Unbreakable(12)

For now.





Chapter Five





WILL




It’s hot as balls in cottage country today. I wipe off my forehead with the front of my t-shirt. Christ, I bet I’ve sweated off five pounds while cleaning up the outside of the property. I’ve organized the stuff in the shed, mowed the lawn, trimmed back half of the bushes, and tackled the weeds.

During the year, I pay someone to handle the necessary yard work. But I always use one of my vacation days to give the place a thorough once-over. Physically, it’s taxing, but on the bright side, it means I can skip my regular workout for the day.

My dad and I used to do this work together when he was alive, and working in the yard always makes me feel close to him somehow, even though he’s gone. He loved doing this stuff, and I can almost feel him with me while I work.

My primary goal today is to get the larger tree branches trimmed back away from the cottage. The way they are now, it would only take one good snowstorm during the winter to bring them down onto the roof.

Glancing down at the lake, I see Emmy splashing around in the water with a few people. She’s sitting on some guy’s shoulders, wrestling and laughing with a blonde girl who’s perched precariously on the shoulders of another dude with dark red hair.

I’ve watched them off and on all afternoon, and it’s obvious that the guy hanging out with Emmy—I call him Crew Cut—is really into her. He’s been flirting hard and putting his hands all over her.

What bugs me is that I can’t tell if she’s simply having fun or if she’s actually attracted to this *.

She’s wearing a shiny black and silver bikini, and it flaunts every bit of that hot little body. Crew Cut’s noticed. Any guy with a pulse would notice.

I fire up the chainsaw and tackle some of the larger tree branches. It distracts me for a while, but it doesn’t take long before thoughts of Emmy invade my headspace again.

She’s avoiding me. I know she’s hurt over what happened between us last night, but her pulling away from me—even a little bit—sucks.

It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, and I want her to spend every drop of precious time with me. In a few days, the rest of our friends will be here, and I’ll have to share her. Yeah, I’m crazy about her, but she’s also one of my best friends in this world, and I treasure every bit of time we get to spend together.

I stare down at the lake as Crew Cut slowly slides his hands along Emmy’s thighs, no doubt in a simultaneous attempt to hold her steady and cop a feel.

Fuck. I hate that his hands are all over her.

A few minutes later, Emmy topples the blonde girl off of the redhead’s shoulders and into the lake. Crew Cut gives a celebratory yell of victory before dunking Em under the water. She comes up sputtering and laughing, and he spins her around in his arms.

I climb down from the ladder and get to work on the hedges, chopping angrily at them with the manual clippers. Apparently, she’s still planning on hooking up with someone, and Crew Cut’s the front-runner.

The only thing left for me to do is to try and derail her plan. If I can keep her busy until Sully and the rest of our friends get here, she won’t have as much time to hang out with Crew Cut.

It’s petty and small of me, and I know it. But I can’t sit around and watch her try to hook up with some other guy right under my nose. At least when she was dating Aidan, it wasn’t in front of my face. I only had to tolerate him for one Christmas dinner, and that was bad enough.

I glance over at the shed and get an idea. Just because things have gotten a little weird between us doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. If she wants to have fun, I can make that happen.

I’ll just have to show her that old friends are as good as new ones.





Chapter Six





EMMY




I make my way back to the cottage around dinnertime. I’m a little sunburned and a lot waterlogged.

Jackson introduced me to two of his friends, John and Brooke. And though I’d had a good time with them, I spent most of the day trying to forget what happened last night with Will.

I missed him today.

Delicious smells invade my senses as soon as I open the door, and my stomach lets out a loud growl of protest. The apple I had for lunch wasn’t enough.

Will’s sitting on a stool at the island in the middle of the kitchen. There are various fresh, chopped veggies and shredded cheese on a serving tray, a big pot of spiced beef, and a bowl of rice pilaf in front of him.

He holds up a corn shell. “I made tacos. You want some?”

“You did all this?” I ask, staring at the yummy buffet.

He grins. “Sure. Who else?”

Now I feel like total shit. He’s been working hard around the cottage all day, and yet he still managed to make us a nice dinner. I should have offered to do… well, something. Not that he’d ever want me to cook dinner for him, though. Unless he wants to die of food poisoning, or perhaps by fire.

“It’s no big deal,” he says. “It only took a half an hour. Come on, sit. There are burrito shells, too.”

I take a seat across from him, fix myself a taco, and scoop a helping of rice onto my plate.

He raises an eyebrow. “That’s all you’re having?”