First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

“Did you sleep out there all night?” Wren questions over her shoulder as she moves around behind the check-in counter.

I pause a few steps into the room, jerkily running one of my hands through my hair, wanting to yank it out by the roots.

“Does it look like I got any sleep?” Cursing under my breath, I quickly give Wren a contrite smile. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. And no, to answer your question. I was on Emily’s porch until five. Since she never came home, I was hoping I’d catch her here at work.”

The fact that she didn’t come home last night, and I don’t even know if she came back to the island, that she slept somewhere else because of me—and no one would fucking tell me where she was, so I could see with my own two eyes that she was okay—drove me insane. It would have made it impossible for me to get any sleep, even if I were in my cottage, in a comfortable bed.

Wren sighs again as she powers on the computer. That she’s opening for Emily this morning is not making me feel any better.

“Yes, you are mad at me, because I won’t tell you where she is.”

After I got finished dealing with all the bullshit that comes with my job, I walked back into the restaurant to find Emily gone. I had to reassure Jeanie that I would handle everything when the only two words she said to me on Marcus’s phone before she hung up were “Fix this,” I needed to have a lengthy discussion with my PR team, and then another one with my business manager to make sure Tyler’s access to everything that has to do with me was immediately revoked, and put him on the hunt for a new agent as soon as possible. Twenty minutes of bullshit, when I should have been making sure Emily was okay.

No one knew where she went when I came back inside, and no one even saw her leave. My phone calls to her went right to voicemail, and every phone call and text I made to her friends all came with the reply that she was safe and that’s all I needed to know. It didn’t hit me until that exact moment, as I stood there in the middle of the private back room of The Varsity Club with my phone in my hands, just how much I’d fucked up.

And just how deserving Emily was at winning every hand of cards we played the night we met. The smile she gave me when she told me to go ahead and take care of Jeanie was clearly a better poker face than mine when I spent three seconds doubting everything she meant to me.

“You telling me she’s safe isn’t good enough for me, and you know it,” I remind Wren, trying and failing to keep the bite out of my words.

I won’t be able to calm down until I see her face again, say something annoying to make her smile again, wrap my arms around her, and hold her as close as possible, telling her I’m sorry and that everything is going to be okay.

What I should have fucking done last night, before I walked away from her and took that damn call. But I was vibrating with anger, still wanting to throw my fist into something at the unfairness of it all, and I just needed a few minutes to calm down and get my head on straight, not wanting to taint any of Emily’s light with my dark mood.

“Believe me, I know it’s not good enough. You’re so much like Palmer and Shepherd it’s almost scary.” Wren laughs softly before getting serious again. “We weren’t lying when we told you we didn’t know where she was. We still don’t, but we’re trying really hard to trust her and give her the space she needs. She just told us she didn’t feel like being at home, not to worry, and she’d be back soon.”

Pulling my hands out of my back pockets, I walk the rest of the distance to the counter, lean down, and rest my elbows on top of it.

“I fucked up,” I tell her, my voice cracking and my throat getting tight.

“Yeah, you did.” She nods, making me feel like the scum of the earth with the next words out of her mouth. “She wasn’t going to take the job, you know. And definitely not without talking to you first. The only reason she didn’t tell you right away is because she was afraid you would think exactly what you did last night. And I told her she was crazy, and I told her you would never in a million years think that. I told her you would be nothing but supportive if she took that job.”