Page 35 of Fever Dream
“Oh, Emmett,” she breathes the words, a hitch in her voice.
I only nod. “Yeah. It’s okay. I miss them, of course. Every single day. And you know how it is. Every birthday. Every achievement. Every Christmas. But I’ve gotten used to it.”
That’s a blatant lie.
They all hurt. All those days. All those benchmarks. They’re all excruciating. And that keeps me running. It’s easier to breeze past those big life moments than to sit with the fact that they’ll never be exactly what I wish they would be.
Julia doesn’t respond to that, but I can feel her gaze on me. I wonder if she can tell—she probably knows. After all, she’s lost a parent too. But rather than squirming in my own discomfort, I keep going. Plucking and talking. Multitasking and spilling my guts.
“That must have been a lot to navigate for a ten-year-old.”
I shrug. I don’t remember. Actually I do, but I don’t like to think about it.
“My dad got me on sheep, and then on broncs, and then on bulls. If it bucked, I rode it. And I was good at it. Plus, I loved it, and for all his shortcomings, he taught me well in many ways, so it wasn’tallbad. Anyway, when he took me out to the rodeo, he registered me as Emmett Bush. Carl Bush’s son. And that’s how I became known on the circuit. Never on a passport, never on a driver’s license, never in my head. I still do a double take when someone calls me Emmett Bush.”
My heart pounds as the words tumble out of me. There’s a part of me that wants to stop. But there’s a bigger part of me that feels relieved by sharing this. God knows I’d never lay these insights on Oma and Opa.
“It’s just never beenme. Emmett Bush is a coping mechanism. Emmett Brandt, well, that’s who I’ll always be. I have one season left in the WBRF, and then I’ll probably never go by Emmett Bush again.”
I finally chance a glance up at her, and I might be imagining it, but her eyes look glassier than before. Glassier than they even did when she came limping down the road covered in blood and prickles. Glassier than they did the morning she burst out onto my cabin’s balcony and accused me of god knows what.
There’s no pity in her eyes. No judgment. Instead, it looks a little like understanding.
I don’t know what to make of the way she’s looking at me.
All I know is that I like it.
CHAPTER 14
Julia
OUR EYES LOCKfor several beats. The only sound in the cottage is the soft tick of the freestanding grandfather clock in the living room, like a metronome hypnotizing us both.
His parents.The familiarity of that heartache splinters across my chest. But both of them? It’s incomprehensible. It’s too much for anyone to handle, let alone a little boy.
Now he’s an adult running from anything remotely sentimental. And in an instant, another piece of Emmett’s puzzle falls into place.
The punch of understanding causes me to blink, and it breaks the spell. His attention returns to tending to the backs of my legs. Gentle and intuitive. It isn’t lost on me that he picked up on my discomfort.
It’s charming. Rather than trying to erase it, he joined me in it. Vulnerable. Uncomfortable.
I don’t know what to say about everything he just shared with me. It feels precious somehow, like I need to cherish this side of him, handle it gently. I don’t want to spook him. I—
“Fuck!” I bark out as he plucks what feels like a full jousting lance from the back of my leg.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers from behind me, rubbing his index finger softly over my vertebrae. “Almost done. I got you.”
The pad of his digit is rough, calloused. But his touch is warm. Tender.
“It’s fine.” My voice comes out raspy, though I don’t mean for it to. They’re tiny prickles. They should not hurt this bad, but after so many the entire area is on fire.
He audibly swallows before asking, “I’m going to lift your shorts now. Is that okay?”
I nod, not wanting to do the weird raspy voice thing around him again.
“Jules.” I still. He’s never called me that before. “I’m going to need you to say it. I don’t want to—”
I cave and look back over my shoulder at Emmett. Complicated, infuriating, gentle Emmett. Our gazes clash, and I’m a tad irritated this situation is remotely intimate. And yet… here I am getting lost in this cocky motherfucker’s baby blues, all because he’s being wildly respectful and a whole lot more vulnerable than I knew he was capable of.
