Page 92 of Emerson

“And before then?”

Now I’m the heartbroken one in this bar. Wow, how the tables have turned. I take another gulp of the drink, and then another, before just guzzling it. Warren gently forces my arm down with a sigh.

“Emery.”

“What do you want me to say, Warren? That I was fucking your best friend?” My big brother cringes and makes a disgusted face but says nothing as I continue. “’Cause I was. A lot. All the time for weeks. And it was only supposed to be that, you know? But then he was leaving, and I was panicking because I think I fucked up somewhere along the way and actually fell for him. Or re-fucking fell for him, and now what am I supposed to do, you know? Because Dillon doesn’t want someone like me. He needs someone who isn’t an absolute disaster case one hundred percent of the time. Someone who doesn’t gag when they have to change a diaper or get bratty when things don’t go his way. And I think he knows that, even if maybe he started liking me, too. I think deep down he knows that I’m not what he needs, has known based on something he said a long time ago. But I haven’t heard from him at all. We agreed we would talk when he get’s home if we were still feeling like…like… Oh, fuck. I don’t know.”

Warren has that big brother look in his eyes. Not the least bit taken off guard by my uncontrolled word vomit.

“Dillon is a big boy, man. He knows what he wants. Why don’t you just ask him?”

Because what if it’s not me?

What if it's just my body he wants, not me?

My heart is raw by the time I get home. Raw and feeling exposed in the most vulnerable, uncomfortable way. It’s one thing to write emails that are for my eyes only with all my secret wishes and fears, but it’s another to have them expressed out loud.

I set my keys and bag down on the side table by the door and toe off my shoes before flicking on the light.

“I fear Warren trapped me, and I fell for it,” I call out, expecting Eleanor to be where she always is when she hears me coming home.

But she’s not there.

I frown, walking into the living room. “He now knows that Dillon and I have touched nasties and boinked. I may have actually shared a little too much. But you know how I get when I start—it’s impossible to shut the hell up.” I check under the couch, frowning more with my hands on my hips when I stand and don’t see her coming around the corner.

“Eleanor? This is serious. I need to vent it out, or I’ll go gray by morning.”

No rusty meow sounds from anywhere. No kinked, swaying tail from under the table or poking out from under my bed.

I tear open my closet door, heart inching higher and higher with each empty hiding spot.

“Ellie?”

Dillon

“So then she asked me to go back to her place.” I bite into my burger at the end of the table, counting down the minutes until it’s socially acceptable to make an excuse to leave. Nate, one of the guys on the crew, smacks me on the arm as he continues, “Absolute bombshell, you know? I couldn’t refuse.” He chuckles, and I smirk. The rest of the guys start in on everything from recent hookups to talking about one of the guys, James’s, upcoming wedding.

Every Friday night, I agree to come out to dinner with them. I order the first round of drinks because I’m the boss and also because I hope that juicing them up will stop them from prying.

Never actually works, but I try anyway.

“That waitress is going to get the nerve soon,” Matt says from across the table, smacking on his chips and waggling his eyebrows at me. I huff a laugh, shaking my head.

“Oh, please. She’s been giving you hot eyes since the first time we walked in here. She wants a ride, man.” They all laugh, some hooting encouragement.

“You deserve it, dude.”

“Let off some steam.”

Over two months I’ve been doing this.

It’s fucking exhausting. Everything is fucking exhausting. I just want to put my head down and push through the last month and a half. Let the guys come to whatever conclusion they want to about me, play nice boss, and then get the fuck out when the job is done.

But every Friday it’s the same shit. Every week, they joke about the same waitress, and every week, I laugh it off. Honestly? She is giving me looks. She finds reasons to come to my end of the table, and she likes to grab my shoulder when she talks. None of it bothers me because I know I’m not interested. But something about letting them continue thinking I’m free to entertain the idea of letting some chick take a ride makes my stomach ache.

The only part of my sexuality that I’m ashamed of is how long it took me to accept it for what it is. How many women I slept with, just to see. My body operated. I got off every single time, so surely fucking not, right?

I rarely had sex with the same woman twice. Never spent time with any of them and felt inclined to want more. Each was a milestone that led me to the absolute certainty I know now. Sabrina was the unfortunate last stop until that conclusion was no longer questionable, but reality.