Page 54 of Emmett
Rowan’s car pulls up behind mine on the driveway, loaded down with the groceries that we stopped for on the way. I grab as many bags as I can carry in one trip and make my way toward the door with her on my heel, understanding already having been reached between us that she is to go in, sit down, and not do anything else for the next hour.
“Ooooh, what’d you get?” She asks as she weaves around me. She drops down to grab a package sitting in front of the door, looking it over as she lets us into the house.
“You havezeroboundaries, woman,” I laugh. “It could be a value-pack of condoms and a vibrating cock ring, for all you know.”
Her brow arches at me. “Gross. Did you actually order that?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I had,” I answer, dropping the bags onto the island counter. I gesture toward the package. “Open it, let’s see.”
She carefully pulls the lid off of the sleek black box, acting as if whatever is inside is going to bite her or otherwise scar her for life. Removing the lid reveals that the box is filled with black roses, packed tightly together with a strip of gold fabric around the base; there are at least a dozen inside, maybe more. On top of them rests a smaller box, black like the first.
Ro’s eyes fly open as she reaches for the smaller box. “Who is sending you David Yurman?” She gushes, and a heat splashes through me, bringing a panic with it that stabs intomy chest like a fire poker. She plucks the included card from the flowers and turns it over in her hand.
“Oh, you don’t—”
“’Pretty boys deserve pretty things,’” she reads. “‘Welcome home.’” She turns the card over one more time, then abandons it to look at every surface of each of the boxes, I assume looking for a name that I thank fucking god isn’t on either of them. “You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend! Open the box!” She shrieks, excitedly slapping me on the arm.
Laughing – both at Rowan’s reaction and with relief – I slide the lid off of the small, thin box. Sitting inside of it is a thin curb chain bracelet.
I’ve never had someone buy me jewelry before; or flowers, for that matter. I don’t know if it’s because women think that flowers are a feminine thing, or because they think thatwedo, but I’ve only ever seen one of my friends get flowers from a girl he was seeing. He loved it so much, he proposed to her just a couple of weeks later.
Ro snatches the bracelet from my hand and drapes it around my wrist, securing it with the clasp. “She must be pretty serious about you,” she tells me. “It’s not the ex with the sticky fingers, right?”
“God no,” I answer. “That ship didn’t just sail, it sank. On fire. With the entire crew on board.”
The ex in question was one of only three semi-serious girlfriends I’ve ever had, and the breakup was a mess; I met her at a party, which should have been the first red flag, and we’d been together for a little over a year when she decided to ‘borrow’ a few of my valuables and hock them for cash that she didn’t actually need; if she did need it, she could have just told me. I would have helped her out without a second thought.
Grand theft charges didn’t really bode all that well for our relationship lasting.
I bailed her out a couple of days later because I’m not a complete asshole; it was just a matter of showing her that you can’t do shit like that to people and not expect consequences. Yeah, I have a stupid amount of money, but I’m still aperson, for Christ’s sake.
Cackling, Rowan moves to unload a bag of groceries, and I smack her hand away in reminder of our deal. I take over, pulling things out of the bags and setting them near their designated place in the kitchen.
“So,” she says, moving to sit on the couch, “are you gonna tell me about her?”
Oh, let’s see; ‘she’ is not a girl at all, and I didn’t realize that we were actually seeing each other – at least not to the point of sending gifts to one another. There’s also the fact that he and my dad hate each other, and I still really don’t know why. Oh, and remember how I judged you so harshly for being with someone so much older than you? Well, I can put my foot in my mouth over that any time, now.
Other than that, it’s going swell.
“It’s still new,” I settle on instead. “I don’t want to jinx anything.”
“It’s new and she’s sending youDavid freaking Yurman?”
“And calling me pretty,” I add with a wink. “Don’t forget the part about me being pretty.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes dodging questions and putting away everything that we brought in, excluding the suitcases, which I just drop in the laundry room to make life easier for Tomorrow Emmett. Today Emmett wants a shower, a bowl, and some food.
With Ro finally on her way home, I drop down onto the couch, pulling out my phone, and I dial Nash’s number. It rings long enough that I prepare myself to leave a message before I finally hear his voice in the receiver.
“Pretty boy,” he purrs in greeting. It’s definitely not an insult anymore.
“You sent me gifts.”
“You made it home, then,” he says. “Are you alone?”
“Mhm. I’m about to—” I hear a click, and the line goes dead. “Hello? Did you just hang up on me?”
He absolutely did.