Page 2 of Emmett
“Sure we do.”
“Can we get a big one?” I ask him. “With a big yard and a pool and a basketball net and a—”
Dad lets go of my hand when we get to the bottom of the stairs and he crouches down in front of me, straightening my shirt and smoothing back the piece of hair that Uncle Davis pulled out.
“Iftoday goes well, I’ll show you a few places and you can pick one out for us,” he tells me, tapping his finger against the middle of my chest. “How does that sound?”
“Good,” I tell him. My arms shoot out in front of me and I give him two big thumbs up.
Uncle Davis clears his throat from behind us and he bends down real low so his mouth is next to my ear. “I call shotgun.”
He takes off running toward Dad’s car and I drop my backpack on the ground so I can catch up with him faster, running as hard as my legs will let me. “Hey! No fair!” I shout after him.
Maybe Uncle Davis can live with us in our cool new house.
ONE
Emmett
Present day
I’ve always been sure of who I am. I’ve never questioned it for a second.
I have my dad to thank for that; whether it was trying lacrosse and deciding to swap it out for the honors’ society and art history club, buzzing all of my hair off (which was an admittedly bad decision), trying out smoking, or diving headfirst into going for my master’s, nothing that I ever did was wrong.
He was always proud of me, and he stood by me through my mistakes, letting me figure out on my own who I was and what I wanted from this life.
Now that I’m a few weeks into being a shareholder in Fowler Enterprise, I feel more confident than ever standing on my own two feet, not relying on anyone to help me get by or make the world move for me. I don’t have to use anyone’s name to make things happen; my own name holds power now, and that feels pretty damn good.
“You can bring that in through here,” I tell the pair of movers holding my old couch as I press the button on my brand-new garage door opener. “Thanks, guys.”
I hoist one of the boxes into my arms and follow behind them, directing them to the spot just to the right of the frontdoor where I want the couch to sit before I move toward the kitchen and drop the box on the counter.
Once all of the bigger pieces are brought in, I pull out my wallet and pass out hundred dollar bills to each of the movers, thanking them again for their work.
After closing the door behind them, I rest my hands on my hips and take a look around the house. It’s nothing extravagant; I’m a single guy and I don’t like to show off, so I don’t need a ton of space.
‘You really should get something bigger,’my dad had suggested.‘This place is awfully small. You won’t always live on your own.’
‘Oh, leave him alone,’his wife – my closest friend – scolded him.
While he might see a small, cramped space, I see more than enough room and – most importantly – freedom. Sure, I got out of my old apartment, but the coolest part of all of this to me is that I bought this place with my own money in cash, and I have no student debts to worry about, either.
So yeah, compared to the people around me, a three-bedroom, single-story home might seem small. But to me, it looks like three thousand square feet of success.
The first thing I do is get my bluetooth speaker set up and connect it to my phone, then I fire up my playlist of current favorite songs, blaring it throughout the house. I spend the next several hours unpacking a few of the boxes that I brought with me, putting everything in them away before I decide that I’ve earned a break long enough to watch a movie and grab something to eat before I have to leave for the night.
•
Fed, showered and rested, I tuck the tip of a pre-roll between my lips and light the end, pulling in a breath of earthy smoke as I head for the boxes laid out in my new bedroom.
I really should have planned this move better, but I wanted to get in here as soon as I got the keys, and I’m probably going to be too hungover tomorrow to do much of anything if Uncle Davis has anything to say about it. He’s not my actual uncle, he’s my dad’s best friend and we’ve called him my uncle since I was in grade school, so it just kind of stuck.
Digging through the boxes, I pull out a black t-shirt, a pair of dark wash jeans, and a deep green bomber jacket. I grab a pair of black sneakers from another box and throw them on before digging out some pomade to comb through my hair with my fingers.
It takes me all of ten minutes to get ready, throw on a couple spritzes of cologne and be out the door. I don’t get why women take so damn long; any time the girls join us on nights out, they start getting ready at goddamn four in the afternoon to leave by nine. It’s not like any of them actually need that much time, they’re already good-looking.
Tonight, it’s just the guys. A group of us are heading to Arcane to scope it out; it’s Nash Montgomery’s new club, and people have been talking about it for weeks all over social media, so it’s time to finally see what all the fuss is about.