Page 56 of Emerson

Emerson

“So how much did you have to drink?”

I knock my head back on the headrest and sigh. “None, Derrek. Didn’t you hear what I said? If I drank, I knew he would drop me back out the window on my ass. So I went out and danced, sober. While all my friends had cocktail giggles and were having the time of their lives, I was contemplating whether or not I would get my back blown out tonight. And like, what the fuck is that? You know? Like, how slutty am I actually to become a damn nun for this man?”

Derrek snorts, turned as much as he can be in the driver’s seat. He offers me one of the Doritos from the bag in his lap and shrugs, chomping it himself when I shake my head. “I don’t think nuns are slutty and contemplating getting anything blown out, man.”

“I shouldn’t go in there, right? I should not go in there, and I definitely should not get in bed with him. I’ve already made multiple bad decisions where he is concerned recently. And you know whose fault that is?”

Derrek pauses with a chip mid-air. “Uh, yours?”

“Warren’s,” I say, pointing to Derrek. “This is Warren’s fault. If he wouldn’t have done whatever the hell he did to ruin his life, I would still be blissfully ignoring Dillon, and he would be letting me. I wouldn’t be raw dogging club nights and dreaming of one specific curved dick and how it would…”

Derrek’s eyebrows are halfway up his forehead, and he’s munching vigorously on his chips.

“Sorry, oh my God, sorry. Why didn’t you just tell me to shut up?” I pull a twenty out of my bag and hand it to Derrek. “Five-star Uber service, as always, Derrek. Maybe next time you see my name pop up, you should decline.”

“Nah, man, this is peak entertainment for me.”

“Glad my life is amusing.” I pause with my hand on the door handle, then turn back to Derrek. “Maybe we should play rock, paper, scissors. If I win, I go inside. If you win, I give you another twenty, and you drive me to the apartment building at the corner.”

“Deal.”

Derrek wins.

I give it two minutes inside my apartment. Eleanor sits by the entryway, glaring with her little judgey eyes and flicking tail. I flip her off before locking back up.

Derrek is still outside the apartment building when I push the door back open. He grins, biting into another chip. I roll my eyes and get back in the back of his car.

“I’m just going to go in there and tell him we can’t do this anymore, actually.”

“Whatever you wanna tell yourself, Sister Emery.”

It’s well after one in the morning, and no one else is around. I’m not even to the side of the house by the time Derrek’s car lights swing wide and disappear as he pulls out and leaves. Then it’s just me, my racing heart, and my never-ending thoughts.

Joy.

“This is probably a mistake,” I whisper to the night, continuing my trek around the side of Dillon’s house. I stop dead in my tracks when I see that the old, plastic lawn chair I had dragged over from the backyard the first night I decided this was the best idea in the world has been replaced with a much sturdier-looking wooden table. Small, square, so it sits flush with the siding, and taller than the chair, so I can do my climbing much easier. “Such a terrible idea.”

God, he’s so gross.

I climb up on the table and look through the open window. Nothing but the screen between me and the dark room on the other side. Part of me was hoping he would be the smart one in this situation. He’s older; he should have obviously locked this damn window so young, horny, sexually frustrated men couldn’t climb through it.

The metal screen frame squeaks like it always does when I push it up, and my blood pumps quick and restless through my veins when I hoist myself up and crawl through.

“Dill?” The form on the bed is face down, one leg bent off to the side, not covered by the sheet. His arms are folded under his pillow. He’s sleeping.

I inhale, filling my lungs with oxygen drenched in him. And fuck, but it just does something to me. Something absolutely terrible. It soaks into my skin and fills my head so thoroughly, I can’t think outside of him. Outside of this, why I’m here, and what I want.

I should turn around and go home. Go home to my judgey cat, my rooms that don’t smell like cedar and musk, and my bed that doesn’t have Dillon in it.

“Dill?” I whisper again, toeing off my shoes before stepping closer to the bed.

Well, I’m here now, though, so I have to say bye. That’s the rule.

There are inches between me and the bed. Close enough that I can see his face in the moonlight streaming in from the windows. It’s too much.

He looks younger when he’s sleeping. The stress that always seems to gather around his eyes smooths out. His broad back moves with easy, deep breaths. Sleep takes away his perpetually tense frame, because at least for a few hours, his body isn’t prepped for the next person who needs something from him, the next problem to solve, or small child to console. He’s free from the constant demand of life’s choices, and here I am, coming in and wanting him to make a choice that we both know is the wrong fucking one.