Chapter 17 #2
"Off my feet. Like I weighed nothing. Like I was—" She stopped. Found the word. "Irreplaceable."
Claire's hand was over her mouth.
"And he was patient, Claire. Patient in a way I didn't know was possible. Like every second mattered more than the next one. Like he had nowhere else to be for the rest of his life."
"I am going to cry in this restaurant."
"He was shaking. This man who has done things I can't even imagine, who walked into a warehouse full of Vance's people like he was going to buy coffee. He was shaking because of me."
Claire had given up on composure entirely. She was wiping her eyes with her napkin, laughing and crying at the same time, drawing a glance from the couple with the fruit plate.
"And?" Claire said.
Emily looked at her best friend. And the thing she'd been holding back, the detail that had been sitting with all morning like a secret she was desperate to tell someone, rose to the surface.
"I got a two-for-one," she said.
Claire went absolutely still.
"I'm sorry," Claire said. "Did you just say—"
"A two-for-one. Before. You know." Emily felt heat rise in her face and did nothing to stop it. “One before the other.”
Claire's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. She leaned forward, palms flat on the mosaic tile, and her voice dropped to a whisper that was louder than most people's normal speaking voice.
"Emily Catherine Callahan."
"You already used my full name."
"It bears repeating." Claire sat back. Pressed her fingers to her temples. Looked at the sky. Looked back at Emily. "A two-for-one. From the patient man. From the man who takes his time."
"From the man who takes his time."
Claire picked up her water glass, drained the entire thing, set it down, and flagged the waiter with an urgency that suggested the building was on fire. "We're going to need mimosas. Immediately. The big ones."
Emily laughed. Loud and uncontrolled, the sound she'd been making more often since Jake Walsh had walked into her life and given her reasons to make it.
"And then?" Claire said, composing herself with visible effort. "After the... after."
"After. We were together and his forehead was against mine and the first thing he said was 'hi.'"
Claire's face changed in a way Emily had never seen. Every defense, every joke, every deflection Claire used to navigate the world dropped away, and what was left was a woman looking at her best friend with an emotion so pure and uncomplicated that Emily felt her own eyes sting.
"Hi," Claire repeated.
"Like we were meeting for the first time. Like everything before that was the introduction." Emily realized, this was the calmest she'd been in years. "And then I told him I loved him. And he told me he loved me. And I fell asleep in his arms and I didn't dream because I didn't need to."
Claire reached across the table. Took both of Emily's hands. Held them.
"I have waited," Claire said, "for years. Years, Emily. To watch you let someone in. And you didn't just let him in. You drove across a bridge and walked into a bar full of assassins and told them he was yours."
"They're not assassins."
"They're a little bit assassins." Claire squeezed her hands. "I am so proud of you. I am so unbelievably proud of you."
The mimosas arrived. They were, as requested, the big ones. The mimosas rose together and they clinked glasses over a mosaic table on a Saturday morning in South Tampa while the sun turned everything golden.
"To the first thing you ever chose just because you wanted it," Claire said.
Emily drank. The champagne was cold and sharp and tasted like celebration and she let herself feel it, the feeling of being happy without conditions or caveats or exit strategies.
"So what happens now?" Claire asked. "With the case. With Vance."
Emily reached for the name. Found it took an extra beat to locate, the way you reach for a file you've put in the wrong drawer. A week ago, Vance would have been the first thing she thought about when she opened her eyes. This morning, it had been the warmth of Jake's skin against hers.
"We've got this," she said. It came out simply.
Not dismissive. Not cavalier. The confidence of a woman who had spent two weeks watching a partnership become greater than its parts.
"We'll find Costa. He'll cooperate. Marchand is a problem but he's a manageable one.
" She took another sip of her mimosa. "And I've got the best investigator in the federal system, who also happens to be in love with me. So yes. We've got this."
Claire studied her. The lawyer in Claire, the part that assessed risk and exposure, was running calculations. Emily could see it. But whatever the calculations produced, Claire let them go.
"Monday is going to be interesting," Claire said.
"Monday is going to be fine. Ray already knows. Has since the beginning."
"And Marchand?"
"Marchand is going to be a problem for a long time.
" Emily said it without heat. Without anxiety.
Like a weather forecast she'd already prepared for.
"He's not going away. He's going to make things difficult.
He's going to use his position to create friction because that's what men like Marchand do when they've been embarrassed. "
"And you're okay with that?"
"I'm not worried about Jasper Marchand." Emily set down her glass. "I've faced worse. Jake's faced worse. Marchand has politics. We have each other."
The food arrived. Avocado toast for Claire.
Eggs benedict for Emily. They ate the way they always ate, sharing bites, stealing forkfuls, talking between mouthfuls about nothing and everything.
Claire told her about a deposition that had gone sideways on Thursday.
Emily told her about Anna at the deli, about the old woman who'd squeezed her shoulder and told her she saw someone who was as scared as Jake was.
"I like Anna," Claire said. "I need to meet Anna."
"You will. She'd love you."
"I already love her." Claire took a bite of her toast. "The shoulder squeeze alone."
"Oh," Claire said, reaching for her water.
"I forgot. Katherine Winters called my office last week asking for your direct number.
I gave her your email instead. She wanted to congratulate you on the Prescott motion.
" Claire's tone was casual, the way it got when she was delivering information she considered significant and wanted Emily to under react to.
"Katherine Winters, Emily. Criminal Division. That's not a courtesy call."
Emily shrugged. "She emailed me a few weeks ago. Coffee-if-you're- in-DC kind of thing."
"And you didn't mention this."
"There was nothing to mention."
Claire's fork paused mid-air. "The head of DOJ Criminal Division recruitment reaches out to you twice in a month and there's nothing to mention."
"I've been busy."
"You've been in love. Those are different states." Claire pointed the fork at her. "File it, Callahan. Don't forget it."
Emily watched Claire eat, watched the familiar gestures, the way she held her fork, the way she tilted her head when she was thinking.
"You know what's strange? All of Jake's people.
Tommy, Gator, everyone at The Anchor. They're becoming mine too.
This whole world I didn't know existed two weeks ago, and it feels like I've been missing from it. "
Claire put her fork down. Looked at Emily with an expression that held ten years of friendship and every late night and every early morning and every time she'd watched Emily choose safety over joy.
"That's the thing that gets me," Claire said.
"Not the love. Not the sex — though the two-for-one is going in the vault forever and I will be referencing it at your wedding.
It's that you said 'mine.' You said his family is becoming yours.
Emily Callahan, who has spent her entire adult life making sure she didn't need anyone's family, including her own. "
Emily didn't answer right away. She watched a couple walk past on the sidewalk, the woman's hand in the man's back pocket, grinning at nothing, and she thought about Jake's hand on the small of her back in the elevator, the circles his thumb drew, the language they were building one touch at a time.
"He didn't ask me to change," Emily said. "He didn't ask me to be different or softer or less of what I am. He made room. And I walked into it."
"That's love, Emily."
Emily looked at her best friend. "Yeah. It is."
Claire raised her mimosa again. "To room."
"To room."
They sat on the patio for another hour. The sun climbed.
The umbrellas shifted. The waiter brought more coffee and cleared plates and left them alone because some tables you don't rush.
Emily watched the Saturday foot traffic and felt the phone in her pocket like a promise, knowing Jake would call when Ranger was fed and walked, knowing she'd answer on the first ring.
Claire paid the check because Claire always paid when she got there first, and they hugged on the sidewalk outside, longer than usual, tighter than usual, and Claire held her shoulders and looked at her one more time.
"Be happy," Claire said. "I know that sounds simple. But you've never let yourself do it before. So I'm telling you. Be happy. You've earned it."
Emily walked to her apartment in the sun. Six blocks. She didn't hurry. The phone buzzed in her pocket halfway there.
Ranger ate a pillow. Not the couch. I consider this a win.
She typed back: Tell him his mom is disappointed in his behavior.
Three dots. Then: His mom. You realize he's never going to let me leave the house again.
Emily laughed on a sidewalk in South Tampa with the sun on her face and the taste of champagne on her lips and a man she loved texting her about a dog she was falling for, and she thought that this was what it felt like to have a life instead of a schedule.
She didn't rush home. She didn't need to. Everything she wanted was waiting for her, and none of it was going anywhere.