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And on the darker nights, I boiled in anger about how I would never be able to be fully proud of myself – to feel like I’d grown up and gotten past everything on my own. I’d question why Emmett felt the need to do what he did, and I always wound up getting stuck on this theory that he just wanted to clear his conscience.
So yeah, nights weren’t great for me these days.
And for that reason, I was kind of grateful for the shitty second job.
Aside from the fact that it earned me enough to leave me some savings, it was physically demanding to the point of leaving me so tired, achy and sore that within twenty minutes of being in bed, no matter how dark my thoughts, I’d fall right asleep.
No sex or dancing needed.
I spent the night at Evie’s because honestly, the motel “suite” was a deeply depressing box of a room where I spent way too much time telling myself that the thing on the wall was dust and not a spider.
My intention was to leave by 9PM, but then Evie force fed me wine so I couldn’t drive, and
now the plan was to crash on the couch after Mike finished watching the Mets game. It wasn’t ideal. I felt pretty darned awkward for a hot second, because I could hear the two of them hissing about the matter of my crashing tonight while they were in the kitchen. I heard him say the words “this tiny apartment” and knew he didn’t want me around.
But miraculously, at the end of their whisper-yell fighting, I heard Evie giggle.
“You’re so stupid,” she murmured. It was silent for a few seconds and then I heard the sound of a kiss.
And when Evie returned to the bedroom, she did so with a grin.
“He said it’s totally cool that you stay, and if you don’t believe me, he even offered us his pint of Ben and Jerry’s,” she said gently before doing a volume one-eighty and screaming out the door. “Mike!”
“What?”
“Tell Aly you said we could have your ice cream!”
“I said you guys could have my ice cream! Enjoy!”
“See?” Evie smiled sweetly at me.
I snorted at her and said something else about her spiking my drink before we went back into our tired, wine drunk pastime of lying on our backs and scrolling through our phones side by side.
“I really think we might be better now. After the last fight,” Evie said quietly.
All night, here and there, she’d been defending Mike to me. She knew that after the drama they went through three weeks ago – right before I had my own massive drama – I was wary of their relationship. I felt like all she got out of it was torment and heartbreak. I hated seeing her constantly having to mask her emotions around me.
But somehow, in recent weeks, the tables had turned and now Evie seemed genuinely breezy for once while I was constantly pretending to be fine.
Of course, as good as my act was, it didn’t work on her.
“Do you mind that I told Mike that Emmett was our investor?” Evie asked a little while later. I turned my head to look at her.
“I don’t know. I think I do,” I said truthfully. “But mostly because I’m paranoid that the wrong people will find out that Emmett Hoult funded my career. I know you had to tell him. He’s your fiancé and I know he won’t like, randomly call up my dad and spill the beans,” I said, trying to laugh but failing in my attempt, because just the suggestion of that idea made my stomach twist into knots.
“For what it’s worth, he thinks Emmett was just trying to be a good guy.”
I chewed on the corner of my mouth.
“I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll never be able to look at my own achievements without having to credit him,” I said. “And I just want something of my own for once.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, Emmett Hoult is also my investor, and I don’t feel any less proud of myself for what I’ve achieved,” Evie said while scrolling through some exceptionally good-looking dog’s Instagram feed. “Granted I don’t have the same history you have with him, but if you can somehow forget that for a second and pretend he’s just some faceless investor like we initially thought, we did do a shit ton of work on our own. Having money doesn’t mean you can just make a business happen. You have to have a good idea and you have to know how to use it.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “He also had Drea van Dahl hire me when I didn’t necessarily deserve it.”
“So what? It’s like... weird nepotism. He was basically giving you a taste of all the privilege he himself has had in life,” Evie argued. “He missed you, Aly. He couldn’t take care of you in person, so he tried to do it from afar. That’s what people are supposed to do when they love you. They do whatever they can to make sure you’re okay.”
“Well, he didn’t love me yet then,” I pointed out. “This was four years ago that he got involved in my life. I think he probably just had too much time and money on his hands, he heard I was having trouble, and he just dunked some money in me to relieve his own conscience.”
