Chapter Fifteen
Aiden
Carson gives Emma a hug that lasts eight seconds longer than it should. “It was really nice meeting you, Emma. I only wish I could have shown you my Vegas.”
She smiles, but it’s not the same smile she uses with me. It’s her polite, friendly smile. There is no blushing for Carson, either.
She looks between the two of us. “I’ll let you boys say your good-byes.” I watch as she walks to the fountain in front of the hotel. She takes a seat on the concrete surrounding it and looks at her phone. She’s probably texting the dipshit. I refuse to utter his ridiculous name or any version of it.
“Hey, man, you still with me?” Carson asks, snapping his fingers in front of my face.
“Sorry,” I say, turning back to Carson, hoping he’s not gonna give me shit about Emma. “How was your night?”
“It sucked. The girl I met? She was something else. We get back to the hotel. Get this. She tells me”—he clears his throat for emphasis—“‘you fuck better than my boyfriend.’”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Swear it. So of course, I disengage my rocket right before blast off. The whole time I’m getting dressed, she’s crying me a river about how much she loves this guy, but it was Vegas that made her do it. I’m like, this isn’t a game of fucking tag, and my dick isn’t your safe zone. If you love him so much, why the hell are you fucking me? Bro code kicked in. You don’t take another man’s woman, no matter what the circumstance.”
Leave it to Carson to actually throw a moral in his fucked-up story. A moral I sorely need to heed myself.
“So you left?”
“Yep, me and my hard-on walked right out of that room.”
“I should get going. Great story, bro.”
He laughs and punches my arm. “I was just gonna ask how your night was. Hell, I do this gig just to hang with you.”
I tilt my head. “It has nothing to do with all the…perks?”
He laughs, his gaze turning toward the real-life version of Jessica Rabbit who strolls past us. Carson’s eyes almost turn animated, popping right out of their head. This time, I snap my fingers to get his attention. “Sorry, man, where was I?”
I scratch my chin as if I’m trying to recall. “You were talking about how you do this job just for me.”
He peels his eyes off the girl and back to me. “Okay…I see the irony of the situation. But it’s true. We usually troll the strip together. I missed my wing man.”
“Carson, that’s the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever dropped on me. You’re my wingman, and you know it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I did miss hanging with you last night.”
“You could have come with us.”
“Um…you say that now, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t invited.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I remember me distinctly saying, hey bro, where to tonight? And you said, I made plans with Emma.” In these scenarios, Carson changes his voice in an imitation of me. For whatever reason, I sound like a mix between the Hulk and Elmo.
“So?”
“And I was about to ask if I could tag along, but you shot me one of those I-can-bend-metal-in-my-hands looks. I decided to tread lightly.”
“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to blow you off.”
He turns toward Emma, who’s still staring at her phone. Her expression is almost wistful. “Speaking of pretty girls with dimpled smiles and hair the color of chestnut trees…”
“We weren’t speaking about that at all.”
“Come off it, man. I saw you two at dinner the other night. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out your private joke, dickhead.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He wiggles his brows. “Although I have to take away points for creativity, I do appreciate the humor.”
“Um…did someone drop something in your drink? I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Eel is a codename for your dick.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or punch him. “Man, you’re so off base, you’re playing in a different stadium. It’s a fucking innocent joke between us.”
“Is it? There’s nothing innocent about the way you look at her.”
“What’s your point?”
“Your eyes wander to her wherever she is. I’ve never seen you do that with anyone.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you, man? I don’t look at her.” This whole conversation is giving me a sleazy stalker feeling. I’m getting a headache, and I just want Carson to shut the hell up.
He laughs one of his ‘gotcha’ laughs. “I can see this is fucked-up beyond all repair, because the whole time you’re telling me you don’t look at her, you’re staring straight at her. I don’t buy your bullshit, Sheffield.”
I see the irony here, too.
“Hey, you know how you just wasted the last ten minutes of my life talking about how you’re not a cheater?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that was the point of the story, but…yeah.”
“I am not one, either. She has a boyfriend.”
“I get it. But if you’re not into her, then why the fuck are you going back to Linx?”
“Because her mama wanted me to.”
He shakes his head slower than a turtle stuck in sand. “Naw, it’s more than that.” He slaps my chest. “You forget who I am Sheffield? Besides all the shit we give each other, I would lay down my life for you. God knows, you’ve saved my ass more than once.”
“Because your ass is always getting in trouble.”
The easy-going, shit-talking Carson is gone. He’s serious and worried. “Well, now it’s my turn. I’m telling you, cut this girl loose and tell her you can’t go.”
“I don’t want her to go alone.”
“Give her a fucking armed escort, then, but don’t go with her. All that place has ever brought you is misery. Hell, the way you describe it, Afghanistan sounds like a tropical paradise. Please, buddy, I don’t want you to open up all those sealed wounds.”
Sealed but not healed. I shake my head at the way this conversation blew up in my face. When did Carson turn into a foul-mouthed version of Dr. Phil?
“I have to do this.”
“I’ll come with you.”
This is the kind of guy Carson is. He’ll go into any battle for his brother, even when he isn’t called to serve.
I smile and clap him on the back. “Nah, brother, I got this. I do.”
He expels a deep sigh. “You call me if you need me.”
“Will do.”
“My dad wants you to come visit soon. He and Mom will try to make it for the next fight. Mom won’t go to the fight. She can’t stand it, but she sure as hell would love to see Vegas…and your ugly mug, for whatever reason.”
“Hug her for me and give the Major my finest salute.”
“Sure. Oh, I almost forgot.” He reaches into his duffle and brings out a brown paper bag.
I lick my lips in anticipation. “Are those what I think they are?”
“Yep.”
“Give ’em here.” I reach for the bag and he pulls it away, holding his hand out to block me.
“First, tell me I’m the man.”
“You’re the bitch.”
He laughs, moving the bag farther back. “I’ll smash ’em. I swear I will.”
“Then I’ll smash you.”
He throws the bag to me. “Whatever, I got a flight to catch. Be well, brother.”
We do our usual male hug which is more of a clap on the back. He walks toward the cab station yelling, “So long, Devil Dog.” He turns back to me once and bumps his fist twice across his chest. “Oorah!” We yell in unison, scaring the daylights out of two old ladies getting out of a cab.
Carson gives them an apologetic look, tipping his baseball cap. “Sorry, ladies.”
I walk over to Emma. She’s still staring at the phone, but she’s not texting. She’s running her finger across the display. She must be looking at photographs. She smiles to herself. Hell, she’s probably looking at pics of him. Or better yet, him and her having sex.
It’s not lost on me just how stupid and Neanderthal jealous I sound, because I can even hear it myself. But it doesn’t make me any less curious or any less Neanderthal.
“What’s got you so interested, Cooper?” I ask her. “You checking out some porn?”
She tilts her head at me. “Yeah, because what else is a girl to do when she’s sitting in public.”
I shrug. “Hey, everyone’s freak comes out in Vegas. I don’t judge.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“I asked you first.”
“This is my phone. It’s private.” She puts it in her back pocket.
“Well, this is my brown paper bag, and it’s private,” I say clutching it closer.
She cracks a huge smile. “The way you guys were fighting over it, I thought it might be something very important like the coordinates to a secret missile site.”
I tilt my head. “Hmm…could be.”
“Or a secret truth serum you plan to use on your enemies.”
“Or maybe I will use it on you, so you finally admit you’re a serious porn junkie.”
She laughs and peers over me, reaching for the bag. I hold it out of her reach. “Let me see.”
“I assure you, it’s very important. But you’ll never get it out of me, porn girl.”
She stands and puts her hands on her hips. She clenches her teeth while she talks. “I don’t watch porn.”
“Don’t be a liar, Cooper. Everyone watches porn. That’s one thing we outsiders have in common with the normal people. It bonds us. Don’t break the bond. Admit it.”
“We outsiders?”
“Yeah, we’re outsiders, you and me.”
“Probably. But you have me all wrong again, Sheffield.”
“I do?”
“Why watch porn stars…” She raises her eyebrow at me and leans real close to my face. “When you can live like one.”
My jaw drops, but I have nothing to top that. The girl stuns me into silence. I’m so lost in what she says that I let her snatch the bag from me. Dirty games, Emma. I grab the hem of her jeans, but she’s too fast. She runs to the other side of the fountain.
She holds the bag up, her own personal trophy.
“Look what I got.”
I stare at her across the stream of colorful water jetting from the fountain.
“You best hand that back.”
“I don’t think I will.” She shakes the bag. “What could this be? It’s too light to be porn.”
“Don’t kid yourself, I keep my porn on a pen drive. It’s very portable.”
She shakes the bag again. “I don’t think so.”
“Dammit, Emma, stop shaking it.”
“Oh, Aiden, what are you going to do?” she asks, her tone playfully mocking.
I pull her phone out of my pocket. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just watch porn on your phone.”
Her smile falters. “Give it back.”
“Looks like we got ourselves a real standoff, Cooper.”
“Fine, I’m opening this.”
“I’m flipping through this,” I say, holding up her phone.
“Jokes on you. You don’t have my passcode.”
“It’s today’s date.”
She backs up. “How do you know that?”
“I didn’t know your passcode was your birthday, but I figured it was a good guess. You just confirmed it for me.”
She walks over to my side. She holds the paper bag toward me. “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
“I was kidding. I would never look in your phone.”
I hand it to her and give back the paper bag, too. “Here. I didn’t want to tell you because I hate sharing. I never really figured out how to do it in preschool when all the other kids were learning. But if it will get you to smile again, I’ll share this with you.”
She opens the bag, her eyes blinking. “Are these…chocolate chip cookies?”
“Wrong, they are raisin chocolate chip. Carson’s mother makes them for me, and they are the best goddamn cookies I’ve ever had in my life.”
“The best?”
“Bar none.” It’s true. They’re large and chunky and chewy. The kind of cookies that make you want to hold the bag over your mouth to catch the last few crumbs.
She sits on the fountain again and pats the area near her. Although I should speak up about how we need to hit the road, I don’t. I take the seat she offers me. She hands me a cookie. Before she bites into hers, she looks to me for permission.
“Yeah, it’s all good, Cooper. Enjoy it. What the hell am I saying? You’re gonna love it.”
We both take a bite. These cookies are so damn good, you have to close your eyes and tune out any other sounds to truly get the full experience.
Emma licks her lips. “Oh my God.”
“Told you.”
“What does she put in them? Crack?”
“A little crack…and maybe some magic, too. Whatever it is, I’m an addict.”
“I can see why,” she says, popping the last piece in her mouth. “I don’t get you, Aiden.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re big, strong and Thor-like, but you have a weakness for PB and J with no crusts, and chocolate chip cookies.”
“With raisins,” I correct, grinning like an idiot. Thor is definitely better than the spawn of Elmo and the Hulk.
“With raisins, of course.”
“How can I put up a strong front when you’re breaking through all my barriers?”
She laughs and opens the bag again. I grab her wrist before she goes in. “What are you doing?”
“What? I was going to have another.”
“Cooper, we’re friends, but you’re really crossing a line here. I’ve already shared one of my crack cookies with you. Don’t push it, okay?”
She pouts, staring into the bag and then back at me. “Seriously, you’re going to eat the rest of these crack cookies by yourself?”
“That was the plan.”
“Just one, Aiden.” She tilts her head, sporting the dimple-smile, a look that rivals my addiction to the cookies. “One more before we hit the road?”
As if I could resist.
“One more.”
This time I just watch her. Because, well, because Emma Cooper eating my favorite cookie is probably the best porn this boy has ever seen.
“These things are going to ruin me for other cookies. I should take a picture to capture the memory of them.”
“Is that what you were looking at? Pictures of cookies?” I shoulder bump her. “Or was it something else?”
“Like what?”
“Guys tying ropes?”
“What like a boy scout video?” She asks, feigning innocence.
“Very funny.”
“Or maybe it’s a video of you and um…”
“Kenneth,” she says before I get it wrong.
“Yeah, him.”
“What kind of video?”
“The kind that goes viral?”
She smacks my arm. “Sheffield, do you really think I’d risk my lovelies being strewn all over the internet?”
“Well, no. Wait, what do you mean by lovelies?”
The pretty blush crawls across her collarbone. “Shut up. Don’t make fun of my euphemism.”
“You can say a word like euphemism, but not vagina.”
She makes a disgusted face. “It’s an ugly word.”
But it’s such a beautiful thing.
“I prefer to call all my stuff lovelies. The bottom line is my lovelies are for my own private enjoyment not public consumption.”
I nod slowly. “Uh huh. How about you replay that sentence in your head again, Cooper.”
“What I said…” She face-palms herself. “Shit, it makes me sound like I masturbate a lot.”
“Yeah, it does, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s nice we have so much in common. I might even share another cookie with you to commemorate this moment.”
“Aiden!” She takes her phone out of her back pocket, keys in her code, and throws it to me.
“Emma, it was just a joke.”
“You can look at them.” I stare at her to see if she’s pissed, but she nods her head in encouragement. “I was sitting here a little depressed a minute ago, but you cheered me up in your weird Aiden way. So I’m giving you permission to look at my sad, since you took it away.”
I look down at the photo of a little girl wearing an elf costume in front of a ranch-style home, lit up and decorated to resemble a gingerbread house.
“Those are a lot of lights.”
“Yeah, my dad went crazy around Christmas.” She flips her finger across the screen. There is Emma, older now, with two other girls wearing ballet costumes. Then another of Emma dressed for prom, her mama standing beside her. “It’s not really private, but I was kind of a chubby kid with braces, clunky glasses, and bad acne. A teenage nightmare trifecta.”
“Superfecta.”
“What?”
“A trifecta is three. A superfecta is four. You named four things.” I count them down on my fingers, “Let’s see, chubby, glasses, braces—”
“You have a really peculiar way of making a girl feel better.”
“Sorry. Help yourself to another crack cookie.”
I don’t even finish the sentence before she takes one from the bag. She bites into it, chewing super slow…it’s fucking sexy as hell. “You are officially forgiven.”
“You were adorable, Cooper.” When I look at her I change the sentence in my head. You are adorable, Emma. She has the kind of natural beauty that radiates from the inside out.
“Can I look at the rest of these?” I ask as she moans with every bite.
“Sure. I couldn’t save every album, so I converted what I could and put it on my phone.”
“They’re must have been something wrong with the camera.”
“Why?”
“It looks like you have red-eye in all of these, but it’s on your chin.”
She peers at the picture, and her gaze is almost hostile when she looks up from the phone. “No, Aiden, that is a zit.”
Shit.
“Um…I didn’t know. I swear.”
“Do you have any pictures of you as a kid? I’d like very much to look at them and poke fun of your childhood insecurities.”
Emma, we’d be here all day if you did that.
“No, none.”
“Seriously? You have no pictures of little Aiden?”
With raised brows and smart-ass smile, I say, “Emma, there is no such thing as little Aiden. Aiden is big…everywhere.”
“I’m serious.”
“There are no pictures of my junk. And besides, technology hasn’t come up with a camera lens wide enough to capture it all.”
“You always hide behind your funny, Sheffield?”
“Just with you, Cooper.”
No, Emma, I usually walk the fuck away when someone asks about my childhood. But for some reason, I can’t do it with you.
The photos change, the coloring and quality more upgraded. “This was your bedroom?” I ask, holding up the pic of a yellow room with white curtains. The walls are covered with purple musical notes.
“Yep. Mom painted all the notes by hand.”
“You had to be the only girl on your block who had a poster of Janice Joplin.”
“Probably in the whole city,” she says with pride.
“There are so many pictures of your house.” She has pictures of every angle of every room. She even had photos of bookshelves and flower gardens.
“I loved the house. I took all the pictures before I had to pack things up or sell them. I wanted to remember it exactly as it was.”
“It’s a nice house.”
“Thanks.” I scroll through a few more, but when I glance back, her gray eyes turn turbulent as she gazes at the photos.
“Emma?”
“I tried to save it, but I couldn’t. It was my fault we lost it in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s stupid.” She waves away the statement. “We should go. We’ve been sitting out here for an hour now.” She holds her hand out for her phone.
“Then we can spare a few more minutes.” Instead of handing her back her phone, I gently clasp her arm and urge her to sit. “Talk to me, Cooper. How was it your fault?”
She plays with the edges of the paper bag. “There was a decent insurance payout after my father passed. My mom wanted me to have the money and use it for tuition. But I had done research online and found this experimental procedure to treat her particular cancer. The medical insurance refused to cover it. She didn’t want to do it. Besides, she was done fighting. I could see it in her eyes the day my dad died. But I begged her. I said I would trade all the money in the world for just one extra day with her. I told her dad would want her to. I finally wore her down. It wasn’t easy. In fact, I think she was in more pain than ever, but she never complained. The procedure didn’t work. In the end, it depleted all the insurance money and all the other savings.”
“In no way is that your fault.”
“They also took out a second mortgage for my tuition. I figured it was my job to save what they left behind.”
“The house?”
She nods in confirmation. “After Mom passed, I didn’t just mope around for six months feeling sorry for myself. I had a mission.”
“What happened, Cooper?”
“We were behind already, but I was determined. I got a job as a waitress, but it wasn’t enough to make the mortgage. So I got a second job at a bagel shop. But I still wasn’t making it. So a few nights a week, I cleaned office buildings. I squeaked by. I was working eighteen hours a day and begged the mortgage company to work with me on the payments, but they wouldn’t. The neighbors and my parent’s coworkers wanted to throw a benefit, but I didn’t let them. My parents would be horrified.”
There is something so fucking beautiful and tragic in her expression that I’m filled with admiration and sympathy at the same time. Her strength never ceases to amaze me.
“Emma, why wouldn’t you let people help you?”
She looks down at her hands, still playing with the edge of the bag. “I did. Just not with money. I was going to do it on my own. One day, the fire department chief came into the diner for breakfast. He kept saying how proud my parents would be. How I was some sort of fucking poster child for the way young people should act. Then he went on about what great people my parents were and how the whole community mourned them. So many people had said similar things to me, but on this particular day, I couldn’t hold back my emotions.”
“That’s understandable. You were under a fucking avalanche of stress.”
“I didn’t just cry, Aiden. I sobbed and howled and wept as if something broke inside of me. I cried so hard I couldn’t stand. It was right in the middle of the breakfast rush. I was completely…inconsolable. They told me to go home. I think I had a mental breakdown. After that, I called the mortgage company and told them they could have the house. I lost it, Aiden. I lost our home.”
I swipe the tears on her cheeks. “You put too much pressure on yourself. You had just lost the two most important people in your life.” I tilt her chin so she’s looking at me. “Did you even give yourself a chance to grieve?”
She nods rapidly, but the chips in her strong facade are apparent. She’s trying to hold it all inside.
“Listen to me—the house was not yours to save or yours to lose. This was your parents’ dream. They were proud people. Do you think they would condone their only daughter breaking her back to save a dream which never belonged to her?”
Her lower lip quivers. She bites it so hard I wince. “No, of course not.”
“Right. You forgot what they loved more than the house. What they loved more than anything in this whole fucking world. That would be you, Emma. They would want your happiness over anything.”
“You’re right.”
I put my hand on hers and squeeze. “Cooper, I think you’re the rarest breed of human I’ve ever met. I’m really proud to call you friend.”
“Thank you, Aiden. I’m proud to call you friend, too.” The corners of her mouth rise, but it’s not a quite a smile.
“And also, you may have the rest of my crack cookies.”
Then she beams me a real smile. I’d give up the best cookies in the world for the rest of my life to see that smile.