Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Jeremy
I pull up to the curb outside Pour and throw my car into park. It’s a no parking zone but I don’t give a fuck. I keep hearing Emma’s shaking voice in my head, and it makes me move faster, the distance between me and where she is sitting, alone and afraid, unacceptable.
I shove out of my car into the rain and jog to the green awning covering the entrance. It’s almost ten, but the restaurant is packed. The hostess tries to make eye contact with me, but I breeze past her, heading to the back to where I assume the restrooms are.
As I walk down the narrow hallway, the door to the ladies’ room swings open and a woman walks out.
“Excuse me,” I say to her. “Is there anyone else in there?”
Her gaze sweeps down my body and back up again, an appreciative gleam in her eyes.
“Why do you ask? You want to go have some fun? I’d be up for that.” Her voice is low and raspy and maybe I should analyze why nothing about her stirs my interest in the slightest, but right now all I can think is that she’s standing between Emma and me, and my frustration rises.
“Maybe some other time. I’m looking for a friend of mine and I think she’s in the bathroom. Did you notice anyone else in there?”
She shrugs a good-natured shoulder. “Your loss. There was one other person, and I thought maybe she was crying or something? I asked her if she was okay because, you know, girls have to look out for each other, but she didn’t say anything and…”
“Okay, thanks so much.” I cut her off and move straight to the ladies’ room. I pray she was telling the truth and I’m not about to walk into a bathroom full of women. But when I pull open the door, it’s empty but for a pair of feet under a stall door and the sound of ragged breathing.
“Ems, is that you?” I flip the lock on the bathroom door so no one walks in and freaks out at a man in the ladies’ room and tap lightly on the closed stall door.
The lock clicks and I’m able to push the door open. Emma is sitting on the closed toilet seat, staring at the floor, her hands shaking slightly and twisted together in her lap. I crouch in front of her, covering her hands with one of mine, and lay my other hand on her cheek to tip her face up.
Her mossy green eyes are watery and filled with fear, and I immediately want to put myself in between her and anything that scares her. I’ve never known how to be a caretaker; growing up the way I did doesn’t exactly give you many good models of how to care for another person. So, my instinct to wrap her up and give her everything she needs and chase away all her fears is new for me. I’m not sure exactly what to do with it, but I plow ahead and hope I get it right.
“Hey, Ems.”
“You came.” Emma’s voice is tinged with relief and her body seems to relax just slightly, her shoulders dropping from where they were hunched around her ears.
“You called.”
“I’m sorry you had to come out so late in the rain. I know it’s ridiculous. A twenty-nine-year-old woman who can’t drive in a storm. But I just…I can’t.”
“You don’t have to apologize for being afraid. And you can always call me.”
I hope she does. I don’t know how much Emma leans on other people; she has always seemed like the caretaker of the group to me—the one who always knows what everyone needs. But I do know she’s never leaned on me. Hell, before the run this morning, she’s barely even spoken to me outside of a work setting. It might be too much to hope that today has broken some of the tension between us. That maybe if she needs someone in her corner, she’ll start to choose me too.
I don’t know what I have to offer, but if I have something I can give her, I would really like to try. And not just because I fucked up eight years ago and have something to make up to her. Although I did, and I do. But because she’s Emma, and for all the years I have known her, she has made me feel . The feelings are confusing and aren’t always comfortable, and I rarely know what to do with them, but with each passing year, they get harder to push aside. I may not know how to give her exactly what she needs, but I’m here and I hope that counts for something.
I push Emma’s hair behind her ear and run my fingers down her jaw. She closes her eyes and takes what looks like her first full breath in a while. But just as she lets it out and seems to settle a little more, a loud clap of thunder sounds from outside. Emma’s body goes rigid, and she leans down, laying her forehead on our joined hands, her back shaking as she takes ragged breaths. I rub circles on her back with my free hand.
“It’s okay to be scared, Ems. But you’re not alone now. Can you tell me what you need?”
She takes a deep breath and lifts her head. When our eyes meet, my heart gallops. With her tumbled red hair and her green eyes and the spray of freckles across her creamy skin, Emma is beautiful. It’s a ridiculously common word for such an uncommon person, but it’s what I’ve got. I have the sudden thought that I could look at her over and over forever and discover something new every time.
“I really need to be home. When it storms, I feel better when I’m at home.” Emma’s words shake me out of my thoughts.
“Then let’s get you home.” I stand from my crouch, my bad knee popping from the change in position. Wrapping my hand around one of Emma’s, I pull her up with me and lead her out of the stall.
“I parked right in front, so you don’t have to be outside for long, okay?”
Emma swallows hard when I mention going outside, but she nods. Unlocking the bathroom door, I push it open, and we walk out into the hall, my arm around her shoulders to guide her through the busy restaurant. As we approach the front door and see the pouring rain and flashes of lightning from outside, Emma tenses up under my arm. Stopping in front of the door, I turn her to face me and put a hand on each of her shoulders, running them up and down her arms to try and give her some calm.
“I know it looks bad outside, but we’ll walk to the car fast. You only have to be outside for a few seconds. And my Jeep is made for weather like this. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
It seems like the right thing to say because she straightens her shoulders and with one last glance out the door nods and says, “I’m ready.”
I put my arm back around her and guide her out the door quickly and straight to my car. With the awning over the path from the street to the restaurant, we barely have a chance to get wet before I open the passenger door and help Emma in, clicking her seatbelt into place before I stride around the front of the car and slide into the driver’s seat.
“Okay?” I ask, once we’re both settled in. Emma turns to face me. Her face is a little pale, and her eyes are still covered in a gloss of anxiety, but there is something else in them too that I can’t quite read. Suddenly needing to touch her for reasons I don’t understand, I reach out and push her damp hair behind her ear, letting my hand rest on her cheek.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, leaning into my hand and closing her eyes.
“Okay.”
When she opens her eyes, they lock with mine just as a jagged bolt of lightning flashes across the sky, followed immediately by a loud clap of thunder that has Emma jolting in her seat, fear flooding her face. With one hand still on her cheek, I keep her eyes on me.
“I’m going to start the car now and take you home, Ems. It’s just ten minutes, and if you have to drive in bad weather, this is the car for it. I won’t let anything happen to you; I swear.”
“I know,” she says.
“Want to listen to music on the way so you can’t hear the thunder?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Sure.”
I unlock my phone and toss it to her before I start the car.
“Passenger picks the music.”
“You sure about that?” she asks with a sly grin. It’s a grin I’ve only seen on her when she’s lawyer Emma and I’m client Jeremy, and her giving it to me now when we’re neither of those things makes me feel some kind of way. Like she called me as a friend when she needed me, and I was able to be the person she needed. A simple thing for some people, maybe, but to me, it feels monumental.
“I’m so sure.”
She types something into the search bar of my music app and the opening bars of “You Belong with Me (Taylor’s Version) ” come blaring out of the speakers. When I turn back to look at Emma, she’s already looking at me with a considering expression on her face, as if waiting for my reaction. I’m mostly speechless, and also wondering if this is some kind of hidden message. When she winks at me— fucking winks —I’m sure it is. I could wonder why my immediate instinct isn’t to shut off the song as quickly as possible.
But it isn’t.
Instead, I watch Emma, trying to figure out the freckled, redheaded conundrum who barely speaks to me most of the time, is afraid of storms, and when I tell her to pick the music, chooses what is basically the lyrical memory of what happened between us eight years ago and the reminder that a part of me has always felt like we belonged together. I’ve just never known how to have her.
While I watch her, she’s watching me too. And as the rain pounds on the roof of the car, I have the uncomfortable feeling that she sees straight into my head. That she can sense exactly what I’m thinking. Can see the confusing mix of attraction and guilt and something way messier and more complicated than simple like .
And when she nods and says, “That’s what I thought,” I’m stunned completely silent. She doesn’t seem like she’s waiting for a response from me, which is good because I’m not sure what I would say anyway. Instead, I put the car into drive and head towards Emma’s house as Taylor keeps singing her song.
By the time I pull up to the house ten minutes later, it’s like that moment outside the restaurant never happened. Emma tenses up with each clap of thunder, and her face is a mask of anxiety as I turn off the car.
“Don’t get out. I’ll come around and open your door.”
“Thanks, Jeremy.” I think I might be royally fucked up because my name on her lips has my dick standing up and taking notice. Willing it to calm down, I push my door open and get out to round the car and open Emma’s door. She hops out, slipping a little on the wet sidewalk. I wrap an arm around her back to keep her from falling. Keeping it there, we rush through the rain up the front steps of her house.
Stopping in front of her door, she rummages through her bag for her keys, unlocking the door quickly. She steps inside, turning to face me and lingering in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder with an uneasy look on her face like she doesn’t want to go all the way inside. I stand on the porch, not sure what to do now. Every instinct I have is telling me not to leave her alone. That it’s not just driving in a storm that she hates. I have a hard time trusting my instincts about people, but I give in to this one.
“Ems, do you want some company while it’s storming?”
“Really? You wouldn’t mind?” Her voice is filled with relief.
“Of course not. I’d like to stay with you.”
It’s the truth. I want to stay because I don’t want her to be alone, but there’s also another reason I’m still working out in my head. The ease between us is such a huge change from our normal interactions that I’m hesitant to leave. I’m afraid if I do, the next time I see her we’ll go back to the way we used to be—me trying to get and keep her attention and her doing her best to not talk to me. And the thing is, now that I know what it’s like to be easy with each other, I want it to always be this way.
Emma waves me inside and motions towards the living room. “I’m going to run upstairs and change. Make yourself comfortable.”
She dashes up the stairs and I wander into the living room. The last time I was here was eight years ago, when she was living here with Molly, Hallie, and Jules. Now she lives here alone, and as I glance around the space, I see how much has changed. It feels like Emma in here.
It’s ordered and calm, all soft colors and fabrics. A big comfortable couch is centered in the space, and bookshelves line one wall, covered in paperbacks and framed pictures. There are a lot of her and the girls, one of all of us together at Julie and Ben’s family lake house, and one of her with her grandparents, who I met once when they were here visiting and she brought them into the bar.
But the picture that catches my eye is of a little girl sandwiched between two beaming adults on what looks like a beach. I pick it up and immediately recognize a younger version of Emma, all red hair and freckles and a toothless grin. I can’t help the tug of longing at the obvious closeness between her and what must be her parents, or the way my mind travels back to what my life was like when I was that age. It was definitely nothing like this.
“They’re the reason I hate storms.”
I turn at the sound of Emma’s voice. She’s wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, her hair in a messy knot on top of her head and her face scrubbed clean. She looks cozy and warm, and I have the crazy thought that she is the comfort I have been searching for my entire life. I push it away, focusing on her.
Emma pads over to the couch, taking a seat, and pulls a blanket from the basket on the floor to wrap around herself. I sit next to her, hoping it’s close enough not to be weird, but not so close that I’m too far into her personal space. It’s possible I’m overthinking this just a little, but when you spend so much time analyzing every interaction you have with the people close to you, it’s a hard habit to break. I turn and prop one leg up on the couch to face her.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
She lets out a long, slow breath. “I think maybe I would.”
Her answer surprises me as much as it makes me happy. It’s like we’ve made our own little bubble tonight, and inside it, we can be safe with each other in a way we usually aren’t.
“I’d like that.”
“It was storming the night they died. Just like this. I was eight, and both of my parents had to work late, so I went to my grandparents’ house after school. It was dark by the time my mom called to say they were on their way to pick me up.”
Emma stops talking then and looks down at her hands, seeming to collect herself.
Without thinking, I pick up one of her hands, sandwiching it between both of mine. “You don’t have to.”
She doesn’t make a move to pull her hand away. “I want to.”
“Then I’m here.” And I am. I don’t think there is anywhere else I’d rather be.
“It got later and later, and I couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t come yet. The law firm where they worked wasn’t that far from my grandparents’ house, but it seemed like they were taking forever to get there. It was a Friday—the night we usually ordered pizza and ate it in a blanket fort in the living room while we watched movies. I remember thinking they were going to tell me it was too late to watch a whole movie. I was eight, so that was obviously the biggest injustice I could possibly imagine.” She laughs a little, but there’s no humor in it.
“We never got to build that blanket fort or watch the movie. Their car hydroplaned and spun out across the highway. There was a truck. You can imagine the rest.”
“God, Ems. I’m so fucking sorry.” I cringe a little at my words, because could I possibly say anything more trite? But unused to being in this position, it’s the best I can come up with. And I am sorry. I am so damn sorry because she doesn’t deserve that. No one does, but least of all her. The person who takes care of everyone and always knows what everyone needs. I wonder for the first time who takes care of her. I’m also ashamed of myself because while she was telling her story, for a second I found myself thinking, at least you had parents , and how fucked up is that?
Emma studies me. “It’s okay, you know.”
“What is?”
“To think I’m lucky to have had parents who would build blanket forts and watch movies with me on a Friday night. I was lucky.”
I can actually feel my face heating with embarrassment, an emotion I don’t often feel. “No. I wasn’t…I mean I’m not…Fuck,” I mutter. “How did you know?” That’s some seriously spooky shit.
She shrugs a shoulder. “I feel things. I always have.”
I don’t know what that means, but I feel like too much of an idiot to ask. What kind of asshole thinks a girl whose parents died in a car accident when she was eight years old is lucky because she had parents at all? I’ll be busy mentally flogging myself for that one for the rest of the night.
“Tell me something true, Jeremy.”
I look up at her. “What?”
“Tell me something true. Anything.”
So many true things rush through my brain at the same time. How much I like being here with her. How I wish it could be easy like this between us all the time. How I understand why it’s not. How much I want to change that. How much I regret what happened eight years ago when I was mad at the world and didn’t know how to handle what I think I felt for her. How I felt like I didn’t deserve her. How I still feel that way. How I feel like I’m not good enough for anyone to keep. To make anyone want to stay.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I reach for something simple, but no less true.
“I’m glad you called me tonight.”
“I’m glad too.”
We stare at each other and the air around us suddenly feels electric. It scares the shit out of me, so I change the subject fast.
“So, what happened with your date? I mean, you called me, so obviously he wasn’t in the running to be your storm buddy.”
It’s exactly the right thing to say because she bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, it was so bad. What a pretentious asshole. He was wearing seersucker. Seersucker Jeremy, I swear to god.”
She tells me everything. It’s probably more words than Emma has said to me in the entire decade I’ve known her. I’ve never really known what home means, but I think maybe it could be the sound of Emma’s voice while she tells me about her day.
The rain is drumming on the roof, and the lights in the living room are low, and Emma called me. And maybe the way we are right now is a one-time thing brought on by weather and circumstance, and maybe it will all disappear tomorrow. But if that’s the case, I’m holding onto tonight.
So, I do.
We talk about nothing and everything until the thunder and lightning stop and the rain slows to a drizzle and Emma falls asleep with her head on a throw pillow and her legs curled up, feet pressing against my thigh. That she is comfortable enough with me to fall asleep in a storm, that I can give that to her, makes my heart do a long, slow roll in my chest.