Page 49 of Beautiful Crazy

“Pbffftttt.” I can’t even help it. The sound just came right out of me.

“I see that smirk Emmett Fox,” Hadley proclaims, turning and pointing at me from across the room. “You heard that, didn’t you?”

Snickering, I throw my hands up in defense. “Hey, I’m just here to make food and then y’all are on your own, but uh…”

“Come on,” April goads. “Out with it. I know you have an opinion over there.”

Trying not to make eye contact with Emily, I keep mixing the ingredients in my bowl while telling April, “Maybe you should get the guys in your life a fruit basket or something. Anything sweet.”

“What?” Shelly frowns. “Why the hell would we do that.”

“Uh…well, the fructose in the fruit or the sweet snacks…it’ll make it taste not so…chalky or…like a turnip, if you know what I’m saying.” Finally, I look at April and wink at her. She nods approvingly.

“Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re welcome.”

Within the next thirty minutes, I have pretzels and cheese ready for the ladies and it’s a damn good thing, because they’ve done nothing but down more bottles of wine. Each of them a little more flushed in the face and each of them even more giggly than they were before.

“Here you go ladies. Bon appetite.” I lay the tray of pretzels and cheese on the coffee table for them all to devour having kept a few in the kitchen for myself.

“Thank you so much Emmett. This looks incredible,” Emily kisses my cheek and dives in with the rest of the ladies who all agree that my food is indeed delicious. I don’t care about any of them though. I only care that Emily’s lips just touched my cheek and I know she’s pretty tipsy and probably won’t remember it in the morning, but she smells good, and she looks damn cute and I kind of wish we were the only ones here right now.

“You’re welcome, Babe. Anything you guys need. Just let me know.”

I head back to the kitchen and pull out a wooden cutting board and as many chocolate foods as I can find in our cupboards. Nothing goes better with wine and cheese than chocolate, so I’ll surprise the girls with a pretty little chocolate charcuterie board. I make a pile on the counter of a package of chocolate chip cookies, Hershey Kisses, marshmallows, graham crackers, pretzel sticks, chocolate covered almonds, a jar of peanut butter, and some chocolate chips to melt down for dipping.

“Your turn Emily.” I hear Lacey say. “Give us your worst dating story.”

“Oh, she has lots of those, don’t you Em?” I wink at her too with a quick smile. “She’s come home with some doozy stories.”

Emily snorts. “Like that guy who brought his mom and her little dog on our date to that Italian restaurant.”

“Yep.” I nod, remembering that story.

“Oooh.” Emily points to the girls. “Or this one guy…what was his name?”

I already know who she’s talking about. “Sam. His name was Sam.”

“YES!” Emily cackles before she even tells the story. “Samwise who only ever wanted to have hobbit sex.”

“What the fuck?” Hadley giggles. “What the fuck is hobbit sex?”

“I have no idea!” Emily snorts. “But he definitely had a hobbit obsession, or some kind of fucked up fetish. He kept asking me if I had hairy feet and would refer to me as ‘Precious’ and this one time in his car he whipped out his erection – IN HIS CAR guys…like what the fuck – and said to me, ‘That’s no Orc Horn!’”

I feel myself nodding at her story as all the girls giggle because she’s telling it exactly as she told me two years ago. Emily’s dying of laughter too.

“Let’s just say I answered him with ‘You shall not pass’ as loud as I could, and high-tailed it out of that car as fast as I could!”

Lacey cackles so loudly I have to look up to make sure she isn’t screaming for some other reason. “That might just take the cake right there!”

“Or…or…” Emily laughs again. “There’s the last guy I dated who went down on me after our third date and totally fucking gagged…”

My head snaps up.

What the fuck?

A clanging noise comes from where I’m standing, and the ladies all look to me.

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