CHAPTER 45
Emmett
Richard
You think you can just quit this show
with one week to go? I’ve got news for you, asshole. I’ll ruin you.
Richard
Come back to set. Do your job. And
maybe if you try hard enough, I’ll
overlook your outburst. Otherwise? Kiss
this farm goodbye. Your family. Your
girlfriend. Poof. Gone. You’ll be a washed-up has-been like your daddy.
Richard
You don’t want to see what I’m capable of. I can promise you that.
The world is hazy and moving in slow motion around me. I see Richard’s texts,
but I don’t respond. I quit and I meant it. I also told him to contact my lawyer so
these messages just reek of desperation.
He knows he fucked up.
But so have I.
I waited too long to quit. And now Julia’s been caught in the cross fire.
I spend the drive back to Oma and Opa’s place berating myself for signing up for this show in the first place. Without it, I may not have met Julia again, but I also wouldn’t have ended up hurting her. And that might have been better. I’d prefer to live with that.
I tread through the front door defeated. I’m at a loss about what to do, short of filing a police report.
I feel ready to collapse into a ball, let myself crumble. I kick off my boots and head toward the addition that’s home to all four of our bedrooms. When I run into Opa in the entryway, he gives me an appraising once-over.
“You look like shit, son. Kinda thought you could hold your liquor better than that.”
Then he reaches for his shoehorn before heading toward the door.
“It’s not the booze,” I rasp. I’m too hollowed out to cry, even though part of me wants to. “It’s Julia.”
Opa’s brows furrow. “Julia, the girl you’re in love with?”
I sigh, almost afraid to admit it out loud in the wake of what’s happened today.
Might be easier to prepare myself for the inevitable. Maybe there’s a way to force myself to stop loving her, so that losing her doesn’t hurt quite this badly.
I settle on just shrugging.
“The Julia who’s currently in the crawl space, drinking bourbon with your sister?”
I freeze, head turning toward him, as though I’ve misheard what he just said.
“Yeah, you kids think you’re so smart. Acting like Oma and I don’t know about your little clubhouse.”
“I’m sorry. Right now? Julia is in the crawl space?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
I point below myself with a shaking hand. “Downstairs. With Parker.”
“Yes, unfortunately, the sound insulation in this house is not nearly as good as you all seem to think it is.”
Part of me wants to cringe over that revelation, but I gloss over it, deciding to share that tidbit with my siblings another day.
For now, I opt to race to the basement. My feet thump as I run down the stairs, striding briskly across the floor, past the pool table, and straight to the wood
panel door.
Without bothering to announce myself or knock, I rip it open and all the air leaves my lungs when I lay eyes on her.
Relief crashes over me—furious or heartbroken as she may be, at least she’s safe.
I fall to my knees and let out a sigh, chin dropping to my chest as I whisper, “Oh, thank god.”
In front of me, Parker and Julia are sprawled on their backs, an expensive bottle of bourbon between them, and they are laughing.
In time, they lift their heads as though it takes a Herculean effort to do so, eyes glassy as they struggle to focus on me.
“Emmie!” Parker shouts, pulling out one of my more embarrassing childhood nicknames.
Julia just regards me with wide eyes before requesting, “Emmett, say something.”
“I’ve been looking for you all day. I have searched hell’s half acre for you, Julia.
Not being able to find you scared the shit out of me.”
She looks at Parker with a firm nod before announcing, “No, the voice totally doesn’t match up.” They speak as if I’m not kneeling before them. As though I’m not present at all.
“Well, that’s great news! Today is looking up! We don’t have to tar and feather Emmett after all!” My sister rolls onto her side and reaches for the glass bottle, corking it. “All in a day’s work, old boy,” she says, patting the bottle like it’s done a good job.
Then, she gets on her hands and knees to crawl past Jules and out of our tiny safe space. “Oh, Emmie, I’m just so happy for you,” she mumbles, using my body as a handrail to move into the open basement behind me.
I make a mental note to check on her later. Because being drunk this early in the day is not what the most responsible of our foursome typically does.
But right now, all I can see is Julia. All I can think about is Julia. And I can’t stop myself from crawling across the Persian rugs and laying myself beside her.
I curl into her side, my ear on her chest, my arm over her ribs, my leg tangled with hers. I cling to her like a child might to their stuffed animal before
whispering, “I am so fucking sorry.”
She breathes in deeply, as though memorizing my scent before raking her fingers through my curls. “Me too. Me too.”
“I saw the footage. But you need to know that I quit the show. Then I slept here at my grandparents’ house last night after confessing to them that I blew it all up. Richard tried to force my hand but—”
Her fingers pause. “You quit?”
I nod.
“But the contract—”
“Doesn’t matter.” I cut her off, searching the depths of her pretty brown eyes.
“I’m not spending another moment on set, Julia. I’m not doing this to you. Fuck, I’m not doing this to us.”
Without another word, she rolls me onto my back, and she kisses me. And it tastes like bourbon, but it feels like relief.
Julia is drunk as a skunk. So when we’re finished making out, I carry her out of the house and down the dirt road.
I carry her right across that fucking set for every shitty, predatory producer to see, and I look Richard in the eye while I do it.
I go straight to my cottage, where I find the camera propped on the top shelf of the closet. I wave into it and say, “Fuck you, and fuck your show, Richard,” before tossing a cap over it and taking my girl to bed.
Curled up in bed, I hold her.
My fingers trail through her wild tresses in a continuous soothing motion. She smells sweet like bourbon and looks peaceful.
When I marched her into my room like a caveman and swooped us both under the covers, she succumbed to a drunken fit of giggles. But soon her laughing subsided, replaced by contented sighs, and then the deep, even breaths that come with peaceful sleep.
I watch her now. A pink tinge from long days spent in the sun kisses her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Dark eyelashes rest against her skin. They remind me
of a doll my mother once had, which Oma has held on to till this day.
Julia’s lips part slightly, her breath escaping gently between them.
It’s her hands, though. Her fingers grip the fabric of my T-shirt when every other part of her body has slipped into relaxation. They curl into the fabric, squeezing me, pulling me closer, as though begging me to stay.
The guilt of making her subconsciously second-guess my loyalty or my desire to be anywhere but with her hits me hard. It makes every joint in my body throb with pain.
I’ve spent years telling myself I’d never fall in love because it would hurt too much to lose that person. What I didn’t realize is that the ultimate pain would be the thought of not having her at all.
I slip my hand over her back, tugging her closer, needing her nearer. Her leg hitches over my hip, one hand slowly releasing my shirt as it slips up my chest, my throat, and around the back of my neck, as though she trusts me to carry her through this.
And I’m not sure I deserve that trust, but I know without a shadow of a doubt in my mind that I will work myself to death to be worthy.
For her, there’s literally nothing I wouldn’t do. It’s a shocking realization, especially for someone who’s toed the line of selfishness for so many years.
I stare at her doll-like face, realizing that she’s changed me profoundly, deeply.
She’s captured my heart and altered my entire mindset. She’s left an indelible mark on my soul, brought back to life a part of me that I didn’t even realize had died on a snowy back road on Christmas Day twenty-two years ago.
I never lost my ability to love, but I lost my desire to seek it out.
Until she found me.
A soft, contented sigh spills from her lips, and I’m taken back to that night on the cruise ship.
I’d sat awake watching her, counting her breaths, praying to a God I’ve never believed in for her to take one more. I’d stayed back, kept a respectable distance. I didn’t know her then. Not like I do now.
Back then, I sat at the foot of the bed. Now I can’t get close enough to satisfy my need to be near her.
“Emmett,” she murmurs, nuzzling her face into the crook of my neck. “Don’t go.”
I don’t think she’s aware of what she’s saying, or why, but I kiss the tip of her nose and burrow close. “There’s nowhere else for me to be.”
With her in my arms, I allow myself to rest and relax for the first time in days.
And when the sound of my phone ringing wakes us, we’re still clinging to each other, in a warm, tangled mess of limbs.
Julia groans, one hand reaching for her forehead as she rolls onto her back.
“This was not the way to ease myself back into alcohol.”
I chuckle, kissing the top of her hand. “Let me grab this. Then I’ll make you some food. Get you back on your feet.”
I reach over her to swipe my phone off the bedside table. The contract lawyer’s name flashing across my screen has me pushing up to sitting, going from dopey to alert in one fell swoop.
I lean against the bed frame and pull Julia into my lap before answering the phone with a gruff “Hello?”
The man’s nasally voice comes through the line. “Emmett, Maxwell here. You got a minute?” he says, getting straight to business.
Much like on our first call, he doesn’t mess around with niceties. The man comes off more like a walking, talking computer than anything else, which for my purposes suits me just fine.
“Yep, what do you got?” I say, glancing down as Julia peeks up at me out of one eye, then winces as though opening her lids causes her pain.
“Listen, I’m going to keep it simple for you,” he continues. “Your contract is pretty much unenforceable at this point.”
I blink, at a loss for what to say next. Though based on the way Julia’s head shoots up, I can tell that his voice has filtered down to her as well.
“Are you sure?”
“Based on the screenshots and text messages that you’ve sent me, yes. I don’t know if you want me to explain it in detail over the phone, but that camera in your house is truly the pièce de résistance.”
My eyes flash toward the door. “And what about having to pay back anything for quitting?”
“Unlikely. I’ve sent your letter of resignation just to cover our bases. But I suspect that when they see what a legal nightmare this executive is, they’ll pay out the contract and give you anything you want just to keep you from dragging them through the courts.”
Relief floods me at the prospect of getting out of this relatively unscathed. Paid
and free of Richard fucking Wadsworth.
“Anything I want?”
“Contractual sort of things. Not a Lamborghini.”
I almost laugh. Maxwell might be one of the most literal people I’ve ever interacted with.
“A letter of recommendation from the studio for the location manager?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Against my better judgment, my thoughts turn to Evelyn. I don’t like the woman. But I hate the way she’s been used and abused by Dick Wad even more.
“What about a guaranteed audition for future shows for one of the contestants?”
“That might be a reach.”
“What if Richard has been fucking her while promising it would help her get future roles?”
“Jesus Christ.” Maxwell sounds genuinely disgusted.
“I know.”
“Proof?”
“I saw them?”
I hear the lawyer hum from the other end of the line. “Would she corroborate your story in writing?”
“I don’t know. Evelyn and I are not exactly on great terms.”
“Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Appreciate it, Maxwell.”
“Yup. I’d also like to get proof of the camera’s existence myself, go over the contract with you in person, and possibly bring a technician out. Just to prove that the camera is functional, which means that until I can get there tomorrow, I need you to guard it with your life and make sure no one gets a chance to tamper with it or take it down. Going to make the trip to you tomorrow.”
“Okay, well, I’m here now, and I’ve covered the lens. The doors are locked but I don’t trust Richard not to try something if I leave.”
I swear I can hear Maxwell nodding through the phone. “Good. Well, don’t leave then. I’ll be there in the morning.”
With that, he hangs up on me and leaves me staring at my phone screen, and Julia doing the same.
“Am I still drunk, or did you actually just find a way out of this fucking shit show with a paycheck in hand?”
I hug her close and press a disbelieving kiss against her messy curls.
“Both, Jules. I think it’s both.”
