Page 64 of Emmett
“How are we looking in here?” I ask the crew as I step into the conference room.
The table is damn near full, covered in plastic scale models of light fixtures and décor pieces the event planner won’t be able to get for us. They finally got that 3D printer Logan has been going on and on about, I guess. Among the models, there are about a thousand different papers with various plans laid out on them.
“I mean, you have a lot of choices to make here,” Logan chuckles. “Figure we’ll shut the place down a few days before and get to work on it.”
“Awesome.” I grab a few of the models, turning them over in my hands, and I work to make a ‘yes’ pile and ‘no’ pile with them.
We spend the next hour and a half going over the plans, which also go into the designated piles. I’m going to have to go through and narrow down the ‘yes’ pile before they actually get started on it, but I have time. I’m not worried about that at all. This event is my chance to show everyone that I’m serious, not just the boss’s kid who won the game of favorites. I want everything to be perfect.
While the rest of the crew gets things hauled out to their big-ass F-450, Logan hollers “I’ll meet you out there, get everything loaded up and we’ll head out in a sec!” Closing the door behind him, he reaches into his pocket for something. “I’ve been trying to find the chance to give you this,” he tells me. “Take the damn thing.”
Confused, I reach my hand out to accept what he’s handing me; it’s just a little memory card, the kind that you’d find inside a digital camera or something.
“The hell is this?” I laugh.
“The only existing video of you getting a handy from a certain nightclub owner, dude,” he whispers at me through gritted teeth.
I swear to god my heart stops.
Panic swells inside of me, my blood pulses through my body like a riptide, and I know that it shows all over my face. My hands go clammy and suddenly my mouth is drier than the goddamn Sahara desert.
“Wh—” I stammer. “How did you get this.”
“I have more than one job, Em,” he tells me. “I don’t just install the damn cameras, I watch them, too.”
“Listen, it’s not— I don’t—” Christ, it’s hot in here. I’m on fire. I’m almost entirely certain that my entire body has burst into flame. “You didn’t— Nobody else—”
His finger taps the front of the memory card, still sitting in the palm of my now sweaty hand. “That’s straight from the camera,” he assures me. “I wiped the digitals. I pulled it as soon as I realized who the hell it was on there.”
I scrub a hand down my face, covering my mouth tightly as I stare down at the tiny plastic card in my hand.
Logan is one of my closest friends. I’ve known the guy for years and we’ve gotten into more trouble together than I think anyone knows.Definitelymore than my dad knows. All those lessons I was supposed to have learned? He was there for at least half of them, and Uncle Davis quietly bailed us out of most of them.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I whisper through my hand. “No one can know that I—”
He levels a look at me as if to say I’m an idiot for even thinking it. “How long ago was that?” He reminds me. “I’ve been holding onto the damn thing so it would only go to your hands.”
“Sorry. Thank you.” I clap a hand over his shoulder. “Seriously. Shit.”
As he leaves, I stuff the card into my breast pocket, trying desperately to stuff down the shame and terror swirling in my gut right along with it; but the pocket’s too damn small to fit it all.
Walking back to my office, I can’t breathe. It feels like there are hands wrapped around my throat, choking the life out of me. I stop into the bathroom, heading for the sink, and I use a shaky hand to turn the water as cold as it will go.
I cup my hands under the flow of the faucet, collecting the icy water, and I throw it over my face in an attempt to shock my system. Once, twice, three times. I try to catch my breath as I grip onto either side of the sink, my chest heaving as I rest my forehead against the mirror in front of me.
This was not supposed to happen.
This was never supposed to fucking happen.
•
“What the hell are we listening to?” I ask Nash.
An airy, dramatic melody floats through the air, echoing against the walls of his house, which almost works to make the vocals sound even more haunting than they would otherwise. There’s an instrumental track in the background, but the focus is clearly on the voice.
“It’s called an aria, pretty boy,” he tells me. “It’s from an opera. He’s telling a story.”
Catching me by surprise, he takes my hands in his and pulls me closer to him. Pressing our foreheads together, his nose rests just above the tip of mine.