CHAPTER ELEVEN
That night, I slept. I forced myself to. Knowing I could overanalyze with the best of ‘em, sleep was the only thing that would keep me from relapsing into the land of empty brown bottles and mountain man bad looks.
And when I woke up at eight o’clock the next morning, I forced myself to go back to sleep because it was eleven hours away from seeing Emma. Eleven hours of staring at the ceiling, wondering if I should have done this, shouldn’t have said that, should have refrained from pummeling the snot out of her boyfriend. Those were questions I didn’t want to agonize over, questions I didn’t want to know the answers to.
So when I woke up three hours later, knowing sleep was a futile effort at that point, I’d grabbed my favorite board and let the killer surf brutalize me until my mind was empty of everything but achieving oneness with the ocean. And brutalize me it did—I felt like the great Pacific’s sparring partner when I stepped onto solid ground finally.
I wasn’t one of those guys who could shower, throw on some deodorant, and be out the door in five minutes, so I bid the ocean good night a little before five and prepped myself for a date about which I had no details other than a time and an address.
Could I have Google earthed it? Easily. Could I have driven by and scoped it out earlier? Of course. Could I have teleported myself there and gotten out just as quickly? Hells yeah.
Why didn’t I? I was still trying to answer that doozy, but I’m sure it had something to do with liking surprises and, mostly, trusting Emma. Whatever she had in mind for us tonight, she hadn’t felt it important to tell me what we’d be doing or exactly what the place behind the address was, but I knew it was intentional. So I trusted her, although I’d had my thumb positioned over my cell’s send button a dozen times tonight when the debacle of settling on what to wear became almost too much to bear.
But I refrained and went with a can’t-go-wrong classic slack, a button down shirt—cuffs rolled to the elbows—and a dazzling smile to finish it all off. The Mustang was freshly waxed, had a full tank of gas, and didn’t mind my zeal when I hit the interstate. Technically, I lived thirty minutes from campus, but for me and the Mustang, that was more a round trip time.
The window was down, the unseasonably warm—even for California—fall weather finishing the job of drying my damp hair. The address Emma had given me was a ways south and east of campus—maybe only an hour or so—but, as with all places one can’t wait to arrive, it took an eternity getting there.
Rolling down the street of a residential area that had probably been nice seventy years ago, I caught the number I was looking for fading from the mailbox slanting in the front lawn. Where in the world had Emma led me? To some ramshackle house in the middle of the Palo Alto equivalent of the projects? I doubted if anyone even lived here anymore; this was probably just some prank she’d tossed my way for beating up her beloved Ty.
Even as the thought flamed through my mind, I knew it wasn’t in Emma’s style, though it was nothing I didn’t deserve.
Deciding I’d get out and check this place out, I cut the engine just as a flood light above a garage that was more tilting than standing blazed on. Four bulging figures immediately stepped into the light, arching basketballs into the net-less hoop hanging above the garage door.
Scarlett boys. Emma’s four older, rather large, brothers who’d tear off a man’s balls and staple them to the back of their pickups to send a message.
So I had my answer as to why she’d brought me here. She wanted me dead.
I hoped it would be a quick one.
Oblivious to, or ignoring, the red Mustang and its occupant, the guys continued assaulting the hoop, so I grabbed the items I’d picked up on my way over and got out of the car. I’d never been one to run away, and I wasn’t going to start when the end was likely four Scarlett boys away.
Slamming the door shut, I announced my arrival to a crowd that was either deaf or giving me the brush off. I growled something under my breath, wishing my three brothers were here with me now and we’d settle this the old fashioned way. A game of around the world. Winner takes all—loser’s dignity, lunch money, or underpants, didn’t matter.
And then I saw Emma. The lights under the porch were shimmering around her, casting her in a beam that was too ethereal to be made of this world.
She was smiling at me in grand Emma style and dressed up like she was heading to a picnic in the park. Feminine skirt folding around the breeze, a pale tank hugging what it covered a tad too closely for my pulse’s sake that was thankfully mostly covered by the white cardigan hanging on her like it was a size too big.
She’d never looked more beautiful.
She waved at me, gesturing for me to come towards her and stop staring like an ignoramus.
This wasn’t a trick, not a prank, not an attempt to get even—it was merely an opportunity to spend an evening with her family. Families were serious business, the best pieces of us we protected at all costs. You didn’t just introduce anyone to these people you loved more than yourself. The fact that Emma was doing just that did something to my insides. Like she’d just carved away another piece of my heart for herself.
At the rate she was going, I’d be robbed of it in about six more seconds.
“You came,” she said, bouncing down the stairs towards me.
“Of course I came,” I answered, looking at her like she was full on crazy.
“Hayward!” a voice charged across the lawn at me as one of the Scarlett brothers turned his attention from the game of street ball.
I tilted my chin in acknowledgement and was about to return the greeting in the form of a hey, what’s up, or how ya doing? when a basketball with a case of terminal velocity decided to cruise my way.
I would have had to drop the items in my hand to stop the ball before my chest did, but since I’d agonized over my selections, taking a speed ball to the chest was the only option. Just as I was bracing for impact, Emma pivoted in front of me, freezing the ball between her hands.
“What do you think you’re doing bringing flowers to a girl who has a boyfriend?” rocket launcher asked me, smirking at his little sister.
Think fast, think fast, think fast. He was right, in his way, but I was right in my way. Emma liked flowers, Ty didn’t see fit to get her any, I—as her pretend/project/wannabe/hopefully future boyfriend—should be allowed to get her some. However, I knew this response would start the night off on, what would you call it? the wrong foot, so I put my fast on my feet thinking cap on and pulled out an explanation.
“These are for your mom.” I raised the bouquet, lifting my shoulders like it was the most obvious thing.
“Who’s the fancy box of chocolates for then?” was the immediate response when his eyes moved to the item in my other hand.
Giving another shrug, I said, “Your mom.”
“So what did you bring for Emma then?” he said, his smile identical to Joseph’s when he was taunting me in a similar way.
“Give it a rest, Tex,” Emma said, firing the ball back his way. “And great first impression, by the way. What a way to welcome a guest to our home and lead him to believe we’re nothing other than a bunch of dumb rednecks.”
“You know I love ya, Emma-Bema,” Tex called out before spinning and landing a swisher. Judging by their performance, four Scarlett boys could have or could still represent the starting lineup for Stanford’s men’s basketball team. That is, if they could keep themselves from fouling out in the first quarter.
“Oh, and Hayward?” Tex called out while he waited for his ball to bounce back to him. Swinging an arm to the chateau de Scarlett, he said, “Welcome to our humble abode.”
Emma puffed out a breath of air, shooting a glare at her brother’s back before turning back at me. “So how do I recover from that warm, disjointed welcome? Take two?” “Miss Scarlett.” I bowed, all 1700’s Southern gentleman like, extending the gifts in my arms at her. “As a token of my gratitude at you and your family’s boundless hospitality,”—I arched a brow at the basketball court—“please accept my humble gifts. Oh, and I might have lied about these being for your mom,” I admitted. “Seemed the best way to stomp out the fuse before it ignited.”
Plastering on a Gone with the Wind smile, Emma fanned her face. “Why I declare,” she said in a drawl that was as Southern as my manners, gathering up the oldest trick in the man book of gifts.
I wasn’t one for clichés, but in this case, it was a well proved one. I hadn’t met a woman who wouldn’t melt a degree or two at the arrival of flowers and chocolates.
“And you’re right,” she whispered in her Emma voice. “The boys would have no qualms over hanging you from the basket by your underwear and leaving you overnight if you would have admitted these were for me.” Weaving her elbow through mine, she led me across the front lawn that was more soil than sod. “But thank you for the gifts. I’m sure my mother will enjoy them,” she said, jabbing an elbow into my side.
“You know, I’m surprised your brothers need another excuse to draw and quarter me,” I said. “After last night and everything.”
“I told them what happened. Exactly what happened, not what got blown up by the rumor tank,” Emma said, stopping at the foot of the stairs. “And friend or not, no one talks to their sister like that. By their estimate, you did them a favor by teaching Ty a lesson.”
“So your brothers like me now?” I asked, thinking they had a strange way of showing it. “Gosh, no,” she said, making a face. “They still hate you. They’re convinced you’re the big bad wolf and I’m little red riding hood.”
“Big bad wolf?” I said, hitching my hands on my hips. “As in a werewolf?” The twisted irony of it was kind of funny.
“They watch too many movies,” she offered with a shrug. “But even though they’re quite convinced you’re out to get me, they still owe you a debt of gratitude for standing up for their sister’s honor. It’s safe to say you should escape a session of Scarlett Slapping. I think,” she added, her mouth twitching.
“You think?” I said. “Scarlett Slapping?”
Climbing the stairs, she said, “Exactly what it sounds like.”
“Super,” I muttered, following behind her. Our steps made a symphony of creaking all the way up.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. They may outnumber me by three and outweigh me by eight times, but I have secret super powers over the male species.” She smiled at me over her shoulder, kicking a pair of boots to the side.
“That’s old news to me,” I said. “I’ve been a victim of your power for awhile now.”
Her shoulders tensed, just barely, but just enough for me to know I was bridging a delicate area. “Dinner’s in five,” Emma yelled across the lawn at the foursome, two of which were swinging from the rim like a couple of monkeys. “If you’re late, exceptionally stinky, or slightly rude, you’ll be eating your dinners on the back porch.”