Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
EMILY
The shop was perfect in the way that imperfect things have potential. Of course, I signed the papers. Then I drove around for a while just listening to the radio.
When I finally started to make my way back to Finn’s, I burst into tears—which immediately short-circuited into hysterical giggles. My emotions were ping-ponging around my brain and coming right out of my face.
Finn raised both hands in surrender and took a wise step backward when I finally got to his house and tossed open the front door. He was in his glasses, and there was something about being seen clearly by a person, who chose to look, that made my hands start to shake.
I stopped them immediately.
Then I recognized that he wasn’t laid out on the couch, but actually standing and moving.
“You’re vertical,” I announced. “The real kind.”
“It still hurts.” He nodded. “But I’m done doing nothing so I decided to walk from the sofa to the kitchen and back just because I could, not because I needed anything. And then you showed up all... like that.”
His gaze darted from the discarded heels in my hand to my mascara-stained cheeks. “I gotta be honest, when someone texts me that they just started a cult, I expect a lot more ceremonial robes and a lot less... raccoon-on-a-bender.”
“The robes are on backorder,” I shot back, waving a stiletto at him. “Do you have any idea how emotionally draining it is to establish dark doctrine from scratch?”
“No idea at all,” he deadpanned. “So does feeding you dinner count as my first tithe, or do I need to drink the Kool-Aid first?”
“You have Kool-Aid?” I asked, because actually, that sounded kind of nice right about then.
“No, but I will buy you some if you really want.”
“Do you at least have dinner?”
“Of course, I have dinner. I ordered your favorite.”
“Wings?”
“No, pasta from Gino’s.”
“That’s not my favorite, that’s yours.”
“Right. Yeah… my mistake.”
I dropped my shoes onto the floor with a heavy thud and moved to the kitchen. I pulled open his pantry doors. I didn’t have a specific recipe in mind, only the desperate need to melt something down and rebuild it.
I grabbed a bag of chocolate féves from the back of the pantry where I’d been keeping it. This was the good kind of chocolate that came in percentages and these were sixty-eight percent cacao.
“Is this a brownie situation or a molten lava cake situation?” Finn asked from a good distance.
“It’s a whatever-has-the-highest-sugar-content situation,” I muttered, digging through the other groceries I’d stocked. “The implosion was thorough. The chocolate must be equally extreme.”
“Do you… need anything?” he asked, taking a cautious step toward me.
“No,” I grumbled.
He tilted his head. “Do you want a hug?”
“God, yes.” Bag of chocolate still in my grip, I opened my arms.
He stepped forward and pulled me to him. It was incredibly clunky, but man, did I need it.
I kept my arms hovering in the air like a useless T-Rex since I didn’t want to add injuring him to my list of daily destruction.
“You’re giving a really shit hug, Em,” he said against my hair.
“I’m not squeezing back. You’re hurt,” I said against his shoulder.
“Relax,” he grunted, giving my back a pat. “I promise I’m not hugging you with my junk, so it’s all good.”
I melted into his embrace, really letting the tension leave my body as I soaked in his solid warmth for a minute. Then I pulled away because I started tingling and the last thing this day needed was tingling.
Finn gave me a final squeeze before he let me go.
“I’m about to make a thing,” I warned, tossing the bag by the sink.
“I’ve always wanted a thing,” he said as he moved the takeout containers to make room for me.
“Ganache,” I said.
“Fancy.”
“It’s basically the inside of every truffle. You heat the cream, you pour it over chopped chocolate, you let it do what it does.”
“And then?”
“And then you adjust. Butter for shine. Booze for flavor. Chili if you want to feel alive.”
“If I order wings right now, will you drown them in the chocolate?”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
“What if they just went for a little swim in it?”
“Still no.” I smiled.
I melted the chocolate in a small metal bowl over hot water, holding it from underneath with a dish towel, stirring in slow circles.
The rhythm of the stir loosened a knot in my shoulders.
“I did quit my job,” I said.
“That’s a good thing, Em.”
“And I acquired three accomplices and a storefront with peeling trim.”
“Now, that is new news.”
“My mother is going to lose her mind.”
I kept stirring.
“You don’t eat the ganache straight?” he asked, instead of agreeing with me about my mom.
“You can. But it’s meant to become more than it already is.” I tapped the spoon on the edge of the bowl. “It’s a base. Right now, it’s pure potential.”
“Like you,” he said.
I turned then. I couldn’t help it.
He was just standing there, arms loose at his sides.
“Don’t,” I said, softly. “Because if you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to cry again, and I’ve already used up my cry for the day.”
“I’m being serious,” he said.
I turned back to the chocolate, not sure what to do with serious Finn who thought I had potential.
“What’s the difference between dark chocolate and milk chocolate?” he asked, after a beat.
The question was so Finn—deflecting into something practical when the emotional register got too high.
“Percentage of cocoa liquor,” I said. “Not, like, alcohol liquor but it’s part of the cocoa bean. Dark has more of the liquor so it’s more complex… more interesting. Milk chocolate is sweeter because of the added dairy. It’s the kind people reach for first, but dark’s the one you remember.”
I went back to my stirring.
He stayed nearby, just being there.
When I was done, I found a small spoon and held it out with a dark, smooth ribbon of chocolate on it.
He crossed the kitchen and tasted it.
“I don’t have to wait until you put it in a truffle?”
“Why wait, when you can taste potential?” I asked.
He took the spoon and licked.
My heart started beating faster only because I was waiting for his chocolate verdict. That’s the only reason.
“Huh,” he said.
“What’s huh?” I asked.
He licked the spoon clean and handed it back. “The shop is going to be really good, Em.”
I said nothing. I just started cleaning up the bowl and the edges of the stovetop I’d somehow managed to get messy while making something that was technically just a few ingredients.
But I was happy.
And I didn’t try to overthink it.
We ate dinner. We ate ganache.
Finn went to bed and by the time I turned off the kitchen light, I was feeling half-human again. I schlepped my way to the guest room that had started to feel like home.
Then I texted Maya and Angela to let them know what I’d done. Then I immediately shut off my phone and, for the first time in a long time, I slept great.
When I finally woke up, I almost forgot that my entire world had shifted. I didn’t check my phone. The sound of a female voice that was not me came from the living room.
I extracted myself from the mattress and found… Angela.
I had been asleep for approximately seven hours after the single most nonsensical day of my adult life and when I shuffled back to the light, one of my besties was settled in on the sectional with a coffee.
Finn was across from her looking equally comfortable, which was oddly worse.
“Angela,” I gasped. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”
“Well, when my best friend drops multiple bombs and then stops responding, I reach out to Finn here. And he won’t tell me anything other than you are ‘fine.’ So I am forced to fly back to Denver and find out exactly what ‘fine’ means.” She lifted an eyebrow.
“She knocked,” Finn said. “And she had coffee. What was I supposed to do, be rude?”
Angela held a to-go cup out in my direction. “You have fourteen unread notifications.”
“Oh.”
“From me and Maya,” she continued.
“I’m sorry I worried you.” I was sorry. That was not my intent at all.
“You texted us that you accidentally started a cult,” Angela said. “And then you went silent. I almost called Elliott.”
I plunked down beside her. “You didn’t, though, right?”
Angela rubbed circles on my back. “You’re welcome.”
Dear lord, that would have been its own disaster.
Angela studied me for a long moment. Then she nodded once, like the matter had been filed and closed.
“But next time you start a movement, you text us in real time,” she said. “That is not negotiable.”
“You came all the way here to tell me that?”
“I came all the way here,” she said, “because I want to support you.”
“Okay,” Finn said, with all the energy of someone who had been lying on a couch for two weeks and was extremely ready to have a project. “Walk me through the plan.”
“There isn’t really a plan yet,” I said. “But Pam’s wife is pulling comps on my apartment. The building I’m moving to needs work before it’s operational. I need startup capital, which I can partially get from selling the apartment and partially from—”
“Who is Pam’s wife?” Angela asked.
“I would also like to know this,” Finn agreed.
They both looked at me expectantly, so I explained everything.
“I guess my very first step is to pack up my apartment and get it listed.”
Angela reached behind her and held up a roll of packing tape. “I thought as much.”
“This is moving fast,” Finn said.
“I like fast,” I said.
“Clearly,” Angela said, with a tone I chose not to examine.
“We don’t have to pack up my whole apartment today,” I assured.
“No, but I would very much like some time alone with my bestie to learn all about her new life.”
Finn stood up. This took some careful effort, which he concealed with moderate success. “Alright. Let’s go get packing.”
“Not a chance,” I said.
“I can help. I’m vertical. Verticals can be useful.”
“You are barely able to move.”
“I can carry things.”
“You cannot carry things. And you have home PT this afternoon, so you need to rest up for that.”
“Soft things. Pillows. Bags of chips?” he asked with huge puppy dog eyes.
“Finn.” I stared him down. “I have Trent’s number in my phone right now. One text from me and he adds another full session to your week.”
“Trent,” he said, “is the worst person I have ever met.”
“Trent,” I said, “keeps you on a timeline. Sit down.”
He sat down.
Angela observed the entire conversation between us without comment.
An hour later, Angela and I were back at the apartment I’d slept in for years but never quite lived in.
“This is very exciting,” she said, surveying the space with the cool, speculative eye of someone who curated gallery shows for a living. “I love a controlled demolition.”
“It’s a strategic divestiture of assets.” I bypassed my latte and went straight for the tape, cracking open a flat box. “Also, it’s terrifying.”
“Same thing.” She spun me by the shoulders to face the living room. My beautifully curated, immaculately beige living room, built meticulously over years of stress-spending. “Look at this place. What belongs to you?”
I looked.
The mid-century chair a design magazine had bullied me into buying. The gallery wall Angela had helped me select—cool neutrals, safe, deeply impressive names. The bookshelf where half the hardcovers were there because the spines matched the drapes, not because I’d cracked them open.
“The books,” I said. “My books. Not the aesthetic ones.”
“Mmhmm.” She poured a healthy dollop of skepticism into those two syllables. “And?”
“The throw my grandmother made. And the cast iron.”
I picked up a decorative ceramic bowl from the side table. Smooth and round and a shade of sage that had once felt sophisticated and now just felt like a color someone told me to want.
A wrinkled florist’s note from a long-forgotten bouquet of flowers fell into my hand alongside an old fortune cookie slip, some change, and a lip balm I was pretty sure I lost.
I knew the handwriting before I read it.
Happy birthday, Em. — Finn ?
“What’s that?” Ang asked.
“It’s from Finn.” I held it up for Ang and then tapped it against the back of my hand. I felt it the same way I felt everything about him lately… too much and right in the center of my chest.
I put it back in the bowl and added both to the keep box.
When my phone buzzed around lunch time, I crossed to it out of habit—old instinct, checking for Douglas, for deadlines, for anything that needed to be on fire before I could stop.
It was Finn.
Finn: still alive over there?
There was that feeling again, that warmth in my chest.
I typed out a quick nothing response before putting my cell down next to me.
I kept packing. The phone stayed put.
“So,” Angela said, with the casualness of a woman who had once negotiated a Basquiat acquisition over a single glass of wine. “Finn.”
“Is recovering well,” I said. “The PT is going really well. He’s getting stronger every week.”
“Mm.” She taped the bottom of a box with more precision than the task required.
“It’s nice spending time with him,” I said.
Angela looked at me.
I looked at the box.
“Right,” she said, finally. And went back to the closet.
I picked up my phone and opened Finn’s latest message.
Finn: Pace yourself. Try to hold off on starting any more religious sects before the end of the week.
Emily: zero promises
I tucked my cell in my pocket and went back to packing.
In the end I was leaving with two boxes of stuff that actually mattered to me.
I wasn’t sure if that was devastating or clarifying. Maybe both.