47. LIAM
47
LIAM
Now
“We get it. You two are together, but this is a work meeting. Liam, can you stop eyeing Emerson for a minute so we can finish, and then you can go find his desk or one of the hotel rooms to finish yourselves?” Cal snaps at us.
“Blame him. He’s the one that keeps trying to play footsie with me.” Emerson glares over at me. Her hair sways over her shoulder, kissed with the sun. She’s wearing a soft pink sundress today, which reminds me of a bloomed flower.
I shrug my shoulders. It’s impossible to drag my attention from Emerson. Always has been.
Emerson wanted to take it slow after we got back together. We woke up the morning after her birthday, Emerson in my bed facing me. She still isn’t a cuddler, but the faintest smile was on her face as she had her hand interlocked into mine. My hand was resting on her arm—I think we were both hanging onto the other, too afraid the night before was only a fever dream. Over coffee, I asked her to be my girlfriend, together properly this time. That was the opposite of slow, but I needed her to understand the capacity of which I am all in on us. It wasn’t the L-bomb, so I figured girlfriend was slow enough.
Our relationship is a flower. It may have needed all those years of watering, but it’s alive and thriving now. That’s what matters, right?
“Get up.” Cal gestures his hand up. “I’m sitting next to her. You are over here. ”
Blake, Ben, and a few others from our teams laugh as I play musical chairs.
“Happy now?” I ask Cal as I sit down, folding my arms across my chest and flicking my eyebrows up.
“We’ll see.”
“As I was saying,” Emerson continues. “Opening the restaurant before the hotel’s launch was a great idea. From that alone, you have reached 35 percent occupancy. Until the hotel opens, I recommend we raffle off one or two-night free stays a week; anyone who eats or drinks at Cleopatra that week is entered to win. The aim is to continue driving business there, which will also coincide with the hotel occupancy.”
“What if we add in an additional entry if they book at least one night?” Ben asks.
Emerson looks over at me for a decision. It takes me a moment to answer as I think through the best options— damn, she’s sexy.
“Make it a weekend and within ninety days of opening. They’ll receive an upgraded weekend experience if they are already booked.”
“Perfect. Johnson, can you note that for graphics and email? Moving on, did everyone review the list of influencers and the contract they will be signing? The minimum number of stories, feed posts, and videos is the same across the board. Blake, you will be managing these.”
Watching her, what do the Americans call it, girl boss? Watching Emerson’s girl boss is hot. Seeing her in the zone, commanding the room, and leading everyone with undivided attention is a hoot. She’s intelligent. I already knew that, but how she orchestrated this together and presented it is remarkable—reason #87324 why I am ridiculously in love with her.
“Yup! Sending out invites and contracts this afternoon. Additionally, Ben gave me the list of people to invite to the opening. Their invitations went out this morning. ”
“On top of it, as always, thank you, Blake. Our digital campaigns to create buzz have been running for the past two weeks. I’ve included on page nineteen of the folder a review of the current analytics. Olivia will be reviewing those next. The last task item our team is working on is hiring a photographer. I’ve put together their creative brief and—”
“I want you to be the photographer,” I cut Emerson off.
“Oh my gosh! Emme, you have to! Why didn’t I think of that?” Blake squeals.
Ben shushes her.
“That’s not my job,” Emerson shakes her head.
“You do it on the side and enjoy it, yeah?”
“Yes.” Her eyebrows are raised, silently asking me where I am going with this.
“Emerson, you are the only one who doesn’t have a specific job for the weekend,” Blake helps my case.
“Take the pictures. You are talented, and I would be proud to have you capture this.” I stare into her eyes and ask, “Will you please be our photographer?”
Emerson bites the side of her bottom lip, contemplating my request. “Okay,” she says softly.
Cal claps his hands. Blake and Emerson’s team are beaming with a smile.
Olivia goes on about analytics. I hear what she’s saying, digesting the numbers, but my focus is on the woman sitting adjacent to me. All I can see are the rosy cheeks on Emerson, and the excitement in her eyes to be behind the camera.
***
The marketing meeting for Hayes Hotel with Emerson and her team was the last of the day for both of us. She brought all of her stuff with her when they walked here from her office .
Emerson and I took Cal’s suggestion before taking the train back to her place for the evening. My glass desk now has an excellent, sweaty outline of her body pressed up against it. I left a note for the custodians that I’ll clean it tomorrow. But I might leave it. It’s branded now.
“Are you going to tell me why you have a small suitcase with you?” She laughs. “Are you. . . moving in?”
“Not yet.” I smile at her, rolling the carry-on-sized suitcase into her dining area. It’s not a dining room, but her apartment has enough space that she can fit a round table with four chairs on the backside of her couch. I set the suitcase on the table. “This is for you.”
She stares at me, confused. Big green eyes, and the corners of her lips uptick.
“Not the suitcase. What’s inside of it,” I clarify.
Last night, George appeared at my door. This suitcase and his in hand. Thankfully, Emerson wasn’t over.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“You asked for me to ship you a box of books. Do you know how many pounds that was about to be? Thought it would be easier to ship me!”
“We also heard from a little birdy that someone might be dating Emerson Clarke.” Beatrix brushes by her husband, hugging me.
“Wonder who that is?” I speak loudly to get Cal’s attention from upstairs.
I take the suitcase George packed the novels into, wheeling it behind me and shutting the door. Three years’ worth of them, hand-picked and annotated for her.
The first one was for her birthday that year. I picked up a first edition of her favorite novel, The Great Gatsby , intending to send it to her, but I decided against it. They compounded from there. Anytime I saw a book she might like, I’d buy it, read it, annotate it, and write to her about what was happening in my life then, as I used to do on FaceTime .
There are twenty-three of them.
I’ve wanted to give them to her. Always knew I would. That’s why I asked George to send them to me. A short-lived thought crossed my mind about saving them and slowly giving them to her, but I was too excited and too nervous that this chance with her might slip away.
“You can open it. It’s not dangerous,” I tell Emerson.
“Okay,” she says slowly.
The sound of the zipper echoes in her place. She flips open one side of the suitcase against the refurbished table. The smell of books fills the space.
“Are these books?” She picks them up, one at a time, reading the titles out loud, flipping them over to skim the back. Emerson opens a few, flipping through the pages. Her jaw drops open as she turns to face me. “Are all of them annotated?”
“Yes,” I kiss away the single tear falling down her cheek.
“Why? How?” She asks.
I tell her about the birthday book, catching her up to the most recent purchase, which was from the day we ran into each other at the coffee shop. It was a silly little second-chance romance that I thought was fitting. She giggles, informing me that she has already read the book and, like me, thought of us.
Emerson sets down the book clinched to her chest, draws me in close for a hug, and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“Thank you,” she says to me endearingly.
“I never stopped caring for you,” I add.
She kisses my palm that’s cupping her face, then walks out of my embrace, jogging down the hallway toward her bedroom.
She returns to the table, holding a box in her hands.
“This. . . this is my memory-shrine-box-of-stuff. It has all of my memories from growing up and from our summers together. . . and apart.”
Emerson takes off the lid after setting it on the table next to the suitcase, pulling out photos, letters, field day ribbons, and small trinkets. I recognize some of them, but what catches my eye are news clippings and printouts of digital magazines in her hands.
“It also contains articles about you from over the years. About your new hotels or profiles on you, I’d keep them in here because I didn’t stop caring about you either.”
“How is it that we did these things to be close to each other yet kept ourselves so far apart?” I ask her.
“Anger, hurt, insecurities.” She sighs. “I had a lot to figure out about myself. I’m not saying you were the martyr for me to change, but it took that summer in London to learn what I did.”
“I don’t feel that way, States,” I assure her.
“I’m not perfect—Brandon is a testament to that, but I am trying. I’m trying to break these habits.”
“I can see that.”
“It’s hard to unlearn twenty-eight years of life,” she hesitantly chuckles. “But you are worth unlearning for.”
I kiss the top of her head, holding her close to me. Picking up the box, we walk over to her couch and spend the rest of the evening reminiscing, laughing at her baby pictures, and trying .