Page 58 of Emmett
“Yeah,” she croons, “have plans with yourgirlfriend?”
If I didn’t love her so much, I could strangle her to death right here and now.
Dad’s eyes widen and snap to me. “Girlfriend?” He echoes. “When did that happen?”
Fuck. Me.
“Ah,” I stammer, “A…couple months ago, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would love to meet her.”
Once again, I’m lying to my dad. Once again, it feels like crap.
There’s only ever been that one part of myself that I didn’t share with him. Aside from that, I’ve always been able to tell him things, and I’ve never hesitated once to tell him about a woman that I was seeing. As soon as we hit that third date, I’ve told him. Always, without fail; which is kind of ironic, in the grand scheme of things, considering how terrible I was to him the one time he brought a woman around before he met his wife. And then I did the same thing with her, too.
Just telling him that it’s been a couple of months is probably already setting off alarm bells in his mind. I doubt he’s considering the possibility that the person I’m seeing is a man, but it’s out of character for me to not come to him about it and he’s absolutely going to take note of that.
“I don’t think we’re ready for that yet,” I tell him honestly. “We’re still figuring things out.”
“So he’s serious about her,” Ro croons, leaning in like she’s trying to tell him some kind of secret.
This is my own personal hell.
“I’m—” I scrub a hand down my face and sigh. “I’m going back to my office.”
“Emmett, she’s teasing,” Dad says. “Bring her to dinner next week.”
“Bye!” I wave to them as I hurry out of the room, wishing that I was anywhere but here right now.
This is what I get for keeping secrets; my lies stacking on top of each other until they blow up in my face. I probably could have said something in there. I could have told them both.
Maybe the fact that I didn’t say anything, that I actively chose not to, tells me everything that I need to know.
•
‘Enormous’ isn’t enough to describe the size of this house. My dad’s house is massive, and I can only imagine the kind of trouble he’ll be in when my sister starts walking and getting into things. We still lived with my grandparents when I went mobile; there’s not a lot of trouble a kid can get into in a basement. This place is even bigger than Dad’s. If it weren’t for the gated driveway, I would believe that I was standing in front of a hotel right now. Calling this place a house feels like an insult to it.
The front yard itself is probably two and a half thousand square feet of cement and decoratively-cut topiaries that sit in front of a beautiful Mediterranean style home, which absolutely looks like somewhere that Nash Montgomery would choose to live.
Ringing the doorbell, I almost wish I’d brought something with me to do, because if he’s on the other end ofthe house, it could take him years to get to the damn door. It’ll be my thirtieth birthday by the time he gets here.
The large door opens to reveal Nash, dressed in another crisp white suit and actuallysmilingat me. He gestures for me to come inside and I follow, taking a look around the interior of the house as I walk through. He doesn’t have much décor around the place; a few pieces here and there, but nothing personal that screams ‘this house belongs to someone.’ Considering what a flashy person he is, he keeps his home considerably more subdued.
A few harsh barks sound from the top of the curved staircase at the far end of the room and a good-sized doberman comes hurtling toward us.
“Who isthis?” I gush, crouching down to get on the dog’s level.
“That’s Moose,” Nash tells me, “and he will bite you. Get up.”
Before I even have the time to brush him off, the dog slams into me with the force of a goddamn train and knocks me from my heels to my ass. I scratch at his ears and he responds by licking me in the face with a fury.
“Moose, down,” Nash commands, and the dog stops what he’s doing and drops into a laying position with his tail wagging.
I give Moose another scratch behind the ear as I stand. “He’s beautiful,” I comment. “I always wanted one of those for myself. My dad has an Aussie and he’ssocool.”
“You know, owning your own home kind of means that you can get a pet,” he teases. “You don’t need to ask for your father’s permission.”
I follow Nash through the main floor, taking in the sprawling space so undecorated that it still has an echo whilehe speaks, telling me about the house. We pass five bathrooms, a handful of bedrooms, and a ridiculously large dining hall before landing in a room which is set up like a lounge. A baby grand piano sits at one corner of the room and a small bar sits at the opposite end with a few stools pulled up to it and a large TV is mounted to the wall behind it.