I want to do a lot more than kiss you.
I don’t deserve you, but I want you anyway.
I want to be everything you need.
You’re already everything I need.
Be mine.
Please.
But this isn’t the time. I hope we’ll have our moment, but this is not it. Instead, I squeeze her hands and give her back the words she has given me twice now.
“Tell me something true, Ems.”
She smiles. “You stole my line.”
I shrug. “It’s a good line. Besides, you told me it was your grandma’s line. So really, you stole it too.”
“Fair point. You would have made a good lawyer.”
“Ugh, no. I’ll leave that to you guys. You’re all way smarter than I am. So anyway, go ahead Ems. Tell me something true.”
She doesn’t even think about it.
“I’m starving.”
I laugh and let go of her hands, tossing an arm around her shoulder and leading her out of the room and toward the stairs.
“Then let’s get you fed. Tacos are your favorite right?”
I don’t know why I’m asking; I know they are. Just like I know her favorite drink is a margarita with sugar on the rim instead of salt. I could say it’s literally my business to know because, bar owner, but that would be a weak excuse. I know because it’s her.
“They are, but we had a taco fest earlier today after our fashion show. Chinese maybe?”
“Fuck yes, I love Chinese.”
“And beer. There should be beer.”
“Ems, you are speaking my language.”
So that’s how we end up sprawled on Emma’s living room couch, the coffee table covered in twenty different Chinese food containers because we couldn’t decide what we wanted and an eclectic assortment of beer I was surprised to find in a separate built-in beverage fridge under the kitchen counter. We eat too much and open six different beers to share so we can try them all. We talk and laugh and sit side-by-side with our feet kickedup on the table to watch a couple episodes ofThe Office, which, it turns out, is our mutual favorite show.
And when Emma lays her head on my shoulder, her leg pressed up against mine, I think maybe this is the best day I have ever had.
Chapter Thirteen
Emma
I’ve never been more nervous in my entire life.
Like, ever.
I lost both of my parents in a car accident when I was eight years old. I was a quiet bookish kid in a middle school and high school that celebrated conformity and Friday night football. I went to college when I was sixteen and made it through the LSATs, law school, early mornings and late (and sometimes all) nights as a BigLaw associate working for partners who demanded nothing but excellence and for whom a mistake was the functional equivalent of the apocalypse. I left a relatively stable, if unfulfilling, job to start my own law firm with my friends.
That’s all to say I haven’t exactly led a non stressful life up to this point.
But I have never felt the way I feel now as I drive up the street toward our office.
