“Are you sure? Emma, I can go.”
“No,” Emma finally manages, “It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I can go by myself.”
“Like hell you will.” I begin to usher Emma out of the front row, leaving Marley behind to keep falling in love with Mat.
I lead her outside, and as soon as we are through the crowd and into the open, she swallows hard at the air. If she were wearing pants, I’d suggest putting her head between her knees and taking a few deep breaths, but that isn’t an option. I take off my coat and wrap it around her shoulders.
“So,” I say, “blood, huh?”
She nods. “Stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid. It’s pretty common, actually.”
Even with my coat on, her teeth chatter. “You can go back inside. I don’t want to be responsible for you missing Mateo’s fight.”
“I’ve seen him fight a million times. It’s okay. Besides, I wouldn’t want all that good French food to go to waste coming back up.”
She screws up her nose, disgusted at my suggestion. “I’m a terrible date.”
“Don’t worry, Emma Fletcher, this isn’t a date. Even if it was, I’ve had worse.”
Emma
I didn’t even consider that I might lay eyes on blood tonight. It didn’t register as a blip on my radar. Perhaps if I were less enamored with the idea of Tristan and more in sync with, oh, I don’t know, common freakin’ sense, I wouldn’t be out here in the cool night air making him miss the opportunity to support his friend.
I couldn’t help it, though. The minute I saw the gash above Mateo’s eye, my belly began to churn violently, my skin began to crawl, and my muscles tightened. I had to get out of there or I would have been sick.
I can still taste the rusty flavor of blood in the back of my throat—I can still feel it, hot and sticky, oozing out of me into a puddle by my side. Recalling it now spurs another panic attack and I can’t hear anything. I can’t see what’s directly in front of me, and I can’t speak a word. Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil. I can’t fucking breathe. I can’t breathe.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Tristan’s voice is all kinds of alarmed. He’s touching me. He’s touching me. He’s touching me.
I stumble away from him until my back meets the wall and he slowly comes into focus. His arms are up in the air in surrender. “Whoa,” he says. “Easy.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—” Tears prickle my eyes. “I can’t handle blood.”
“It’s okay,” Tristan says softly. “You’re okay.”
I’m not okay. I want to die.
“Do you think we should go back inside?”
Tristan’s eyebrows shoot skyward. “I think that’s a pretty terrible idea. There might be even more blood than there was before.”
He’s right.
“Can you take me home?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I can do that.”
“Can you check with Marley? Can you make sure she’s okay to get home?”
“Yeah. I can do that too. Wait here for me, okay?”
I nod, but he wants to hear my reply.
“Okay?” he repeats.
“Okay,” I echo.
Tristan shoulders the door open and if I’m honest with myself, for a fraction of a second—as in an infinitesimal amount of time—I consider running. I’ve made a complete and total fool of myself tonight and an awkward ride home is the very last thing I want, but two things stop me: Tristan will hunt me down, and I’m in killer heels. So rather than let my feet take flight, I resign myself to the fact that I have to face the music and keep them planted to the ground, pulling his coat even tighter around me.
He returns a few moments later, smiling. “Mat will drive Marley home. And Marley is worried, so she wants you to call her. I told her you were fine, just not feeling well, and that you must have eaten some horrible food made for you by some schmuck.”
I smile despite being embarrassed about how this evening turned out.
I follow Tristan in silence to his truck and when I hoist myself into the passenger’s seat, I start repeating myself. “I’m really sorry about this. I’m sure you didn’t want to leave early.”
“It’s all good. You worry too much and you apologize too much. You need to stop doing both, you know.”
Tristan puts the truck in gear and I try to keep my eyes on his knees. They’re nice knees and they’re normal and mundane and safe. Tristan opens the window on my side. “In case you need some air,” he says. “You can close it if you want.”
“No. Air is good. Thanks.”
We pull up to my house less than fifteen minutes later. My mother’s car is gone and the idea of being alone is terrifying, so without thinking about it, I look over at Tristan and ask, “Hey, did you want to watch a movie or something?”
Tristan
I think Emma wants to watch a movie about as much as I want to watch my fingernails grow. The entire house is dark and it appears to be empty. She doesn’t want to be alone. Not that I can blame her.
Sure, blood makes some people queasy, but I’ve never seen it bring on a full-out panic attack. Something spooked Emma, and I want to know what it is so I can stop it from happening again. I don’t hesitate for even a second before responding. “It’s like you read my mind, Peaches. I’d love to see a movie.”
“Really?” she asks, surprised.
“Yep.” I kill the engine and get out of the truck, rounding the front to open the door for her. As she gets out, that dress hikes a good two inches up her thighs. I look away, fearing that I’m somehow violating her with my eyes.
She heads to the front door, jiggling her key in the lock and thrusting her shoulder against the door until it gives. Her hand feels the wall for the light switch and then it flickers on.
“I need to get changed,” she says.
“A shame,” I say, “but I get it. Formal wear and DVD-viewing don’t exactly go hand in hand.” I flop down on the worn-out sofa. “I’ll wait here.”
Emma hands me my coat and hauls ass in the direction of her bedroom, emerging shortly thereafter in a pair of black-and-white horizontally striped pj pants and a black tank top. Amazingly enough, she rocks that look too.
“What are we watching?”
“Any requests?”
“Got any Star Wars?”
“Nope.”
“Star Trek?”
“Nope.”
“Lord of the Rings?”
“Nope.”
I laugh. “Tell you what, why don’t you give me a hint so I’m guessing at least the correct genre.”
She makes a face, walking over to a shelving unit. “Well, it seems my mom is a bit of a romance junkie.”
“Great,” I say with false enthusiasm. “I was just thinking the other day that it’s been a while since I’ve watched The Notebook.”
She spins around with a DVD in her hands. “We have The Notebook,” she says proudly. “And I doubt you were thinking that the other day.”
“I doubt it too, but go on then,” I say, “put it in.”
Emma sets the player up and sits on the couch beside me with the remote. There’s a voice inside my head telling me to hold her. To wrap my arms around her and never let her go, but it’s the same voice that tells me to stay away.
Emma’s vulnerability, her innocence, could unravel me. It might have already started.
Emma
At the end of the movie, I’m teary eyed. The distance between Tristan and me is merely a couch cushion, but it feels like a mile. He watched the movie quietly, but during the scene in the rain where Noah and Allie kiss, once again proving their love for one another, I felt his fingertips brush across mine. I jumped a little, but only at first. Tristan isn’t him. He isn’t going to hurt me.
I study his profile and am
struck, albeit not for the first time, by how absurdly beautiful he is. I used to think the word chiseled was for the pages of a supermarket romance novel, but that is precisely what his jawline is: chiseled. His eyelashes are unreasonably long, his lips full and inviting. He catches me looking at him and I blush, quickly redirecting my gaze to the infomercial on TV that started playing when the movie stopped, but it’s too late; I’m busted.
Tristan slides across the couch even farther away from me and for a second, I shrink inside, feeling a small sting of rejection. But it’s fleeting, because he reaches out for my hand and tugs, pulling me so my body is the length of the couch. “Lie down,” he says. “You look tired.”
Normally those words would be offensive. After all, you look tired is the equivalent of you look awful, but combined with the tenderness of his touch, I think maybe I do just look tired. I don’t allow myself time to think before I lay my head in his lap. I am not doing a good job of staying away from Tristan Banks.
His fingers find my hair and brush through it, and I close my eyes to savor every second. I can’t remember the last time I had this kind of welcome contact from another human being.
I sigh, “That feels good.” Shit. That wasn’t supposed to be shared intel. In fact I had intended to keep it in my mind, securely locked away for me alone, but I’d said it out loud and there is no going back.
Tristan doesn’t seem to mind. He looks down at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, but still shockingly blue and enticing in the light from the TV. “Yeah?”
Every part of my mind is screaming at me to back off, but my body is completely ignorant in this regard and craves more. Craves being closer to him. “Yes,” I say, honestly.
He continues to do it, allowing his fingertips to not only run through my hair but to brush across my temples and caress my neck. Oh. My. God. “Can I ask you something, Em?”
He could ask me anything at this point; his touch is as good as truth serum.
“Where do you go when you disappear, huh?”
“You mean when I run?”
He laughs softly, his voice just a whisper. “No, I mean when you’re here but you’re not, all at the exact same time. You check out somewhere inside your head. What do you think about when you do that?”
“Nothing.”
“It looks like you’re thinking pretty hard about nothing to me.”
Okay, so maybe I don’t hide it very well. “I think about a lot of things,” I tell him. “But usually I zone out when I feel like things are getting too personal, like when I’m letting myself get too close.”
“Too close?”
“Yeah.” I explain: “Like too close to people, or too attached to something that’s happening, that sort of thing.”
His eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “Why?”
“It’s easier that way.”
“It’s easier not to have friends—not to have memories?”
I turn my body around enough that I can see his face when I talk to him. “Sure. I mean, yeah, I guess. No one can let you down that way. No expectations, no disappointments.”
His pupils dilate and darken the depths of his eyes, an inky murk in an ocean of blue. “You can’t really believe that’s true. Everyone needs friends.”
“I have friends. I have Marley.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time without Marley,” he says. “What did you do then?”
“We talk almost every day.”
“Is that why she didn’t know you were coming back?”
“I didn’t know I was coming back. I have everyone I need,” I say, but as the words exit my mouth and Tristan continues his exploration of my skin, I’m not sure I believe myself. I need this. I need him.
He leans toward me and tucks a strand of hair gingerly behind my ear. “I don’t believe you, Emma Fletcher,” he whispers. “You need friends. Maybe more than anyone else I know.”
I don’t want to tell him that he’s right. I don’t want to tell him how tired I am of doing life alone. I don’t want to be weak, but it’s freeing to talk to someone, to tell him the truth; it’s as though each secret thought I reveal lightens the weight on my chest and the sorrow inside. I decide to test the theory and blurt out the easiest, least offensive one. “I don’t sleep.”
“Like, ever?”
“Well, obviously I sleep sometimes, but never more than an hour or two at a time, and never very well.”
“Really?”
That wasn’t so bad. I’ll try out another secret, a slightly more edgy one.
“If I tell you something, do you swear you won’t laugh at me?”
“I swear, Em.”
“Since I met you, I’ve slept more than I have in a really long time.”
He gives me a crooked and amused smile. “Yeah?”
My confession is quickly spiraling out of control, but the more I tell him, the more I want to keep going, even though I know I may regret it all later. “Yes. It’s your jacket.”
“My jacket?
“It makes me feel safe,” I continue. “It’s silly, like a kid with a security blanket, but it’s true. I’ve slept with it every night since you gave it to me.”
Tristan’s smile drops, as if a cloud has covered the sunshine that normally surrounds him. His fingertips continue to trace across my face. “Why don’t you feel safe?”
Fuck.
“I don’t know. Anxiety or something.”
He nods. “Emma?”
“Hmmm?”
“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”
TWELVE
Tristan
Wow. Apparently my soup came with a side of balls. I can’t believe I just asked her if she wanted me to sleep over. She looks away, skin hot and flushed, probably embarrassed at how forward I am or wallowing in regret that she’s told me an item of mine, a mere article of clothing, makes her feel safe. She’s too bashful to flat-out answer my question right away, but I see the left side of her lip twitch, threatening to flicker into a smile.
I run my hand down her arm and feel her relax at my touch. “It’s all right. I’ll stay if you want me to or I can go too. No pressure, Em.”
The nod she gives is so slight, it’s almost imperceptible. If her head weren’t rested on my lap, I wouldn’t have noticed. “Okay,” she says.
“Okay go or okay stay?”
“Stay,” she says. “Please.”
“Okay.”
I was finished watching the movie the minute she pushed Play, all of my attention directed toward Emma, so I don’t move a muscle now, instead waiting for her to lead. She sits upright before standing and tugging on the hem of her shirt nervously. “My room.”
This is so not how I’d pictured any of this going. In fact the numerous times I’d imagined Emma Fletcher inviting me to her room involved a lot more heavy breathing, sweating, and entangled bodies, her legs wrapped around me, maybe her voice yelling my name. It did not involve some strange instinct inside me telling me to protect her, to hold her, to make her feel safe.
Why the fuck am I indulging myself in this? I should bow out, bid her good night, go home and call it a day, but I don’t. I want to ask her why my stupid old coat makes her feel safe, but I don’t. I want to ask her what she’s running from, but I don’t. Instead, I follow her silently, knowing I need to take her cues on this one.
Her room is like I remembered, the walls hardly visible through all the geography she has on display. She nods to one of the maps of Europe. “Want to do the honors?” She marches to her dresser and takes a small box from the top. Opening it, she holds it out for me.
Map tacks. Hundreds of them in multiple colors. I grab a blue one. “Why, thank you,” I say. I square my shoulders and place the pushpin directly on top of Paris.
“If you could go anywhere in the world,” she says, “where would y
ou go?”
I trace my finger down and slightly to my right. “Venice.”
“Italy?”
“Know any other Venices?”
She giggles. “No.”
“Then sì, bella. Venice, Italy.”
“Why?”
“Why not? So I can be full on seafood, drunk on wine, and immersed in a culture wildly different from our own. Why else would people travel?”
“I suppose you’re right,” she says.
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Where would you go? If you weren’t scared of the ugly people in the world.”
She stops, paused in thought. “Um, I’d probably choose Peru.”
“Peru, huh? You want to see Machu Picchu?”
“More than anything.” Emma grabs an excessively long T-shirt from her drawer and waves it like a flag, even though she is already sporting a tank top. “I’m going to go change.” Then she disappears through the door.
I strip out of my jeans before walking to her bed and turning the covers down. I crawl underneath them, hoping she’ll relax a little, but when she comes back she casts doubt on that thought by arranging a barrier of pillows along my left side.
“I didn’t realize we were replicating the Great Wall of China with pillows tonight. Unnecessary, but exceptionally well done.”
She giggles and looks away while I toss the pillows haphazardly to the floor.
“I don’t bite,” I say. “Not unless you ask.”
She’s eyes me suspiciously.
I stretch my arm out. “Come on,” I say. “I promise I’ll behave.”
She takes her bottom lip between her teeth—definitely making my no-longer-exclusive-to-Friday hot list—and narrows her eyes on me. “Swear?”
“I swear it, Em. We can just be two friends who enjoy being next to each other.”
She considers this for a moment before crawling cautiously into bed next to me.
“Can I ask you something?”
She lies down beside me, stiff as a wooden plank. “Yes, sure.”
“I have never met anyone in my life who spends as much time as you working to keep their guard up. It’s exhausting to watch. What are you so afraid of?”
The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher Page 11
