Dirty Deeds by Stella Rhys

Prologue

ALY

I triedto see what others saw in him.

I’m sure the height hit them first. Six feet and two inches of pure athletic muscle was bound to grab attention. I got that.

I got that the stupid thing he did with his hair made all the girls and even teachers swoon. Of course, I wasn’t convinced he didn’t know exactly what he was doing there. I mean who honestly ran both hands slooowly through their hair in the middle of talking to someone? It was ridiculously sensual – especially when it always left his hair so perfectly tousled, like he’d just rolled out of bed.

Then there was his voice. Low and kind of gravelly. The dark hair, light eyes combo – that was a thing too. I got that.

But I just couldn’t get past what a prick the kid was. Our dads were best friends, and having grown up with Emmett Hoult, I couldn’t see the appeal that everyone saw. All I could see was what they couldn’t.

When the world looked at Emmett, they saw confident, devilish, sexy.

I saw cocky, spoiled, arrogant. Your typical all-American jock.

I saw the kid I was forced to spend every weekend and vacation of my childhood with – the one that Xeroxed the worst photos he could find in my family albums, just so he could tack them all over my crush’s locker.

I saw the kid who got away with literally everything, no matter who I complained to. Teachers, coaches, even the school principal looked at me as a nuisance. A thorn in their side. All they wanted was to adore Emmett Hoult in peace – to be completely charmed by his playful, laid back nature. The last thing they wanted was to have to acknowledge me, the surly buzzkill whose griping would get him undoubtedly pulled from practice, something the football team “just couldn’t afford.”

Even my parents defended his every move.

“It’s just a sibling rivalry,” Mom would brush it off. “You grew up together. You’re practically family. But give it a few years, Aly, and I’m sure you’ll get on great.”

Right. I gave it a few years, and all Emmett did was get worse.

In high school, all it took was one evening of his mom comparing his bad friends, bad grades or bad behavior to mine, and I’d wind up paying for it with a week of torture at school.

His teammates snickered at me in the halls. He spread the nickname “Baldy” when I botched my haircut sophomore year. By the time I was a junior, I was down to just three friends who didn’t worship him or use me to get close to him, and he told me – “just for shits and giggles” – that he’d hook up with every one of them so I’d have no allies left to gripe to.

And he did precisely that.

In short, with very little effort involved, Emmett Hoult took over my entire life.

At home, Dad raved nonstop about his athletic achievements. At school, he ruled every last hallway and classroom. Even at night, in the privacy of my bedroom, I couldn’t escape the constant texts from friends he’d “mysteriously” ghosted. They sobbed for me to help figure out what went wrong, or begged me to subtly bring them up to Emmett when we saw each other that weekend. They didn’t seem to realize he’d never hang out with them again – that he only hooked up with them to get under my skin. He didn’t even remember most of their names.

Simply put, the kid was an asshole.

He always got what he wanted, he didn’t have to try, and he never even knew how much his antics made me cry every night. While I was completely miserable, he just carried on with his perfectly charmed life.

And so I hated him.

For all the many stunts he pulled on me, I despised Emmett Hoult. But amazingly, all that crap happened before the last week of junior year.

Thatwas the week he truly ruined my life.