When I'm With You

“I’m not sure it’s your scene, Ma. Definitely not something for the faint of heart, and to be honest, I’m not really sure I want my parents to see me in action.”

“In action?” I hear someone ask from the end of the table.

“Ha!” Cohen burst out laughing. “Trust me on this, Izzy, the last thing you want to do is see your boy here in action.”

“You make it sound like he’s running a brothel,” someone else jokes making Cohen laugh even harder.

What in the world?

“Well, I’m going, and you can’t stop me. Even if I have to buy a ticket because my own son won’t let me in.”

“We’ve got ten!” I hear my sister yell, making Cohen laugh even harder.

“Ten? What the hell,” Nate calls her way.

“Oh yeah, we’ve got bigggg plans this weekend, don’t we, girls?”

Shit, kill me now. They’re taking me to Nate’s place? No … no way.

“Would you stop laughing,” Dani tells her husband, only causing him to start a new wave of hilarity.

“Uh … big plans for what?” Nate continues, ignoring his sister and brother-in-law.

“It’s Ember’s big twenty-first. What better way to celebrate than doing it Dirty style, right Nate-Dog?”

At that point, Cohen is laughing so hard I fear he might break something. The only thing I can do at this point is to pray this is all a joke, but when I look up and meet Nate’s eyes again, I know if it is, then the joke’s on me.

His lips are tipped up in what can only be described as a shit-eating grin sinful enough to melt panties, pink lips and all. I don’t even try to figure out what he’s thinking because all I can focus on is trying not to throw up.

EMBER’S TAN SKIN HAS HELD a blush on her cheeks for the last two hours. Dinner continued as normal after the announcement of the big plans for her birthday, but other than that moment when she looked at me in shock, she hasn’t given me those eyes once more. I’ve tried because I can’t understand for the life of me why there was pain dancing in them when she found out she would be spending her birthday at my club.

How have things gotten so strained between us?

Sure, we had a moment when things were awkward years ago, but we had settled into our friendship easy enough after some time passed. Things were never the same— fuck, far from it—after she admitted her feelings toward me. Feelings I had been fighting for her for a damn long time surfaced and obviously haven’t gone away, but they have never put this kind of tension on our friendship.

It’s been bothering me for months, but I still can’t figure out what I fucking did to make her look at me like she wishes she had a knife to stab into my back. Hell, up until Dani and Cohen got married a year and a half ago, things had been fine. Then she started skipping out anytime everyone was together. When she did show, she avoided me like I had the plague. I can’t even remember the last time we had a conversation, let alone a time that I was on the receiving end of a genuine smile from her.

Plates pushed aside, everyone continues to talk and catch up. I look back across the table as Evan pulls on my hair, ignoring the pain in my scalp as he tries to pull my hair from my head, and kick my leg out in her direction. She jumps but doesn’t move her attention from Cohen’s brother, Cam. She listens to whatever the fuck he’s carrying on about and ignores me as usual.

Fuck this shit.

“Ember, mind giving me a hand getting this shit off my face?” I ask, knowing she has too good of manners to ignore me when I’ve spoken directly to her. Especially as I did it loudly enough that those around us look over and laugh at what Molly did to me earlier.