Goddammit. Right away, I looked around for a waitress or busser or someone I could ask to get Evie for me, but everyone was running around, far too busy to notice my look of distress.
“What, you couldn’t make it more than a week?”
My head snapped back when I heard Emmett’s question. I stared in disbelief.
“Are you really trying to dare me into staying, Emmett? Because I’m not thirteen anymore, and it’s not going to work,” I hissed.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“I can’t talk about this right now,” I muttered with a self-conscious glance at Quinn and her friend. They were wide-eyed, looking both tantalized but guilty as they watched my personal drama unfold. “Seriously, Emmett,” I whispered just loud enough for him to hear. “Please don’t do this to me here. Not at work.”
“Then where, Aly? Because I know you’re not going to come home tonight.”
My heart twisted. I wasn’t sure why his phrasing made me so sad, but it did, and suddenly I was waving over my hostess to take over while I talked to Emmett outside.
Rounding the corner, I walked us away from the window and out of sight of my captivated audience at the bar. I tried not to get distracted by the gorgeous girls who passed by and checked Emmett out so hard I felt that stupid, nonsensical pang of possessiveness.
Are you fucking nuts? I asked myself because in what world did it make sense to reject a man but hate the idea of him being with somebody else? See? This was another reason why it couldn’t work. Because like he always did, Emmett made me crazy. He made me angry and sensitive and irrational, and I couldn’t afford to feel this scattered for a second longer.
“This is far enough, Aly – just fucking talk to me already,” Emmett demanded, his footsteps finally stopping behind me. My heart was pounding as I spun around to find him standing there, arms out, looking somehow pissed off, fired up and exasperated all at once. “What is it? Huh? What are you leaving for? Just tell me that.”
I felt my throat already trembling as I tried to word my reply.
“If you really need to know, Emmett, it’s because I woke up this morning and felt like shit about myself,” I confessed harshly, my stomach clenching at the instant look of hurt on his face. “I cried in the bathroom for ten minutes because as good as I felt last night, I felt stupid this morning. I remembered the fact that I don’t trust you, Emmett. Every time I think long enough about you, I feel angry. I feel embarrassed and stupid and lonely, so even if I did want you, in what world would it make sense for me to be with you?” I demanded, my eyes stinging. “Answer me that.”
“Who’s the one you’re really pissed at? You answer me that,” Emmett sneered as he came close to me. “You think I’m the enemy, Aly, but if you just take a second to remember everything that happened twelve years ago instead of running from it and sticking to whatever story you made up in your head, you’ll know that as much as I fucked with you in high school, I’m not the one who’s really your problem. I’m not the one who ruined everything. You just want it to be me.”
My stomach lurched.
“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “That’s not true, that’s – ”
Fuck. I searched myself for a comeback but came up pathetically empty.
“You know what, I can’t talk right now, Emmett,” I muttered, feeling the heat of his glare as I rushed past him.
“No, you won’t talk about this – now or ever, because you don’t like thinking about how I’m just your scapegoat,” Emmett ground out as he followed. “You don’t like thinking about how it’s easier to blame me and let the real asshole off scot-free.”
His words hit me like a sledgehammer but I refused to react. My heart was pounding out of my chest by the time I reached the door, but like some kind of masochist, I turned around when he said my name and let him drop one last scathing remark.
“You lied to yourself all these years, Aly, and I let you because I knew you were hurting. I figured I might as well let you believe what you wanted, because I was never going to see you again,” Emmett growled furiously. “But now that you’re here, I can say it – I’m not the one who made your life miserable. It wasn’t me, and fuck it, I’m done letting you pretend that it was,” he seethed before turning around and forcing me to stare at his back as he walked away.
14
ALY
Had anyone told me even a week ago that I’d have a date with Drew Maddox but desperately not want to go, I’d have probably laughed in their face and continued my giddy Empires fangirling.
I mean for God’s sake, the man was literally my favorite player on my favorite team. The team I’d grown up watching with my family.
Yet I wasn’t remotely excited to see him.
“Evie… no,” I protested weakly as she sat on the floor next to her closet, taking out her one and only box of Louboutins. “Seriously. I can’t.”
“Except you can,” she countered, opening the box. “And you will,” she added, crawling over to manually insert my feet into each glossy, patent leather pump.
Sitting at the end of her bed, I raised my eyebrows. Damn. They felt incredible and if I didn’t feel so incredibly shitty and confused since yesterday morning, I would’ve probably wept over the glory of having Louboutins on my feet.
“I mean you have to look good, Aly. You’re going on a date with Jude Maddox.”