Dear Emmett

Chapter Nine - [Dinner Date.]

I was fairly sure I was about to pass out.

My head was swimming. Swimming because of his proximity, because my heart was racing the exact way it had been the night that I’d met him. Because I was both devastated and enthralled that he’d found me. But most of all, it was because he was staring at me with those same intense green eyes.

“What are you doing here?” He exclaimed, and before I could protest he’d wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a lung crushing hug.

Heart failure.

He released me, and I stumbled backwards so I was leaning on my truck. He put his arm on the door frame above my head. I was going to die. Here, at seventeen years old, I was going to die. I swallowed the lump in my throat and formed an intelligent sentence.

“I moved here.”

His eyebrows raised in surprise, and something told me that it wasn’t often that he was caught off guard. Sooner or later, he’d get the shock of his life. I was exactly three months pregnant with his child. His baby was inside of me. And here he was, standing in front of me with no idea.

“You moved here? To Paris?” Emmett asked, his southern accent just as thick as I remembered it. He tips his head back, looking up at the sky for a moment with a serious, yet amused look on his face. He looks back down to me. “Why?”

Just as I opened my mouth to stammer out an answer, a head popped out from the driver’s seat of an old Dodge by one of the gas pumps. He looks over at us and yells.

“Come on, Emmett, we got shit to do!”

The boy, who’s dark olive skin made and jet black hair made it quite obvious he was Native American, seemed to be about Emmett’s age - 19. Emmett cocked his head to look at the boy, and it gave me a good chance to look at him. Emmett was wearing dark blue jeans that fit him well, a button up black shirt that was tucked in with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. On his feet were a pair of well worn, square toed cowboy boots. It was far from the beach gear I’d met him in.

God, did he look good though.

“Calm your damn horses, Nate. Have some patience for once in your life.”

“You’re one to talk!” This boy, Nate, yelled back before sticking his head back into the window. I was just able to gather my wits before Emmett turned back around to face me.

 “That would be my dumb ass of a best friend, Nathan Cromwell. He wasn’t able to come to Panama City Beach.”

And just like that, my wits were rescattered. Memories flooded my mind at the mention of the famous spring break destination.

“Anyway,” Emmett continues, rolling his eyes. “You were saying. What brings you here?”

Lie, lie, lie.

“I wasn’t getting along with my mother or my step father, so we’d thought it’d be the best idea for me to move in with my Aunt Lauren.”

“Lauren Thompson? The Deputy.”

I nodded.

Emmett laughed heartily. “I’ve certainly given her a fair share of trouble a few years ago. I reckon she likes me, though. Always let me off easy. How long have you been here?”

“About two weeks.” I answered.

“You been hiding from me, darlin?” He asked, his cocky smile showing off his dimples.

Yes.

“Of course not,” I answered, laughing nervously.

Nate stuck his hand out the window again.