Page 13 of Ramsey & Emerson

Liam, Grant, and Deke gave her their orders, but when she looked down at me, I couldn’t speak. For all the shit that I’d put this girl through, I just couldn’t bring myself to make her take my order and wait on me.

It felt…wrong.

Like I’d said before, Emerson had a great poker face, and she wasn’t giving anything away. Still, I knew-I justknew-that, in this moment, she was feeling every bit the charity case that I kept accusing her of being, even though she clearly wasn’t.

In fact,wewere all the real charity cases. If our parents took away everything that we had, most of this town would put a bullet in their heads because they wouldn’t know how to function without everything just being handed to them.

I looked into her mesmerizing grey eyes as I answered, “Nothing for me.”

If Emerson was surprised, she didn’t show it. She just nodded at the group, then walked off to place our orders, not bothering with any of the customary pleasantries that most servers offered.

The table was quiet, and I wished like hell that Grant hadn’t joined us. Normally, he was a cool guy, and I didn’t mind him. However, I didn’t speak freely around anyone other than Deke and Liam, and I needed to figure out what I was going to do with this girl.

One second, I was feeling the urge to bring her to her knees, and then the next, I didn’t want her on her knees for anyoneever. One second, I was spewing the vilest things at her, and then the next, I wanted to tell her how fucking beautiful she was. She had me so goddamn fucked-up, and all because I’d nevernotbeen in control before. I couldn’t control Emerson Andrews, and that both fascinated and infuriated me.

Apparently, Grant couldn’t take the uncomfortable silence any longer because he started to randomly chat about the first day of school and whatever. I tuned him out, then kept scanning the café, watching Emerson walk around, checking on her tables or cleaning. The place wasn’t packed, but she was still working too hard for my liking.

After about fifteen minutes, she came back to our table to deliver our food and drinks without uttering a single word. It wasn’t lost on me that she hadn’t brought our drinks out first while we’d waited for our food, as was customary. Emerson wanted nothing to do with our table, and she’d made no secret of it.

Since I hadn’t ordered anything, my eyes had stayed glued on her, and fuck my life, because every time that she reached out, grabbed her tip money, then put it in her pocket, I wanted to break something. Then a dark laugh escaped me when it dawned on me why we were getting shitty service. Emerson had already assumed that she wouldn’t be getting a tip from us, so it didn’t matter if she was friendly to us or not.

My resolve finally snapped when she walked up to our table, then dropped the check off without asking us if we wanted anything more, or asking if the check was together or separate. She turned to walk away, and I jumped out of my seat.

“Ram-”

“Forget it, Deke,” I threw back as I snatched Emerson by her arm.

“What the-” Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening.

I ignored her as I dragged her through the café and into the side alley of the building. There wasn’t going to be an audience for what I wanted to say to her.

Chapter 8

Emerson~

Ramsey whirled me around until my back slammed up against the brick building of the café.

This motherfucker.

“Are you out of your mind?!” I raged. “I need this job, Ramsey!”

He stepped closer to me, then caged me in with his palms flat against the wall on either side of my face. “You do not need this fucking job, Emerson,” he argued.

I straightened my back until I was as tall as I possibly could be. “Yes. I. Do.”

Then, because he thought that he could, Ramsey went and moved another chess piece in a direction that it wasn’t allowed to go. “I’ll give you whatever you need if you really can’t stand the idea of living off your aunt,” he said, shocking the ever-lovin’ hell out of me. Shocked that he was insightful enough to guess where my need to work stemmed from, and shocked that he offered to help me.

“W...what…what?”I sputtered. I even shook my head because I had to have heard him wrong.

I had to have.

His deep chocolate eyes bore into mine. “You heard me, Emerson.”

“No,” I retorted. “Clearly, I didn’t. Because it sounded like you were offering to support me financially.”

“That’s exactly what I’m offering,” he replied evenly, sounding serious.

Now, I’d be the first to admit that I didn’t know Ramsey Reed all that well, but his bipolar mood swings were giving me whiplash. How could this psycho talk to me so horribly one minute, but then want to help me out the next?

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