I stopped in barely enough time. Pushing my truck into Park, I jumped out as Hailey got out of her car. Emmerson was right behind me.
“What in the hell, Hail! Why did you do that?”
“I’ve been trying to call you both! Why are neither one of you answering your phones?” Hailey asked, her hands placed firmly on her hips.
Emmerson shook her head. “Mine must be on silent.”
“Mine too. Why, what’s wrong?” I asked.
Hailey closed her eyes, took in a long, deep breath, and then pushed it out and immediately started panic talking. “It’s Mike. He’s gone off the deep end and has been begging me to take him back. Last week, he threatened to expose your fake engagement unless we got back together. I told him to go ahead, but I figured he was bluffing. But then today, he called and was so upset on the phone. He was crying, and I could hardly understand a word he was saying and he…” She paused only long enough to drag in a quick breath. “He kept saying how sorry he was and to please forgive him—”
“What did he do?” Emmerson asked, cutting off my sister’s rambling.
“Please tell me he didn’t go to a reporter about the fake engagement,” I said as my stomach lurched. It felt like someone had placed a twenty-pound weight in there.
“No, it’s nothing that bad. But he did tell our parents the two of you have been secretly dating.”
Emmerson brought her hand to her mouth. “What! Why in the world would he do that? Why drag us into this?”
“I don’t know! Maybe to get back at me, or to punish the family, I don’t know. For what it’s worth, I think he regrets it.”
“So, wait,” I said. “Mom and Dad know about me and Emmerson?”
Hailey nodded, rubbing her hands together nervously. “As of about an hour ago. Truth be told, though, I think Dad already knew.”
Emmerson turned and looked at me and then back to Hailey. “Well, it doesn’t matter—Landon and I were going to tell them about us. Tonight.”
For a moment, the worry left Hailey’s face, and she smiled. “Oh my gosh, are y’all serious? You were going to tell them?”
“Yes, so it doesn’t matter that Mike said anything,” Emmerson said with a wide grin. “They were going to find out from us tonight anyway.”
Hailey let out a sigh of relief. “Well, at least you know they know, and you won’t be walking into a shitstorm!”
I chuckled. “For real.”
“Okay, well, let’s get up there and get the truth all laid out. I’m starving!” Hailey said, turning on her heels before she practically sprinted back to her car.
When Emmerson and I got back into the truck, Lady barked from the backseat.
“it’s okay, girl, we’re going to see everyone!”
There was such a lightness in Emmerson’s voice. She seemed happy and not the least bit worried about our folks. It wasn’t like it was that big of a deal. So we kept our relationship a secret for a few weeks? It hadn’t been months.
Hailey parked behind Noah’s truck, and I pulled in next to her. As we started to walk up the steps, Noah stepped outside.
“Hey, big brother!” Emmerson said but then quickly stopped walking. “What’s wrong?”
He looked from her to me. “Mom and Dad know about the two of you, and Emmit and Addie know as well. They are not happy. Amy is in there now trying to calm them down.”
“Calm them down?” I asked. “Calm them down about what?”
Noah gave me a look that said I was a dumb fuck. “What is the one thing our parents asked us to never do?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Hailey blurted out. “Lie to them? Because all four of us have lied to them before and about worse things than this. You mean to tell me they’re having a conniption over this? This! Landon and Emmerson? Like no one saw it coming? Please!”
My sister was livid, and I loved her for being so upset on my account.
I laced my fingers with Emmerson’s. “Let’s just go in and get it all out in the open.”
Noah lifted a brow. “You do know my dad is a licensed open carrier, right?”
Emmerson pushed Noah out of the way. “Stop it, Noah.”
When we walked into Malcolm and Paislie’s living room, I could hear Amy talking.
“No one is screaming, that’s got to be a good sign, right?” Emmerson whispered.
I squeezed her hand. “It’s totally fine, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”
We walked into the kitchen and five sets of eyes swung in our direction. The only one who smiled was Amy.
Malcolm looked like he was ready to tear my head off, my father looked disappointed, but both my mother and Paislie slowly smiled.
“Before you say anything, Emmerson and I were planning on telling you tonight.”
Malcolm crossed his arms over his chest. “Telling us what exactly? That you’ve both been lying to us this whole time? That you’ve been secretly seeing each other since the night of your stupid fake engagement announcement?”
“Daddy, you need to calm down,” Emmerson said. “We both decided to keep this between us, at least for a little bit. We weren’t sure where this was going to take us, and to be honest, I didn’t want y’all interfering.”
“Interfering?” they all said in unison.
“Right word, but wrong one to use now,” Hailey whispered.
“She doesn’t mean it like that,” I said. “It’s just that we wanted to explore where our feelings were taking us without being under a microscope.”
My father huffed. “The whole country has your relationship under a microscope, what are you talking about?”
Emmerson dropped my hand and took a few steps forward. “They don’t matter, Emmit. But we knew the moment we even hinted at dating, you would all start giving your two cents.” She turned to Malcolm. “Daddy, as much as you love Landon like a son, let’s be honest: You’d be overbearing about this and act like a brute. And Mom, you would be over the moon and asking every day how things were going and hinting that maybe the engagement wasn’t fake. You’d put pressure on us, and we just wanted it to be between us for a bit.”
“The same goes for you too, Mom,” I chimed in. “And Dad, you would have been egging Malcolm on.”
My father smirked as he raised one shoulder. “I might have, maybe.”
I raised a single brow.
“Fine,” he huffed, tossing his hands in the air. “I would have egged him on simply to see you suffer. I love you that way.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“I still can’t believe you kept this from us,” my mother said with a slow shake of her head.
“We were planning on telling you tonight, like Emme said,” I told them.
Nodding, Emmerson added, “I wanted to talk to you about our relationship. Both Mom and Addie. I wanted you to know that I haven’t ever been this happy in all my life.”
Both my mother and Paislie covered their mouths with their hands, but you could still hear them each let out a sob.
Malcolm relaxed, if only slightly, and he stopped frowning so hard and looked at his daughter, who was smiling from ear to ear.