Emily sucks in air then peeks at me from over her shoulder. Big dark eyes. The type a guy can easily get lost in and I did. I got lost and now I’m screwed.
“Hi.” Emily’s eyes flicker between the bed and me. She’s awkward. Unsure. Possibly regretting what we did.
“Hey,” I respond.
“What time is it?”
I reach over Emily and grab my cell off the windowsill. With a swipe of my finger, it springs to life. “Four.”
The late-afternoon sunlight streams in from the cracks of the shade in my room and highlights the dust hanging in the air. We’ve slept the day away. Emily discreetly yanks at the blanket, covering one of my new favorite parts of her body I love to worship.
There’s one text from Olivia:
I want to see you and my granddaughter. Come back now. You can’t keep running from this. Life and death happen regardless of what you want.
A ripple of anger through my system. I didn’t run and I don’t care for reminders of the death sentence I can’t control.
Me: She’s waking up now. We’ll be there soon.
“Olivia wants to see you. I told her I’ll bring you back.”
“Okay.”
“Want to take a shower?”
Emily fingers the hem of the blanket that’s now tucked close to her neck. “I can wait.”
I caress her face. Fuck me. Just fuck me. I can’t do it. I can’t treat her as a hook-up, but where the hell do we go from here? I knew this. I knew the aftermath, but I couldn’t resist her last night. Kissing her, holding her, it was like being called home.
A squeak of hinges and my eyes snap to the living room through the cracked door of my bedroom. Adrenaline pushes into my veins as I grab for my knife on the floor.
“Oz?” Mom calls out. “Emily?”
“Shit.” I’m in motion, tossing another blanket over Emily as concerns for her modesty fly into my head. I roll to spring off the bed, but I’m not fast enough. Right as I plant a foot on the floor I glance up and meet the horrified expression of my mother.
“Tell me you didn’t have sex with some girl with Emily down the hall,” she whispers furiously as if Emily couldn’t hear. “Tell me I raised you with some decency. Eli will gut you open if he finds out about this.”
I sit up, aware of my movements so that I keep Emily’s face blocked. There’s no way out of this, but I can buy Emily a few minutes to compose herself. “Shut the door, Mom.”
Fire rages out of her eyes. “Oz—”
“Shut the door and I’ll be out in a second.”
Mom’s nostrils flare and, with pissed-off zeal, she slams the door to my room and the entire trailer vibrates. Great. Fucking great.
Emily eases up behind me while pinching the blankets to her body. Her mouth trembles and my heart is ripping into multiple pieces.
“I am so sorry,” she says.
I weigh my words carefully. “Mom’s not mad because a girl stayed overnight. She’s mad because she thinks I did it with you around. So if you feel bad about me being caught, don’t, but odds are she’s not going to be too happy when she finds out that you’re the one in my bed.”
Considering there’s only one way out of this trailer and Mom’s bent on talking to me, she’s going to discover that I was in here with Emily very soon.
Emily won’t look at me. “What’s going on between us?”
We should have thought of that before we made out. “I don’t know.”
She stares at the blanket as if maybe concentrating hard enough could help her disappear. “You care about me, right? I didn’t imagine that, because I know I told you that I care about you.”
“Hey.” I slide my arms underneath her legs to bring her onto my lap, blankets and all. “I care about you. You got that? This wasn’t a hook-up. I swear it. But what’s happening between us...you have to admit it’s complicated.”
“Like how I live in Florida and you live in Kentucky and how my mom used to be in love with Eli and for some reason she left, pissing off everyone you love?”
Evidently, I’m not the only one who has thought about this. “Yeah.”
“It doesn’t mean we can’t be together.” But the defeat’s clear in her tone.
“Are you going to call your parents and inform them you’re living here next year? You’re seventeen and have one more year of school and even if you didn’t, would you call Kentucky your home? Because, this—Snowflake—this is my home.”
Emily draws in a quavering breath. Jesus, she’s killing me. I position my fingers under her chin, forcing her to face me. “Forget what I just said, all right? We’ll figure it out. I promise.”
“No one will be happy about this. I mean, Eli and Cyrus won’t let you into the club if they find out we did this, will they?”
I shake my head no. I’ll be lucky if I walk out of this alive. If I do emerge still breathing, I can’t guarantee I’ll be mobile. “I’m going to talk to Mom. Ask her to keep this quiet. Take your time. Get dressed. And then come out when you’re comfortable.”
She lowers her face into her hands when I release her chin. “Then I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave this room.”
I can’t help but chuckle as I pull her into my body. “You’re not the first person to be busted half-naked.”
“Well, it’s my first time.” My world rights itself when she lays her head on my shoulder.
I kiss the top of Emily’s head before easing her onto the bed. I stand then shrug on my jeans. “Welcome to Snowflake.”
Emily
IZZY’S PENSIVE AS she shuts the door to her car. After hearing Oz explain it was me in his bed and after she faded into ghost white when I walked out of his room, Izzy grabbed her car keys and declared she was driving me home. I’m still attempting to figure out if she meant Florida or Olivia’s. She found me half-naked with her son in his bed. I’m betting she’s sending me to Florida.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I can’t stand the silence any longer.
Izzy’s dressed in blue scrubs. She’s worked third shift this week and when she left the hospital last night she went to Olivia’s, so I’m officially the worst person ever for piling stress on the sleep-deprived. She starts the Ford Focus and the wheel whines as she turns it. The motor doesn’t sound much better. A single crystal hangs from the rearview mirror and it creates small beams of rainbows on my lap.