Praise (Salacious Players Club #1)(60)

Then, I look at his face. And he’s smiling again. Relaxed and laughing with my mom, while she tells him some of her favorite ER stories, the funny ones, of course.

And suddenly, nothing makes sense to me.

All of Emerson’s praise, the way he tells me I’m so perfect and flawless and good…it was just him playing the part. None of it was real. And if it was, how does he feel about my real life now? None of this is perfect or flawless. It’s a mess. And normally I’m okay with that, but I can’t be Charlotte and Charlie to him. He was never supposed to see any of this, so why isn’t he running for the hills? How can I possibly go back to being Charlotte on Monday, when he knows what the real me is like?

After the snacks are made and the movie is cued up, the girls sit on the floor and my mom takes the recliner, leaving the couch for Emerson and me. He sits on the end, crossing his legs with one ankle on the opposite knee as he leans on the arm rest. He’s too hot to be in my living room. Way too fucking hot.

As we watch the movie, he seems genuinely enthralled, but I catch his gaze on me from time to time, as if I’m more interesting than the movie. At one point, he rests his arm along the back of the sofa, and I find myself leaning against him until we are actually cuddling with my mother only a couple feet away.

Like always, she’s asleep fifteen minutes in anyway. And once the credits roll at the end, the girls take off to Sophie’s room. Emerson turns his head toward me in the dimly lit room. I look back at him, and it’s so quiet and such an intimate moment, it feels almost surreal.

He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead.

Again, I hate him so much. Why is he doing this to me?

As he pulls away, he whispers, “Want to show me your room?”

A small laugh escapes my lips. He’s joking. Except, he looks like he’s actually waiting for an answer.

“Why don’t we go back to your place? I can stay the night.”

He strokes my cheek. “I want to see your place.”

“But it’s a tiny pool hou—”

His finger presses over my lips. “Show me.”

Without waking my mom, the two of us tiptoe out of the living room and toward the back door. I can’t stop thinking of what a bad idea this is and trying to recollect if I put my dirty clothes in the hamper or if they’re still scattered across the floor.

As we reach the door of my studio, he crowds me from behind, wrapping his hands around my waist and kissing my neck. God, does he think we’re going to do it in here? On the same queen-size bed I’ve had since I was fifteen?

The minute we walk in, he starts looking around, as if he’s actually appreciating my space.

“It’s not much,” I say.

Taking me by the hand, he pulls me to his body and kisses the words straight out of my mouth. He tastes so good, and I want everything about this moment, just not here.

“Why are you so nervous?” he asks, locking me in his arms.

“I’m not nervous…I just…”

“Do you think my age bothered your mom?”

“Are you kidding? My mom is the coolest. Now if my dad had been here…” I say, imagining my dad flipping out at the idea of me with a man a couple years younger than him. Good thing he’s never going to find out.

“I figured. How old are your parents anyway?”

“I’m not going to answer that question,” I reply, grabbing his face and pulling him in for another kiss. Regardless of how nervous I am, my body lights up from his touch, eager to have more of him.

But every time I try to pull him to the bed or the door, he stands his ground. Instead, he starts looking through the framed photos on my bookshelf.

Pictures of me…as a teenager.

“Oh God, please stop,” I cry, trying to push them down, but he fights me.

“I want to see.” Naturally, he wins, overpowering me as he browses them all.

When he lands on a picture of me and Sophie when we went to Disneyland as kids, I turn to ice.

“This is cute. Who’s this?” he asks.

In the photo, Sophie was six, and I was twelve. Instead of the blue hair she has now, it was cropped short. With a blue Olaf T-shirt, shorts, and light-up sneakers, I understand why Emerson had to ask who it was in the picture. Because when he looks at the photo, he sees a little boy.

And I can’t lie to him.

“That’s Sophie,” I reply, taking the photo down and staring at it.

I tense, waiting for his reaction. I think maybe he will ask questions or avoid it all together because it makes him uncomfortable. Instead, I feel his arms wrap around my middle, his lips pressing to my ear.

My eyes stay on the photo, and I let myself go back to that day in my memory. “Our mom and dad took us for her birthday because she was obsessed with Frozen. Obsessed. A detail she will deny to this day because, of course, now, it’s super cliché.”

He laughs against my ear.

But the happy memory sours for me. Because years later, when Sophie changed her name and came out to my parents, it sparked a chasm in my family—one she unfairly blames herself for.

“You’re very protective of her,” he mumbles like it’s something brave or commendable. Like doing the bare minimum, loving someone unconditionally, is so great.

“I have to be. He left us because…” I swallow. God, I don’t want to cry, not here in such a good moment, and definitely not in front of him. But something in the way he squeezes me tighter makes me feel safe, like I can bare my soul without vulnerability.