Rafael
I’d been embarrassingly fucking hard from a touch that had lasted all of four seconds. I cursed the basketball shorts that would’ve let Emery know in no uncertain terms just how I was feeling about her as I headed into my bedroom to get myself under control. A few minutes later I got a text from my brother.
Jandro: U finished jerkin it yet?
Me: I’m not jerking anything asshole
Jandro: Sure. Right. Whatever u say
Jandro: The girls want to go over the wall and get some stuff. I need help getting the ladders out of the garage
Me: Sure. Gimme two minutes to change and I’ll meet u in the garage
Jandro: Wait til I tell the others u were so hard up u had 2 leave breakfast to jerk and jizz on your clothes
Me: First, I didn’t. Second, I hate u
Jandro: LOL
After sending another message with about twenty middle finger emojis, I got up and went into my closet to grab a pair of shorts that weren’t going to make it as noticeable when I got hard. With Emery around, I knew I couldn’t be too careful.
On my way to the garage, I texted Diego to ask what was up with him.
Me: Where the fuck r u
Dio: Just waking up now- had 2 sleep that migraine off
Me: I’m doing shit with Jandro but when we get back you need to come outside and say hello to Kaya’s friend, Emery
Dio: Don’t worry I’ll be there. I can’t wait to meet the girl who just made you jizz all over your clothes. Jandro just texted to give me the details
Me: Jesus I hate u guys
Dio: Love u 2. There better be some fuckin breakfast casserole left, btw
Me: There is but I’ll be spitting all over it before u come down
Dio: Ur just spraying everywhere today
My brothers were ridiculous. I sent a round of middle finger emojis to him before I slipped the phone into my pocket and walked into the garage where the ladders and tools were stored. Alejandro already had the bigger of the two ladders laid by the door, and he was headed back for the other slightly shorter one leaning against the back wall.
“I can’t believe you texted Dio and told him I jizzed my pants, asshole.”
He barked out a laugh as he grabbed the ladder and walked it across the garage. “Not just Dio,” he answered. “I started a group chat with the others to point out that you trimmed up your beard before she got here last night, too. Bet you thought I didn’t notice. Sucks to be you, ‘cause I did.”
“You’re such a fucker,” I groaned. “I trimmed up because Ava gave me shit.”
Jandro shook his head as he pressed the button to open a garage door. “Yeah, I heard she gave you a little shit— but that’s not why you shaved. You didn’t get all fancy until after Kaya announced Emery was probably on her way back from New Zealand. Sometime between then and when Emery arrived you lost the grizzly man look you’ve been embracing since we got to Malibu. Q-tip says you and Elvis sat on the outdoor couch mooning over Emery through almost three episodes of Bytes yesterday.”
Hefting the bigger ladder up from its place at the garage door, I stepped outside. “You assholes are worse than the paparazzi camped out on the street.”
He shrugged as he fell into stride alongside me. “Family.”
“Family my ass,” I groused. “This shit makes me wish I had sisters instead of brothers,” I grumbled.
Jandro threw back his head and laughed. “If you had four Avas instead of us, you’d still be getting busted on. She straight up said she can’t wait to watch how you interact with Emery.”
I knew I was fucking in for it. Ava was smart and she knew me better than almost anyone.
“I swear to fuck, you guys better not embarrass me,” I said. Alejandro guffawed as we took the turn down the side of the house that led to the part of the wall that we’d use to go over to Emery’s.
“You can’t blame us for being excited that you’re showing interest in someone,” he pointed out.
He was right; I couldn’t. My family had been through hell with me and I appreciated it more than I could say, but I didn’t want their meddling to ruin what was going on with Emery. She made me feel, which meant whatever was going on was huge. I didn’t want to blow it.
“I get it,” I said with a nod, “but—”
He cut me off. “We’re not going to embarrass you. We’re excited. I knew last night it wasn’t a one-off,” he said, “but seeing you today was something else entirely. Mateo told us you were holding her hand this morning.”
As I said, they really were worse than the paparazzi. Nothing slipped past them.
“Not exactly,” I said gruffly. “I just… forgot to let go when I helped her up.”
“Forgot my ass,” he chuckled. “We both know that’s not something you’d ever have done with anyone else, which makes me think she’s it, Rafael. I knew within seconds of Kaya falling into my arms that she was the one for me. Although they knew each other for many years, Mateo says he realized Ava was the one in an instant. Papá has always said that the moment he heard Mamá’s voice he knew she was his destiny. Our family falls hard and we fall fast. If Emery is the one—and let’s face it, she kinda has to be considering the about-face you’re doing after how prickly you’ve been these last few years—let it happen. Don’t let baggage from your past drag you down.”
I didn’t get a chance to formulate a response before the girls came around the corner of the house to meet us. I nodded at him once to acknowledge I’d heard him before my attention turned wholly to Emery. I didn’t lie to my brothers—I hadn’t run into the house and jerked off—but it had been a damn close call. Instead, I’d thrown myself onto my bed, focused on the whir of the overhead fan and counted backward from a thousand, alternating between English and Spanish as I did. I’d gotten down to seven hundred before I felt like my dick wasn’t about to explode and I was down to six hundred before my erection subsided. Of course, my dick jerked in my shorts when the soft orange vanilla scent of Emery worked its way into my senses.
Hanging onto my control by a thread I announced, “I’ll go over first,” in a gruff voice. “Once I get the smaller ladder into position on the other side you ladies will climb over. Jandro will go last so that one of us can spot you girls on both ladders.”
Everyone agreed that was the way to go as my brother and I positioned the bigger ladder against our side of the wall. The first part was quick and painless. The real work came when we had to get the smaller ten-foot ladder up and over the wall. Not to be left out, Elvis got himself up onto the wall so he could watch. Once everything was in place—and Alejandro had tested both sides of the ladder—Kaya came over first. We both laughed as the crazy peacock cawed encouragement to her. Safely on the ground, she backed up and shielded her eyes with her hands to watch as Emery made the trip over.
I was glad for the sunglasses that—hopefully—concealed some of my reaction as I stared up at Emery as she crested the top of the wall. The sun gave her a halo—fucking perfect—as she stopped and kissed the side of Elvis’s face. Where Kaya had been relatively tentative about climbing over (something I understood since her last climbing expedition from one property to another had almost ended in disaster), Emery was sure-footed. Swinging her leg over the wall, she laughed as she shooed Elvis away so she could straddle it.
“Mommy’s got to pay attention for a minute. Step back and let me get down.”
Anxious to be right next to her he gave a little backtalk as he did as she’d instructed. Still talking, he watched as she brought her other leg over and got onto the ladder. I swallowed past the desert in my mouth as I watched her perfect ass getting closer to me as she made her way down the ladder. Four steps from the bottom, Elvis decided he couldn’t wait another second to be close to her. Without warning he jumped down sideways to the rung Emery’s hands were on.
“Eek!” Emery screeched as she lost her balance and started to drop. It was an easy save, considering I was holding onto both sides of the ladder. I caught her by wrapping my left arm around her torso and pulling her back against me. If I’d thought I wanted her before, I was wrong. The desire for her quadrupled when I realized my arm was touching warm skin without any fabric between us since her shirt had ridden up a bit. As I clutched her against me, I leaned in and touched my nose to her soft, fragrant hair. The sound of my brother clearing his throat from above ruined the moment. As I gently deposited Emery on the ground, I realized Kaya had come forward and was right next to us.
“Are you okay?”
Emery let out a gentle laugh as she pushed her hair back from her face. “Uh-huh. I should’ve known my baby wouldn’t let me climb alone.”
The poor guy seemed traumatized by having scared her. I could tell by the way he was rubbing his face and body against her legs, not unlike a cat would. It was a trip how affectionate he was—I’d never known peacocks had an affinity for people until I met Elvis. Then again, I’d never been exposed to any.
I was so intent on watching Emery that I missed Alejandro climbing over the wall. I only noticed when he jabbed me in the stomach with his elbow when he stepped off the ladder.
“Thanks for the spot,” he chided.
Having no reasonable excuse, I simply said, “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, “you look real sorry.”
We were both chuckling when the girls turned and gestured for us to follow. I was surprised when Elvis sauntered right into the house alongside us like it was his God-given right.
“Is he, uh, allowed to come in?” I asked.
Emery laughed when she looked over her shoulder and saw the peacock at my side. “It’s okay,” she assured me. “Little E is house trained. See the dog door leading from the porch to the sunroom?”
Turning, I noted that there was, in fact, a large dog door.
“He can get himself really worked up if he can’t come into at least one room, so I had the door put in. When I’m here, I leave the kitchen door open so that if he wants to come in, he can. The house is small and he doesn’t love the constriction of the furniture in the main areas, so he stays in the sunroom or on the kitchen counter unless he thinks there’s an emergency.”
“Emergency?”
“An Elvis emergency,” she clarified. “Like if it’s nine-thirty in the morning and I’m not outside with his food. That’s a crisis.”
He followed us into the kitchen and as Emery had predicted took up residence on the counter as though he did it every day. I kind of felt like an asshole right then because Elvis had tried to come into my house a few times and I’d scolded him. Who knew they could go inside? Not me. Apparently, I needed to keep on reading the websites I had found about keeping peacocks as pets.
Turning my way, Alejandro said, “I’m going to go help Kaya pack. You good?”
I nodded. “I’ve got this.”
After Jandro and Kaya wandered off, Emery disappeared into her walking pantry for a minute. When she came back out, she was weighed down with two different watering cans, a large container of peanuts, and two bags of plant food. I hurried over to her, took it all from her and then set it down on the counter.
She smiled up at me as I spread it out for her. “I swear I had it under control, but thank you anyway.”
Leaning against the counter, I watched as she picked up a plastic dish that was sitting in the drainer and set it down. After that, she unscrewed the lid on the peanuts, doled out a handful, and dropped them into the dish as Elvis, who was busy shaking his little bird body on the counter with excitement, pecked at her several times as a way to say thanks. This earned him a giggle and a series of tickles against his neck before she set down the dish in front of him, at which point he dug in. Best performance in a drama clearly went to the bird acting as if he’d been starved of food for days.
“I’ll come back and deal with watering all of my plants once I’m all packed, but before I start gathering my stuff I want to pick out some things for Joaquin and his Posie,” Emery announced. “Your call whether you want to come with me or stay here and monitor the peanut carnage.”
I loved Elvis, but I had what felt like a primal need to stay with Emery. “Lead the way,” I answered.
As we walked through the house, I took in the space around me with a curious eye. It was clean and comfortable, with tons of personal photos displayed on the walls. There was a significant display of Elvis photos on the living room wall, and I slowed to a stop to check it out. She’d captured every stage of his life from hatchling to big, hungry boy, and it was interesting to see how small his feathers had been in the beginning. There were several people featured prominently in the display—one, of course, was Kaya, the other was a man I thought had to be Emery’s father. There was also an elderly couple—grandparents, I thought—and another couple who looked to be twenty or so years younger. The photos with that couple tended to have Kaya in them, which made me think it was her family.
Realizing that Emery was watching me, I gestured at the wall. “It’s like a giant baby book.”
She grinned and nodded. “Very true.”
“How old is he?”
“His 6th special day is in August,” she answered. In a lower voice, she continued, “we can’t say cumpleaños when he’s around because he goes a little nuts. He gets very excited about his yearly fiesta.”
I laugh-snorted as we began walking again. Only Elvis would know what birthday meant. I found Emery’s use of the Spanish words for birthday and party oddly arousing. More than that, I was touched that she celebrated those milestones with her pet.
As we headed up the stairs and I saw more pictures of Emery, Kaya, the people I’d noticed in the Elvis display and tons of still-life photography of nature, I realized that there was a complete lack of industry photos in the house. There were zero pictures of any celebrities and no apparent proof of any kind that Emery was an actress at all. Figuring it was in her office, I followed along as she turned at the top of the stairs and headed down the hall. The door she stopped in front of was closed and I saw her wrinkle her nose in distaste before she flung it open.
The instant I entered the room, I knew why she’d made a face. The underlying style of the room was what Ava called cottage chic, but it was self-evident that someone had come in and shit all over that. The pretty distressed desk that had likely been the initial focal point of the room was jammed up against the wall-to-wall bookshelves that ran the length of the room. Above those bookshelves were more photos of Emery, Kaya, Elvis and the people I knew had to be their families.
The rest of the room was taken up with highly lacquered black furniture—a full-size bed, a side table, and a massive wardrobe— and none of it complemented the existing décor in any way.
The wall next to the bed was overflowing with framed photos of a man with pretty much every celebrity to come out of Hollywood over the last decade. I knew from what Kaya had told Alejandro the night before that Emery was having issues with the douchelord she was dating and my money was on him being the one in the photos. According to what I’d read online they had broken up, but like most rational people I didn’t trust gossip.
“That your boyfriend?” I gritted out.
Emery shook her head emphatically. “No. Not anymore—and at this point, I’m not sure he ever really was. Looking at it without blinders on I know I was just an easy target. He needed a place to live and a star for his horrible film. I ticked off both those boxes.”
I hated the idea that someone had used her, even though I was relieved that she wasn’t with him anymore. Had she not been single I’d have worked hard to get rid of the (very obviously) self-involved fuck with the smarmy smile who loved himself so much he was in every one of the pictures on his wall. I was stunned to realize that he was significantly older than Emery. What in the actual fuck had she been doing with a guy that old? As I looked at all of his photos something else jumped out at me—Emery wasn’t in even one of them. If she were mine, the majority of pictures on display in my house would reflect my life with her.
“You’re better off. To be honest, he looks like a giant asshole,” I said gruffly.
She giggled and nodded. “That was my first impression of him too,” she admitted, “but over time he wore me down. Looking back it’s hard to believe I ever said yes to even one date.”
“So your heart isn’t broken over this?”
“Absolutely not,” she answered. “The answer to that was no when it happened and it’s even truer now. Elliot was a mistake from beginning to end.”
The thing that stuck out to me there was her use of the word end. Women like Emery didn’t fall out of the sky every day which meant I had no doubt that at some point the entitled prick in the photos would try to weasel his way back into her life. In that moment I knew I’d be damned if I’d let that happen. When I looked at Emery, something gut-deep inside of me said that we were meant for each other. I’d do whatever needed to be done to make sure she knew it— and that she felt the same way about me.