Chapter Thirty #2
Emmy took a quick picture of the room and texted it to Sarah.
I will find ur body spray but it might take me a couple years. Pray for me.
Sarah’s reply came a moment later.
People still eating main course. u got time. God be with ye
With Sarah’s blessing, Emmy stuck her phone in her tiny clutch.
Yet another benefit to keeping the purse with her for the rest of the night—she wouldn’t have to carry her phone around wherever she went.
The zipper only closed about halfway with the new addition, but that was okay.
She set the bag down against the wall by the door, then turned to begin her search.
With no better idea of how to go about it, she started to wander the perimeter of the room.
Maybe she had a better chance of finding the Ark of the Covenant than her sister’s purse, but Sarah was counting on her.
She poked around, found her mother’s purse, but nothing of May’s.
It didn’t help that she was pretty sure her sister had had at least three different bags with her when she’d bustled into the suite that morning.
She found those, finally, piled against the wall beneath one of the vanity mirrors.
One of them looked more purse-like, though it wasn’t her sister’s usual, and she felt what she believed was a well-earned surge of triumph when she located the pomegranate spray within its cavernous depths.
Now, with her quarry in hand, she noted how quiet it was.
Part of her wanted to flop down on the nearest comfortable surface and bask in it, but a more dominant part of her knew it would be a bad idea to have too much alone time with her thoughts.
Also, many people considered it uncouth to dip out of a sibling’s wedding and hide in the changing room.
Holding the body spray in one hand, she carefully scooped up her bulging clutch in the other.
She managed to use her elbow to press the door handle down enough to release the latch, and then she bumped it open with her hip.
Should’ve opened the door and then grabbed the purse, she told herself, feeling a little foolish.
She stepped out of the bridal suite, kicked the door shut behind her, and promptly dropped everything. The plastic bottle of body spray bounced a couple times, losing its cap in the process, and rolled off somewhere. Her clutch hit the floor and vomited out its contents.
Will—not an illusion, not a hallucination, but Will—winced at her reaction and the ensuing mess. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted to talk to you, so I… followed you up here. That sounds bad. I swear, I’m not going to hurt you. Shit, that sounds bad, too.”
She knew she should say something, needed to say something, but she couldn’t find her voice. He looked at her expectantly, his eyes pleading with her to let him off the hook. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Letting out a breath, Will ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I know it sounds like a line, but I swear this is the truth. I saw you earlier, and you looked familiar. I wanted to ask if we’ve met somewhere before.”
He was really there, was all Emmy could think.
He was there, physically standing in front of her, wearing a dark gray suit and a striped green tie.
For a second, right when she’d first seen him, it had been a dream come true.
Now it hit her that he didn’t know who she was.
He remembered nothing. This wasn’t the Will from the book. To this Will, she was a stranger.
She wanted to weep, but she’d done too much of that lately.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but he would think she was a lunatic.
He’d said he recognized her, or felt he should. She clung to that.
“Did I bully you in high school or something?” Will asked. “If I did, it was an accident. I mean… I don’t think I ever bullied anyone. Not on purpose anyway. Victor and I go back. He can vouch for me.”
“You didn’t bully me,” Emmy managed.
“Oh. Good.” He knelt down to gather her things.
“I’m just gonna clean this stuff up. Least I can—” He stopped midsentence.
Her purse was still in his hand. He’d already put her keys and wallet back in it.
His eyes were fixed on the tiny flashlight.
Slowly, he picked it up, lifted it for a better look. “You have a flashlight keychain.”
“Yes.”
A new thought occurred to her. Did he have a flashlight keychain? It was suddenly vitally important to her that he have one. If he did… and if it was named Gordon…
He was still kneeling on the floor. Emmy wondered vaguely if he was aware that it looked like he was proposing to her, down on one knee, holding a flashlight up to her like an offering. It would be funny later, she promised herself. One day, she would look back on this moment and laugh.
“I also have a flashlight keychain,” Will said slowly, finally pushing himself up to stand.
Emmy’s heart skipped a beat. She stopped herself before she could ask its name. He didn’t know her. She reminded herself that, to him, they were meeting for the first time.
Trying for surprise, she said, “Really? That’s a freaky coincidence. But I bet you didn’t name yours.”
“You… named your flashlight?”
“Yep. Barry. Don’t judge me.”
“You named your flashlight,” Will repeated.
His hand took another quick journey through his hair.
If he kept doing that, he was going to look like he’d taken a break from dinner to go skydiving.
“Why Barry? I guess it doesn’t matter, but…
” His face lit up when realization hit. “Barry Allen. The Flash.”
“You got it.”
Somehow this conversation was far more surreal than any she had had with him when they were both literally living inside a novel.
She felt detached from herself, like she was having the conversation but also observing the conversation from afar.
A defense mechanism, she supposed. If she let herself be a hundred percent present, she would probably start crying. Or begging.
Not happening.
Will took a deep breath, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “My flashlight is Gordon.”
Emmy’s heart leaped with joy at the sight of the familiar little gadget. It really was him. This was real-world Will.
“No way! Like Flash Gordon?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “What’s going on here?”
That was a tough question to answer. She couldn’t very well tell him the truth.
Emmy shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. You said I looked familiar. Maybe it’s just… fate?”
He studied her for a moment. “If you’d suggested something like that before I saw Barry, then I would have told you I don’t believe in fate.”
“And now?”
“Now? I think we gotta at least grab a cup of coffee or something.”
She wanted to ask him so many things. He didn’t remember her, so he wasn’t the Will from the book. But he had a flashlight named Gordon, so he was Will. Did he still have a friend named Jared? Was he a nurse? What about his cousin?
No, a wedding was not a good time to ask if he had lost a cousin to cancer.
He’d suggested coffee. That was good. That was a start. She would have time to ask her questions. She needed to stay calm, take everything one step at a time.
How long had she been gone from the reception?
She couldn’t linger here any longer, no matter how much she wanted to stay with him, talk to him, figure out this version of him.
She’d promised May, and herself, that she would be there for May’s wedding.
She wasn’t opposed to getting to know this Will, to seeing if that spark was there, but her sister came first. This was May’s night.
For now, it was enough to know that Lucy had been right. Will was here. There was hope.
“I have to get back,” she told Will. “I don’t want to miss more of my sister’s wedding than I already have.
” She looked up at him, at his familiar face, his hair—a little shorter than she remembered—his chiseled jaw, his green-tinged hazel eyes.
She looked at him, and she realized she loved him still. Even as a stranger, she loved him.
Lucy had also told her that there were forces at work in the world that most people didn’t know of or understand. She didn’t know if they were… listening, or paying attention? Did they think? Did they make decisions?
Was true love’s kiss a thing?
“Can I kiss you?” she asked quietly. “Just once? I can’t explain why.”
“Uh… sure. I guess.” He shifted uncomfortably and looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head.
She pointed a finger at him, couldn’t help it. “You got to be weird for like five full minutes, so I get to be weird, too. That’s fair.”
He let out a quick, startled laugh. “You’re right. Fair’s fair.”
“Okay. Lean down. I’m short.”
He leaned down. She put a hand on his shoulder to balance herself, stretched up, concentrated on the love inside her, and touched her lips to his. When she pulled away, she searched his face, looking for some sign of recognition.
“Thanks, I guess,” Will said.
Emmy deflated a little. So much for true love’s kiss. She was going to have to start from the beginning.
“There’s something there,” she told him, and smiled genuinely. “Just doing a quick chemistry check.”
Take two, she thought.
Emmy slipped her arm through Will’s and walked with him back toward the reception. “You mentioned coffee? I know a place. It comes with free cake and a great view of drunk people attempting the Electric Slide.”
Will chuckled. “Sounds great. I’m in.”
So am I, Emmy thought, smiling to herself as she walked arm in arm with her One. I’m all in.