in the fridge.”

As we each put our items in their designated spaces, Emmett presses his body close to mine and he taps me with his phone, showing me a text message that he sent his friend earlier this evening.

Emmett:Be sickeningly nice to him so Dad and Davis feel like pricks if they aren’t.

I let out a loud laugh as I read it, and I fight the urge to smack him on the ass.

“You tried,” he shrugs, “now they have to.”

“You know that I would be fine if they didn’t, right?”

“Quit with the ‘I don’t need friends’ crap,” he tells me. “You deserve friends. Come make some.”

Dragging me by the hand, he pulls me toward the main room of the house, where the rest of his family is waiting; most of whom I have unfortunately already met. The Texan and his girlfriend sit at one end of a long couch, cozied up with one another. I don’t miss the way that the Texan’s arm wraps more tightly around the woman as I step into the room. Fowler sits in a large chair with an infant rested on his leg who is the spitting image of him, if not for the sandy ringlets tied into two ponytails at the top of her head. His wife moves to settle into the seat next to him and his arm drapes itself around her as she presses the pad of her finger to the baby’s nose. A younger girl is perched on the floor near the table until she sees Emmett approaching.

“Bubba!” Taking a running leap at him, she wraps her arms around his waist and he offers a loving squeeze in return. “Who’s he?” She asks, pointing toward me.

“This is Nash,” he tells her. “He’s my boyfriend.”

The little girl’s eyes flick between the two of us for a moment before she finally speaks. “You’re dating aboy?”

“Yep,” he nods.

“Cool,” the little girl shrugs. “Is he good at Pictionary?”

“I actually don’t know,” he answers.