CHAPTER 12
Noah
Emma cooked the turkey to perfection. But it may as well have been cold and rubbery, for all that I noticed. I’m too busy looking at her, drinking her in, to pay attention to anything else.
It’s a new feeling for me.
“Your pie was amazing.” Emma leans back in her chair and pats her flat stomach. Today she’s wearing a sundress, white with tropical palm trees printed on it. The dress has thin straps, is cinched in at the waist and flares to her knees. In it, she looks like a summer princess.
And I just want to kiss her.
“Feel like going for a walk?” I ask, needing to get some distance between us. We’ve spent two amazing hours eating and talking, the conversation flowing like we’ve been friends for years. And yet, throughout the meal, I kept losing my train of thought, getting lost in her lips, in the way she tucks her hair behind her small ears, in the way she laughs at my jokes. Even the unfunny ones.
“Sure,” she agrees easily, standing to clear the table.
I jump up. “Let me do that.”
She goes to argue, and I put a finger on her lips. Groan; they’re so soft.
“Where I come from, the cook doesn’t do the cleaning.”
She sits back down, rubbing her thumb along the lips I’d just been touching, her eyes glued to me as I take the dishes to the kitchen and start loading the dishwasher.
“You really don’t have to do that.” The space between her eyebrows is furrowed and I wonder at it. Emma seems like a person who likes to be in control—her house is so clean you could eat off the floor. Is this reluctance to let me help because of this?
“I just feel bad,” she fills in the blanks. “You’re my guest…”
“We’re friends now, Emma,” I tell her, while desperately wanting to be more. “And friends let their friends help.”
She chews on her lips— those lips!— and nods. “Fine. I’ll go and change my shoes for our walk.”
I watch her leave and lecture myself silently. I need to pull it together. That woman there was a stranger to me just yesterday. Granted, she was a stranger who I’d gotten to know through the wall, but still. These intense feelings I’m having for her have to be too much too soon.
Right?
“I’m ready.”
I turn to find her standing in front of the living room window, the light behind her giving her an ethereal glow. She’s so pretty. She should be on top of a cake. Or a Christmas tree.
“Let’s go.”
We meander away from our houses, our full bellies slowing us down, along with the hot afternoon sun. I’ll never get over a hot Christmas.
“What’s Christmas like for you at home?” Emma asks, reading my mind.
“Cold.” She laughs. “And most of the day is dark. The sun rises late and sets early, but it just means more time curled up together inside. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten used to being outside on Christmas Day. Going to the beach or having a BBQ. It’s weird.”
“And amazing.” Emma the Aussie isn’t giving in on this one without a fight. “For most of my childhood, we’d spend Christmas at our beach house. We’d drive up a few days before and spend hours playing in the ocean, reading and relaxing. So by the time Christmas rolled around, everyone had unwound. We were chilled and peaceful. Warm and tanned. Blissful.”
The picture she’s painting does sound pretty idyllic.
“And this year?” I’d wondered why she’s alone but hadn’t wanted to ask.
She gives a sad smile. “My parents went on a cruise to celebrate my dad finally retiring. He’d been resisting it for years until Mum put her foot down. His work ethic is next level. Part of us thought he’d never give it up.”
“Is that where you get it from?” I don’t know it for sure, but I sense she may be a workaholic.
“Yes.” She laughs. “I know I work too hard. It’s probably why I ended up with Oliver. I didn’t have time to find someone outside of work.”
“Pfft, Oliver.” I hate that guy.
Emma giggles. “He’s not so bad. And he had these dimples…”
A feeling not unlike jealousy claws at my chest and I stamp it down. “Dimples?” I scoff. “That just means his cheek muscles aren’t strong enough to support his smile.”
She stops walking and stares at me. Then she doubles over, laughing so hard she’s holding her stomach and shaking.
“You did not just say that,” she gasps between breaths.
My lips twitch. “What? It’s true. That man and his weak cheeks didn’t deserve you.”
Her cheeks heat and she beams a smile at me. We walk again and I can’t help it; I take her hand in mine. Her steps falter for a second then she continues walking, looking at me from the corner of her eyes.
I squeeze her hand. “Is this OK?”
She’s silent for a beat before squeezing back. “It’s more than OK.”
Warmth fills my chest where the jealousy had been and my heart pounds in my ears. We walk slowly, hand-in-hand, around the block, and I feel for the first time ever, that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
With exactly the person I’m supposed to be with.
*****
“Do you want to get some ice cream?”
I gape at Emma and her question. I’m still full from lunch. How can she possibly be contemplating eating more food?
“Ice cream doesn’t count,” she answers my un-asked question. “And I feel like a gelato.”
She skips to where an ice cream truck is parked next to the beach and I follow behind her. She’s such a vision—with her hair hanging down her back glowing gold in the sunshine, and a radiant smile on her face—as she orders her ice cream, I can’t believe I ever thought she was a sad, lonely, cat lady. Who couldn’t keep a man.
Well, it seems the joke’s on me.
“Are you sure you don’t want one?” she asks, licking her gelato like it’s her job.
“I’m good.”
We take a seat on a small park bench facing the ocean and watch the waves lap against the shore.
“I love it here,” I tell her. “Apart from the kitchen, this is my happy place. I love that I can walk to the beach and go surfing whenever the mood strikes. I love that my job is only a tram ride away. I love everything about this city.”
She watches me, her small tongue making fast work at demolishing her melting ice cream cone. “Does that mean you plan on staying?”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Here? In Melbourne?”
I hear the uncertainty in her voice and I want to reassure her. She’s wondering if this is just a pit stop for me. She needn’t worry, even before meeting her—yesterday!—I’d known Melbourne was my forever home.
“I’m never leaving.” She sighs with…relief? “I mean, I’ll always miss my family, and I’m trying to convince them to move out here to be with me. But this is it, you know? When you feel it in your bones, when you’re in the place you’re meant to be?”
She stops licking her ice cream and stares at me, nodding. “It’s just like when you meet that person you’re meant to be with…”
“Yes…” I breathe out the word, leaning forward to wipe the spot of ice cream from the corner of her mouth. “Exactly.”
My eyes are locked on her mouth and I sense the moment she leans forward. Taking her face in my hands, I stroke her cheekbones with my thumbs. With her sweet breath tickling my nose, I lean all the way forward and press my lips on hers.
And it’s magical.
She tastes like chocolate and strawberry and every one of my dreams come true. Her lips are soft and insistent and I lose myself in them. In her.
We kiss for minutes, hours, days and when we come up for air, I can’t help placing my lips back on hers. Now that I know what it’s like to kiss her, I never want it to end.
“Wow,” she sighs when we finally break apart, both of our chests heaving. “That was…”
“A Christmas miracle?”
Her laughter fills me up, and I gently lay my forehead on hers, not wanting to sever our connection. “I’m so glad that movie got us to meet. I can’t imagine you’ve been on the other side of my wall all this time…and I didn’t know…”
She nods, her eyes closed. “We could’ve gone months, years without ever meeting.”
I shake my head. No. “I don’t think so. I feel like, somehow, we were supposed to meet.”
“Even though you thought I was a crazy cat lady to begin with…?”
I smile, pressing my lips against hers for another small taste that turns into more. When we break apart again, I stroke her hair back from her face, letting my fingers linger on her soft, silk-like skin.
“Yes, even then. I would have bought myself a couple of cats and joined in the fun.”
Her laughter is delighted as she pokes me in the ribs, and I swing my arm over her shoulder, pulling her close to my side and resting my head on top of hers. Who would have thought only five days ago, when I’d listened to her sobbing on the other side of the wall, that we’d be here right now?
“I’m so happy,” she says softly, snuggling in closer to me.
I kiss the top of her head and silently agree. After days of neighbourly wars, it has ended in a very merry Christmas after all.