"Hey," Will warns. "No picking on your boss this trip. No mentions of the office or the word work either. As your boss, I'm making that an official rule."
///
"Or what? You'll fire me?"
"You'd probably like that," he says.
The funny thing is, I would. Not the actual firing part, that would suck. But as the end-of-contract with Emmett looms and that forty thousand dollars waves at me from the finish line, I really should start thinking about what I'm going to do next.
But as each day and date with Emmett goes on, as we fall deeper into this rabbit hole that is our quasi-relationship, the less I think about the future. My dreams are still as important to me as ever but I have a hard time focusing on them when Emmett seems to have taken over my life. It's not that I would dare put it on hold again, it's just that when I picture committing to the acting life, whether in Vancouver, LA, maybe even London, I see Emmett by my side.
It's just such a self-destructive thought.
Whatever we have, whatever this is, half-real, half-fake, it's going to come apart soon. There's an expiration date to this relationship, a point where I get paid and we part ways.
God. Just the thought makes my heart feel like it's coming undone, what once was a brick wall is now slowly crumbling to pieces.
Emmett is waiting at the curb when we pull up to his house, looking sexy as hell in his Timberland boots, his jeans, a faded Guns N Roses T-shirt that's almost a size too small. His skin is bronzed from the sun, his muscles looking effortlessly strong. Just the sight of him is like a balm on a wound and when he opens the door and sees me, his smile nearly breaks me in two.
"Hey sunshine," he says to me, throwing his bag in the back.
"Hi sugarbutt," Will says. He gives Emmett an exaggerated wink over his sunglasses.
Emmett rolls his eyes, nods a hello at Jackie, and then slides in the backseat.
He immediately pulls me in for an impromptu kiss. Quick and sweet.
When we pull apart, Jackie is watching us intently. "Hey. I thought you two hated each other."
Hate Emmett? That feels like so long ago. I try and put on a scowl but I end up smiling instead.
"Don't forget I'm a pretty good actor, Jackie," Emmett tells her as he buckles in. "I only look like I enjoy Alyssa's company, but the truth is she's pretty intolerable."
"I hear that," Will notes.
"Shut up," I tell Will, and then smack Emmett on the arm. "And you shut up too. You're not that good of an actor."
"Ouch, my bleeding heart," Emmett says mockingly, grabbing his chest. "So this is what the weekend is going to be like, huh?"
"Alyssa brought pot cookies," Jackie points out. "So, yeah. That's the weekend. You'll all be high and drinking wine by the lake and I'll be beached up on shore like a bloated whale."
"Jackie, you're barely showing and even if you were, so what?" I tell her. "You're pregnant. You're going to show. And you're going to look absolutely beautiful every step of the way."
"This is what I keep telling her," Will says.
"You don't get it," Jackie says and then launches into a tirade about everything in her life right now that's falling apart because of her pregnancy. I do know one thing, she's moody as hell. One minute she's so in love with Will, her son, the baby, the next she thinks the world is ending. I would have thought a second pregnancy would be easier but who knows.
What I do know is that Will, as usual, has the patience of a saint. Though I often give him a hard time for being too nice, too charming, too handsome, he really is an angel when it comes to her. I don't think I've ever seen a guy so excited and ready to become a father.
I look beside me at Emmett as the car pulls out of the city, heading along the highway that will wind for hours past raging rivers and towering mountain peaks. He might be a self-proclaimed thirty-eight-year-old man-child but I no longer see him as that. In fact, it's hard to remember how I used to feel about him.
Of course, he's still a bit of a scoundrel, entirely focused on sex most of the time, with a flippant attitude and a knack for pushing all my buttons, good and bad. I know those parts of him won't change the more I get to know him. Because this last week alone, I feel like I've seen the real Emmett. The man behind the mask, living a life and not a role.
After his arrest in LA, where I spent the night waiting for him at the jail, praying that everything would turn out all right, he opened up in a way I'd never seen before. Every grimy, gritty detail of his life he shared with me, laid it all out on the table. As if that wasn't vulnerable enough, he then actually showed it to me.