Page 61 of Home Game

No.

No fucking way.

“No,” I finally said out loud, then repeated louder. “No. I’m going to make it right.”

Emmett shook his head, looking out over the rippling water of the river. “It wasn’t your fault, Storm. When I asked about your picture, they didn’t even know what I was referring to.”

My eyes went wide. “They hadn’t seen my post?”

“Nope,” Emmett said. “They said it came down to potential, and financials. That they are going forward with another client. My colleague suspects it’s Gwyneth Paltrow, or someone of that level of fame.”

“Emmett,” I said, sitting down on the bench next to him and wrapping my arms around him in a tight hug.

A breeze blew through the air, shuddering all the leaves around us.

I had never even considered this was a possibility.

Hell, I’d only been so brazen about Racks with Emmett because I’d been sosurethey would go forward with the Fixer Brothers deal. I’d thought it was a sure shot.

“They’re fucking crazy for not going with you and the Fixer Brothers,” I said, and I meant every word of it. “They’re going to be the biggest name in home renovations and decor within the next couple of years, and the Racks people are going to regret the fucking day they dropped this deal.”

Emmett was motionless as I hugged him. I pulled away, trying to look him in the eye, but he just kept looking down at the water’s edge.

“I thought I could make anything happen,” he said.

“You still can,” I said. “Emmett, I am so sorry for posting the photo last night. For not doing my research, even if it wasn’t the reason they dropped the deal.”

He waved a hand through the air. “It’s done. No use dwelling.”

“It’s still the truth, though,” I said. I shifted on the bench. “And I am sorry. I don’t usually talk about this out loud, but… I act out sometimes.”

Emmett gave me a look. My muscles were all tensed up, but I couldn’t stop fidgeting with the fabric of my shorts, the arm of the bench, anything I could find to distract me.

My mind felt like it was somehow both blank and racing, all at the same time.

“I know, I know, it isn’t news to you,” I said. “But I don’t just do it because I enjoy chaos, or something. I guess I act out when I feel like I’mnothing. When I feel like I don’t belong somewhere. And around you, I felt like I didn’t matter.”

Emmett looked like he had finally come back down to Earth for a moment, furrowing his brow at me.

“Like you don’t matter?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused. “It’s exactly the opposite. It’s like you’re the center of everyone’s universe, Storm. Everyone’s favorite football star, social media star, soon to be TV star. How could you possibly feel like you don’t matter?”

The air felt colder all of a sudden. My skin tingled in the cold, and memory flooded me.

Every fall, dreading going back to school.

This same feeling in the air, when everyone around me thought I was worthless. When I felt like I wanted to disappear.

I swallowed, my throat tight.

“Because I think I’ve always felt like I don’t matter,” I said quietly.

Emmett’s eyes locked with mine, and in that brief moment, it was as if the realities of the world seemed to melt away.

For a moment I wasn’t thinking about the deal falling through, or our pasts, or how everything had changed so fast.

How could Emmett look in my eyes with so much understanding and acceptance? Even after everything that hadhappened between us, and even though he was the kind of person I was programmed to expect hatred from? We didn’t belong in the same world, let alone the same park bench.

But here we were.

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