24

EMMETT

She woundup late the next morning because I couldn’t keep my hands off of her.
It was impossible when she slept next to me the whole night in just my T-shirt and no panties. Apparently, I’d “destroyed” them last night by walking around shirtless, and my punishment was sleeping next to her naked pussy and trying to keep my dick down till morning. It was torture, and it was really no surprise that I pounced on her the second she woke up.
If anything, the surprise came in the kitchen when I found her cooking me breakfast – still wearing only my T-shirt.
Christ. I couldn’t stop thinking about the view of her ass each time she lifted her arms to get something from the cabinet. It made me groan out loud as I headed straight from Aly’s restaurant back to the helipad.
I’d left the city an hour ago, but now I was headed right back for a 10AM appointment with Iain. Yeah, it would’ve made more sense for me to just stay in the city this morning, but I also couldn’t pass up the extra time with Aly.
I couldn’t get enough of her. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I was still thinking about her sweet laugh this morning when I walked into Iain’s office, and it was probably the only reason I didn’t immediately clock Drew in the head when I saw him.
“Hey. I come in peace, alright?” he laughed since I was already shaking my head at him.
“You’re a fuckin’ asshole, you know that?” I said just as Iain walked in holding a coffee.
“Whoa, hey, what’s going on?” he asked, knocking Drew’s feet off his desk on his way to his chair.
“Nothing. Emmett’s just pissed that I’m an exceptional wingman,” Drew said, wearing shit-eating grin of his.
“Yeah? Is that what that was?” I snorted, leaning against the wall and kicking his feet down when he propped them up again. “Somehow I’m lost on how you kissing Aly is winging for me.”
Iain coughed on his coffee before squinting at Drew.
“You kissed his girl? The fuck is wrong with you?”
Drew held his hands out.
“What? It wasn’t real. There was no tongue. I was just doing it to piss off Emmett to piss off Beth. Because Beth pissed off Ellie. Does that make sense?”
I rolled my eyes when Iain looked at me with confusion.
“He didn’t get any of the names right,” I explained.
“Ah.”
“Whatever,” Drew smirked, leaning back in his chair and flipping his cap backwards on his head. “I maintain that I did a good thing there,” he said to me. “If it weren’t for me, you would’ve wasted your time on that platonic shit for who knows how long. And at some point, someone would’ve snatched her up, and you would’ve turned into a mopey little shit because you’ve pretty much wanted this girl since your balls dropped.”
“What are you talking about?”
Drew laughed. “Dude. Whether you realize it or not, you talked about this girl fucking constantly. Even before she came back into the picture. You never mentioned her by name but half your stories from childhood involved ‘that friend I grew up with,’ and you always referred to that friend as a she so I put two and two together.”
“Wow,” Iain said as I stood there actually kind of impressed myself.
“That’s right,” Drew said, looking smug. “I know you think you’re slick, Hoult, but you’re not. I mean I’m not the most detail-oriented guy, so if I noticed that you’re in love with this girl then you’re in love with her. And you shouldn’t have even wasted your time on the friends shit. End of story. Mic drop.”
I rolled my eyes. “It was good until the last few words.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna take that as a thank you, and to that I say fuck you. Now I’m the only bachelor left in the group.”
I grinned, pretty happy to be on this side of the argument for once.
“Yeah, well maybe if you stop chasing girls with a history of trespassing and stalking,” Iain muttered while doing ten things at once at his desk.
“Hey, a lot of the crazy ones happen to be beautiful,” Drew shrugged as if it were out of his hands.
“Yeah, well Emmett just scored him a beautiful, sane woman so stop making excuses and get out of my office,” Iain said, barely looking up from his work. “I have a meeting and you have physical therapy in an hour.”
“Jesus. Fine,” Drew said, getting up. “What are you doing, E? Wanna get food?”
“I’m Iain’s meeting,” I said, snorting when he rolled his head back and groaned at the ceiling. “But I owe you dinner for your non-traditional winging, alright? It’s going to take me a second to believe that you pulled that shit for noble purposes, but if you did, you did a damned good job,” I smirked.
“Yeah, yeah. Probably gonna be my last night out with you before you get all wifed up,” Drew said, returning my laugh as he dragged his feet out the door.
When he was finally gone, I heaved a sigh and sat across from Iain.
“Nice client you’ve got,” I laughed.
“Hey, I’m only associated to that prick through work. What’s your excuse?” Iain grinned before pulling up the profile on a new venture we’d been looking into. After turning the screen to me, he leaned back in his chair and fixed his cufflinks. “So you bringing Aly to the gala?”
“Hopefully. I haven’t asked her yet.”
“Why not?”
“Haven’t really had the time. It’s kind of been a whirlwind.”
“Well, how serious are you two?”
I narrowed my eyes up at Iain. “Why are you grilling me?”
“You know why,” he said, typing away on his phone. “I’m curious about whether or not you’ve told her about – ”
“No,” I cut him off bluntly. “I haven’t. And I don’t plan on it either.”
“Whoa.” He held a hand up. “That’s fine, Emmett. I’m just wondering so I know what I’m allowed to say around her when I see her at the gala,” he said, holding eye contact till he knew I’d relaxed a little. “What are you so tense about?” he asked. “You really don’t have anything to feel guilty about. What you did was ages ago. Well before you thought you’d ever see Aly again.”
I nodded in agreement but I wasn’t completely convinced. I just didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t know how to word what bothered me anyway. All I knew was that I felt like I’d somewhat deceived Aly – that she maybe didn’t have reason to trust me completely.
And after the past couple days, it was fucking tearing at me.
“Trust me, Emmett. You’re good,” Iain said. He cracked a smile. “I mean if all the things Drew said before were true, then this is the one and only girl you’ve really cared about your whole life. So if she ever finds out about all the shit, I’m sure she’ll be able to look past it. Trust me on that?”
“Yeah,” I lied just to get the meeting back on track. “Sure thing.”