Ignite

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were day dreaming about old times.”

My eyes snapped open at the familiar voice. Ashley, Emmit’s younger sister, stood in front of me. “Ashley!” I shouted as we both embraced each other with a scream.

“Oh my God! Did my big brother shit his pants when he saw you or what?” Ashley said as she looked me over.

I let out a chuckle as I shook my head. “Something like that.”

Ashley smiled. “Uh-huh. Well, that explains last night.”

With a confused look, I asked. “What do you mean?”

With a wave of her hand like it was not worth repeating, Ashley said, “Nothing. So, have you missed the scene?”

“Yeah. I didn’t really realize how much I had been missing it.” My stomach dropped slightly knowing what all I had missed out on these last few years.

Emmit had pulled up and the last person got out the same time Emmit climbed out.

After taking some pictures and signing a few things, Emmit gave his sister a wave and excused himself. Walking up to Ashley, he pulled her into his arms and whispered something into her ear. Ashley nodded and then raised her eyebrows.

“So, you and Adaline catching up?”

There was my full name again. For some reason, every time Emmit said Adaline instead of Addie, it felt like a knife sinking deeper into my heart.

“Yep! We just got here and walked up when I saw her.”

Emmit nodded. “She’s graduated nursing school. A year early on top of that.”

Ashley wiggled her eyebrows. “She always was a smarty pants.”

I let out a chuckle as I looked at Emmit. I wanted to tell him I had pushed myself hard and took extra classes so that I could finish and be with him. Of course, I’d use the excuse of seeing Momma and Daddy, but the real reason would always be Emmit.

“Well, I wanted to try and finish up as fast as I could,” I said before I even knew it was out of my mouth.

Emmit’s eyes pierced mine, and I swore it looked like he was holding his breath.

“Really? How come?” Ashley asked with a huge shit-eating grin on her face.

I glanced down to my feet and kicked an imaginary rock. “I guess I wanted to be able to catch a few races . . . see . . . um . . . my parents more often.”

Ashley gave me a you-ain’t-fooling-anyone look as she said, “Is that so?”

My eyes met Emmit’s as we both seemed to get lost in each other.

Dropping my mouth open, I fought for the words to tell Emmit how foolish I was, but nothing came out.

“Addie,” Emmit said as he took a step closer to me but stopped when some girl called out his name.

“Emmit!”

Emmit looked over my shoulder and frowned. Ashley attempted to intercept the two girls, but failed. The one threw herself into Emmit’s arms as she said, “I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

My stomach twisted into a knot as I imagined what she was talking about. Her arms were wrapped tightly around Emmit’s neck as he reached up and pried them off of him. Giving her a slight push away, Emmit gave her a polite smile. “Yeah. The club was fun.”

Club? When did he go to a club? And where is the blonde who was related to Jack?

“Oh, it was more than fun,” the young bleach-blonde said as Ashley grabbed her arm.

“Cookie, let’s go check out some other places.”