Chapter 4 #2
Emmy stared at the two stems on the coaster.
Her pulse had picked up. Her face was warm, and her fingers had tightened around the wine glass stem without her deciding to do that—and underneath the heat, a quieter, worse thought: Nathan couldn't even remember basil.
Which was not a thought that belonged anywhere near a client debrief.
Which was, in fact, a thought that had no filing category at all.
She cleared her throat, reaching for her wine glass. "Well. Adaptable we can do. I have two other profiles queued up in the database. Do you want to go over them now? One is a professor, the other is a—"
Grant shook his head. He dropped the crust of his pizza onto the plate and rubbed a hand over his face.
"No. I can't look at another bio tonight, Em. If I have to read about anyone else's hobbies, my brain is going to shut down."
"Okay," Emmy said quickly. "No bios. We can table it."
"Just send me the details for the next one. Time and place. I trust you." Grant stood up, stretching his arms over his head. His shirt rode up slightly, and Emmy politely admired an imaginary painting on the wall. "We fly to San Francisco tomorrow afternoon. Game on Sunday. I'll be gone all week."
"Right. The Niners." Emmy stood up too, smoothing her silk pants. "Big game."
"They're all big games when you're 2-1." Grant grabbed his blazer from the barstool, slinging it over his shoulder. He looked at the pizza box. "You want the rest of this? I'm not taking it back to my place."
"I will absolutely eat that for breakfast," Emmy promised.
She walked him to the door. The hallway was quiet, the building settling into the night. Grant stepped out, then turned back to look at her. The playful edge from the cherry stem moment was gone, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that made him look, for half a second, his age.
"Good luck in San Francisco," she said softly. "Don't get hit."
"That's the plan." Grant gave her a crooked smile. "Get some rest, will you? Stop working for the night."
"I will," she lied.
"Goodnight, Em."
"Goodnight, Grant."
She closed the door. She heard his heavy footsteps retreat down the hall, then the ding of the elevator.
A door creaked open down the hall. Callie, in sweats, Liam on her hip, mouthed oh my god with the slow, exaggerated emphasis of someone who'd been listening through the wall.
Emmy gave her a look and closed her door.
Only then did she let out the breath she'd been holding. She walked back to the living room, sank onto the sofa where he'd just been sitting—still warm—and looked at the coaster on the table.
Two cherry stems. One loose and lopsided. One perfect and tight.
He could have gone home. His apartment was fifteen minutes from the restaurant.
Her place was twenty in the wrong direction.
He'd driven across town with a pizza box and an attitude, settled into her couch like it had a groove shaped exactly like him, and known exactly what she wanted on it without asking.
She filed this information somewhere it definitely didn't belong.
It was not going to be a problem.
Monday morning broke with an aggressive sunshine that felt like a personal accusation
Emmy sat at a high-top table in the coffee shop on Tremont, her laptop open.
A silk scarf—midnight blue with small white stars—held her hair back from her face, the ends trailing over her shoulder.
Grant was in San Francisco. He had texted her once—a photo of the fog over the Golden Gate Bridge with no caption.
She hadn't replied. She was too busy staring at the door, buzzed with caffeine and a need to fix something. Anything.
"I am so sorry I'm late," a breathless voice announced. "The T wasn't moving, so I got out and ran, but then I saw a dog wearing a raincoat and I had to stop to tell him he was a good boy, and—hi. I'm a disaster."
Emmy looked up. Harper stood there, windblown and flushed, wearing a violently bright orange sweater that looked like it had been knitted by a colorblind nun. She looked chaotic. She looked un-curated.
She looked wonderful.
"You're not a disaster," Emmy said, feeling a genuine smile crack through her professional veneer. "You prioritized a dog in a raincoat. That speaks to your character. Sit. I ordered you a vanilla latte with oat milk."
Harper slumped into the chair, pressing the cup to her forehead like a cold compress. "Oat milk? You're an angel."
"I have a gift," Emmy said. "Also, you mentioned being lactose intolerant while you were crying in the bathroom on Friday."
Harper groaned, dropping her forehead onto the table. "Oh god. I forgot I told you that. I think I also told you about my recurring dream where I'm dating a lizard?"
"You did," Emmy confirmed, laughing. "We're going to unpack that later. But first—the Crypto Bro. Did you block him?"
"Blocked. Deleted. Exorcised." Harper popped her head up, grinning. "I almost texted him on Saturday night when I was lonely, but then I remembered you said if I did, you'd know. You have that 'all-seeing eye' vibe."
"I would have known," Emmy warned playfully. "And I would have been very disappointed."
"See? That's what I need. Accountability." Harper leaned in, her eyes sparkling. "Okay, so what's the plan? I'm ready. Mold me. Fix me. Make me the kind of woman who doesn't date men who own decorative swords."
Emmy laughed again. It felt good. It felt light. After a weekend of sleeping badly and replaying Friday night in fragments she refused to hold up to the light, Harper's chaotic, open-book energy was exactly what she needed.
"Okay," Emmy said, turning her laptop around. "I made a list. We call this 'The Ick Audit.'"
For the next hour, they didn't just strategize; they bonded.
Emmy told Harper things she hadn't even told her work friends—about the pressure Cecelia put on her, about how tired she was of people treating romance like a transaction.
Harper listened with wide, empathetic eyes, nodding furiously and interjecting with stories about her own dating horrors that made Emmy laugh so hard her espresso became a safety hazard.
It wasn't a consultation. It was a sleepover in the middle of a Monday morning.
"Wait," Harper gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. "He brought a puppet to the first date?"
"A hand puppet," Emmy confirmed, wheezing slightly. "Named Reginald. He used it to order his drink."
"Stop it! No!" Harper slapped the table, delighted. "Okay, you win. My crypto guy was bad, but Hand Puppet Paul is worse."
“Hand Puppet Paul was a low point," Emmy agreed. She checked her watch and sighed. "I hate to cut this short, but I have to get to the office. I have a client in San Francisco who needs micromanaging."
"The mysterious client," Harper wiggled her eyebrows as they gathered their trash. "Is he hot? Is he single? Can I date him?"
Something tightened below Emmy's ribs. Quick, unexpected, gone before she could look at it directly. She busied herself with her bag strap.
"He is... complex. And definitely not your type. He hates chaos."
"Rude. I am delightful chaos."
"You are," Emmy agreed warmly. "Walk with me? I'm just down the block."
They walked out into the crisp autumn air, shoulders bumping. It felt like childhood summers—running barefoot through someone's backyard, no agenda, no networking, just this.
They reached the glass doors of Elite Connections.
"This is where you work?" Harper asked, her eyes widening as she looked at the marble lobby. "It looks like... a place where people don't have pores."
"It's intense," Emmy admitted. "But I'm working on changing the vibe."
She reached for the door handle, but it was pulled open from the inside before she could touch it.
"Morning, Ms. Woodhouse," Ryan said. He was beaming, his uniform pressed, holding the door with that effortless, golden-retriever energy. "Beautiful day, right?"
"It is," Emmy agreed, stepping through. "Though the wind wants my scarf."
She turned to wave goodbye to Harper, but Harper hadn't walked away.
She was standing on the threshold like she'd walked into a wall.
Ryan was holding the door open like he'd forgotten what doors were for. They were staring at each other like two people discovering they'd been assigned as soulmates in a dystopian YA novel.
"Hi," Ryan said. His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, his ears turning pink. "Hi. Welcome to Elite Connections."
"Hi," Harper squeaked. She smoothed her violent orange sweater self-consciously. "I'm Harper. I mean, I'm with her. I'm not a client. I can't afford—I mean, I'm just dropping her off. Like a child. Not that she's a child."
"I'm Ryan," he said, ignoring the word vomit completely. His eyes were locked on hers like he was trying to memorize her face. "I like your sweater. It's... bright."
"My grandma made it," Harper said, her voice going soft and breathless at once. "When I wear it, I don't miss her as much."
Emmy stood between them, looking back and forth. Harper's cheeks were flushed. Ryan looked like he'd forgotten his own name.
And his grip on the door handle had tightened, like he was afraid to let go.
"Okay, you two," Emmy said warmly. "Harper, we should get you going—you have that thing. Ryan, I should head up before Beckanne sends a search party."
"Right!" Harper jumped, blinking rapidly as if waking up. "Homework. Apps deleted. No podcasts. Got it. Bye, Emmy! Bye... Ryan."
"Bye, Harper," Ryan said softly.
She walked away down the street, and he leaned out the door to keep her in view a beat longer than made sense.
"Ryan," Emmy said.
He snapped back to attention, looking guilty. "Yes, Ms. Woodhouse?"
“Are you okay?”
He swallowed. “Miss Harper—is she a client?"
"Oh! No." Emmy smiled. "Just a friend I'm helping out. Between us." She adjusted her bag. "She's wonderful, isn't she? Smart, kind, great sense of humor."
Ryan's entire face lit up. "She seems amazing."
Emmy nodded, already thinking about which profiles to show Harper later. "She is. Have a good day, Ryan."
She shook her head as she walked toward the elevator. It was messy. It was illogical. It obeyed none of her principles. Emmy the matchmaker should have been appalled.
She was charmed beyond repair.
She pulled out her phone as the elevator doors slid shut. One new notification.
Grant Knight
Flying back after the game. Do I have plans this week or do I get to sleep?
Her stomach flipped. Then the warmth of the morning—Harper's laugh, the autumn light, the ridiculous meet-cute still tingling at the edges—rearranged itself, making room for the familiar, high-wire tension of managing Grant Knight.
She stared at the screen, biting her lip.
Juliana had been a mulligan. A swing and a miss. On paper, the compatibility was there, but in practice? Emmy pictured Juliana at Woodhouse Thanksgiving, pulling out a pocket scale to weigh her turkey while West tried to hide the extra gravy boat and her father diagnosed himself with a new allergy.
She shuddered. That was on her. She'd swung too hard for "discipline" and hit "joyless.
" She shouldn't have set Grant up with a woman she wouldn't want to sit next to at dinner herself.
And the faint, treasonous relief she'd felt listening to the fish papers saga—that wasn't data she was prepared to look at right now.
Grant didn't need a drill sergeant; he needed a peer. Someone interesting. Someone who would see past the public version to the man who showed up with pizza at eleven o'clock because he knew where he was comfortable.
She pulled up Thea's profile.
Thea wasn't a reaction to Juliana; she was a course correction.
Juliana deserved someone who appreciated her dedication—someone who meal-prepped and tracked macros with the same intensity.
Emmy made a mental note to revisit her profile later.
There was a triathlete in the database who would probably love discussing hatchery sourcing over dinner.
But for Grant, Thea was different. A linguistics professor at Berkeley who spent her summers documenting dying dialects in Peru. Brilliant, witty, and—most importantly—she didn't care about football. She had a thousand other things she was passionate about.
Emmy liked her. She would grab a drink with Thea. And if Thea ended up at Thanksgiving, the conversation would be significantly better than fish documentation policy.
She typed back quickly.
Emmy
Her name is Thea. You're going to like her.
She hit send, stepped out of the elevator, and walked into the shark tank.