Nolan turned on Emmaline now, which had been the plan, she guessed: get him to stop being so rude to Hayden. Except now she felt a little nervous to have his full attention. “Why would you come up with a scheme like this?”
Why? Why?
Wasn’t it obvious?
The nervousness turned to outrage at his question. “Because, look at me!” She threw her arms wide, forgetting everyone else in the room at that moment. “I need something to happen . . . I want to have a life in high school. A life you seriously keep stopping me from having. I’m home every Saturday night because I don’t have anything else to do. I’ve never been asked out on a date, much less been kissed by a guy.”
His expression softened and he reached for her arm. “Emma—”
“No!” She yanked her arm away. Had she just been thinking that Hayden’s emotions simmered near the surface? Well, now Emmaline’s emotions were overflowing. “Don’t act like you care. If I ever try to do anything fun, you’re always there shutting me down, while you get to go off and have fun whenever you want. If I just want to be a girl and go to parties and fool around and kiss a random guy, I can’t! Because you’re my brother and you scare everyone away.”
“Good!” he snapped.
“No! No, not good!” She shoved him in the chest, but he didn’t budge. Her hands were like flies battering at the wall of him. “I want you to butt out of my life! I can’t wait for you to go to college.”
He stared at her in shock.
The words just popped out. She didn’t mean them. Not really, but they were out there now.
She looked around, her heart beating a wild drum in her ears. Everyone stared at her like she had lost her mind. And she felt like she had. A little. She’d just gone off in front of her friends. In front of Hayden, a girl she was starting to admire. In front of Beau, a guy she worked so hard not to crush on. In front of her brother, who actually meant a lot to her, despite her outburst. But it’d all become too much.
With a choked little sound, she fled.
Lesson #19
Be careful flirting. It’s all fun and games until you catch feelings for someone.
x Beau x
Beau should have stayed home tonight. If he had he wouldn’t be standing in the middle of this mess, feeling a little shell-shocked and wondering what was happening.
The Martin family wasn’t dysfunctional. He knew dysfunction. He lived it every day. Sure, they’d lost their dad, but that had only bonded them. It had only made them stronger. Nolan and Emmaline did not fight. They weren’t those kind of siblings. They had their shit together.
So the fact that they were at odds now didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him, but he felt an overriding desperation to fix it, to help set everything back to rights.
Emmaline rushed out of her room.
Nolan started to go after her, but Beau put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “I’ll go. Let me talk to her.”
It seemed the better idea. If one was to believe Emmaline’s own words, she wasn’t exactly a fan of Nolan right now, and Nolan wasn’t being his usual calm self either. They needed a time-out.
Nolan must have recognized that fact. He nodded stiffly. “Okay.”
Beau left everyone behind in the bedroom. There was no sign of Emmaline on the second floor hallway, so he took the stairs down to the first. She wasn’t in the kitchen or living room. He even checked the dining room and the rarely used home office. He called her name, mindful not to be too loud. He didn’t want to disturb Mrs. Martin. No answer.
She wasn’t downstairs, and he doubted that she’d taken refuge in her mom’s room.
Remembering that Savannah was gone, sleeping over at a friend’s for the night, he went back upstairs to check the youngest Martin’s room. He knocked lightly before pushing open the door. Sure enough, there she was, cuddled amid an army of pillows and stuffed animals covering every inch of Savannah’s bed.
“Hey,” he said softly, closing the door behind him.
Emmaline sat up swiftly, looking at him warily, but without tears. At least there was that. She wasn’t crying. He hated tears. He’d rather deal with fury. Angry words and punches he knew how to cope with. Chalk it up to experience.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said quickly.
He breathed easier. Embarrassment he could handle too. “Aw, Pigeon. Don’t be.” He sank down beside her on the bed.
She was hugging one of the ugliest stuffed animals he’d ever seen. It was purple . . . and maybe a dragon. Possibly a bear. There was no telling what the thing was. It had glittery horns and snake eyes.
“Who’s your friend?” He tapped one of its possible-bear ears.
She looked down at it and shrugged. “Nolan won it for Savannah at a carnival.”
Of course he did. Nolan was that type of big brother. The sort who took his sisters to carnivals and won them stuffed animals. Family mattered. It was everything to Nolan, and for a moment Beau felt a pang of longing.
It wasn’t the first time. The feeling struck him whenever he was with the Martin family. Whenever he witnessed their camaraderie, their loyalty and love for one another. It was evident in all their interactions.
He’d never had that connection with anyone. There was just his mom, and there was definitely no closeness there, despite the times he had tried to bridge the gap between them. She was too bitter and jaded and resentful of all the things in her life that had gone wrong—and in her eyes Beau was one of those things.
Sometimes people were so broken, there was no mending them. It was a lesson he had learned at an early age.
As much as the Martins included him, he was only ever on the fringes, watching, looking in. He’d never be one of them.
He was all alone.
“I kind of made an ass out of myself,” she confessed in a small voice.
“That’s okay. I do that all the time.” He bumped her shoulder with his own.
“Great.” She grimaced. “I’m like you now. Should I go out and get suspended from school? Arrested?”
“Hey! I was suspended a long time ago, as a freshman, and I’ve never been arrested,” he said in mock indignation, but really he was just glad to see her cracking a joke.
She smiled for a moment and then it faded from her face. “I don’t want him to go away.” It was a change of subject, but Beau immediately knew what she meant.
“He knows that.” He looped an arm around her.
“I’m not sure he does. I mean, why would he after my little word vomit in there?” She waved in the direction of her room.
“Just tell him you didn’t mean it. I promise, by tomorrow, neither one of you will remember any of it.”
“Maybe.” She dropped her head to rest on his shoulder, and he inhaled a thin layer of mint toothpaste over the chemical aroma of chlorine.
And then the image came, unbidden, of her in that bikini. The one she was still wearing.
The strap of her bathing suit was unmistakable through her shirt. He could feel the heavy knot of strings she had tied at the back, branding his arm where it touched him. It would be tricky to undo. At least for her. He’d have no problem with it though. Or she could just remove her bikini top by pulling it over her head and squeezing out of it.