Prologue
ALY
I tried to see what others saw in him.
I’m sure the height hit them first. Six feet and two inches of pure athletic muscle was bound to grab attention. I got that.
I got that the stupid thing he did with his hair made all the girls and even teachers swoon. Of course, I wasn’t convinced he didn’t know exactly what he was doing there. I mean who honestly ran both hands slooowly through their hair in the middle of talking to someone? It was ridiculously sensual – especially when it always left his hair so perfectly tousled, like he’d just rolled out of bed.
Then there was his voice. Low and kind of gravelly. The dark hair, light eyes combo – that was a thing too. I got that.
But I just couldn’t get past what a prick the kid was. Our dads were best friends, and having grown up with Emmett Hoult, I couldn’t see the appeal that everyone saw. All I could see was what they couldn’t.
When the world looked at Emmett, they saw confident, devilish, sexy.
I saw cocky, spoiled, arrogant. Your typical all-American jock.
I saw the kid I was forced to spend every weekend and vacation of my childhood with – the one that Xeroxed the worst photos he could find in my family albums, just so he could tack them all over my crush’s locker.
I saw the kid who got away with literally everything, no matter who I complained to. Teachers, coaches, even the school principal looked at me as a nuisance. A thorn in their side. All they wanted was to adore Emmett Hoult in peace – to be completely charmed by his playful, laid back nature. The last thing they wanted was to have to acknowledge me, the surly buzzkill whose griping would get him undoubtedly pulled from practice, something the football team “just couldn’t afford.”
Even my parents defended his every move.
“It’s just a sibling rivalry,” Mom would brush it off. “You grew up together. You’re practically family. But give it a few years, Aly, and I’m sure you’ll get on great.”
Right. I gave it a few years, and all Emmett did was get worse.
In high school, all it took was one evening of his mom comparing his bad friends, bad grades or bad behavior to mine, and I’d wind up paying for it with a week of torture at school.
His teammates snickered at me in the halls. He spread the nickname “Baldy” when I botched my haircut sophomore year. By the time I was a junior, I was down to just three friends who didn’t worship him or use me to get close to him, and he told me – “just for shits and giggles” – that he’d hook up with every one of them so I’d have no allies left to gripe to.
And he did precisely that.
In short, with very little effort involved, Emmett Hoult took over my entire life.
At home, Dad raved nonstop about his athletic achievements. At school, he ruled every last hallway and classroom. Even at night, in the privacy of my bedroom, I couldn’t escape the constant texts from friends he’d “mysteriously” ghosted. They sobbed for me to help figure out what went wrong, or begged me to subtly bring them up to Emmett when we saw each other that weekend. They didn’t seem to realize he’d never hang out with them again – that he only hooked up with them to get under my skin. He didn’t even remember most of their names.
Simply put, the kid was an asshole.
He always got what he wanted, he didn’t have to try, and he never even knew how much his antics made me cry every night. While I was completely miserable, he just carried on with his perfectly charmed life.
And so I hated him.
For all the many stunts he pulled on me, I despised Emmett Hoult. But amazingly, all that crap happened before the last week of junior year.
That was the week he truly ruined my life.
1
ALY
Unbelievable.
Of course his ‘summer cottage’ is more like a frickin’ resort, I thought as I walked through the house.
I had arrived at Emmett’s East Hampton home a good ten minutes ago, but I wasn’t over it yet. It was going to take awhile to get over this four-bed, six-bath masterpiece of a dream house that Emmett apparently visited just a few weekends per summer. Seriously. This place looked like an ad for Ralph Lauren Home. It had its own wine cellar, pool and outdoor kitchen. It was more beautiful than any home I’d be able to afford in my life, yet it was basically just his side piece home – the bonus one he dropped by if he happened to find himself in the mood.
This frickin’ guy. What the heck does his apartment in the city look like if this is w
hat his summerhouse looks like?
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or scowl as I imagined the life Emmett Hoult probably led these days. Over the years, I’d tolerated some Emmett-related updates from my parents, but never enough to get a clear picture of who exactly he was now.
Honestly, I didn’t want to know.
Because thinking in depth about Emmett Hoult generally led me down a road of jealousy, bitterness and countless what if’s. It made me think of all the bad memories I’d swept under the carpet and tried to tell myself I was fine with when I wasn’t, so I staunchly avoided the topic.
That is until now.
“Um… Aly?”
Evie was unblinking when she finally caught up with me in the guest room, dragging my last suitcase in behind her. Her wide eyes went wider as she drifted inside, stopping in front of the door to fully soak in everything from my canopy bed to the lush, white curtains framing the window overlooking the pool.
“So… you said you were crashing at a family friend’s house,” she said slowly, narrowing her big eyes at me. “And I just wanted to inform you that this is not a house. This is a baby mansion.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I know. I mean I didn’t know before I walked in here with you, but I had a feeling it would be something ridiculously nice. That’s just… Emmett Hoult. His life is awesome.”
“No wonder you hate him,” Evie murmured with fascination as she floated into the bathroom across the hall. The echo of her gasp had me guessing it was pretty big in there. “Aly! Holy fuck, this shower is bigger than my apartment!”
I laughed as I crossed the hallway into the bathroom, my eyebrows arching high at the marble luxury that lay within.
“Jesus, Emmett,” I muttered under my breath, taking in the absolute spa of a bathroom. “We could actually throw a decent party in here,” I snorted, opening the shower door to peek inside at the ceiling showerhead and waterproof speakers.
“Or you could just let me move into your bathroom for the summer,” Evie said as we returned to the bedroom. “I mean Mike might not even notice that I’m gone,” she cracked, though I could tell from the way she winced that she found nothing funny about her own joke.
Mike was Evie’s fiancé of ten months and her boyfriend of eight years. They’d been together forever but were, to put it lightly, on the rocks as of late. It was precisely why Evie couldn’t take me in. Aside from the fact that they lived in a tiny studio, and aside from the fact that Mike had firmly said no, their tension these days was already like a third roommate. Trying to make a relationship work was hard enough, so they definitely didn’t need the burden of my homeless ass crashing on their couch.
“Well, if you ever do need me to set up pillows and a comforter in that shower, I’m more than happy to,” I offered to make Evie laugh.
“I actually could take you up on that. I mean you’re sure he won’t drop by at all this summer, right? Like, not even once?”
“Trust me, I triple-checked with his mom when I picked up the keys. She said her friends were just staying at this place because he’s always out of town. He’s at like, some resort for the next three weeks. Then it’s off to his house in Hawaii till the end of summer.”
“Jesus, how rich is this guy?” Evie asked, sounding both amazed and disgusted. “And what exactly does he do for a living?”
“I actually have no idea,” I mumbled, rereading the texts Emmett’s mom sent me when I double-checked about him being away.