“That’s because I’m not,” I say, hoisting my body over hers and trapping her between my arms. “Is that a problem?”
“Maybe,” she replies innocently, playfully rolling her eyes and letting her fingers dance across the covers, “but I could be convinced otherwise.”
I take that as my invitation to strike, but right before I can press my lips against hers, my phone rings. I lay my head on her chest and groan.
“You don’t have to answer it,” she says, grabbing my face with both her hands.
“Let me see who it is,” I sigh, rolling over to the other side of the bed. When I pick up my phone and see the screen, I frown.
“When’s the last time you talked to him?” Emery asks, grabbing my hand. When she curls her fingers between mine, something stirs inside me.
“The night we had dinner there. I’ve been avoiding his calls,” I say, watching the call go to voicemail like all the others. “Does that make me a jerk?”
“I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask,” she says, lying back on her forearms with a solemn straight line across her lips. “I haven’t spoken to my parents in months.”
“Really?” I ask, setting my phone down.
“Yeah,” she breathes out, letting her eyes settle distantly across the room. “The only reason I still talked to them was because Patrick encouraged me to. He was really big about family and didn’t understand why I wasn’t close to mine. Eve cut them off a long time ago, and Eli is still under their thumb because of school, but once that’s over, I doubt he’ll talk to them either.”
“May I ask why?” I question, treading carefully. Emery doesn’t talk about her parents much, but I can feel the animosity there. I felt it when we were teens, too.
She swallows hard, but nods with a gentle smile. “My parents were very results-driven people. I always felt like I needed to achieve or offer something to get their attention. Eve never had any issues because she was always…Well, Eve. She’s a doctor, for Christ’s sake. I, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly the golden child, and they often pitted Eve and me against each other. There was a point when I hated my own sister because of how our parents constantly compared us to one another. But then Eve and I started to get close again, and I realized that it was never really about us. It was about them trying to control the narrative of what they thought a perfect family looked like.”
She takes a deep breath and then exhales slowly, letting all the tension in her shoulders fade away. “So, when I stopped competing with Eve and stopped trying to earn their love, they stopped caring, and I stopped calling. I only went to holiday stuff for Patrick, but now that he’s gone, I don’t feel the need to even do that.”
I shift my body closer to hers, easing her head onto my chest. “It sounds like they never deserved you. A parent’s love shouldn’t be conditional.”
She lets out a soft, humorless laugh. “It took me a long time and a lot of therapy to realize that. But I’m slowly but surely getting there.”
I cup her cheek and tilt her chin toward me. “I hope you know that I will always be here for you. I want to be your biggest cheerleader even when you don’t think you deserve one.”
Her lips twitch into a barely there smile. “Have you always been this sweet, or is this a post-sex haze that I need to get used to?”
I squeeze her jaw. “Definitely a post-sex haze thing. If word gets out that I’m sweet, I might lose my bad boy reputation.”
“I thought you wanted to lose it,” she says, waggling her brows.
I let out a deep, full-bodied laugh and shake my head. “You’re right. I guess I need to work on a new reputation. I’m thinking devastatingly handsome mechanic by day and devoted boyfriend who gives ridiculously good head by night.”
Her smile dips, catching on the label we haven’t discussed yet. I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear and let my hand hover there. “We don’t have to label anything yet. I know we just started seeing each other again.”
Emery shakes her head out of my grasp and pulls back. “Knox, I told you I love you. I think I can handle being your girlfriend.”
“Why did you look freaked out then?”
She sighs, mussing up her bangs before meeting my eyes again. “Because I’m a pessimist at heart. I keep waiting for the universe to remind me that I don’t get to have a happy ending.”
I reach out, pulling her back to me. I had a feeling I’d have to do that a lot, but it was worth it for her. “It’s a good thing I have a habit of proving the universe wrong.”
Her lips quirk into a comforting smile before curling her body into mine, and then she pokes her head out with aheavy look in her eyes. “Speaking of happy endings, I think you should call your dad back.
I blink hard, thrown off by the quick switch-up. It’s amazing how she can go from vulnerability to practicality all in one breath.
“I thought you were all for cutting parents off?” I ask with a light grin.
Emery rubs her lips together in deep thought before speaking. “Yes, but I can tell your dad cares about you. He wouldn’t keep calling if he didn’t. He thinks he’s making the right call by not co-signing and, in a way, protecting you. You’re a hard worker, Knox, but there are still a lot of things that can go wrong with a business despite how much you care about it. Plus, it took me a long time and lots of disappointment to make that decision. But I can tell your family loves each other. I can tell because I never had it.”
I look at my phone again, letting Emery’s words sink in. She’s right. He did care and even if I saw it as him not believing in me, I knew his intentions were good. He wanted to protect me from everything this town had thrown at me in the last year.
