Emma insisted on helping clean up afterward. She loaded the dishwasher while Jo washed the pans. It felt, somewhat embarrassingly, like work felt over the summer, just the two of them, getting things done, occasionally making each other laugh. Emma understood a bit more about why Avery bet on her love life. This felt like an inevitable conclusion to the year, even as it was also the start of something completely new.
They moved to the couch once the dishes were done. There were still almost two hours until midnight, but Jo turned on a New Year’s Eve show anyway. She sat right up against Emma on the couch, their whole sides together, and even this far into the night, it was surreal to touch Jo like this. Emma paid no attention to the TV. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from Jo’s face.
Jo smiled when she noticed Emma looking, gave her a half roll of her eyes. But then she didn’t look away, either. Emma leaned in.
They kissed slowly. Gently. Like they couldn’t believe they were allowed to. That was how Emma felt, anyway. This felt off-limits. It was like Avery teaching her to drive in an empty grocery store parking lot when she was fourteen. She hadn’t gone over fifteen miles per hour that first time, but it still felt like flying. That was what this felt like, exhilarating and terrifying and easy to crash.
Jo never made a move. She kissed Emma, so, so softly, but she never pushed for more. Emma was the first to open her mouth. Emma was the first to brush her fingers through Jo’s hair, to clutch at her hips and pull her closer. Jo always reciprocated, but she never made the first move.
“Is this okay?” They both asked it at the same time as Emma pulled away to nip at Jo’s jaw.
They froze in their synchronicity for a moment before dissolving into giggles. Jo was leaning into Emma, not quite in her lap but almost, and Emma buried her face in Jo’s neck and laughed.
“It’s okay with me,” Jo said, stroking her fingers through Emma’s hair.
Emma grabbed Jo by the waist and tugged her closer, so Jo was actually in her lap, straddling her. “Still okay?”
Jo smiled. “More than okay.”
They made out like teenagers. Emma didn’t move things along now that she had Jo in her lap, and Jo herself still seemed content with whatever Emma wanted. What Emma wanted was exactly what she had: Jo on top of her and kissing her and kissing her and kissing her. Emma’s hand barely slipped under Jo’s shirt, her fingers resting against the skin of Jo’s back.
It really did feel like learning to drive. Felt like something that, objectively, Emma knew people did—every day people did this. But her heart was in her throat anyway. She knew it was just kissing but it felt like everything.
“Actually,” Emma said, pulling back a little. “Can we—can we take a break?”
“Of course,” Jo said.
She pulled back farther, trying to climb out of Emma’s lap. Emma’s hands tightened on her hips.
“No, don’t go,” Emma said. “I just—the kissing is a lot. My heart is—fast.”
Jo’s concern melted into a bright smile.
“Good fast?”
Emma nodded. “Too-good fast.”
“You know, you are breathing kind of heavily,” Jo said, a teasing lilt in her voice. “You’re not going to have an asthma attack on me, are you?”
Emma poked Jo in the side. “Be nice to me.”
“Always,” Jo said immediately, and Emma couldn’t help but kiss her again. Jo laughed into her mouth. “I thought we were taking a break.”
“Break’s over,” Emma said.
She moved things along this time. She bunched the hem of Jo’s shirt in her fists before leaning back to check in. Jo nodded. Emma pulled the shirt over her head.
And now Jo was in her lap in jeans and a bra. A black lacy bra. Emma had to take another break, just for a moment. Jo used the time to take Emma’s shirt off her.
“You’re beautiful,” Jo said, and Emma kissed her.
There was so much skin to explore. Emma ran her hands up Jo’s bare back, and they both shivered. She held Jo’s waist, ghosted her hands over Jo’s chest until they were up on either side of Jo’s neck, holding gently. Jo scratched her fingers over Emma’s abdomen.
Emma moved her mouth to those collarbones she had blushed over when she arrived, kissed at first, then bit.
“Maybe we should move to the bedroom?” Jo’s voice was mostly breath.
“We’ll miss seeing the ball drop,” Emma said. She wasn’t doing a great job of putting thoughts together.
“I think we’ll live.”
Jo pulled Emma off the couch and tugged her down the hallway. Emma didn’t care about the ball dropping at all.
“Stay here,” Jo said at the door to her bedroom.
Outside the sky could have been falling—meteors or atomic bombs. The world could have been ending. Even then, Emma wouldn’t have taken her eyes off Jo, moving darkly through the room until clicking on a lamp by the side of the bed. It glowed, soft and warm, and Jo returned to Emma’s side. Her bedroom was a cocoon. Still and silent from the outside but the two of them within, growing and changing and—
Kissing. So much kissing. Like they were making up for lost time. Like the world really was ending, and if this was their last moment, they wanted to spend it as a tangle of skin and mouths and tenderness.
Jo, who had followed Emma’s lead thus far, walked backward to her own bed, pulling Emma along with her. She hopped up to sit on the edge of the mattress and wrapped her legs around Emma’s waist.
Emma bent to suck at the soft skin of Jo’s neck. She tried to keep her voice level.
“Please tell me I can take off your pants.”
“That’s the idea,” Jo murmured, sounding way more composed than Emma felt.
Emma’s hands practically tore at the button of Jo’s pants. The skinny jeans were tight enough that Jo’s underwear came off, too. Emma froze. Swallowed. Stared.
Jo smirked and reached behind herself to unclasp her bra.
Emma stared some more.
Jo wore dark sunglasses in public. She ducked her head away from the flashes of paparazzi cameras. In interviews, when asked about her successes, Jo always pivoted to discussing people who had helped her accomplish them.
Yet here she was in front of Emma, shoulders back and head high, preening. Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Jo so pleased to be the center of attention.
She deserved to be proud, though. All smooth skin and perfection. Those infernal collarbones. Emma was going to combust.
She stepped closer to the bed, but before she could get her hands on Jo, she was instead flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling. Jo pressed a knuckle against her through her jeans, and Emma’s hips came up off the bed.
“I want to—”
“I know,” Jo said, undoing Emma’s pants and pulling them down her legs. “You’ll get to.”
Emma’s bra and underwear were a matching set, the sexiest she owned. Jo’s fingers played with the lace at Emma’s waist. Those potential meteors outside? It was clear they would never distract Jo, either.
“It’s my turn first,” Jo said.
This time, it was intentional when Emma said, “Yes, boss.”
Lightning flashed through Jo’s eyes. Emma tucked that knowledge away for later use.
Later use. Because she would get to do this again and again. It barely felt real that she got to do this now; it was unbelievable that sometime later she’d get the chance to use the fact that Jo liked being called boss in bed.
Jo rid Emma of the last of her clothes with alarming efficiency. One moment she was standing beside the bed tracing the lace patterns of Emma’s underwear, and the next there was a pillow under Emma’s head somehow. Jo had gotten her naked and maneuvered her more fully onto the bed. She slid a smooth leg between hers.
Emma tried to focus, tried to remember everything. Sh
e could barely think, but she didn’t want to miss anything. Jo kissed her deep and hard, and Emma tried to memorize the wet muscle of Jo’s tongue.
She had plenty of time for memorizing, because Jo just kept kissing her. Which was good. It was really fucking good. It was just—well, when Jo said it was her turn, kissing wasn’t exactly what Emma thought she meant.
Emma’s hands were on Jo’s hips, so it really didn’t take much work to slip one around and grab her ass. Jo broke their kiss with a huff of breath and pulled away a bit to look down at her.
“I thought I said it was my turn.” Even if Emma weren’t looking at her face, she would’ve known Jo quirked an eyebrow just from her tone.
Emma stuck out her bottom lip. “But you’re not touching me.”
“I’m covering your entire naked body with mine.”
“First of all, not my entire body. You’re much too small.” Jo rolled her eyes at Emma’s teasing. “But also, are you touching me, like, where it counts?”
Jo ground her thigh against Emma’s center, and Emma gasped.
“I’ll show you where it counts.”
Jo adjusted to sit on her knees between Emma’s legs. Emma spread them, wide, too ready to be embarrassed. But Jo ignored her. Instead, she drew a fingertip down Emma’s nose. Emma giggled. Jo traced down Emma’s arms, just enough pressure not to tickle. She interlaced their fingers for a moment, then brushed back up Emma’s arms. When Jo’s palms covered Emma’s breasts, Emma sucked in a breath, back arching without her permission. Jo didn’t stay anywhere for long.
It wasn’t what Emma expected, wasn’t what she’d thought she wanted, but it was everything.
Jo’s hands on her felt like the culmination of every time Jo had ever touched her, a hand at her elbow or Jo’s thumb against Emma’s back at the SAGs, Jo’s mouth at the wrap party, shocked and frozen but warm against Emma’s lips. The first day they met, Emma a frazzled and terrified PA, starstruck shaking the boss’s hand. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and looking back, it seemed like it was always going to lead to this: Jo’s fingers on Emma’s skin an inevitability. Not like fate—not like they didn’t have a choice, but like in a thousand different universes they would always make the choices that led them here.
By the time Jo had settled lower on the bed, Emma felt like she was vibrating.
“It’s been a while.” Jo’s voice was low. “Forgive me if I’m rusty.”
Emma was accustomed to supporting Jo when she felt vulnerable. She could have taken a moment to do that here. Could have reassured Jo that everything was fine, everything would continue to be fine. Could have admitted it had been a while for her, too, actually, and the first time didn’t have to be perfect. They’d have plenty of chances to learn each other.
Instead, she twisted her hips toward Jo’s breath and clutched at the sheets.
“Oh my God, I don’t care, just touch me.”
Jo did.
Fuck, did she ever.
After so much buildup, there was no preamble now, just Jo’s tongue licking a stripe up Emma’s center and fluttering against her clit. It seemed like Emma’s entire body came off the bed to meet Jo’s mouth.
It all got hazy after that. Emma simultaneously wanted to close her eyes to revel in the feeling and wanted to keep them open forever, wanted to watch, to have visual proof that Jo was touching her this way. But looking made everything feel so big, made it feel like she was going to shatter from the inside out, and she was going to do that anyway, she was entirely certain, but she didn’t want it to happen so quickly, didn’t want this feeling to stop so soon. Didn’t want it to stop ever.
But Jo seemed determined to take her apart now. She was relentless and so, so good, and Emma’s hips were jumping in fits and starts. Emma pulled a pillow over her face to muffle her moans, but as soon as she did, Jo pulled back, bit at her thigh.
“Let me see,” she murmured. “Please.”
Emma threw the pillow off the bed. She stared down at Jo, who slid a finger into her like it was a reward, and leaned back in.
Fuck.
They could never have sex in Emma’s apartment if Jo wasn’t going to let her bury her orgasm in a pillow. Emma’s walls were too thin, but at Jo’s the nearest house was half a mile in any direction, and so it didn’t matter when Jo made Emma scream.
* * *
—
Emma didn’t open her eyes at first when she woke up. She was in Jo’s bed. The sheets were cool and smelled of fabric softener; the pillow was like a cloud beneath her head.
And Jo.
Jo was curled up half on top of her. Emma’s arm was asleep where it was under Jo’s neck, but she didn’t mind, with Jo’s palm resting flat on her sternum and one leg thrown over Emma’s. Her breath fanned across Emma’s chest. Emma finally opened her eyes and looked at Jo.
She knew it was too soon, and she knew Avery would tease her relentlessly, but she was pretty sure she loved her.
She also knew how Jo liked her coffee every morning, and thought it might be sweet to wake her up with a cup. When Emma tried to ease her way out of the bed, though, Jo’s leg pushed down, her hand slid from Emma’s sternum across her body to her ribs, and it held on tight.
“No,” she said, voice thick with sleep.
“I was going to make you coffee,” Emma murmured.
“I like this more than I like coffee.”
“You must like this a lot.” Emma smiled even though Jo’s eyes were still closed.
“I love this,” Jo said, and Emma melted.
* * *
—
When they did eventually get up, Jo made her own drink, and Emma’s, too. Emma beamed but didn’t comment when Jo pulled an unopened box of chai concentrate out of her refrigerator.
“What does Evelyn think about all this?” Emma asked over her mug. “About us?”
Jo chuckled. “I believe her exact words were ‘Thank God you finally got your shit together.’”
Emma laughed. “At least she didn’t bet on us,” she said. “Avery’s husband owed her a hundred dollars because we didn’t kiss over the summer hiatus.”
“Did the wrap party not count?” Jo smirked.
“No.” Emma blushed. “If it didn’t count for us, it didn’t count for the bet.”
“Yeah, I’d say our actual first kiss was better than that one.”
Emma’s face went redder.
“I can’t believe they bet on us at all. It’s embarrassing.” She didn’t feel particularly embarrassed anymore, though. Who cared if the world figured out their feelings before they did? They’d figured them out now. “They made the bet the day after the SAG Awards.”
Jo’s eyes flashed. “Speaking of,” she said. “You should come with me again this year. If you’d like. As my actual date this time.”
Emma beamed and agreed without a single worry about the red carpet.
Epilogue
They got ready for the ceremony together. Kelli smirked at them and Jaden talked too much and there were kosher pigs in a blanket for lunch. Emma couldn’t stop smiling the whole day.
Jo bought her a dress again, this time a one-shoulder red gown Emma adored. Jo refused to tell Emma what she herself would be wearing, and Emma almost passed out when she first saw Jo in the black suit, top button open on her white dress shirt, bow tie hanging undone around her neck.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Emma asked in the car on the way over, gesturing to Jo’s outfit.
Jo grinned. “Look who’s talking.”
Emma was as far as she could be from Jo while sitting in the same back seat. She couldn’t trust herself to be closer. Back at the suite, Kelli had already had to fix both their lipsticks. Twice.
They got out of the car, and just like last year, Emma was overwhelmed by all the people and all the cameras and all the
attention. Her adrenaline spiked, anxiety-induced fight or flight.
Then Jo caught her hand, interlaced their fingers, and smiled at her.
“You ready?” Jo asked.
Emma was.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They say writing is a solitary activity, and it is, in some ways. But this book would’ve never existed were it not for the help of a lot of people.
First of all, to the reason for my existence: Bonnie Raitt. My mom used to love telling the story that I was conceived after a Bonnie Raitt concert. I finally got her to stop when I took to telling people I was conceived at a Bonnie Raitt concert. The day I was born, Bonnie took home four Grammys. And here we are thirty years later, where I name my debut novel after a Bonnie Raitt song. It feels like I gotta give her a shout-out.
My editor, Kristine Swartz: Thank you for making this process so easy and also for occasionally posting pictures of your cat on Twitter. Thank you to everyone at Berkley, especially my Jessicas (Brock & Plummer), Megha Jain, and copy editor Angelina Krahn. Thank you to Vi-An Nguyen and Christopher Lin for the best cover I’ve ever seen (and I’m not at all biased).
There isn’t enough I can say about my agent, Devin Ross. She’s levelheaded and smart as hell and somehow always knows whether I need hand-holding or a kick in the pants. I’m both incredibly lucky and immensely grateful to have found her and the entire New Leaf team.
Jasmyne Hammonds convinced me to apply to Pitch Wars because the worst they could do was say no. They said yes to both of us. I can’t wait to have a dedicated shelf for your books, J.
To everyone involved in running Pitch Wars: You have created something that truly changes lives and helps make dreams come true. Even now, after everything else that’s happened, I still can’t believe Farah Heron picked me as a mentee. Without her perspective and guidance, this book wouldn’t be half what it is today.
Rosie & Ruby. I was worried about whose name I should put first, and then I realized in the next book I can just put Ruby first. I look forward to switching the order of your names in the acknowledgments for every book I write for the rest of my life. #TeamAllIn
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