"I don't mind getting these clothes messed up." I try to sound jovial but I sort of want to slap him upside the head for being such an idiot the last few days.
"Whatever. I'll be in my shop working if you need anything. But please...try not to need anything."
"Fine." I snap at him and I do see a little flash of guilt in his eyes but it only makes a brief cameo appearance before it exits stage left. He doesn't respond and walks out the door.
I huff a little to myself over the entire conundrum that is Nix Caldwell as I step up to the task. I don't recall whether YouTube said to do the main wall with a roller or do the trim with a brush first, so I go ahead and opt to start with the roller.
I recall with vivid memory dipping the roller into the pan, pulling it back and rolling it on the slope back and forth to get it evenly covered. I make my first strokes, rolling in diagonal crisscrossing patterns, enjoying the work.
I let my mind drift. It would be nice right now to just reflect over the hotness of Nix, but I'm actually a bit more occupied with the fact that my parents are coming to dinner tomorrow night. This lovely news was just sprung on me this morning when my mother called me.
I was running late for class, something that did not happen often, when my phone started ringing. I wasn't thinking and I pulled the phone out to answer before even looking at the Caller ID.
"Hello, Emily."
I felt guilty that my stomach dropped upon hearing my mother's voice. Plus I was still smarting over the fact she kyboshed my trust just because I dared to declare Journalism as my major. So, it was no surprise I went in for an early kill.
"Hi, Mom. What's up?"
I could hear my mother suck in her breath just a bit. She hated the title "Mom". I had grown up always calling her "Mother", clearly educated to do so from an age so early I don't remember receiving the edict. But I made the mistake of calling her "Mom" one day several years ago and I got a fifteen minute lecture on the proper title of a parent.
My mother, Celia Thorne Burnham, is where the old money comes from in our family. Oh, my father made great money as a trial lawyer before he went into politics, but our insane coffers come from my mother's family and goes back generations of Thornes. Thorne Enterprises, run by my Uncle Jim, is a conglomerate of corporations that dabble in everything from shipping to manufacturing to research and development.
In fact, my Uncle Jim is the one that years ago talked my parents into amending the trusts for me and Ryan so we could have full access to them when we turned twenty-one. Until that time, they were controlled by my mother, which is why she had cut off my monthly allowance.
And the funny thing is, outside of not being able to pay Nix the money I owe him, I don't miss the damn thing at all. I didn't use it for anything but buying clothes and trinkets.
Heck, I was kind of enjoying being one of the frugal, working masses now. I had even told Uncle Jim that earlier this week when he called to check in on me. He laughed so hard when I said that, he started choking and coughing. The memory of his amusement makes me smile.
Finally, my mother found her voice. "You know I don't like that, Emily. Please call me Mother."
"Yes, Mother," I dutifully said but I know I didn't sound repentant at all.
"I wanted to let you know that your father and I will be in New York tomorrow and we've made reservations at Le Bernardin for dinner. You need to be there at 7:30pm."
I gritted my teeth that she assumed that I would be available on such short notice. Even though I was. "Okay, Mother. That will be fine."
"I'll see you then."
I hung up and ruminated about the conversation the whole way to class. This conversation would have not bothered me a few years ago. It would have been...normal. But I won't lie...it hurts my feelings that the conversation failed to include her asking how I was, or how school was, or even that she missed me. Living in the real world and out of my sheltered environment, I have come to learn how cold and sterile my family could be. If it wasn't for Uncle Jim, who called me every week just to check in and see how I was doing, I would probably lose my faith in parenthood altogether.
My heart actually clenches up a little thinking about this. It's not like I ever had this type of relationship with my parents. My mother was always there, but emotionally distant. My father was emotionally closer, but never physically there. I wish they could be more normal.
And I wish it didn't hurt so much that they weren't.
Enough of this subject!
I'm getting depressed. I decide to put those thoughts aside for I am now in a mood to turn my attention to the hotness of Nix Caldwell. I am finding the movements of painting to be relaxing and the perfect environment to slip into a sexy daydream about him.
CHAPTER 14
Nix
I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to go check on Emily.
This week I've tried my damnedest to distance myself from her and I've done a good job of it. But I'm not liking it. And just like everything else in this world, that pisses me off.
I don't like having this unnatural attraction to her. And trust me, it's unnatural for Nix Caldwell to have any sort of passing interest in a female other than trying to get in her pants.
But I'm going to say it, and I'm going to kick myself for saying it. Emily is different.
She is.
I find her utterly fascinating and for a variety of reasons. First, she's apparently done a complete overhaul of her persona and character, because she deemed herself to not be a very nice person not all that long ago. I don't think many people ever go through life having that sort of epiphany and I'm strangely attracted to that.
Second, she is fierce. She's stood up to me, she's stood up to her parents, she's stood up to a guy that was probably intent on raping her, and she stood up to her psycho, stalker ex-boyfriend. She's tough as nails and I like that a lot.
Third, and most importantly, she seems to get me. I don't know the how's or the why's, but I have watched her handle me like a pro. She has found some secret to unlocking my defenses, yet she knows exactly when I've had enough. That, in and of itself, makes me start to trust her just a tiny, tiny bit. I feel like I could open up to her, but when I've had enough, she will back off. My dad is really good at that, too. Linc, not so much, but he's just being a pestering younger brother half the time, so I'll cut him some slack.
I wash my hands in the shop sink and dry them off. I have a ton of other stuff to do, but like I said...I can't stand it anymore and so I'm lifting my self-imposed Emily Exile.
As soon as I enter the house, I hear her singing. And while I've recently come to admire many of Emily's qualities...let's just say singing will never be one of them. I smile to myself as I picture her with earbuds in her ears, bopping to some tune that only she can hear.
As I walk into the living room, I'm momentarily stunned to find she's not singing to any music.
Nope. No earbuds in her ears.
She's just belting out a song on her own. No wonder why she's not in tune.
I have to almost bite into my tongue not to laugh out loud at her. She's singing the theme song from True Blood, and trying to replicate the low, low, baritone of Jace Everett. She's perched on the top rung of the ladder I left out for her. She's got a paintbrush in her right hand and she's balancing herself with her left hand on the ceiling. She's shaking her ass to the song she's singing...badly...
When you came in the air went out.
And every shadow filled up with doubt.
I don't know who you think you are,
But before the night is through,
I wanna do bad things with you.
I watch mesmerized as she belts at the top of her lungs, her gorgeous hips gyrating back and forth. Surprisingly, her paint line is super straight. She's clearly a multi-tasker.
And while her tune is off and she doesn't carry Louisiana hillbilly off very well, the words to the song and just imagining she is singing those words to me sends a wave of hot longing str
aight below my belt. I walk quietly up behind her and stand at the base of the ladder, looking up.
I don't know what you've done to me,
But I know this much is true.
I wanna do bad things with you.
I wanna do real bad things with you.
I clear my throat. "Who do you want to do bad things with?"
Emily shrieks and turns around so fast, her flip flop gets stuck in the ladder rung and she pitches sideways. The brush flips out of her hand and hits me on the side of my face with a wet slap, before grazing down my neck and bouncing off my shoulder. I reach out instinctively as she falls and she slams into my chest.
I had a brief moment of panic--just a mere second--when she started to fall. Then when I caught her in my arms, panic turned into something hot and carnal.