Page 26 of Wish Me Home

I didn’t give him the chance to respond to it. My fingers clutched at the straps of my flip-flops as I turned to walk away. Despite the chill morning, I was sweating under my light jacket. I didn’t make it but a few steps before his words stopped me.

“What do you mean you called them?”

When I turned, he had jumped off the wall and was standing in the sand, braced to come after me if I hadn’t stopped. I threw my arms up at my sides in a shrug. “Exactly what I said. I called them, Emmett. It wasn’t terrible.”

Suddenly the wind knocked out of me as I was pushed onto my back in the sand with Emmett on top of me. He scrambled back as he realized the error in his maneuver.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he helped me to sit up, brushing sand off my shoulders. He relaxed when he realized I was trying not to laugh.

“I’m fine, Emmett.”

He stood up but I grabbed his arm to keep him sitting with me. We were already down in the sand, so it was too late now. We were already covered.

He leaned in and gave me a quick peck on my lips, pulling back briefly as if to gauge my reaction. I smiled warmly, and he returned it. Butterflies took off in my belly. I could live for seeing his smiles every day.

“So what happened with the phone call?” he asked.

I brushed some more loose sand from my arms before chewing my lip and debating what I wanted to tell him about the conversation. It hadn’t all been pleasant. There had been lots of arguing, especially when they found out that I’d taken time off over the holidays and had made no plan to visit like they’d been begging me to do for years.

“Mostly, fighting. It was needed, though. They needed to hear why I was so reluctant to come home.”

He tilted his head to the side before looking out at the water. “But you said it wasn’t terrible.”

I sighed, resting my arms across my knees. “It wasn’t. It was healing. They finally acknowledged that maybe they could have done a better job as parents.”

He nodded as he listened to me explain what happened. I managed to tell him the whole story without getting choked up. This whole process had been a bit much, but I wasn’t typically overly emotional. I wanted to get past it. I still had to tell him the other news.

“So after we got everything out in the open, that I felt like they’d abandoned me for most of my life and they apologized for it. Then we agreed maybe I shouldn’t avoid them so much anymore. So, I’m going to spend the New Year in Portland…”

I trailed off and turned to look at him. He was still watching the waves and I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. When he looked at me, I could make out the tracks of tears down his cheeks.

I wiped at his face, and he leaned into my touch. “I’m sorry. I’m not meaning to cry. I’d give anything to have one more conversation with my parents. The fact that you reached out and tried to fix things with yours makes me so unbelievably happy.”

I kissed him then. That he cared so much meant everything when so few had. I’d made friends over the years, but no one that I’d formed an instant connection with like I had with Emmett.

He leaned into me, grasping at my jacket and pulling me against him in another kiss. We fell into the sand and I couldn’t care less that it was getting everywhere again. I desperately needed to be close to this man. We pulled apart, panting, only long enough for me to ask… “Do you want to get out of here?”

Chapter Seventeen

Emmett

Armedwithanaddressin the GPS app on my phone I bolted for my car. Cody hadn’t parked too much further down the road from me, but he’d gotten into his car and had pulled away as I climbed into the car I borrowed from my aunt. I’d had mine shipped to Chicago when I moved.

The drive wasn’t overly long, and I cranked up the awful repetitive Christmas music on the radio to keep me calm enough to make it there in one piece. Driving while aroused probably wasn’t at the top of the list of the safest ideas. It still didn’t stop the images of what could happen when we finally made it to Cody’s apartment.

Pulling into the parking lot, I pulled into a spot that was clearly marked “visitor”. I killed the engine, climbed out of the car, and frantically hit the lock button on the key fob until I heard the telltale sound of the alarm chirp. Aunt Sadie would kill me if I let something happen to her baby.

I double-checked the apartment number on my phone again but quickly realized I needn’t bother because Cody stood at the top of a set of stairs waiting for me. He shifted from side to side like he couldn’t wait for me to get to him.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I ran to him. I crashed into him again, pressing him into the side of the building as our lips collided. He didn’t fight me for dominance while I purred into the kiss and swept my tongue into his mouth. His hips rocked against me and I realized quickly that this needed to move indoors or we were about to put on quite the show for his neighbors.

Pulling back from the kiss, I chuckled as he chased my lips. “Cody, which one? We need to get inside.”

He whined in frustration but slid from between me and the wall. He pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket and opened the door we’d been making out next to. I followed him inside and stopped the second I was across the threshold.

“Sorry, It’s not a lot to look at.” He waved an arm in a sweeping motion as if to show off the tiny studio apartment.

“It’s cute. It suits you,” I said as I looked around when gaze snagged on that little tree he had stuffed in the corner. He had sent me a picture, but it looked even more sad in person.

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