Unbreakable(60)

He turns away and walks over toward the couch as I pull off my toque and coat. “Since I obviously need to repeat myself, let me get right to it. What the f*ck do you want?”

I toss my stuff down on the love seat, grab the remote from the coffee table, and turn off the television.

“I want to talk to you. Or fight with you. Whatever way this goes, we’re getting it all out in the open right now, because I’m tired of dealing with this shit. I saw Emmy tonight.”

He narrows his eyes. “What do you mean, you saw her? What, are you guys secretly dating, Maverick? I didn’t think—”

I slam my hand down on the coffee table. “Sully, shut the f*ck up and let me talk! Jesus H. Christ!”

He glares and crosses his arms, but at least he stops talking.

“I was out at Glyka tonight with Dylan and Axel. Emmy came in with Peyton and Violet.” I pause for a moment. “She’s a mess, Sully.”

“Well, that’s your own f*cking fault, genius,” he snaps. “If you would have kept your goddamn hands to yourself, she wouldn’t be like this.”

I rub my jaw and give a curt nod. “Maybe not. But you need to know something, Sully. How I feel about Emmy isn’t new.”

He frowns. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means,” I say calmly. “Emmy… she was there for me when my parents died. She was there for me like no one else ever was.”

“Are you saying I wasn’t? I came over. I called you. I texted.”

“No, I’m not saying that,” I tell him honestly. “But come on, Sul, you don’t deal with heavy stuff all that well. I know you meant well, but it was awkward as f*ck. You didn’t know what to say, and I needed to talk to someone. That someone ended up being Emmy.”

He doesn’t say anything, so I continue.

“We got pretty close after that, and I guess I started looking at her differently later that year. But I never acted on it, Sully. Not one damn time.”

“So what! Do you want a f*cking medal for keeping your dick in your pants all of those years?” He clenches his fists. “She’s my goddamn sister. We’ve all known each other forever. I thought you saw her as a sister, too.” He looks away and shakes his head. “Fuck, Mav.”

“Well, I don’t. I don’t see her that way at all. And when she asked me to be her summer hookup, I resisted for as long as I could. You know why? Because I value our friendship, Sully.”

“Yeah right,” he mutters.

“Jesus Christ. Would you put yourself in my place for a minute? The girl of your dreams asks you to be her distraction for the summer. Asks you to hook up. What would you do?”

He snorts and tosses his hair out of his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I’d do. What matters is what you did.”

Sully might be acting all tough, but I know damn well what he’d do, and he knows it, too.

He grabs his beer from the coffee table and slams it back before looking over at me. “If you could go back and change it all, would you?”

I shake my head slowly. “If I could change one thing, I wouldn’t have gone behind your back. That was wrong. But other than that, no. I wouldn’t change anything else.”

“Did you sleep with her?” he asks bluntly.

I don’t answer.

Regardless of what Sully thinks he needs to know, that information is between Emmy and me and no one else. I don’t need to say anything, anyway. He already knows the answer to the question. He just doesn’t like it.

“Oh, f*ck.” He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. “Fuck, Mav.”

“Ask yourself something, Sully. Have I ever bragged about what I’ve done with a woman to you or our friends? You of all people know I’m not out there screwing puck bunnies every night. And when I did sleep with a woman when I was on the road, it was pretty rare. You know this. You bug me about it all the time. So if you could pick any guy for Emmy, it should be me. It should be me, Sully. You know I’m going to respect her.”

“I hear you, okay?” he says reluctantly. “I hear you.”

It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it.

We sit in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again.

“Okay, you guys hooked up over the summer,” he grumbles. “So why don’t you just walk away now? Just let it go, man. Agree to be friends and move the f*ck on.”

“I can’t. I love her, Sul.”

Sully’s head snaps up, and his eyes go wide. “What?”

“You heard me the first time. I love her.”

“Wait,” He leans forward, his hands on his knees. “Does she know that?”

“No, and don’t you f*cking tell her, either,” I warn. “That needs to come from me at the right time. If she ever talks to me again,” I say glumly.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because she’s totally pissed at me. I’ve blown her off for two straight months. I hoped that if I broke off contact with her, I could finally get over her. I went about everything all wrong, and I hurt her. I need to find a way to fix it. It kills me to see her so upset.”

I look over to find him staring at the floor, lost in his own thoughts.

“Me coming here is part of that fix, Sully. I want to put things right between us, but if you aren’t on board with me seeing your sister, that’s too f*cking bad. I’m not blowing my chance with Emmy. She makes me happy, and I think I deserve some f*cking happiness in my life. So does she.”