Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“I miss him, too,” I said. “He’d know what to do about this whole Storm thing.”
I could really feel the whiskey in my blood, now.
“We’ll do okay,” Landry said, a little more optimistic than me.
“Have you ever seen someone skip their own celebration party?” I asked Landry, shaking my head. “Keeping everyone waiting and he doesn’t bother to show up?”
Landry had a stack of paperwork out on the bar, reviewing marketing data for Cutmore even now. It was the kind of thing that I would usually do, too—find every spare moment of time to work, even in a bar.
But tonight I couldn’t focus.
Landry glanced up and looked around. “It seems like everybody is having a great time. Don’t worry about Storm.”
“Right. I shouldn’t,” I said, and Jax, the frat boy bartender across the bar, gave me a look, smiling.
“How’s that whiskey treating you?” he said. “Too many shots?”
“I want to deny that, but I don’t think I can,” I told him. I glanced back over toward the dance floor, where the rest of the guys were laughing, teaching each other some sort of silly square dance jig. “Listen, Jax. Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to head out. Landry’s going to take me home, but can you tell the guys I said thank you? I wouldn’t usually leave without saying goodbye, but I’m a bit… well, I’m a bit drunk.”
“A bit?” Landry teased from beside me.
Jax gave me a sympathetic laugh. “I can do that. Although Charlie just told me they’re going to go to an afterparty—I’m sure you’re invited, if you want to talk to them?”
I pulled in a breath, wavering a little as I stood up from my bar stool. “No. No afterparty. Water, and bed, and maybe a lot of soul-searching about what gets under my skin about a cocky football player who doesn’t even like fall.”
Rein it in.
Not the kind of things to say out loud, Emmett.
“Is everything okay?” Jax asked. “I know you guys are working with Storm, but he seems like a nice guy—”
“No. Of course. I like Storm,” I lied. “Such a great guy. Really going to stand out on social media.”
The image of his cock flashed through my mind without warning, and my whole body ached.
I looked over to see that Landry had packed up his paperwork and was waiting for me. I dropped a couple of crisp hundred-dollar bills on the bar top and gave Jax a nod.
“Have a good night, guys. Remember to drink some water, Emmett,” Jax said, giving me a look as I headed for the doors.
“Yes, yes,” I said, waving a hand as I walked. “I will.”
“Holy shit, thank you for that tip!”
“You’re nice, Jax,” I called back. “Charlie’s a lucky guy. You’re all lucky guys.”
I slid into the front leather seat of Landry’s car a minute later, breathing deep.
“Cutmore is out of his mind with this Amstead stuff,” Landry said as he started heading up toward my house. “Did you see the financials he sent over?”
“It looked messy,” I said, vaguely remembering some emails Cutmore had sent us earlier that day.
I was usually on top of everything, just like Landry. Storm wasn’t just a marketing liability for me, he was a mental liability. I needed to free up the brainspace that he kept taking up.
No more letting Storm get to me.
This was my one night to wallow in it, wishing he wasn’t the media’s biggest bad boy. And my one night to wallow in the endless parade of happy couples surrounding me, reminding me of just how single I really was.
Tomorrow, I was going to go back into tiger mode.
Relentless. All about the business.
No messy feelings.
“Thank you, Lucky,” I said to Landry as I got out onto my front driveway. “You’re the best. Seriously.”
“Go easy on yourself,” he said from his open driver’s side window. “And really, drink some water. See you soon.”
The first thing I noticed as I walked to my front door was the chilly air: the continued march toward fall, toward the season that should have made me feel like my best self.
The second thing I noticed was the music.
Loud music.
Bumping loud music, with bass that reverberated all the way to my driveway.
Okay. Maybe tiger mode was going to start right fucking now.
The back gate to Storm’s yard was wide open. I walked through to see a full-blown party happening in his backyard. A huge, neon pink inflatable pool had been set up at the center of the grass, and there were dozens of gorgeous women inside, half of them naked. There was a temporary fire pit that had been put up across from it, and a bunch of other people surrounded the tall orange flames, drinks and marshmallow sticks in their hands.
And up on the patio deck, just above it all, was the source of the loud music: a karaoke machine next to a big projector, casting the lyrics of Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” onto the side of Storm’s house.