Текст книги "Fever dream"
Автор книги: Elsie Silver
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
His gaze licks across my skin. My legs, my stomach, my chest. “Are you saying that you’re admiring me? Because I kind of thought you were the only girl in the world who didn’t. For anyone else, I’d have skipped the boxers entirely.”
My lips purse as I make a show of looking him up and down. “I’m happy to see that a night of rest has restored you to factory settings. The earth is healing. This is exactly the type of assholery Richard wants from you. He’ll be thrilled to know you’re ready to live up to your reputation again.”
For the briefest flash, something close to wounded crosses his face. But it’s there and gone before I can analyze it.
“Well, if it doesn’t mess with my reputation too much, I’m going to offer one last time to accompany you up to Prickle Point. I’m assuming that’s where you’re going and that you didn’t just walk this way to shit-talk me to my face. I can even put some pants on for you—unless you prefer I don’t.”
He winks.
I roll my eyes and forge ahead.
“Yes, yes, you do have a bad habit of behaving rather gentlemanly when I’m around, but you don’t need to do that. I’m on the job. I’m twenty-five. Don’t need a chaperone. And who knows, someone who actually wants to see you in your underwear might swing by. I’d hate to spoil that opportunity for you. So…” I hike a thumb over my shoulder and back away. “I’ll see myself out.”
I expect him to toss back a witty jab—deep down, I’m even hoping for one. A little more of this back-and-forth with him would, at the very least, be entertaining. But all he offers me is a dip of his chin as he raises his coffee cup in my direction. Then he leans back, eyes drifting over the fields while rocking gently in his chair, dismissing me.
I swallow and drop my gaze, smiling down at my feet awkwardly as I hustle out of sight. I pass his house and head toward the wide metal gate that leads off the Brandt property. Desperate for an escape.
Once I hit the trailhead, thoughts of Emmett fade away, replaced by a single-minded focus on my job. I snap photos of the area with my phone—the small parking lot and several angles heading up the trail to the mountain’s summit—so production can see where the cameras will need to go. As I explore, I jot a note to contact the local parks board to get a permit for filming. I take video footage, illustrating the difficulty of the main path and noting a halfway point with a bench that could work for shooting B-roll interviews.
Then, I make my way to the top. This mountain is more like a steep hill, but the view from the crest would still be worth it if it were a harder trail.
I prop my hands on my hips, take a deep breath, and allow myself a moment to soak in the views. The lake, the trees, the perfectly spaced rows of vines from all the different wineries in the valley below. This part of British Columbia feels almost desertlike, the scorching sun undulating in waves over the dry loamy soil and glinting off the shimmering lake. Native prickly pear cactuses bloom along the slope before me, giving the entire setting a dreamlike quality.
Once I’ve caught my breath and looked my fill, I lift my phone and start snapping away to give production a road map of the location. It’s as I’m taking a video and explaining the approximate size of the summit that my foot catches on a piece of dry, ropy root.
And with only a few stumbled steps, my center of gravity is shot. Suddenly, I’m falling backward down the slope of the hill. I don’t fall fast or hard, it’s more of an embarrassing, clumsy, childlike roll down a hill.
A hill that is quickly revealing why Emmett refers to it as “Prickle Point.”
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CHAPTER 11
Emmett
I SHUT THE DOOR behind me and tip my head down. I’m ready to go face the music that is Romance Ranch.
My boots hit the round paving stones as I try to muster an internal pep talk.
Sure, I’m in it for the money, but the women seemed nice enough last night. It might even be fun. Plus, the first payment showed up in my bank account this morning, and it was a lot of zeroes. That part was definitely fun.
Dick Wad called, and he wants me to take the girls around the farm over the course of the week. Have them pitch in with some chores as a way of weeding out the ones who don’t suit farm life. He sounded downright gleeful at the prospect of “watching these prissy city girls play in some shit.”
His words, not mine.
Personally, I’m dreading the entire thing. Partially because I know our presence will rightfully irritate my opa while simultaneously thrilling Riley to no end, and because this experience is rapidly becoming a lot less exciting than I thought it was going to be.
I also find myself kind of wishing I were hiking Prickle Point instead.
It’s as I clear the front gate that the crunch of gravel beneath shoes draws me out of my pity party. And instead of staring at my toes, I find myself staring at Julia Silva. Limping down the lane with blood streaming down her knees and a piece of cactus lodged in her dark hair.
For a beat, I stare, making sense of what I see in front of me, my heart accelerating with every second that passes. I jog forward to reach her.
“Julia?” I ask stupidly, because clearly this is Julia. But compared to when I saw her earlier, she’s looking a little worse for wear.
“Who?” Her brow furrows and her head tilts as she takes a few final stiff steps toward me.
Her confusion makes my chest constrict.
“Julia? Julia Silva?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, I don’t know her.”
My hand slips out to cup her elbow. She’s covered in dirt. A thin layer dusts her cheeks, and even more coats her arms and legs. I turn to lead her toward my place, a sense of alarm making everything I’m supposed to be doing right now fade into irrelevance. “Let’s get you cleaned—”
“Do I look so rough that I can’t be Julia Theo’s Hot Little Sister anymore?”
I draw up short, noting the sparkle of amusement that has replaced the confusion in her eyes.
A little blood on this girl and my brain short-circuits, which makes me the world’s most gullible man alive, apparently.
“That wasn’t funny,” I say stiffly, but Julia laughs anyway.
She doesn’t pull back, and I don’t let her elbow go either. She might be laughing, but she’s still hurt.
“Weird, because it was funny for me. You said Julia? like a question. And who else would I be? Sometimes stupid questions get stupid answers, Emmett.”
“Hysterical. Were you attacked by a cougar?”
“I wish. That would be a lot less embarrassing than admitting I tripped over a root and took a tumble down the side of the mountain. Gotta say, Prickle Point is aptly named. That hill is fucking covered in cacti.”
I try to stifle my smirk, but I fail.
“Oh, does that amuse you?”
I lift my free hands up in surrender. “I would never be amused by your misfortune, but in this case, I find it somewhat satisfying.”
She shoots me an incredulous look. “You are such a dick.”
“Oh, don’t look so offended. You told me over and over again you didn’t want my help, and you wanted to go by yourself. But we both know I could have been there to save you from yourself.”
She looks down, palms brushing against her hips as though a simple swipe of the hand would be enough to clean off the mess covering her. “You’ve saved me quite enough for one lifetime,” she mutters. And when her eyes meet mine again, they’re all steel.
I don’t need to ask what she’s referring to. I know what she means.
“I didn’t save you that night, Julia. All I did was respect your wishes and step in when anyone else would have.”
A bitter laugh spills from her lips as she pulls away to prop her hands on her hips. “When anyone else would have? No, there are at least a few people in the world who would have been happy to sit back and watch it all unfold. Who knows what else—” Her voice goes slightly shrill before she cuts off her own sentence. She stares back at me with a grimace. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. I’ll go clean myself up.”
She starts to walk away, but I reach for her again, fingers sliding over her forearm just as she pulls clear of my reach, but it’s enough to bring her up short.
When she peeks back over her shoulder at me, I tilt my head toward my cottage, which she eyes suspiciously. “Clean up here before you head back to set.”
“I don’t—”
I cut her off with a wave before I breeze past her and walk back toward the front of the house. “If you show up looking like that and Dick Wad sees you, he’ll blow a fucking gasket.”
Several beats of silence stretch as she stands behind me.
“I’m sorry, did you just call him Dick Wad?”
I smile, but I don’t turn back. “His name and personality lend themselves rather well to that abbreviation, don’t you think?”
Her laughter rings out, and relief courses through me. The sound of it has me smiling even harder than I was before.
I’d left Julia behind to clean herself up, thinking I’d be able to get to set and not obsess over her well-being.
I was wrong.
Hair and makeup were ready to pounce on me the minute I stepped off the road and toward the production trailers. I recoiled almost immediately and made up a bullshit excuse about having forgotten something at my house that I needed to go get. Then I bolted with no other explanation.
Which is how I found myself here. Back at my house. Being entertained.
“Fuck.”
“Shit fuck.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“I fucking hate this shit.”
“Fuck my life.”
I watch Julia Silva, who I had pegged as sweet and proper and a carbon copy of her smiley-face emoji of a brother, employ almost every offensive combination of fuck under the sun as she uses tweezers to remove the prickles from her palms and forearms.
One at a time. Because she still refuses to let me help her.
She’s all huffy and pissy. And honestly? It’s kind of adorable. Adorable enough that a chuckle slips from my lips when she says, “Fucking fuck!”
Her head whips around from where she stands at the kitchen sink, and her dark eyes narrow in my direction. I’ve propped myself against the counter, a safe distance away from her. Giving her space like you might an injured wild animal.
“Something funny, Bush?” she asks with a tinge of venom in her voice. “I thought you’d left.”
I shrug and make a show of giving her a slow once-over, as if I’m assessing her.
I know I shouldn’t. I know I’m playing with fire. Flirting with Theo Silva’s little sister is like charging at a big red flag. But as it turns out, red’s my favorite color.
“Decided to come back. Didn’t know you were old enough to talk like that,” I say, hitting her with a wink, which only gets me an eye roll and an exasperated sigh. It seems to be a common transaction for the two of us.
“And it’s Brandt, not Bush,” I add, before I can think better of correcting her.
That sentence brings her up short. She carefully places the tweezers on the counter before lifting one brow in my direction. “What do you mean it’s Brandt and not Bush?"
I freeze for a beat, kicking myself for sharing that with her. It tumbled out with such ease. The messiness of my life seeps through the cracks a little too readily when I’m around her.
“Getting kind of personal, don’t you think?” I quip, crossing my arms, hoping to steer us into safer territory. Julia is all bright and shiny, her family is all wholesome and happy. I don’t want to pop the lid on something that will only make me feel lesser than in her presence.
She doesn’t respond right away. Instead, she busies herself by reaching for a paper towel, wetting it, and wiping her skin clean. Then she inspects her hands with a dry chuckle. “You’ve washed vomit out of my sarong, so I think we might be past the point of worrying about what’s personal.”
I pop my tongue into my cheek to cover a laugh, because, fuck, if she hasn’t got a point. A dark one. But a point nonetheless.
One that has me realizing Julia may not be judging me the way that I assume she is.
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CHAPTER 12
Julia
I STEP BACK FROM him, knowing I need to create some space, but a sharp sting brings me up short.
I wince and let out a pained hiss when the fucking thorns speared into my ass cheek twist and snag against the loose fabric of my shorts. They’ve been needling me since I walked down that mountain, every step a reminder that I had no idea how I was going to get them out.
Hell, I even leaned up against a tree and tried to twist around far enough, but to no avail. My plan has certainly not been to tell a single person. Least of all Emmett Bush. But concern overtakes his features. It seems I underestimated how observant the man is.
“Are you lying about being injured?”
“No,” I reply quickly, my cheeks heating as I shake my head with too much enthusiasm to be normal.
“Julia. What’s wrong?”
He steps closer, and I grip the edge of the counter as my butt bumps against the edge, forcing me to swallow a pained moan. It comes out as more of a pathetic whimper. Apparently, a noise that makes chivalrous men want to help you, because Emmett’s body language has morphed from coy and teasing to alarmed.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. I thought you got all the spines out of your hands.”
“I did.” I hold them up to him as though showing proof of my work.
“So why do you sound like a wounded animal?”
“I don’t—” I start to argue with him and then cut myself off because it sounds frilly and needlessly secretive. We’re both adults here. I’ll be direct. “I have some stuck on the back of my… legs. They might be awkward to reach, and I need some privacy so that you don’t… I don’t know, take blackmail pictures of me twisted up like a pretzel.”
“Julia, be real. I wouldn’t use them for blackmail. I’d keep them for personal use.”
“Wow, you are something else. You know—”
“Turn around,” he cuts me off with a smirk. “I’ll help you.”
“No. I’d rather you didn’t.”
He sighs now, running a calloused hand through his dark golden curls. “Julia, I’ve seen women’s legs before, okay? I’ll quit teasing you and get straight to business, but let’s get this done so that we can both get to work.”
I sigh heavily, resignation sweeping through me. “You can’t help me because I lied. They’re not on my legs.”
His brows lift in silent question as he stares back at me.
“They’re on my ass.”
For a beat: nothing. Then his bright blue irises widen in shock as he lifts a fist up to shield his lips.
Which only serves to annoy me because I know that behind that big fucking hand he’s laughing at me. But he covers it up in seconds, dropping his hand as he shoots me an earnest expression. “You’re in luck, because I’ve also seen a lot of women’s asses. Seeing yours will be just another day in the life. So, the offer still stands.”
I groan and drop my face into my hands.
“I promise to be a complete gentleman about it. I’ve removed porcupine quills from a horse’s nose, so this should be a walk in the park. I know I run my mouth a lot, but I would never—”
“I know,” I say, waving him off. Because I do know. I may not be all that familiar with Emmett, but he has seen me at my most vulnerable, and he was nothing short of saintly.
Plus, I can’t fathom spending hours with these prickles torturing me. So, with an exasperated sigh, I say, “Fine. But don’t get a boner.”
He scoffs at me and I shoot him a withering glare. Then I turn around with flaming red cheeks and plant my palms on the linoleum counter. “Okay. Get it over with.”
“Oh god. I love it when women say that to me,” he quips, stepping closer.
“Emmett.”
“Sorry, sorry. It slips out sometimes.”
“Well, lock it down. I’m not one of the contestants. Save it for later.”
He’s a respectable distance away, but I can still feel the heat of his body as he crouches a bit to inspect me. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping I can disassociate from the level of mortification this entire thing is causing me.
“Julia, I don’t know how to tell you this without pissing you off.”
“Just say it,” I grit out.
“I’m going to need you to bend over.”
“Fuck my life,” I groan, staring at the worn floorboards beneath me and silently praying that they might open up and swallow me whole.
“In the least sexual way possible. Obviously, because it’s you.”
I bend over, propping my elbows against the counter as I toss back, “Okay, there’s no need to be insulting about it.”
He chuckles, and I can feel his eyes on me. Knowing he’s looking his fill stirs something inside of me that has been dormant for over two years now. Wearing only my shorts and sports bra, I’m exposed but not uncomfortable.
“You really did a number on yourself. There are… a lot.”
I swear I can hear him wince.
I glare at him over my shoulder, refusing to answer that question with any words. He grins back at me, and it’s hard to maintain my frown because this is objectively kind of funny.
Still, I turn back to analyzing the counter. It has brown veining in it, like it was trying to imitate marble while keeping to a very seventies color scheme. Hell, even the oven and fridge are a yellow-gold color.
Silence stretches between us as he moves, assessing the damage or coming up with a plan of attack. All I can hear is the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock that sits above the woodburning fireplace in the small adjoining living room.
“Okay, can I touch you now?”
My heart stutters in my chest at the tenderness and respect in his voice. For a guy who was just joking about bending me over, he has pivoted into dutiful territory very quickly.
“Y-yeah. That’s fine.” I nod as I respond, but I don’t risk looking back at him.
“Okay, I’m going to start down here.” He presses a single finger to my upper thigh to demonstrate the location. “And then I’ll work my way up. But I’ll let you know. I might have to… lift the fabric a bit to get at a few of them.”
“Sure. Whatever,” I say. Because what do I care? Any shred of pride I had has dissolved into this retro vinyl countertop.
This hideous mustard tone is officially the shade of humiliation.
And all that’s left for me to do is grin and bear it.
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CHAPTER 13
Emmett
JULIA IS EMBARRASSED. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that much out.
A pink flush spreads across the skin on her back, and she’s holding her neck straight and stiff. She’s pretending these hideous mustard-colored countertops are the most interesting thing she’s ever seen just to avoid looking up at me.
“You got performance anxiety or something, Bush? All that talk about seeing so many women’s asses, and you’re standing there like a starstruck virgin.”
She’s passing this off as a joke, but there’s an edge to her tone. I grimace as I reach over her body and swipe the tweezers off the counter, wondering how the hell I’m going to make this less uncomfortable for her.
“Brandt. My last name is Brandt,” I mutter again as I place my hand on one hip to steady her.
She scoffs, giving her head a subtle shake. “Too personal, remember?”
One corner of my mouth tugs up as I echo her earlier sentiment back to her. “I’m about to pull prickles out of your ass, so I think we might really be past the point of worrying about what’s personal.”
I pull out the first spine before she can respond. She hisses out a breath, and all I can think is that I’d like to take a blowtorch to Prickle Point and nuke all those cactuses for doing this to her.
I peek up and watch her drop her head lower. I’m not sure if it’s pain or shame that has her hanging her head. All I know is that her distress unsettles me.
My brain turns over conversation starters as I pluck at the prickles in the back of her thighs, but nothing seems quite right.
The weather? Weekend plans? Her brother?
All stupid.
And so, in a moment of desperate confusion, my mouth moves before my brain has a chance to intervene.
“Legally, my name is Emmett Brandt. Not Emmett Bush.”
Her head lifts a couple of inches, and she goes still. “I’ve only ever heard you called Emmett Bush.”
I continue working on the prickles, internally berating myself for bringing this up just to make this moment easier. She’s silent for long enough that hope surges behind my ribs.
Maybe she’ll gloss over this altogether. Maybe she’ll bring up the weather next.
But no. That’s wishful fucking thinking.
“You compete as Emmett Bush. Hell, this show is all based around a bachelor named Emmett Bush.”
I flatten my hand against her lower back, working on pulling the spines as gently and quickly as I can, diverting my own attention as I speak. Telling myself that I’m only divulging this to her because it seems to be providing her some distraction from her mortification.
“My mom and biological dad were never together. He was the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Lived on a ranch nearby.” I play the conversation off like it’s no big deal. Even though the ten-year-old boy inside of me is almost always upset by reminiscing about this part of my life.
Her head lifts farther as she turns to peek at me from over her shoulder. I don’t hold her gaze.
“It was a one-night mistake that ended up being a lifelong connection.” I shrug as though that explains anything at all.
Then, I take another peek.
But Julia doesn’t say anything. She blinks at me, a curious, innocent expression touching that pretty fucking face. Normally, I’d end it there and walk away. But there’s something about her expectant gaze that makes me feel like I should dig a little deeper.
“My biological father was in and out of the picture constantly. Unreliable and verbally abusive. So, my mom gave me her last name and kept me away from him. She raised me on her own, but not for long because she met our stepdad when I was still little. He basically became the only dad I ever knew.”
“Wait,” she says. “So you and your siblings all have your mom’s last name? I’m pretty sure that’s how they introduced themselves.”
“Yeah, they do. And I think it became a thing for her. Maybe it was something about the farm name and wanting to carry on that tradition. Or maybe it was that my sperm donor fucked her up. Hell, maybe my trust issues are hereditary.”
A humorless laugh spills from my lips as I stare off for a moment. Because it’s never occurred to me in such simple terms that I got my blue eyes and my guardedness from my mom.
With a shake of my head, I continue. “All I know is she never married my stepdad. Not legally anyway. But he stuck around and never pushed her about it. I don’t think he cared if it was on paper. He was just happy to build a life with her in any way she’d allow him to.”
A glance up and I can see Julia swallow as she nods. She’s digesting my overshare with such tact that I’m not nearly as embarrassed about my history as I thought I’d be.
Shit, I might even feel better for having said it out loud.
I study her. Blood on her knees, a piece of cactus in her hair. She looks ridiculous. And yet, I find myself unable to look away.
She wears her feelings right out in the open in every facial expression, in every bit of body language. I can read her so easily, and I wonder what it’s like to not live locked down like I do.
“Okay, so you grew up a Brandt, and now you’re a Bush, at least publicly. Your biological dad is a piece of shit though, right? So how’d you end up with that name?” she asks, blasting through any boundaries that I would normally hide behind during a conversation like this. Especially with someone I barely know.
“Okay, I’m moving to the other side,” I announce in an awkward bid to divert this conversation.
But then I pull out a big one, and she makes this sad little whimper noise that hits me like a bullet to chest.
So I keep talking and working.
Only to distract her.
“My parents, my mom and stepdad, died in a head-on collision on Christmas Day. You know, there one day, gone the next.” I laugh, but it’s out of pure discomfort, not because there’s anything funny about what I’ve just said. Admitting that they’re gone out loud still pains me as much as the day it happened. People told me it would get easier. But it hasn’t.
“I was ten when it happened, the oldest of the four. And it only took a couple of months for Carl to crawl out of the woodwork and fight my grandparents for custody that he’d previously only wanted so he could turn me into his very own rodeo protégé. My mom didn’t want me to be sucked into that scene. You know well how dangerous it is. So she had kept me away. Makes me realize how fierce my mom was. How she protected me from the world—from him. But with her out of the picture, shit got messy. Pretty sure he only came back for me to spite her for ruining his plans. So Oma and Opa fought him. They fought hard enough to keep me for fifty percent of the time. Even though they never made me feel like I was only fifty percent theirs.”
I did that to myself.
A boy split between two lives. The only one I’d ever known and the one that couldn’t have been more different from what I lived on the farm.
“Carl introduced me to the rodeo world and in no time at all, he had me competing under his family name. He couldn’t ride for shit, but he did know the sport inside and out. So he lived his dreams vicariously through me. And I was fucking good at it.”
I shake my head thinking back on that time in my life. The balancing act I had to pull off. The appeasing of everyone around me. The pretending that everything was fine. I was exhausted.
“So now, to the outside world, my name may be Bush. But at heart—and on paper—I’ll always be a Brandt.”
“Oh, Emmett,” she breathes the words, a hitch in her voice.
I only nod. “Yeah. It’s okay. I miss them, of course. Every single day. And you know how it is. Every birthday. Every achievement. Every Christmas. But I’ve gotten used to it.”
That’s a blatant lie.
They all hurt. All those days. All those benchmarks. They’re all excruciating. And that keeps me running. It’s easier to breeze past those big life moments than to sit with the fact that they’ll never be exactly what I wish they would be.
Julia doesn’t respond to that, but I can feel her gaze on me. I wonder if she can tell—she probably knows. After all, she’s lost a parent too. But rather than squirming in my own discomfort, I keep going. Plucking and talking. Multitasking and spilling my guts.
“That must have been a lot to navigate for a ten-year-old.”
I shrug. I don’t remember. Actually I do, but I don’t like to think about it.
“My dad got me on sheep, and then on broncs, and then on bulls. If it bucked, I rode it. And I was good at it. Plus, I loved it, and for all his shortcomings, he taught me well in many ways, so it wasn’t all bad. Anyway, when he took me out to the rodeo, he registered me as Emmett Bush. Carl Bush’s son. And that’s how I became known on the circuit. Never on a passport, never on a driver’s license, never in my head. I still do a double take when someone calls me Emmett Bush.”
My heart pounds as the words tumble out of me. There’s a part of me that wants to stop. But there’s a bigger part of me that feels relieved by sharing this. God knows I’d never lay these insights on Oma and Opa.
“It’s just never been me. Emmett Bush is a coping mechanism. Emmett Brandt, well, that’s who I’ll always be. I have one season left in the WBRF, and then I’ll probably never go by Emmett Bush again.”
I finally chance a glance up at her, and I might be imagining it, but her eyes look glassier than before. Glassier than they even did when she came limping down the road covered in blood and prickles. Glassier than they did the morning she burst out onto my cabin’s balcony and accused me of god knows what.
There’s no pity in her eyes. No judgment. Instead, it looks a little like understanding.
I don’t know what to make of the way she’s looking at me.
All I know is that I like it.
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