Chapter 12
Emma
The corner store on Maple Street stays open until ten on Fridays, which is how I find myself walking home in the dark with a paper bag full of wine, cheese, and crackers. The holy trinity of “I survived this week and deserve a reward.”
My outfit is what happens when you have zero intention of encountering another human being.
Old pajama pants and my favorite college sweatshirt under my puffy coat, and my hair is twisted up and secured with a single bobby pin that’s been holding on for dear life since this morning.
I’m completely fine with it because my evening plans consist of the couch, Netflix, and being horizontal.
The week before Thanksgiving break nearly killed me.
Twenty-three first-graders running on pure sugar and anticipation is not for the faint of heart.
By Wednesday they’d basically stopped pretending to listen to anything I said.
Then I spent the actual holiday grading papers in my apartment while my sisters’ group chat exploded with photos from the family’s gathering.
Sloane sent seventeen pictures of the tablescape alone, each one more aggressively curated than the last. Cream linens, tasteful gourds, place cards in calligraphy. Sophie texted “wish you were here” with a sad face emoji, and I felt a pang of guilt for not going.
But I don’t know how to explain that reheating pad thai in my tiny kitchen while watching old episodes of The Great British Bake Off felt more like a holiday than any of those perfectly staged dinners ever did.
The ones that always ended in thinly veiled arguments about the company, or someone crying in the bathroom by dessert.
I’ll take Paul Hollywood judging someone’s soggy bottom over that any day.
The streets are quiet tonight, most of Dark River apparently having better Friday night plans than a wine-and-cheese-for-one situation. The air is sharp and cold, my breath fogging in front of me, and I’m maybe ten minutes from my building when headlights slow behind me.
My shoulders tense automatically. That instinctive awareness every woman has of being alone at night. I shift the paper bag against my hip and glance back. And then I actually see who it is.
Theo.
I let out a breath. He rolls down the passenger window, and the interior light illuminates his face, looking like he just stepped out of some kind of rugged outdoor catalog. Meanwhile I look like I crawled out of a laundry hamper. Fan fucking tastic.
“Want a ride?” he calls out.
“I... it’s just a ten-minute walk,” I say, which isn’t actually an answer to his question.
“It’s cold,” he says.
“I have a coat,” I point out, because apparently my strategy tonight is to argue against my own self-interest.
“Emma.” He’s smiling now, patient and amused. “Get in the car.”
Part of me wants to keep walking. We haven’t really talked in weeks, and I refuse to keep throwing myself at a man who seems determined to hold me at arm’s length. I have some self-respect.
Admittedly, that self-respect took a serious hit the night I ugly-cried over him while eating frozen cookie dough straight from the tube, then followed it up by touching myself in the shower to the memory of his mouth on mine until I nearly slipped and cracked my head open.
So my self-respect reserves are running dangerously low. But they exist. In theory.
He waits, watching me through the open window, and honestly the man has no right to look that good in a flannel. I’m only human. Ugh. Fuck it.
I get in the car.
The warmth envelops me immediately, a sharp contrast to the late November night, and I settle into the passenger seat while trying to look casual about it. I’m suddenly hyperaware of every detail—the way his hands rest on the steering wheel, the faint music playing from the speakers.
“Thanks,” I say, clutching my paper bag of wine and cheese like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. “For rescuing me from the brutal ten-minute walk. I might not have survived.”
“I couldn’t risk it.” He smiles and pulls away from the curb.
I watch the familiar streets slide past the window, trying to think of something to say that isn’t “so why have you been avoiding me?” or “do you think about that kiss as much as I do?”
“So, where’s Chloe?” I ask, glancing toward the backseat as if she might materialize out of thin air.
“With her mom in Seattle for the next few days.”
“Ah, gotcha.” I swallow. Just the two of us, then.
“So, how was your Thanksgiving?” he asks.
“Quiet.” I adjust the bag in my lap, the paper crinkling too loud in the small space. “I stayed in town. Graded papers. Ordered enough Thai food that the delivery guy started greeting me by name.”
He glances at me as he drives, the streetlights casting intermittent shadows across his face. “Your family doesn’t do a big thing?”
“Oh, they do. Massive production every year. Caterers, professional photographer, my oldest sister Sloane directing everything like she’s staging a spread for Architectural Digest.” I shrug, even though the memory of the group chat photos still stings more than I want to admit.
“I didn’t feel like being part of the production this year. ”
“That sounds lonely,” he says, but there’s no judgment in it.
It was. It also would have been nice if a certain someone hadn’t gone completely MIA for two weeks, but I’m not about to admit I spent Thanksgiving weekend aggressively not thinking about him while eating my body weight in pad thai. Self-respect and all that.
“It wasn’t so bad,” I say. “Peaceful, actually. No one criticized my life choices or made passive-aggressive comments about my career path. Which is always nice.” That’s partially true at least. I glance over at him.
He smiles at me. “Yeah. It is.”
“What about you?” I ask. “How was the Midnight Thanksgiving?”
“Good,” he says. “Really good, actually. My brother Jack surprised us. He lives in Monaco, racing Formula 1, so we don’t see him much. But he and his wife, Lark, flew in without telling anyone. So the whole day was a bit extra special.”
I perk up at the name. “Wait, I feel like I’m only just making this connection. Is that Lark Reyes? The singer?”
He glances at me, and there’s that smile again. “You know her music?”
“Know it? I’ve listened to ‘Burning Bridges’ approximately four hundred times.
It got me through—“ I catch myself before I can tumble deeper into the whole leaving-my-family’s-company emotional saga.
“A rough patch. Anyway, I feel like I heard that she is married to a Formula 1 driver, but I never made the connection.”
“Yah, she and my brother Jack got married last year. And she’s from around here, so she and Maren have been friends for years. Long before her and Jack were even a thing.”
“Wow. I have her entire album on repeat. Her stuff is so good. I literally cried the first time I heard ‘Slow Burn.’ I can’t believe you have actual celebrities in your family.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “To us she’s just Lark. But she’d love hearing that.”
“Well, tell her she has a very enthusiastic fan in Dark River who may or may not have learned all the words to ‘Until You Say Stay’ in the shower.” I pause. “Actually, don’t tell her that. That’s embarrassing. Forget I said anything.”
“Too late,” he says. “I’m absolutely telling her.”
I laugh, and so does he, and for a second it feels easy between us. Like we’re just two people who like each other, without all the complicated layers of parent and teacher and the weeks of careful distance that have been driving me slowly insane.
The car slows and my building comes into view through the window. The familiar brick and the soft glow from the lamp I left on. He pulls to the curb and puts the car in park. The engine idles and the heater hums softly.
I swallow against the tightness in my throat, wishing I didn’t care so much that this is over, wishing I wasn’t so stupidly drawn to him.
“Thanks for the ride,” I manage, forcing a smile as my fingers find the door handle.
He turns off the engine.
The sudden quiet is deafening. No heater, no rumble of the motor, nothing but the tick of cooling metal and the rush of blood in my ears.
I stop moving, my hand still on the door, my whole body suddenly aware of how small this space is, how close he is, how the air between us has gone thick and electric.
“Why did you turn it off?” I ask in a whisper.
He stares straight ahead through the windshield, his hands still on the steering wheel, his jaw set in a hard line.
He exhales, slow and controlled, and then he turns to look at me, and the expression on his face makes my heart stop dead in my chest. Dark eyes, heated, and all that careful control stripped away to reveal something hungry underneath.
“Because I’m coming inside with you,” he says.
Every nerve ending in my body lights up at once. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere, in my throat, my wrists, the pit of my stomach. His eyes don’t leave mine, and I know exactly what he’s saying. Exactly what this means.
I nod.
We get out of the car and the cold air hits my face, but I barely feel it. I walk toward my building on autopilot, keys already in my hand, and he’s right behind me. Close. Not touching, but I can feel him there like heat at my back, like something inevitable closing in.
I climb the stairs to the second floor, reaching the top slightly breathless, and unlock my apartment. My hands are steady, which surprises me, because the rest of me is shaking. The door swings open and I walk inside and turn around.
He steps in, stopping in my doorway, tall and broad, his shoulders nearly filling the frame, the dim hallway light behind him throwing his face into shadow.
For a moment neither of us moves. The air between us feels thick, charged, like the pressure before a thunderstorm. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, and between my legs.