Page 101 of Pretty Obsessed

I exhaled all the worry. It wouldn't do me any good to borrow trouble. I could prepare the best I could, but I couldn't control anyone else. I would have to deal with conversations as they came. I just hoped at some point Emory recognized what we had right in front of us.

"So why don't you spend your birthday with them, and then meet me after?" Emory asked, entirely diplomatic.

"I don't want to not see you on my birthday." I rubbed my forehead, feeling like I had to look at his reaction through my fingers. "Is that childish?"

His smile stretched until teeth showed. "No, it's your birthday. You should make your day however you want it."

I ran it through my mind. If I went out it would have to be for at least a few hours. And I couldn't get away with asking Emory to go to dinner with me and then ditching him to go out, then coming back for a booty call. That made me feel like I was using him, and with how he already felt I didn't want to give him anything else that would solidify that idea in his mind.

"What if I go out the night before? Then it's midnight on my birthday and I can count it as going out. Then I meet you someplace. I can go to sleep with you and we’ll have the whole day.” I held my breath as I waited.

"Is that what you want?"

"I want you to come out with me, but if I get the rest of the night and my birthday with you, I'll be happy." I offered a smile so he knew it was the truth.

"Can you keep your hands off me if I come out with you?" he asked, brows lifting. He looked entirely too smug.

"Can you keep your hands off me?" I challenged like it wasn't me who would be the bigger issue.

"Are you asking me to keep my hands off of you?" He wet his lips with his tongue. "I thought you owned me."

"You're endeavoring to throw that back in my face?"

"Not endeavoring, I believe I did." The smirk he wore killed me.

"If you look at me like that when I'm there, I'm going to shove my cock into your mouth."

"Promise?" Emory asked like he'd won.

"I wouldn't be able to stop myself."

"Another reason I can't be at your party." He sat forward. "If you can't help yourself and we add intoxication…"

"I won't be drinking." Then it hit me. He might be. "Oh."

"I don't drink often…" He lifted his shoulders. "If you asked me not to…"

"I wouldn't do that. I don't ask any of the other guys not to."

He fixed me with a hard stare. "Will you tell me why someday?”

"My father was an alcoholic. Iris and I bonded over both our parents being addicts when we met. We both drank then. I'd started at twelve. Like my father before me. I know what it did to me. I felt the rage when I had too much, but what scared me more was the rage when I hadn't had any." I stared at my lap. There were very few people who knew I ever drank at all. The public only knew me as the straightedged drummer. "Then I tried to justify it. Tried to tell myself I'd never be what my father was and that worked for a little while. We'd write music, play stupid little gigs, and all get wasted."

I took a slow shuddering breath. I carried embarrassment and shame. I carried the pain of it every day, and the further I got from the moment the worse it was. The worse trying to justify it felt.

"What changed?"

This was the hard part. I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d been, what I’d grown up to see as normal. But this, this disgusted me, even years later. I hated those parts of myself.

"We got offered a lot of money when our album went huge overnight. We went out to celebrate, I was coming from work, so I got there late, I was craving a drink like nothing else, itching for it so bad I went straight to the bar when I walked in the door, not even looking for the other guys. But I didn't make it there. For the first time totally sober, I saw what it was doing to my best friend. I looked at Iris, and he wasn't better off. He wasn't letting off steam or celebrating. Iris could barely walk straight. He looked like he’d pass out any second, and some guy was dragging him towards the bathroom. He couldn’t keep his head up, there was no way he could consent.”

The memory made bile rise in my throat and tears form in my eyes. I wanted to vomit and scream. Suddenly I wished we weren't on a video call. My teeth clenched. I would have killed the guy had I been drunk. I knew it to the very depths of my soul.

"Was he okay?" Emory asked, concern laced with his words.

"Yes, I interceded in time, but…" I tried to will the words from my throat, but they stuck there for me to choke on.

Emory didn't say a word. He didn't press, he let me sit with my pain, and he stayed there with me. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and I returned my attention to the screen, expecting judgment or worse written all over his face but I found none of it there. Instead, only kindness, and concern.

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