Page 16 of Crossroads
Okay, fine, not mine. But she was, and she will be again.
But then... I notice Lucy. Sweet, shy Lucy, who has her lips turned up into a strange smile—one I don’t recognize. Her cheeks pink before she bites on her bottom lip and nods her head at something Emerson is saying.
No.
Relax.
They just met. They’re just being pleasant. Lucy is polite. That’s all this is.
Lucy giggles at something that fucker says, and I’m frozen in my seat. Millie’s eyes meet mine, and she at least has the decency to look sheepish for bringing him here. She mouthssorry, but I don’t care.
I’m too intent on watching the trainwreck before me as Lucy and Emerson engage in conversation. And then Emerson’s cold blue eyes lock on mine, and his lips turn up into a slow smirk, one that makes my blood boil.
He flirts and chats with her, never touching her—a good thing for him because I’m pretty sure I’d rip his arm clean off—but it doesn’t matter. He might as well be with the way he’s talking to her. I can’t hear the actual words, but I can feel them and her reaction to them.
She does touch him though. Her laugh hearty as she acts like he said the funniest thing in the world and then slaps his chest. It’s brief, but the contact makes me see red, and Emerson’s eyes me with that slick smile. Like he won something.
“Well, well. Who thought I’d run into you here?” he asks as all three approach me.
My hands flex in my lap, and it takes everything in me not to punch the smile off his stupid face. “You knew I was here.” I turn to Millie. “Why?”
She huffs, like she’s the one who’s irritated, and Lucy slowly slinks behind the counter. Yeah, I’m the problem. She’s the one who brought the bane of my existence to a place she knows damn well I come to unwind. “Mom’s orders. She wants Emerson to get comfortable in this town.”
“And comfortable I am,” Emerson says, over-the-top as usual, as he plops himself down in the seat right next to mine.
“Find somewhere else,” I growl.
Lucy places a soda in front of Emerson and looks at me, her eyes shining with disappointment. “Maybe you should give him a chance, Jas. I mean, you guys could have more in common than you think.”
What. The. Fuck?They just met, and suddenly she’s on his side?
That’s when Emerson seems to decide to go in for the kill, wrapping his arm around me and leaning in to my ear. “Yeah,Jas. I think we haveplentyin common.”
I turn my head to look at him, seething. He figured out who Lucy is to me. I was an idiot for mentioning I had a girlfriend who broke up with me. That was stupid beyond belief because he knows. And he’s fucking with me by flirting with Lucy. Lucy is off-limits.
I can see it in his eyes as he smirks at me and then looks over at Lucy, his left eye closing and then opening again in a flirty wink.
And that’s it. I can’t fucking take it anymore. I jump off the stool, ready to knock him out, but he’s faster than I thought, jumping up at the same time.
I shove him, and he just smirks at me.
“Jasper, don’t,” Lucy says, of course, coming around the bar to defend her new man.
I turn to look at her, fury in my eyes. “Really, Luce? Is this why we broke up? You want some sophisticated rich city boy?”
“What are you talking about? I just met Emerson.” She looks horrified, but I’m too far gone.
It’s all bullshit. All of it. It was all a lie. I grew up thinking love could conquer all. But it can’t. My parents are two of the most in-love people I’ve ever met, and love hasn’t done shit for them.
All they feel is pain and torment.
And Lucy and me? She broke up with me because she wants to go to college. She wants to live in a big city. And wants to date douchebags like Emerson.
I shove him again, surprised when he barely budges. He’s more solid than I originally thought. “Stay away from Lucy.”
“Really? You gonna piss a little circle around her?” he bites back, and my nostrils flare, my hands clenching at my sides. I don’t want to go to jail—that’s the last thing my family needs right now—but I’m still thinking it might be worth it to knock him down a peg.
“Stay away from her,” I barely manage through gritted teeth.
