Iknock on Emma’s door later that night, balancing two grocery bags over each arm.
When I texted her earlier today, I was hoping she would tell me to come over. After another unfulfilling day going through the motions at the foundation and knowing the bar was fully staffed and I would probably be in the way if I tried to go, I just wanted to see Emma.
The more time we spend together, the less tolerance I have for being apart from her. I’ve spent the better part of eight years finding ways to be close to her while she would barely look me in the eye, much less speak to me. Now she does both of those things. I know what it feels like to hold her in my arms, to share a meal with her, to sit with our legs pressed up against each other while we laugh at the TV and she tips her head onto my shoulder.
I want more of that. As much as I can get.
Just…more of everything.
The more part scares the shit out of me. I’ve spent my entire life never asking for more. From anyone. I’ve turned myself into the cheerful life of the party. The outgoing, cocky ex-hockey player unbothered that his career ended years too soon. The gregarious bar owner who remembers everyone’s drinkorder. The flirty charmer who lightens every room he inhabits. The person who never asks too much of anyone. The person everyone wants around. Because if they want me around, they won’t leave.
It's the thought of them leaving that makes me so terrified to let them stay.
The door opens, and one look at Emma’s face has my heart speeding up and my brain flipping fromI don’t want to ask too much of anyonetoI want everything with herso fast I get lightheaded.
“Hey,” she says, with a smile that lights up her green eyes. In jeans, a loose purple sweater that hangs off one shoulder, and bare feet with bright orange toenails, her flaming hair pulled back in a swinging ponytail, she looks calm and cozy. Just looking at her quiets my chaotic thoughts, and I want more than anything to wrap myself around her and sink into her comfort.
And also strip her down and bury my face between her legs until she’s moaning my name.
Again.
It might have been eight years ago, but that particular experience is burned into my brain.
And there’s a thought I’ll be needing to keep to myself.
“Hey, Ems.” I walk into the house and bend down to kiss her cheek, loving the color that floods her face when my lips make contact with her skin. It’s a little callback to before two weeks ago when she would barely speak to me, and it makes me so fucking grateful for where we are now.
If this is all we ever get—this friendship borne of uncommon childhoods and a mutual love of running the trails—I’ll be grateful for it. But also, her cheek is smooth and warm, and this close to her, I catch a whiff of lilacs that makes me want to lean my head against hers and breathe her in. Taking a deliberatestep away from her so I don’t accidentally do that, I glance around the first floor.
“Where’s Maddy?”
“She’s upstairs in her room. She had a big day. We went to see her new school today and met her teachers, and I could tell she needed some time to recharge.”
“Fellow member of the introverts club, huh?”
“What?” She looks at me with a questioning expression.
“Ems, you’re the most introverted person I’ve ever met. You avoid social situations like the plague unless it involves Hallie, Julie, and Molly, and when you have to go, you need twenty-four to forty-eight hours to recharge.”
She stares at me, scrunching up her nose like she’s trying to figure me out and looking so damn cute I want to kiss the scrunched nose and wrap her up.
“You know that?”
“Of course I know that. I know a lot of things about you. In a totally non-creepy way,” I say quickly, realizing how that sounds. Because the truth is, I do know a lot of things about her. I’ve spent the last eight years paying attention to her. What she likes, what she needs, what makes her happy. My reasons are vast and complicated, and I haven’t even worked them all out for myself yet, so I’m hoping she doesn’t ask, because I’d be hard-pressed to explain.
She doesn’t. Instead, she studies me in that intense way of hers. The way that makes me think she can see straight into my head and read all the thoughts there. Fidgeting under her gaze, I’m about to change the subject when she glances down at the bags I’m still holding and laughs.
“Jeremy, why are there eight different cereals in those bags?”
“I told you I was bringing dinner.”
“That’s cereal, not dinner.”
I give her a disappointed look.
“Cereal is the most perfect food of all time, Ems. It can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It can be a snack. It can be dessert or go on top of dessert. Sometimes, like tonight, it’s dinner and an activity too.”
“Activity?”
