5. Valentina #2
“Okay,” she says finally, taking a breath. “I’m calm.” She leans forward, elbows on the table, a wicked grin on her face. “Tell me everything. But like, not the gory details, you know? He is my cousin after all.”
“Can you make it obvious you’re not eavesdropping?” I snap to the woman sitting to our left, who is very clearly still listening in. “Did your mother teach you any manners?”
The woman flushes and turns away.
Glaring at the back of her head, I turn my attention back to my best friend as she watches me with amusement.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I tell her firmly, “because it was a mistake and it will not happen again.”
She scoffs, clearly not believing me.
“It won’t,” I add.
“Valentina.” She leans forward as far as she can, those green eyes soft now under the amusement. “You’re sitting like you pulled something.”
I become immediately aware of how I’m sitting. “I’m sitting perfectly normally—”
“You’re sitting like you’re aware of muscles they weren’t aware of yesterday,” she informs me. “I recognize it. Also”—she points at her own neck—“right there. Your scarf slipped.”
My hand immediately goes to my neck. To my horror, the scarf did slip. I yank the silk up with both hands and close my eyes for a moment, thinking about how I would like to be somewhere else.
“It’s a good one,” Emma offers, conversationally.
“Please,” I nearly beg.
“Sorry.” She is not sorry. Her eyes are still dancing. But she reaches across the table and squeezes my hand once. When she pulls back her expression has settled into something that has the teasing in it still but has warmth underneath it too. “Okay. I’m listening. Start wherever you want.”
I look at her for a moment, wrestling with what I want to say.
If I was going to tell anyone, it would be Emma.
She’s survived the most improbable circumstances of anyone I know and came out the other side more herself.
Plus, she puts up with my idiot brother.
Before I can speak, our waitress comes over.
We order our meals—pancakes and a southwestern scramble for Emma and I absentmindedly pick avocado toast—and I wait for the waitress to leave before I let out a breath. “It was a disaster.”
“Obviously,” she agrees pleasantly, hands resting on her belly.
“There was a fight. A bad one. He said…” I pause, because even now the memory of it has an edge. “Things. And I threw a wine glass, then somehow—”
“Somehow,” Emma repeats, with a smile she’s not even attempting to suppress now.
“Somehow,” I confirm, with dignity. “And yes. Fine. Yes.”
Emma makes a sound that is caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.
She shakes her head in exasperation, but she is grinning at me.
She’s so clearly delighted on my behalf, and it’s so purely Emma that I feel my own mouth twitch despite everything.
“And?” She presses. “How was it?”
I raise an eyebrow. “You really want me to tell you about how your cousin looked naked?” I bluntly ask.
Emma makes a face. “Well I can do without those details.” She gags slightly. “But like, overall. The thirty thousand foot view, if you please.”
“It was the best sex of my life,” I say, quietly, into my coffee cup. At her sharp intake of breath, I look up and glare at her. “That is the last time I will ever say that out loud.”
Emma’s grin could power the city.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I warn her.
“I’m not saying anything,” she says, but from the way she’s pressing her lips together, she definitely does want to say something.
“I’m serious, Em.”
“I’m not saying anything,” she insists, and while, yes, she does, technically, not say anything, but she looks at me with such satisfaction that words would have been redundant.
“It cannot happen again,” I tell her, setting my cup down. “We’ve already agreed on it this morning. We had the conversation and we agreed.”
“You agreed this morning?” Emma repeats.
“Immediately this morning.”
She leans back in the booth and looks at me like I’m crazy. “So you woke up and the first thing you did was agree it was a mistake.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Before coffee?”
I blink at her. “Yes.”
Emma considers this. “That’s either very mature,” she decides, “or evidence that you were both idiots.”
“It’s mature,” I insist. “We’re adults. We handled it like adults.”
“Mmm.” She sounds unconvinced. “And why exactly can’t it happen again?”
I flash her a look. “Where would you like me to start?”
“Wherever the list begins.”
“We hate each other,” I start, using my fingers to make my points.
“The marriage is supposed to be in name only. Getting physically involved complicates an already complicated situation. I refuse—refuse—to develop feelings for a man who was handed to me like a transaction because it’s convenient for our families.
” I pause. “Also he’s an infuriating jackass. ”
“That’s a lot of reasons,” Emma says.
“I have more.”
“I’m sure you do.” She looks at me steadily. “Can I say something?”
I sigh. “Not like I can stop you.”
“You’re protesting very hard,” she tells me, with a gentleness that takes the edge off it, “for someone who already agreed it was over and moved on. That’s all I’ll say.”
I study her, her green eyes warm as she watches me back.
“I’m not you,” I say quietly. “I know how your story went, Emma, and it’s—” I struggle for the words.
“I love it. I love what you and Leo have. But I’m not built the way you are.
I don’t—it’s not easy for me to let someone in.
And I’m certainly not going to start with a man I was handed like a bill to be paid. ”
Emma’s expression softens. “I know,” she says, simply. And she doesn’t push further, which I’m grateful for.
Our food arrives and we spend the rest of our time chatting.
We talk about the baby.
They have a name picked out but aren’t saying what it is, the assholes.
We talk about her mother visiting.
We talk about the gallery.
We let Cillian sit in the middle of the table, unaddressed like the centerpiece neither of us ordered.
When we hug goodbye outside, she holds on a moment.
“You’re allowed to want things, Val,” she says against my shoulder. “Even things that are inconvenient.”