Dirty Deeds by Stella Rhys

4

EMMETT

Sundays usually sawme waking up around noon but by seven this morning, I’d already worked out, had breakfast, walked Ozzy and talked on the phone with Drew.

I hadn’t slept at all last night.

Not a fucking wink.

It was virtually impossible after what happened with Aly.

Aly fucking Stanton.

For Christ’s sake, I’d known that girl since the day she was born. She used to wear boy’s clothes and chop her hair right up to her ears. I used to make fun of her for being a little shrimp, and she used to retaliate by ratting me out for everything under the sun. Cutting class, throwing parties – the amount of time I spent grounded or in detention thanks to her was impossible to count. Basically, she was the good kid, I was the bad one, and from the first day we met to the last day we spoke, she hated my guts.

So what the fuck was last night? And how the fuck was that her? Seriously. She looked nothing like she did the last time I saw her. Her hair was long now, back to her natural blonde. Her waist curved into hips I never thought would fit on her tiny frame, and Christ almighty those big tits of hers had put me in a goddamned trance. Top that with how tight her pussy felt around my fingers and how sweet her nipples tasted in my mouth and I was a fucking madman.

My dick had basically been in a permanent state of torture since last night, and the fact that Aly kicked me out of the car before speeding off to God knows where did me no favors at all.

I needed to see her.

I needed to talk to her.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I couldn’t sit remotely still. So as I did anytime I was having some kind of problem, I called my brother.

Of course I should’ve known before we met for brunch that he’d have no sympathy for my situation.

“You said you weren’t going to be in the Hamptons even once this summer despite owning a house here?” Julian snorted. “I guess we can say this is karma for lying to Mom.”

“Maybe if I wasn’t completely joking when I said it. I didn’t think she’d believe that I’d be gone the whole damned summer. Have I ever been away that long?”

“No, but why did you say it in the first place?”

“Knee-jerk reaction? She literally emailed me a list of her friends’ daughters who were visiting either the Hamptons or the city this summer.”

“I take it she wanted you to ‘show them around?’” Julian smirked, guessing Mom’s exact phrasing since she’d used it on him many times before too.

“Yes, and you know by ‘show them around,’ she means entertain the idea of making one of them my future wife. And here I thought she’d relax on the marriage and grandkids thing once you got married to Sara,” I muttered as I stared uselessly at the menu. I had been trying to read it since we got in, but I wasn’t processing a single word. My brain wasn’t good for shit this morning except for thinking about Aly.

“Well, I think my shotgun wedding left something to be desired for Mom,” Julian said distractedly, skimming what I assumed was a work email on his phone.

“Yeah, about that. That was a dick move on your part.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t feel like waiting to call Sara my wife.”

“God, you’re soft these days,” I said as I finally gave up on the menu and tossed the damned thing aside. Julian peered up at me.

“Why are you throwing things?”

“I can’t read that.”

“Well, if anyone could manage to graduate college illiterate, it would be you.”

I shot him a look. “I mean I can’t concentrate, asshole. All I can think about is Aly, and I have no idea how the hell you expect me to wait all day to see her.”

“She runs a business, Emmett,” Julian said firmly, ordering my usual for me when the waitress passed by. “She already hates you too, so if you want any chance of convincing her to stay for the summer, the last thing you should do is bring your drama to her place of work. Besides, you clearly need the time to cool off from… whatever the hell it was that happened between you two last night.”

I closed my eyes and breathed out hard.

“Yeah, you’re not wrong about that,” I muttered. For the sake of keeping my dick down in public, I’d been forcing myself not to think about what Aly and I did last night in the car. But now that Julian mentioned it, the memories were back in full force. I groaned into my fist as I remembered what she said about how good it felt when I spread her pussy. “Fuck,” I hissed, making Julian clear his throat.

“Yeah, on that note, I’m leaving. I’d prefer not to sit here and watch you get actively hard over Aly Stanton.”

“You’re leaving because this is the time every week that you pick up Sara from yoga.”

“Also true.”

“You know I’d be pissed about losing all my closest friends to marriage, but watching a work-obsessed sociopath like yourself get whipped has been great entertainment for me.”

“Fuck off.”

I laughed. “And you wonder why I’m stuck hanging out with an asshole like Drew. It’s because you, Lukas – all my closest friends are wifed up now.”

“Well, hopefully by some miracle, you’ll be able to join the club soon. In the meantime, I’m out. Your friend has just arrived and I’m not interested in being seen with him right now,” Julian said.

He straightened his tie as he stood up and with a nod, greeted Drew, who was standing next to our table now with a purposely awkward, close-lipped smile. Julian gave him half a nod.

“Mr. Maddox.”

“Mr. Hoult.”

“I’m going to pretend I never saw you here,” Julian decided, putting on his Persols. “But for the record, I don’t endorse this. I trust you’ll be home in time for your PT appointment tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir, you bet your ass,” Drew grinned as Julian then strolled out without another word.

I snorted. My friendship with Drew Maddox was probably a conflict of interest considering he pitched for the baseball team my brother owned but like I said, I was running out of friends who didn’t have a wife and a curfew.

“How you holding up, buddy?” Drew smirked, snatching a fry off my plate as soon as it hit the table. He took a bite and tossed a wink at the blushing waitress before asking exactly what I expected from him. “So you got pictures of this girl or what? Because I have trouble believing she’s as hot as you say.”

I sneered. “In that case, I look forward to you meeting her.”

“Well, if she’s even half as good-looking as you claim, I look forward to it too.”

“Actually, I just decided that you’re never meeting her. And if you ever try anything on her I’ll make sure you’re on the DL for the rest of the year.”

“At which point your brother would kill you. The team needs me.”

“Yeah, which is why you’re partying in the Hamptons instead of rehabbing your injury.”

“It’s a muscle contusion. It’ll heal by tomorrow,” Drew exaggerated as he shifted down his side of the booth to sit diagonal from me. It was a requirement for us if we ever shared a table. We were both six-foot-three and with our builds factored in, it was generally hard to fit us both in one space. On the bright side, our size tended to result in attention from women. A lot of it. Julian generally found this kind of thing annoying when we were out, but I personally welcomed it with open arms.

Apparently at least till today.

“The hell was that?” Drew laughed when the hostess left after checking in on us. I blinked.

“What?”

“She was hot as all fuck and she was basically thrusting her tits in your face.”

“Yeah? I don’t remember that happening.”

“You wouldn’t. Your eyes were attached to your phone like a fuckin’ high school girl. Who are you texting? Her?”

By “her” he meant Aly, but Drew was allergic to remembering names. For the first few weeks that he knew me, he called me Evan.

“I got her number from my mom. I was checking if she responded to my text.”

“What’d your text say?”

“I was asking if I could see her at work. Or if I’d just see her at home.”

“Christ.” Drew winced the way he did when he knocked back a particularly large shot of tequila. “Since when did you get this desperate? You’re the one who preaches the whole ignore-them-till-they-come-to-you trick.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t really apply to her.”

“Why not? And if you say ‘because she’s different,’ I’m going to hurl.”

I shot Drew a death look and said nothing at all.

“Jesus fuck. So she is different,” he laughed, raising his eyebrows. “Magical tits aside, what’s so special?”

I pulled my eyebrows tight. Aside from the fact that I kind of hated listening to Drew talk about Aly, I actually had no idea how the hell to answer his question – because I had no idea how to describe my relationship with Aly Stanton.

As far as I was concerned, we had always been a love-hate kind of thing. I definitely fucked with her a lot when we were kids, but that was only because she made it so easy. Since we were little, Aly had made the decision to hate me. I’d say we were around seven years old when she started getting crazy defensive around me and constantly tried to one-up everything I did.

When I took up an instrument, she picked the same one. When I started karate, she did the same. When I chose to learn Spanish in middle school, Aly switched out of her French class and into mine – just to prove how much faster she could learn the language.

I would’ve found it annoying if I didn’t find it hilarious. Especially since by seventh grade, it was becoming obvious that she was no match for me when it came to athletics or strength. I had her beat in all the ways that people cared about most, and so she pretty openly hated me.

But on weekends, we were in a different world.

On the weekends, we were basically best friends. Reluctant ones, but still.

We were the two youngest, and we were all we had during those long drawn out dinners that our parents insisted on having every Sunday after the game. Julian always abandoned us to hang out with my older cousins so Aly and I wound up stuck trying to entertain ourselves. Usually, that meant watching stupid videos together on YouTube till our parents got too drunk to pay attention to us. Once it got to that point in the night, we’d slip off to sneak vodka from the bar or find weed in my parents’ bedroom.

Shit, most of my firsts in life and half of my best memories from childhood involved Aly Stanton. It just so happened that our fight junior year erased any fondness that ever existed between us.

In her eyes at least.

“I don’t know, man, I’ve just known her my whole life,” I said to finally answer Drew’s question, but by the time I said it, he’d already distracted himself by hitting on the hostess. I rolled my eyes out of habit because he was constantly dipping out of conversations to chat up a girl. But today, it honestly relieved me.

I needed time to wrangle my thoughts and figure out what the fuck to do next. I could barely think straight, but there were at least a few things I knew for sure.

Aly was back in my life and I was already hooked on her again.

I needed to be near her. I wanted to find out everything she did, everything she’d seen – everything I’d missed about her since the day she was gone. After last night, I could barely go two seconds without thinking about her.

And since losing her the first time was hard enough, there was no way in hell I was letting it happen again.