Page 7 of Ramsey & Emerson

My car had also been another bone of contention between me and my aunt. It was a disaster, plain and simple. However, it ran, and that was all that mattered. Constance had offered to buy me a new car, but I had put my foot down. The car was one of the few things that had belonged to my mother, and I would not part with it. The two suitcases that I’d brought with me had consisted of very few of my personal belongings, plus the rest of whatever I’d been able to salvage that had belonged to my mom.

I was not getting rid of that car.

“You know, you really fucked up Friday night.” Bailey’s voice broke the silence in the kitchen. “You do know that, right?”

I turned around to face her because this uppity bitch did not scare me. I crossed my arms over my chest as I arched a brow at her. “Is that right?”

She smirked as she sat down on one of the barstools at the kitchen island. “Yeah, that’s right.” She folded her arms on the counter, then leaned forward. “No one talks to Ramsey Reed like that and gets away with it.No one.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “You think that I give a shit about Ramsey Reed? Do you honestly think that I give a shit aboutanyof you?”

Bailey actually had the grace to flush at the reminder of her callus attitude on Friday. “You don’t understand the way things work around here, Emerson.”

I uncrossed my arms, then gripped the counter behind me. “Oh, I understand how things work here just fine,” I corrected her.

She let out a frustrated huff. “No, you don’t,” she argued. “If you did, you’d have steered clear of Ramsey Reed.”

I could feel my blood boil at hearing his name. “You’re acting as if I went out of my way to interact with him,” I reminded her. “You were standing right next to me whenheapproachedus.”

Bailey waved away that point. “It doesn’t matter. He leads, and you follow. Those are the rules.”

I laughed, then turned my back on her to resume making my lunch. “He might leadyou,Bailey, but I’m not a follower. And if the day ever comes where I am following someone, it won’t be someone like Ramsey Reed.”

“He leads this entire town, Emerson,” she replied, sounding completely exasperated with my dismissive attitude. “There is nothing that he can’t do. Whether it’s legal or illegal.”

I turned back around to face her again. I wanted her to be able to look at my face and see how serious I was. “I don’t care if Ramsey Reed is the goddamn Pied Piper, and his flute is made of magic. I’m not some mindless minion, and I’m not about to hand over my free will to anyone.”

Bailey shook her head at me. “Ramsey Reed isn’t just anyone,” she pressed again.

“And neither am I, Bailey,” I tossed back. “Oh, I know everyone here believes that I’m just a poor, little, worthless nobody, but I’m not. And once all you spoiled, sheltered, arrogant kids have to live outside of this town-in the real world-you’re going to see that you guys aren’t as special as you think you are.”

Her face took on a pinkish hue, and I knew that it was my view of reality that had offended her. She stood up. “I’m going to love telling you I told you so,” she sneered.

I stepped away from the counter until my stomach hit the kitchen island, then I glared at her. “Well, if I’m remembering Friday night correctly, Bailey, it was Ramsey Reed whofollowed meoutside. Not the other way around.”

There you had it, folks.

Her face turned a full-on red, telling me everything that I needed to know. Bailey was after Ramsey, and whether or not she’d had him before, evidently, it wasn’t enough.

“You know what, Emerson? You’re nothing but trash,” she spewed. “And you’re out of your mind if you think Ramsey Reed will ever be into you.”

I smirked because I knew that it would piss her off more, and just to pour salt over the wound, I said, “I don’t care if Ramsey Reed likes me or not, Bailey. However, it seems like I’m the only one in this room who doesn’t care.”

She was so livid that she couldn’t even respond. She walked off, her feet stomping on the tile so hard that I was surprised that she didn’t snap off a heel. Because, yes, Bailey Stevens was the type of girl that wore heels on a Sunday afternoon in her own home.

I let out a sigh, then turned around to finish making my sandwich. After I was done and had put everything away, I sat on the same stool that Bailey had occupied earlier, then quietly ate my lunch.

Halfway through, my mind replayed our conversation. Now, while I wasn’t scared to stand up for myself, my mind kept going back to what Bailey had said about Ramsey having so much power that he basically had permission to even commit crimes.

That ability took intimidation to a whole different level. Most bullies danced on the line of legal and illegal for fear of going to jail. However, if you had a bully who was free from that fear, who knows what they’d be capable of. Did Ramsey Reed really have that kind of power, or was Bailey just exaggerating because she was mean spirited and jealous?

Sad to say, bullying wasn’t even the biggest issue here. My biggest problem was the obvious attraction that I’d felt towards Ramsey. I mean, I might be damaged and confused, but there was no denying that Ramsey Reed was gorgeous, built, and all fucking man, even at the tender age of seventeen or eighteen…however old he was.

The fight in him had turned me on, and that was all kinds of stupid for a girl like me. Plus, Sweet Baby Jesus, when I’d felt what he had packing pressed up against me, ready to go, I had been seconds away from ripping his clothes off.

While I’d never had sex before, I had fooled around with a couple of boys in my lifetime. My seventh-grade year, my first boyfriend, Josh Brex, had been my first kiss, and my first second base. I had developed early, and his eyes had lit up like Christmas morning when I had let him touch me for the first time. Nonetheless, Josh and I hadn’t lasted long. He’d been a year older than me, and when he’d gone off to high school while I had stayed back in middle school, he had discovered the phenomenon that was the high school teenage girl. However, it’d been a sweet break up, and we had remained friends.

My second experience had been in my sophomore year when Alex Crane had invited me to a senior party, and I’d gone. We’d gotten along well and had gone out on several dates before I had finally let him get to third base. However, when I’d made it clear that he would never hit a home run with me, he had ghosted me, and we had phased into casual acquaintances.

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