Chapter Seventeen
LOGAN
Boredom. That was my excuse the next day for walking over to Emma’s house and knocking on her front door mid-afternoon. Matt was busy with family stuff and I didn’t feel like going to the beach for the umpteenth time with all my other friends, so my only other options included either staying home and playing Peek-A-Boo with Abby, or harassing Emma.
Emma was the lucky winner.
And boy, did I love harassing that girl. I could tell I’d totally freaked her out the night before by offering to give her kissing lessons, after which she was notably more quiet and grumpy than usual for the rest of the night. She barely spoke a word while the four of us stopped for food, and then on the ride home. Neither Matt nor Riley seemed to notice, but I did.
I had no idea what possessed me to offer my services, even though it was an empty offer anyway. Well, it was half-empty. I would kiss her before I’d let Justin try it again. It made my blood boil to think about him putting the moves on her. Emma was sweet and innocent. Justin was slimy and as far from innocent as he could get. I’m not sure that guy had ever been innocent a day in his life. There was no way I was going to let that tool steal Emma’s first kiss—and I wasn’t about to let her just hand it to him either.
Which is why I’d decided not to take her to any more parties. Instead, I figured we could take a break from the activities I had planned and see what she had in store for me. That was a lot safer.
She answered the front door a few seconds after I knocked, and I watched as her face fell with disappointment when she saw me standing on the other side.
“What do you want?” she asked firmly, placing a hand on her hip.
“Hello to you, too,” I said brightly.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Seriously, what do you want, Logan? I don’t remember making any plans to hang out today.”
“We didn’t. But Matt likes girls who are spontaneous, so I figured we could work on your spontaneity. Starting with me showing up unannounced at your door and demanding we hang out.”
“I can’t. I kind of already have plans.”
Arching a brow, I teased, “What kind of plans? You got a hot date or something?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “With Justin. We’re going to the drive-in. I have no idea what movie we’re going to see, but it doesn’t really matter, since we’ll probably just spend the entire time making out in his backseat.”
My hands instantly clenched into fists at my sides. I was going to kill Justin. “Are you serious?”
She stared at me blankly for a moment before breaking out into a giggle. “No, I’m not serious. And I’m offended that you would think for one second I would actually go on a date with Justin.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Why wouldn’t I think that? You were willing to kiss him last night.”
Emma rolled her eyes and stepped aside, opening the door wider. Ignoring my comment, she said, “Would you like to come in?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” I said with a grin as I stepped through the doorway.
It had been a long time since I’d been inside the Dawson home. From the looks of it, not much had changed since I was a little kid.
“This brings back a lot of memories, doesn’t it?” she asked, closing the door behind us. “The last time you were here, I tried to push you down the stairs.”
I chuckled. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Thank God your mom has great reflexes and was able to stop you in time.”
“Yeah, I suppose…” she said with a small smile as she headed over to the staircase. “I was just about to go up to my room before you knocked on the door. Care to join me?”
Emma Dawson was inviting me to her bedroom? Hell yeah, I wanted to join her. I hadn’t been in her room since the day she tried to push me down the stairs, when we were eleven, but I remember it being very pink—like a cotton candy machine had blown up inside it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t changed at all since the last time I saw it, and I was fully prepared to make fun of her for it.
However, I was sorely disappointed when she opened the door to her room to reveal no pink whatsoever. Instead, the walls had been repainted light blue. All her stuffed animals, dollhouses, and pinups of boy band members were gone and were now replaced with…well…books. Lots and lots of books. Every wall was lined with bookshelves full of them. No wonder she wanted to stay behind to organize them all. She’d be lucky if she had that project done by the time we graduated.
“Wow,” I breathed, stepping into the room.
“Impressive, huh?” she said, beaming. She was clearly proud of her collection.
“Definitely.” I walked over to the bookshelf closest to me and ran a finger down the line of book spines in the middle. Some were old, some were new. Some were hardcover, others were paperback. “How were you able to afford all these?”
She shrugged. “Baby-sitting money, birthday money, Christmas money. I got some of them real cheap at yard sales. Some were given to me as gifts. Others were handed down to me from my mom and my grandmother. Bookworms kind of run in my family.”
“Have you read all of them?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “No way. I haven’t even read half. Sometimes I think I’m more into collecting them than reading them.” She paused for a moment before saying, “You know, I was about to start my organization project when you knocked on the door.”
I couldn’t help but snort. “Really? That’s what your ‘plans’ were this afternoon? Organizing your books?”
She frowned. “Well, you’ve kind of been distracting me since summer vacation began. This was the first opportunity I’ve had to start it.” She paused for a moment, raising her eyebrows questioningly. “Would you like to help?”
I really didn’t care to do anything that involved books and wasn’t school-related, but I was bored and had nothing better to do, so I said, “Yeah, sure, why not?”
“Really?” A look of disbelief washed over her face. “Okay, well, the first thing we need to do is take all the books off the shelves and stack them on the floor. You can start with this shelf.” She pointed to the one next to me.
Why had I agreed to this? If any of my friends found out I helped organize a book collection on a beautiful summer afternoon instead of going to the beach and checking out hot chicks in bikinis, I would instantly lose my popularity status.
Indefinitely.
Yet here I was, about to do it anyway. With a self-defeated sigh, my eyes danced around all the spines on the shelf. Here goes nothing. With both hands, I went to grab the first five or so books, but the very first one on the top shelf suddenly caught my attention: Emma, by Jane Austen.
Grabbing it, I took it down and spun back around, holding it up for Emma to see. “Let me guess. This is your favorite book?”
She glanced at it to see what it was and shook her head. “No, actually. That’s my mom’s favorite book. Hence, why my name is Emma.”
“Really? Your dad let your mom choose your name based on the titular character of a chick-lit novel?”
“First of all, Emma is not ‘chick-lit’. It’s classic literature. Second of all, Emma is ultimately about two friends falling in love. My parents were two friends who fell in love and I was the product of that, so yeah, my dad was okay with naming me Emma.” She walked over, grabbed the book, placed it back on the shelf and removed the one next to it and handed it to me. “I’m more of a Pride and Prejudice kind of girl.”
I knew a little something about that book because I’d watched the most recent film adaptation a couple years ago when I was going through a Keira Knightley phase. “Isn’t that the one about two people who don’t like each other but end up falling in love anyway?”
“That’s the one.”
“So then, if you and I ever fell in love and had a kid, we’d have to name it either Elizabeth or Mr. Darcy?” I joked, but immediately regretted it.
I watched as the blood drained from her face, like she was going to be sick at the thought of falling in love and having a kid with me. Admittedly, I wasn’t doing much better myself. Why I’d even made the quip to begin with was beyond me. I just figured since Pride and Prejudice was her favorite book and it was about two people who didn’t like each other—like she and I didn’t like each other—the joke just made sense. Plus, I thought maybe she’d be impressed by the fact I knew the names of the two main characters.
Apparently not.
“Sorry, bad joke,” I said, clearing my throat. For once, I was the one getting red in the face.
She eyed me suspiciously for a moment before her expression softened and she smiled. “It was kind of funny, actually. And good job with the names. The Keira Knightley movie?”
I returned her smile. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” she said with a laugh. She turned and walked over to her computer desk and grabbed a rolled-up piece of paper off the top of it.
“Okay,” she said. She returned to my side and unrolled it. “Here are the plans I have for where I want everything to go. I’ve been debating for weeks how I want to organize my collection. Right now, everything is in alphabetical order by author. But it’s time for a change, and I finally decided this morning that I still want them in alphabetical order by author name, but separated by paperback and hardcover, and then by genres. However, I also want the genres in alphabetical order. I took the liberty of mapping it all out. See?” She pointed to the piece of paper, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.
I was too busy staring incredulously at her.
When she noticed my lack of reaction, she glanced at me and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “What?”
“Are you for real?”
She narrowed her eyes into a glare. “Yes, I’m for real. I’ve put a lot of thought into this. Don’t make fun of it.”
I chuckled. “I’m not making fun. As a matter of fact, now that I look at your blueprints here, I’m sort of impressed. But still, Emma…”
She studied me for a moment before removing her glasses and setting them down on the desk along with the piece of paper. Her shoulders slumped forward slightly. “I know. This isn’t going to help me attract Matt.”
That wasn’t what I was going to say, but now that she mentioned it, she was right. If she had just shown all this to Matt, he would have stared at her cross-eyed for about ten seconds before turning right around and heading out the door without saying one word.
And he wouldn’t have ever come back.
“No, it’s not,” I admitted. “But he doesn’t have to know. It can be our little secret.” I nudged her shoulder with mine and gave her a wink.
She smiled at that as we both got back to work.
I couldn’t believe how eclectic that girl’s taste in books was. While romance seemed to be the dominating genre by far, even that had variety—contemporary romance, classic romance, historical romance, romantic suspense, etc. But then on top of all those romance books, she had general fiction, classic literature, mystery, sci-fi, horror, autobiographical. She even had books from her childhood, like the entire Dr. Seuss collection.
She was obsessed.
And while it was incredibly nerdy, I also couldn’t help but find it all to be somewhat…endearing.
We worked diligently for about fifteen minutes, with me stopping every few seconds to tease her about some of the covers of her historical romance novels. I mean, come on, did all guys really have six-pack abs back in the eighteenth century?
When we were finished, we stood side-by-side and assessed the damage. Her room now looked like a disaster zone, with books taking up a majority of the available floor space.
“Okay, now onto the fun part.” Removing an elastic band from around her wrist, Emma pulled her hair back and tied it into a high ponytail. “The organizing.” She flashed me a grin.
I winced. “Um, yeah, about that. I don’t know enough about any of these books to know which ones belong to which genres. Besides,” I glanced down at my watch, “I think there’s somewhere I need to be right now.”
She placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Oh yeah? And where would that be?”
Think fast. “Uh…” Dammit, that wasn’t fast enough. Usually, I was pretty good at thinking on the spot.
“That’s what I thought,” she said with a slight smirk. “Why don’t we take a short break? Would you like some lemonade?”
I was feeling particularly parched, so I nodded and followed her out of the room and down the stairs.
“You know,” she said as we entered the kitchen, “I have a confession to make.”
“Is that so? What do you need to confess?”
She took the pitcher of lemonade out of the refrigerator and grabbed two glasses out of the cabinet next to it. She set them down and began to pour.
“On Wednesday, I had my mom take me shopping and I bought a bikini. You know, for Matt’s pool party tomorrow.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “For real? Wait, you’re planning on going?”
She shrugged as she returned the lemonade to the fridge. “If I’m still invited, yeah.”
“Wow.” I was impressed—both that she broke down and bought a bikini, and that she was going to be attending the party with me. She’d been so adamant about not going. “Okay, well, I want to see this bikini you bought. Go put it on.”
She froze mid-drink. “Huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “You heard me. Go try it on. I want to see it.”
Her face did its usual thing of turning bright red. “Um, I don’t think—I mean, I don’t—”
“Emma, if you’re planning on going tomorrow, I’ll be seeing you in it anyway. Don’t you want to know what I think of it before you show it to the rest of the world?”
“Not really,” she mumbled. But she set her glass down on the center island and said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to show you, though. I’ll be right back.”
I watched her leave the kitchen with an amused look on my face. I loved torturing her and right now I knew she was very tortured. It scared her—the thought of walking around in a bikini in front of anyone. I’m sure it also scared her to walk around in one in front of me, because she knew I would be her harshest critic.
But I’d be nice and keep most of the comments to myself. After all, I’d been the one pushing her all week to go to this party.
About a minute later, I could hear her descending the stairs. “Okay,” she called out, “promise you won’t make fun of me, alright?”
I smirked into my glass. “Sure, whatever you say.”
I took a big gulp of my lemonade just as she entered the kitchen—all hesitant and shy-like—and the tart beverage took an immediate detour down my windpipe when I saw her, sending me into a fit of coughs and sputters.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her face morphing into a look of concern. She started to walk toward me, but I held my hand out in front of me and took a step back to keep her away.
“I’m good,” I managed to get out in a strained voice.
She waited a moment for my coughing to subside before she spun around and motioned to herself. “Well, what do you think? How do I look?”
How did she look? She looked frickin’ hot. Like, making-you-choke-on-your-lemonade-out-of-shock-of-how-hot-she-looks hot.
The bikini itself was hot. Red and white checkered, like a picnic blanket. Both the top and the bottom had small ruffles that somehow made it look both innocent and naughty at the same time. But the girl wearing it…
I’d had my thoughts of what Emma would look like with less clothes on. It’s not like I’d ever fantasized about it or anything, it was more of a curiosity thing. But no part of my imagination had done her any justice. In a bikini, her legs looked even longer. Her stomach was flat but soft—like a girl who ate right but had never done a sit-up in her life. Her chest was…more amply endowed than I’d given her credit for. And when she spun around to show me the back…
I began to cough again. Not because of the lemonade, but because I was now feeling incredibly uncomfortable in her presence.
“You look fine,” I said, but it came out sounding more like a question than a statement. And when I watched as her face fell, I felt like a jerk.
Just tell her she looks amazing. Sexy, even. But I couldn’t do that. This wasn’t how our relationship worked. We didn’t give compliments to one another. It would be too weird.
“Do I at least look okay enough to go to the party tomorrow?” she asked quietly, as if she was afraid of what my answer might be.
The answer was, of course, hell yes. In fact, she’d probably be the best-looking girl there, if only because she’d be the one girl the guys had never seen half-naked before. She’d be like a brand new, shiny object for them to examine, and that would be the problem. For instance, Justin would be there. He’d already hit on her twice while she’d been wearing more clothes; I could only imagine what kind of reaction he would have to seeing her like this.
It made me want to punch him in the face.
No. Suddenly, the whole pool party thing was a bad idea. Even if Justin were to pay no attention to her, plenty of other guys there would, and she wasn’t ready for that yet. Sure, it would be the quickest way to get Matt’s attention—and affection—but did she want it based purely on hormones and physical attraction? Doubtful.
She watched me in anticipation, waiting for my response. Clearing my throat, I said, “Actually, you know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we shouldn’t even go to that party. I’m over parties right now, and you’ve been so against the idea of going that I kind of assumed we weren’t, anyway.”
“Oh,” she said in a disappointment-laced voice as she stared down at the floor.
“But hey, why don’t we have our own pool party?”
Her head snapped up. “What do you mean ‘our own pool party’?”
What did I mean, exactly? The suggestion had come out of nowhere and I think I just said it to try to make her look less miserable. Thinking fast, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Um, well, I could ask my dad if he’d mind firing up the grill, and you and your parents could come over for a cookout. How long has it been since we’ve all gotten together?”
She stared at me blankly for a moment. “Are you saying you want to forego a pool party that all your friends are going to be at, to spend the day with me and our parents?”
“And a baby. Don’t forget about Abby.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
I laughed. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I just think it would be more fun than a stupid high school pool party. What do you say? You know you didn’t want to go anyway.”
What was wrong with me? Why would I want to spend a Saturday afternoon with two sets of parents, a baby and my dorky next-door-neighbor, when I could be spending it with my best friend, his insanely attractive cousin, and all my other friends? All just so that guys wouldn’t have the opportunity to hit on Emma?
Since when did I become her protector?
And why?
“Yeah, okay,” she finally replied. “That does sound way better. Have your parents call my parents and we’ll set something up.”
“Great,” I said, averting my gaze away from her. Grabbing the glass of lemonade I’d abandoned, I guzzled the rest of it as quickly as I could, wiping my mouth with my arm after I was done.
“Great,” I repeated, trying so hard not to look back at her as I made my way to the sliding glass door that led out to the deck. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, I guess?”
“You’re not going to help me anymore with my project?”
“Nah, I just remembered I agreed to look after Abby this afternoon, so Rachel can go get a mani-pedi.”
That was a lie. And judging from the doubtful expression on Emma’s face, she was aware of that.
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Thanks for the help.”
“No problem.” I gave her a short wave before sliding open the door and bolting out of it.
I knew leaving her house as quickly as I did would tip her off to the fact something was off with me, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t take it one second longer standing in that kitchen with her in that bikini. It was threatening to put thoughts into my head that I simply didn’t want to have there.
Bad thoughts. Impure thoughts.
Which was exactly why I didn’t want her anywhere near that pool party tomorrow, because I wouldn’t be the only one having those thoughts.
When I arrived home, Rachel and Abby were sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street, both looking like they needed a nap.
“Hey,” I greeted them, leaning against the doorframe.
Rachel glanced up at me with a curious look. “What are you doing back so soon? You’ve only been gone like half an hour.”
I shrugged. “Emma wanted me to help her organize her book collection. I wasn’t really feeling it, so I just decided to come home.”
Rachel smiled and shook her head. “I love that girl.”
With a roll of my eyes, I said, “Hey, do you think Dad would be up for hosting a cookout tomorrow with the Dawsons?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked with wide eyes. “He’ll probably cry real tears of joy if you suggest it. Of course, he would be up for that. What’s the occasion?”
Keeping Emma away from horny douchebags. “Nothing. I just thought it would be nice for us all to get together. It’s been a while.”
“It has, and I agree. I’ll talk to your father when he gets home.”
“Cool, thanks.” I started to head up to my bedroom, but then I remembered the lie I’d told Emma. Not only did I feel bad about lying to her, but I also wouldn’t put it past her to investigate to see if Rachel had, in fact, gone for a mani-pedi. After all, I saw a few Nancy Drew books in her collection today and vaguely remembered her going through a detective phase when we were eight.
“Oh, hey,” I said, poking my head back in the living room. “You look like you could take a little break for a while. If you’d like, I could watch Abby while you go out and do something fun. Like, I don’t know, maybe get a mani-pedi or something.”
The look that came over her face was priceless. It was a mixture of confusion, relief, gratitude and excitement all rolled into one expression. “And now I’m going to cry real tears of joy. Logan, that is so sweet. I would love that.”
“Awesome,” I said, relieved that she was going to take me up on the offer.
She got off the couch, walked over to me and pulled me into a hug. “What did I do to deserve such an amazing stepson?”
“You married my dad.”
With a chuckle, she let go of me and ruffled my hair. “And you’re a comedian, too.” She glanced over her shoulder at Abby. “Abby, sweetie, mommy loves you, but I’m going to head out for a while without you, okay?”
Abby pointed at the TV screen and giggled at something Elmo just did. She couldn’t have cared less what mommy had to say.
“You’re my hero, Logan.” Rachel gave my shoulder a squeeze before scurrying off into the kitchen to grab her purse and keys.
“I’ll be back in time to cook dinner,” she said as she breezed past me and out the front door.
With a satisfied smile, I walked over to the couch and took a seat next to Abby. There. I had just successfully turned a lie into a truth.
But then my smile slowly morphed into a frown. Now, if I could only get the images of Emma in a bikini out of my head…