Page 34 of Emmett

There’s something behind those eyes…

I’m fine with playing the villain; I’ve done it for so many years, it’s become a part of me, with the comfort of a second home. If I have to tuck deeper into that role to pull it out of him, so be it.

FIFTEEN

Emmett

Sitting outside of my window in my boxers, I pull in a lungful of bitter smoke and hold it for a few seconds before trying – and failing – to blow rings of smoke out of my lips and into the crisp breeze which signals that summer is nearly over.

I pull the pipe to my lips again, flicking my lighter over the bowl, and I ready myself to take another hit.

“God, that stuff stinks,” Rowan gripes as she sticks her head out of the window. “It’s like you ran over a skunk…and then poured gas on it.”

I choke on the smoke and my laughter, pounding a fist against my chest a few times to clear it up. “Sorry. Why are you still up?”

“Sarah,” she answers, pulling herself through the window enough to sit on the edge of it, keeping her legs inside. “Why are you?”

I shrug. “Thinking, I guess. Trying to figure something out.”

“Wanna think out loud?” She asks, angling her body more toward me in an effort to show that she’s interested. “Sometimes that helps.”

“I—” I sigh. “I thought that something was a fluke, but it wasn’t, and now I don’t know where that leaves me.”

She considers for a second, pinching her lips together, before she finally says, “Maybe you don’t have to know. Maybe you just…be. Let whatever happens, happen.”

“I think letting it happen is part of the problem,” I chuckle. “It was never supposed to in the first place, and now I’ve let it happen again. And I was glad that it did.”

“Well there’s your answer, you big dummy,” she says, reaching over to smack my arm. I jump in response and she scrunches her brow at me. “If you weren’t stuck in the dark place, you wouldn’t be second guessing something you were glad about.”

“It changes everything I know about myself,” I tell her.

“So let it.”

As if it’s that easy. Just uproot everything that I ever knew and flip it all on its ass, then go about business as usual. She acts like I’d just be changing my order at the drive thru, not my entire identity.

“Invite the good thing in,” she pushes. I turn away from her to take one last hit from the nearly-spent bowl and blow the smoke away from where she’s sitting. “Even if it scares you.”

“So wise in your youth,” I tease, picking up my supplies. “Come on, I gotta take a shower.”

She hops back into the room with the baby monitor in hand, and I climb in through the window after her, moving to put my stuff back in its not-so-hidden-anymore hiding place. The monitor crackles to life with the sounds of my sister fussing, and for a second, I consider offering to handle it; but I really don’t want to pick her up with smoke clung to me.

“I have to go get her, but,” Ro lifts herself up on her toes and wraps her arms around my shoulders, locking me into a crushing hug, “promise me you’ll try to invite the good in.”

“Okay,” I concede,and her hand whacks into the back of my head because I didn’tpromiseher.

I just can’t promise that I’ll do something that I don’t understand. I can’t promise to do something that terrifies me.

•

I wrap a towel around my waist as I step out of the shower, and I grab another towel to scrub away the excess water still in my hair.

‘Invite the good in.’

I scoff at the thought.

There’s nothinggoodabout Nash Montgomery, and that is just one of the many problems here. If any one of us were on fire, he’d be the first in line with marshmallows, ready to roast them.

The only reason that he’s even remotely interested in me – and I use that term very loosely – is because somehow, he keeps getting the upper hand, and the guy likes control. Having control over the son of someone he’s hated for years is like handing him the keys to the goddamn city and calling him God.