Free Any Other Girl by Rebecca Phillips Page A

of work.
    â€œHow was your ride?” he asked, looking up from his newspaper.
    â€œPeaceful.” As I kicked off my boots, I noticed the gym bag by Harper’s feet. “Did Erwin open up a health club over the winter or something?”
    â€œNo. I start practice with the soccer team this morning, remember?”
    â€œOh, right.” To keep her skills up over the summer, Harper had joined a local women’s soccer league. She’d badgered me to join, too, but I’d declined. Not only was I rusty and out of shape, but I saw summer as a time for relaxing, not adhering to a grueling practice schedule.
    â€œI came over to see if you wanted to go with me,” she said.
    I filled a glass with water at the kitchen sink. “Sorry, but all I want to do right now is stand in a freezing cold shower.”
    â€œYou’re coming to our first game though, right? It’s Monday evening.” You owe me, her eyes said.
    It was true. I owed her that and more after Tuesday night’s disastrous “double date” at Goody’s. Well, the night hadn’t been a total loss. Harper’s irritation with me all but disappeared when Emmett paid for our food and then offered to walk us back to our cottages. At that point, Nate was still in the bathroom, likely puking up everything he’d ingested in the last several hours. The decision to leave him behind was unanimous. The jerk deserved to be ditched.
    As the three of us strolled down the gravel road to the cottages, Emmett must’ve been swept up in a sense of camaraderie because he was no longer the quiet, reticent boy we’d seen at the bonfire and during dinner. In fact, we’d been able to coax quite a bit of info out of him. I let my mind drift back to our walk home.
    Â 
    â€œAre you starting college in the fall, Emmett?” I asked him. Harper walked between us, so I had to lean around her to see him.
    â€œNo,” he said, his eyes skimming my face before returning to the road in front of him. “I’m going to be a senior.”
    Like me, I thought. Harper and I exchanged a surprised look. There was something in his demeanor—a hardened maturity—that made him seem older, like he’d been through a lot. Or seen too much.
    â€œAnd you’re on the cross-country team, right?” Harper asked in her quiet, reserved way.
    â€œFor the past two years. My brother ran cross-country, too. He’s the one who got me into it.”
    Brother? As far as I knew, it was just him and his parents at the Canting cottage.
    Emmett obviously sensed our confusion because he added, “Older brother. Wes. He works on the oil sands out west and rarely comes home. He was supposed to fly home this summer to spend a couple weeks at the cottage, but”—he shrugged one shoulder and tilted his face away from us and toward the tree line—“he and my dad don’t get along.”
    Harper nodded. She understood. “A change of scenery doesn’t usually help.”
    â€œExactly.” He cleared his throat like he was working up to something. “I think my parents bought the cottage here because they thought quiet summers on the lake would strengthen our bond as a family. Or something.”
    â€œAnd is it working?” I asked.
    He shot me a quick glance, eyebrows raised, as if to say What do you think ? I dropped my gaze, feeling a little stupid. Clearly, the new peaceful backdrop wasn’t helping at all.
    I hadn’t told Harper about that morning when I’d gone over to Emmett’s cottage and heard his parents arguing. I figured it was his personal business, up to him to discuss when—or if—he chose to. He still barely knew us, after all, and he didn’t come across as the type to blab about his family issues to anyone, even people he did know. I got the sense that he wanted me to pretend that morning had never happened, so I quickly got us off the subject of his