Page 32 of Wish Me Home

“Honestly?” I told the story for him. “I met him at the airport before vacation. He was supposed to be on my flight, but we got grounded. We got to talking and just kind of hit it off.” My face hurt from the smile that stretched it. The look on Emmett’s face was worth it.

I turned to see sour expressions on both of my parent’s faces. It wasn’t the response I’d hoped for at all.

“You mean to tell me, I have a stranger that you met two weeks ago staying in my home,” Dad grumped, sitting back and crossing his arms across his chest.

I laughed, because this whole thing was ridiculous. My parents had made a big deal about me visiting for the holidays and I’d been made to feel uncomfortable since the second I walked through the door. Sure I probably should’ve warned them about bringing someone, but this wasn’t fair at all.

“Not only did you meet him two weeks ago, but you’re calling him your boyfriend. Cody, that’s not a boyfriend. That’s a new fuck buddy at best.” My eyes widened at my mother’s crass words. I stood from my chair knocking it backward and drawing the attention of the surrounding people.

“How dare you. You understand nothing about him. You’ve barely taken the time to talk to him and you’re making judgments you have no right to make. Sure, I haven’t known him long either, but I know he’s an amazing person who has been through more in his life than anyone should.”

By the time I’d finished talking, both of my parents looked taken aback. Emmett sat with a hand covering his mouth, but I’d had enough of this. I was done dealing with not being enough, not being what they wanted to focus on. This party wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Emmett.

“Let’s go,” I said as I grabbed Emmett’s arm. He followed me out of the restaurant and out into the snowy night. We still had about three hours until midnight. There was enough time that we could make it back to my parent’s house, gather our things, find a hotel, and make our own plans.

I had just unlocked the car door when Emmett stopped me, grabbing my shoulder and turning me to press me into the side of the vehicle. “Would you stop for a second,” he demanded.

“Why? That was beyond embarrassing. I’m so sorry.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking around the packed parking lot. “It wasn’t that bad,” he said, wincing slightly. I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince; me or him.

Letting out a strained laugh, I pulled him into a hug. “It was mortifying. And again, I’m sorry. Let’s go get our things and find a hotel.”

Emmettdroppedthelastbag on the hotel bed before collapsing next to it. “How much more time do we have until midnight?” he asked, eyes closed in what was probably exhaustion. We’d frantically packed our things once we’d gotten back to my parents’ house, and driven to several hotels only to find most places were booked.

Looking at the clock, I did a double take. I hadn’t been paying attention to the time while we’d been doing all of that. “Shit. We’ve got five minutes.” I pulled out my phone to verify that the hotel clock was correct and to my horror, it was.

Emmett sat up, scrambling for a remote. “Please tell me you at least stole a bottle of champagne from them or something?” he asked as he flipped on the TV and found the channel playing whatever special New Year’s Eve programming was on.

“Way ahead of you.” I pulled the bottle out of my travel bag and ripped the foil open. We had nothing fancy to drink out of, but the plastic cups the hotel complimentarily provided would have to cut it.

“Are they going to be mad that you took that?” he asked. I understood his concern.

“Even if they were, I don’t really care.” I popped open the bottle and poured a small amount into each of the plastic cups and handed one to Emmett as I sat next to him on the bed. We enjoyed the music playing on TV until the countdown began at twenty seconds to midnight.

He turned to me with a blinding smile on his face as he counted down the numbers. I was lost in his gray eyes and how unbelievably happy he was to be sitting here in this hotel room with me drinking champagne we’d stolen from my parents out of plastic cups and getting ready to ring in the new year.

“Five… four… three… two… ONE!” We shouted the end of the countdown together before we wrapped our arms around each other’s necks and our lips met in a heated kiss. We broke apart, panting, tipping back our glasses of champagne, and laughing.

This wasn’t how I’d imagined this trip going, but it had ended perfectly and I was looking forward to seeing where my future with this man would land me.

Epilogue

Emmett

One Year Later…

“You’resureIcan’tget you guys a bigger tree?” Aunt Sadie stood back after she’d finished assembling the mini tree in the corner. It still looked just as pathetic as when Cody had first shown it to me, but at least all the lights worked now.

“Nah, it’s kind of special.” I wrapped an arm around my aunt’s shoulders and admired the tiny tree before going back to work decorating the rest of the apartment.

“What time does Cody get in tonight?” She asked as she pulled out the box of ornaments to finish trimming the tree.

I was in the middle of hanging lights around the window, and I had to stop to think. “I think he said it lands around five. But you know he has to be one of the last people off the plane. They have to wait for all the passengers to get off and then they have to clean the plane for the next flight.”

It still felt surreal that this was my life now. After last New Year, I went back to Chicago and turned in my notice with my job. My boss had been disappointed but when I explained the situation with Aunt Sadie being by herself, he seemed sympathetic. He wanted to help me find a job out this way but it wasn’t looking very promising.

Cody asked me to move in pretty quickly after I was back in San Diego. Aunt Sadie hadn’t been too happy with how small his place was. He still wasn’t home much, and it had taken me a while to find a job. The cost was right, considering. We easily could have afforded some place a little bigger now, but this place felt like home and I liked how cozy it was. Not to mention, there were some good memories here.

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