by M. Q. Barber
She made sure to show off the scenic route between the bed and her bathrobe.
* * * *
Emma stood beside the front door, her hand pressed to the wall as she stepped into her shoes.
If their guest slipped out now, she’d never get this friendship off the ground. “I hope you aren’t leaving so soon.”
Emma froze. “Alice.”
“At least let me get you coffee.” She walked past, striving for casual, and turned the corner into the kitchen. “Caffeine is just the thing to start the morning.”
Not her normal breakfast, but Emma’d been drinking coffee at the club. Henry kept a basket of teas and gourmet coffee beside the countertop machine. Shoulders tight, she started the brewer.
Footsteps. Soft padding on the hardwood, not the tap of shoes. Her invitation hadn’t been rejected.
She rolled her shoulders and stretched. “It’ll be a few. You sleep okay?”
“The room was exceedingly comfortable, thank you.” Hands clasped behind her back, Emma gazed out the window. “Immaculately kept.”
“Jay’ll be happy to hear it.” Impressing Emma required some doing. She’d have to praise him during her next inspection.
“The room is his?” Emma stiffened. Her frosty edge cooled the morning’s warmth. “He gave it up for me?”
“No, no.” Brewing coffee took all of five minutes. She must’ve set a land-speed record for unknown fuck-ups. “It’s the guest room.” She grabbed mugs from the cupboard and set them, clanking, on the counter. “He’s in charge of keeping it habitable.”
“Ah.” Emma thawed. “He’s done a wonderful job. He’s a delightful boy.”
“He is.” Especially sleep-tousled. Or slinging her over his shoulder. Or sliding to his knees and staring up at her with soulful puppy eyes. “The best.”
When the coffee machine chirped its readiness, she poured the first cup.
Evicted.
Coffee sloshed over the side of the second. Missed her hand, thank fuck. The meaning behind Emma’s chilly response lodged in place. As if she’d kick Jay out of Henry’s bed. As if Henry would let such a thing happen.
“Alice? Are you all right?”
“Just made a mess. It’s nothing.” She set the full mug on the breakfast bar. “Cream or sugar?”
“I’ve upset you.” Red-eyed, Emma reached across the speckled granite top. “Please accept my apology.” Closing her slim hands around the mug, she brushed Alice’s knuckles. “I jumped to a hasty conclusion completely unsupported by what I’ve seen of your relationship.”
“No, I get it. Not a problem.” She slipped free and snapped a paper towel off the roll. “The way Jay tells it, you did some matchmaking to help him out.” No coffee stains on Henry’s pristine countertop. “You don’t want to see him supplanted.” Coffee soaked up, she scrubbed at nothing. “Neither do I.”
Coming out here had been a shitty idea. She should’ve let Henry play diplomat or Jay play comedian. Either would’ve done a better job.
“I shouldn’t have spoken so carelessly.” Pin-straight and shoulders back, Emma stood as proud and poised in yesterday’s tunic and leggings, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, as she did greeting players at the club. “You’ve been a more than considerate hostess, and I’ve insulted you with an unconscionable slur against the clear love you bear. Forgive me.”
Maybe the pearl choker did it. An invisible hand guiding Emma while Alice made do with clomping about, bigfooting the wrong words, the wrong actions, making friendship with this woman so fucking hard— “How’d you get to be so gracious and wise all the time? It’s damn intimidating.”
Yeah. About like that. If she’d thrown back some coffee, she wouldn’t have opened her mouth and let accusations fall out.
Emma parted her lips. Eyebrows drawing together, she blinked.
Alice waved to clear the air. “Sorry. It’s not you, it’s—”
“No, it is me.” Leaning on the island, Emma ducked her head and sucked in a breath. “I’ve misread you entirely.”
Unlikely. Emma deserved a PhD in reading people. Her and Henry both.
Smoky blue eyes wide as she looked up, Emma teased a smile. “Here I’ve been, nervous as all hell, trying to project the perfect image of placid, nonthreatening submission, thinking it would reassure you I’m not out to steal your master. I’ve accomplished the opposite, haven’t I?”
Emma, nervous? But she was the nervous novice, the one on unfamiliar ground—the new variable. Emma didn’t know what to make of her any more than she did Emma. The power she’d felt last night had been in her hands all along, except Emma had recognized the truth and she’d imagined Emma held the cards. Christ, what a mess. Scooping up her mug, she leaned back against the counter. “I let jealousy blind me.”
“I well remember that rush of territorial need.” Emma gripped her lower lip in her teeth and shook her head. “It’s more fundamental than desire, the urge to claim him and have others acknowledge that claim.”
“All I could think about was how you’re a better submissive.” The coffee gave off a wisp of steam. Too hot to drink. Almost too hot to hold. “I thought I was doing it wrong. Jay hasn’t got a jealous bone in his body. I forgot my own strengths.”
“I’m the perfect submissive”—Emma rubbed the pearls at her throat—“for a man who died four years ago and left me alone.”
“A man who mentored Henry.” They had to be similar. “You like the things he does. You talk intelligently about art. You like cooking—you brought him a cookbook.” A gift he used often and handled with care. “A handwritten cookbook. Who does that?”
“You carry yourself so well I forget how much you haven’t encountered.” Emma drooped, shoulders sagging before she firmed them. “He called the book a tremendous gift because he understood why I needed to present it.” Raising her head, Emma trapped her with a steely stare. “I’m a masochist, Alice. A whipping is more pleasure than punishment. Victor used to make me write lines when my behavior displeased him.”
The gorgeous book with its intricate detailing and precise penmanship on unlined paper—a punishment. An apology tucked away on the kitchen shelf beside the wood and tile box of file cards with family recipes. Emma’s apology for the pain and confusion Alice and Jay had experienced that night in May. “That’s why your handwriting is so perfect.”
Emma laughed, not in her lilting feminine tone but a startled chuckle as she bent forward and settled her forearms on the island. “I got plenty of practice.”
Greeting card companies needed to work on their thank-yous. Bet they didn’t have one for her situation. Dear fellow submissive, thank you kindly for exposing your private appetites to make me more comfortable.
“I would’ve, too. Don’t tell Henry—my handwriting’s atrocious. The last thing I need is to be writing I will stop putting my foot in my mouth a hundred times. It wouldn’t work, anyway. Sometimes they’re surgically attached at birth.”
The ice shattered beneath Emma’s laughter. The thing Jay did, the jester act, had incredible power. Tapped into place at the right angle, shared humor collapsed barriers like nothing else. She owed him for teaching her that one.
“Alice, you’ve been exceedingly gracious, and I’ve been leaning on Henry more than I should.” Tilting her mug, Emma tapped the rim. “Please believe me when I tell you I’m so happy for him that you’ve found each other.”
“It’s difficult for you, though.” She tried mimicking Henry’s calm, unthreatening delivery. The one that always told her he accepted her emotional confession without judgment.
“No more so than for you, I imagine, having me trying to hold on to something that isn’t mine.” Emma spread her hands on the island, pale palms up in a starry black sky.
Abandoning her mug, Alice gathered Emma’s hands and squeezed. “Is that how you see it?”
“You don’t?” Emma’s slim hope stung like a metal shaving caught under a fi
ngernail.
“Henry’s friendship is yours.” She wouldn’t entertain arguments on that count. Her insecurity had driven a wedge where none belonged. “You’re an important person in his life. And I think—” She waited for eye contact and held it. “He’s a very important person in yours.”
Mouth twitching, Emma pressed her eyes shut. Not fast enough to hide the shine in the bloodshot storm. “It’s so easy,” she whispered. “I look at him and memories greet me.” Her hands trembled. “There’s no danger. I don’t have to expose myself to someone new. He knows who I was and who I am. And he listens.”
“He’s good at that.” The comforting and familiar fit alongside the mysterious and strange in the puzzle of Henry. He passed her pieces as she needed them. “It’s good for him, too. Sharing. Remembering.”
Pulling her hands back, Emma fiddled with her wedding ring. “The romantic in me sees you filling a place left empty at Henry’s side for twenty years. He’s been waiting for you.” She radiated brilliant, girlish joy. “Jay is a perfect fit for the place at his master’s feet. You fit effortlessly between.”
“Not effortlessly.” Henry and Jay had put in huge amounts of effort to draw her in. And even as deeply as she loved them, she struggled, still, to understand and navigate their relationship.
“Not yet, perhaps.” Emma slid onto a seat and sipped her coffee. “Finding your balance is a delicate dance at first.”
Henry’s dancing lesson. Jay’s reminder. The metaphor—Victor’s? A man she’d never met influenced her life in unpredictable ways.
“But I see it in you.” As she reclaimed the mothering, advisory role, Emma’s voice firmed. “You hear Henry’s tune. You have an instinct for the steps.”
“Hardly.” Swiping her coffee from the counter, she took the seat beside Emma. “I’ve been at least a step behind all year. Sometimes a whole tune.”
“As you see it.” Emma took a lengthy drink and studied her mug, one of Jay’s picks emblazoned with I live to serve. A tennis ball filled the o. Jay didn’t play tennis. Emma smiled.
“Outsiders view the three of you as one unit. The more you and Jay obey Henry without violent displays of power, the more you irritate Calvin Gardner and his ilk. They see Henry and his kind as service tops, not dominants at all.” Wrinkling her nose, she tapped her manicured nails on the ceramic. “As if power existed only in the deliverance of unwanted attention.”
Service top went on her list of things to ask about. Jay would know.
“Henry’s powerful without being obvious.” His subtle commands aroused her as much as his blatant ones. The combination of mental and physical seduction tied her up just the way he liked her. “Jackasses shouting about how powerful they are kinda seem like they’re proving the opposite.”
“Salut.” Emma clinked their mugs. “Victor would have approved of you. I told Henry so last night. And you’ve charmed Will.”
Family. Hers had expanded in unexpected directions. She’d always been the big sister for Ollie. Struck out on her own for college. Found male mentors at work. But thanks to Henry, she had something like an older sister by her side, sipping coffee at the breakfast bar on Sunday morning. Her new sister had to be wishing for a different Sunday morning with a different family. “Will you tell me about them?”
Mug gripped in both hands, Emma stretched for a smile. “You want stories of Henry and William strutting around with the brash confidence of boys, leaving admirers in their wake?”
“No.” The light tone Emma’d used wouldn’t throw her off. Diversionary tactics, architectural facades and fancy finishes. “Your husband. Your son. You miss them, and I don’t know them, but I do know you—or I will, because you’re Henry’s sverchok.”
Emma bobbled her coffee, bringing the mug in for a swift landing.
Hell, even if she’d mispronounced the nickname, she’d at least gotten Emma’s attention. “Nothing will erase that.” She’d forge this friendship not only for Henry, but for herself. Emma’s place in their family didn’t slight her. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, or if you aren’t ready.” Heart pounding, she put Henry’s examples of pushing with kindness to use. “But they don’t have to be forgotten. Locked up in your head or in mementos you treasure.”
Emma sat motionless. She didn’t seem the type to ride the babble train to Foot-in-Mouthsville.
“Tell me how your husband took his coffee. How your son topped his pancakes.” Squeezing her mug, she tucked her feet on the chair rung. “All the little details you remember that no one else knows.” She forced herself to shut the fuck up. Henry used silence to his advantage. He had to have learned the skill for a reason.
Cupping her hands, Emma stared straight ahead. Safe bet she hadn’t found the backsplash behind the hammered copper farm sink fascinating. “It’s—” As she shifted, the pearls at her throat gleamed. “There are so many.”
“I have time.” The doors in the hall had opened and closed not long before. They had thirty minutes, minimum, before the guys would be presentable by Henry’s standards. “And I want to know you better. Understanding the people you love is a good start.”
With narrowed eyes and pursed lips, Emma gave a slow nod. “You truly are perfect for him. Each time we meet, I see it more and more.”
The corollary hadn’t gone unnoticed, then. Understanding the people Henry loved would be a good start to understanding him, too.
“Where to begin. Victor.” Breathing her husband’s name with a wealth of passion, Emma captured startling depth in two sharp syllables. “He was everything to me from the moment I met him.”
* * * *
Almost untouched, Alice’s coffee lingered in a state of lukewarm social lubricant. “You seriously told him that?”
“Absolutely I did. I challenged him like the dickens. At times he agreed and at times he didn’t, but never once did he raise a whip in anger. It’s a different—”
“Omelets, then.” Jay led with his voice, half-shouting in the hall. “Or those super-thin pancakes Alice likes.”
His generous volume suggested an intentional warning system. Probably Henry’s doing. Alert: Two men incoming.
“Dynamic,” Emma finished. “But it seems you’re overdue for breakfast.” Tossing a glance over her shoulder, she squeezed Alice’s hand with her slim, soft fingers. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” Not an idle answer but a promise. Her imagined foe made a more than decent friend when understanding outweighed jealousy.
Athletic shorts hanging to his knees, Jay swaggered into the kitchen wearing one of the joke shirts he’d gotten Henry as a birthday present. I have Manet things to do today. The laundry had faded the swirling lines of the paint-by-numbers style picnickers.
“Morning, Emma.” Bypassing their guest, as casual as if she appeared in the kitchen every morning, Jay spun Alice’s chair and kissed her cheek. “Alice, you gotta tell me what’s for breakfast. Henry’s vetoed waffles, pancakes, omelets, and more pancakes. I’m out of ideas.”
“Oatmeal?” She wrinkled her nose to mimic Jay. “Nah. Too wintery.”
Hands bracketing her, Jay swiveled her chair back and forth at dizzying speed. “He said we get to help, but he won’t say what we’re making.”
“Parfaits?” Emma offered her guess with a gentle smile. “Layering fruit and cream lends itself well to helping hands and to summer.”
“Could be. He’d sound an alarm if we didn’t have fresh fruit.” Her frozen food diet hadn’t impressed him much. But Sundays typically started with a big meal. Of course, usually they’d have expended a lot more energy Saturday night. “French toast? I dunno, I’m low on ideas, too.”
Fiendish grin in place, Jay clamped her waist. “We gotta get you higher so you’ll think better.”
She swatted his shoulders, but he plonked her on the granite island top anyway. Behave, sweetheart, came close to passing her lips. Her brain engaged with split-second timing.
<
br /> Jay tapped her head. “Is it working? Are you filling up with ideas?”
Behaving belonged to company manners. Family got the as-is experience, and Emma needed to know she qualified. Using emotion over analysis, Jay’d gotten to the conclusion twice as fast. That or Henry’d told him to be playful.
“The air’s too thin up here.” She stuck her tongue out. “Explains where your crazy ideas come from. Oxygen deprivation.” Nudging forward, she gripped his shoulders for balance. “But if Henry wants the island for breakfast-making, he doesn’t need my ass on it.”
He might, Jay mouthed, waggling his eyebrows. But he swung her down so her feet touched the floor.
“Good morning, all.” Striding into the kitchen, Henry collected attention like a magnet pulling in metal shavings. “I hope everyone slept well. July is giving quite the sales pitch for central air this year.”
No silk lounging pants today. Henry commanded authority in solid navy slacks. But the top button on his crisp white dress shirt stood undone, and his bare feet exposed a touch of familial playfulness.
“The window fan was a wonderful help.” As she straightened her back, Emma turned her seat in an arc matching Henry’s progress, a move Alice would’ve labeled covetous before understanding the trained habits fueling the woman. Now her behavior seemed natural. “The humming white noise dragged me into dreams.” Emma sipped her coffee. “Morning arrived before I’d realized.”
She filed Emma’s comment under classy ways to suggest I didn’t hear you having sex. Who knew when she’d need a similar answer in her arsenal. The fan, of course, fell under deliberate Henry moves.
“I’m pleased.” Rounding the island, Henry reached for Alice. “Dreams are a delightful way to occupy one’s time.” With the back of her neck cupped in his hand, he kissed her forehead. “Good morning, sweet.”
Murmured approval, gentle warmth in his voice, his body fresh from his shower. As she swayed into him, she ordered her fingers to stand down. Henry’s belt didn’t need opening, no matter how tempting.
