The idea of Emma being in love with another man ate me up inside. I took a quick shower to get clean, viciously scrubbing at my skin, as if that could scrub away the jealousy destroying me inside. I knew that it wasn’t my place to be angry about something like that, and Emma would never need to know about it. Clearly she didn’t even want to know.
It wasn’t my business who Ally’s father was, or what he’d been to Emma. But God, I wanted to know. I wanted to know so fucking badly. Especially if he was the reason why now Emma wouldn’t even consider opening up to me, wouldn’t even think about us being more than roommates. I couldn’t help but wonder if the reason she didn’t want a relationship with any man was because Ally’s father still had a hold on her heart, for good or for ill, and the idea drove me… whether I liked it or not… insane.
20
Emma
I prayed to God that when I got up in the morning, Parker wouldn’t make things awkward. Instead, I found he was still in his bedroom. Fine by me. He’d taken to having breakfast with Ally but if he wanted to avoid that in order to avoid me, it wasn’t a big deal. Ally looked a little sad but she’d see him that afternoon. Besides, I added to myself viciously, it was best not to let her get attached. Who knew how long Parker would be in our lives this time around? He said he traveled for work, after all.
Bundling Ally off to daycare, I got into work and prayed that Nolan would be out charming a client or doing whatever it was that CEOs did, and not be here in the office. I couldn’t tell just by walking to my desk if he was or not, and my stomach tightened.
Last night, he hadn’t been all that happy with the fact that I’d been keeping a distance. When he’d brought me back to my apartment, he’d kept stepping into me and leaning in a bit. He couldn’t have been more obviously trying to kiss me if he’d put a neon sign over his head about it.
I’d kept stepping away, explaining how I had to get upstairs, telling him that it was polite of him to walk me home but I couldn’t chat. I kept telling him I’d see him at work tomorrow and to have a goodnight, and he’d kept trying to find excuses to step back in again and keep talking to me.
Honestly, it had been infuriating. If he’d been anyone other than my boss I would’ve told him in no uncertain terms to get lost like the creep he was. A sophisticated creep who knew how to be subtle about it, but still, a damn creep.
I hoped that now, at least, he got the message I wasn’t interested. And that we could… well, pretend that last night had never happened. I mean, he was my boss, we weren’t just coworkers but employer and employee, and that made this whole thing insanely awkward. Wouldn’t it just be best if we went about our day like last night was a horrible hallucination?
“Emma?”
Ah, crap, Julie. Did she know? Was she going to…
“Can I see you in my office for a moment?”
She definitely knew. Shit. Was she going to give me a whole spiel on interoffice dating? Was I going to have to meet with HR? This kind of complication was the last thing I needed—
I set my things down at my desk and entered Julie’s office. Julie was wearing the same no-nonsense clothes as before. I wanted to tell her to wear something with more color, something that brightened her up. She was a pretty woman but with her hair in that severe bun and with her darker clothes it made her look so much more boring than she actually was.
“Ah, perfect. I was waiting for you to get in.” Julie smiled at me. “So, last night…”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “It won’t happen again, trust me, I’m not interested in him.”
Julie paused, her mouth halfway open. “I… I was going to tell you that last night we had a glitch in one of our videos and we were hoping that you could look into it.”
“Oh.” Well, now I’d just exposed myself. Great.
“What are you talking about?” Judging by Julie’s suspicious squint, I had a feeling she already knew.
“Last night, ah, Nolan told me he wanted my help with a work presentation for an important client. I said I could help him this morning, come in early, but he insisted on it being last night. Then he said we could discuss it at dinner, and I didn’t know how to say no…” I could feel my throat getting a little tight from guilt. I had been out for hours, away from my daughter, not being the mom I was supposed to be, and it wasn’t like I was having a proper night on the town with friends. I hadn’t gotten her a babysitter and prepped her for a night without me. I had just… I had just abandoned her. And it wasn’t entirely my fault but still, surely. Surely I could have done more to end the night early and stand up for myself?
Julie’s face was thunderous. “Did he ply you with alcohol? Did he make you drink anything? Did he kiss you?”
She sounded livid. I wanted to just crawl under a rock and die. I appreciated her caring about me, and wanting to fix this, and I appreciated her anger on behalf of another woman. I really did. But I also didn’t want to make a fuss about this, I just wanted it to go away. I just wanted it to not be a problem anymore.
“He didn’t kiss me,” I said. “…not for lack of trying, I admit, but he wasn’t ever… it was easily avoided. We did have wine but he didn’t get me drunk. Mostly he just kept me a while. I was trying to get back home to my daughter and he kept delaying that. That’s honestly my biggest issue. He didn’t touch me inappropriately or anything like that.”
Maybe it would be easier if he had—I could’ve slapped him and this whole thing would be over with. But then I might have to find a new job and that would’ve been insane. I just started working here! I didn’t need this drama!
“I’m not tolerating this kind of behavior,” Julie informed me. “I’m going to talk with him and he is going to learn to respect you and every other woman here, damn it. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
She stormed past me and out of the office, and I didn’t know how to tell her that despite my appreciation for her, ah, protectiveness, I really just didn’t want a big deal made out of it. God, I just wanted to melt into a puddle of embarrassment. Could we not make a fuss over me, please? Could I just do my job quietly and get paid?
I hurried back to my desk and kept my head down. Nolan’s office was far enough away from me that I couldn’t hear anything and the door was closed, so I couldn’t see anything either, but I was sure Julie was giving him an earful. She wasn’t the type to keep her opinions to herself or go about this diplomatically.
Oh God. This was going to be all over the office in a few hours. We were a small enough company that news traveled almost as fast as it did in my tiny high school back in Rehoboth. I cringed, imagining the gossip. I didn’t want people talking about me. And maybe it would all be positive about me, who knew? But that didn’t mean I wanted the attention.
As if a sign of grace from the universe, my phone buzzed with a text from Van. Hey, hon, how’s it going?
Thank God. Someone I could safely vent to.
I explained everything to her over text in between getting my work done and keeping an eye on Nolan’s closed office door. Whatever was going on in there, it was taking a while. I had no doubt that Julie was taking her sweet time reading him the riot act.
Wow. That’s fucking insane! Van’s reply was swift. Y’know what, I’m headed to your place this evening. It’s the weekend, I got nothing to do. Let’s go out on the town. Have a girls’ night out.
I would love that, actually. I wasn’t sure how much I could afford that, though. I had just left Ally last night. Would she be okay with my leaving again tonight?
I don’t have a babysitter. Besides Parker. But I can’t keep asking him to do that. He’s my roommate not my child care provider.
I could hear Van’s scoff all the way through the phone. Don’t you worry about that, you just leave it to me. You deserve a day off after all the nonsense you’ve been through.
She didn’t even know the half of it. I hadn’t told her about sleeping with Parker—twice—and I wasn’t sure that I should. Van would be
all over it and I honestly had no clue what her opinion on Parker would be. Would she encourage me to go after him? Or would she tell me to avoid him and that putting my foot down had been a good thing? I didn’t know, and I was kind of scared of her answer, whichever one it might be.
Are you sure we should go out? I’m kind of exhausted already.
Van’s reply was swift. Em, you need to let off some steam. This is a bad day you need to clean off you and you won’t do it playing with Ally. Much as I love the kid.
Maybe she was right. Back in Rehoboth, I’d had as much time as I wanted to relax and have a girls’ night—Lucas was always happy to watch Ally. Or Van would watch Ally and I’d go off and do my own thing, or have a sibling day with Lucas. Not that there’d been many crazy things to do in a small historic town like that but we’d found ways to have fun and blow off steam.
Now, it had been work and Ally and work and Ally and work and Ally, with no breaks. Unless you counted the sex with Parker, which I most definitely did not (no matter how good that sex had been). A girls night out. Hmm. Maybe I could use it.
Sure. Honestly I just want the day to end.
It felt like I couldn’t put my foot down right. Nolan got pissed at me last night, and then that had affected Parker, obviously, and now Julie was on the warpath. This was not what I had expected or signed up for when I’d moved to the city. How did everything get so complicated?
21
Parker
Emma bustled in home from work with Ally in tow, clearly distracted. “Everything okay?” I asked.
If her boss had given her a hard time for not giving into his advances, then just roommates or not, I was going to track that guy down and give him a piece of my mind. He couldn’t be treated his employees like this. And Emma could defend herself, sure, but that didn’t mean she should have to all the time. She could let someone else also help defend her. That was what friends did. And I hoped I was at least, kind of, a friend since she was living with me.
“Everything’s fine,” Emma replied, but she sounded exhausted. Not tense, at least, not in that way that people got when they were nervous or scared. She just sounded like she’d had a long day. “Van’s going to come get me and we’re going to have a girls’ night on the town.”
“Oh, great.”
I didn’t know Van, at least, not well. I knew of her, of course. In our small town, everyone knew everyone. And Van was Emma’s best friend so it was kind of impossible for me not to know about her. I knew she was… the bolder, louder version of Emma. At least, if you asked Emma’s opinion. I thought Emma was plenty bold on her own, but Emma was fairly quiet, and contained. Or at least she had been. An extroverted, partying people person, she was not.
Van, apparently, was.
The Van that I knew, anyway. But that had been five years ago. Who the hell even know what she had in store for me now.
“Auntie Van is coming?” Ally asked, excited.
“Yup!” Emma confirmed. “Auntie Van and Mama are having a night out, but Uncle Lucas is going to stay and hang out with you and Parker, okay?”
I felt a little miffed that Emma didn’t trust me to look after Ally on my own, but I wasn’t going to say no to hanging out with Lucas. It would be a fun evening.
Ally cheered, obviously excited to see her uncle again. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like, to grow up with three people who parented you and loved you, only to have two of those people suddenly be far away.
…although, I could sort of imagine it. Leaving Rehoboth and then going to watch my mother die, yeah, that had been pretty awful.
Luckily for Ally, the loss wasn’t permanent. She’d get used to it and she could still see them often, on nights like this.
Emma went into her room to get ready, and I tried not to think too much about Van and what she might think of me. The way to a person was through her best friend, honestly. If Lucas didn’t like a girl while we were in high school, I didn’t date her. If Ash had ever told me he didn’t like someone, I wouldn’t have dated them, either—although the subject never came up since there was never anyone I wanted to date.
I wanted to make a good impression on Van. I wanted her to like me so that I could maybe get her to soften Emma a little about me. Maybe it was just wishful thinking though, who even knew.
“I’m here!” Van said, announcing herself to the world as she swept into the apartment, Lucas at her heels.
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Yes, they know, they had to buzz us in, remember?”
“Killjoy!” Van said cheerfully. “Doesn’t mean we couldn’t make an entrance!”
Lucas grumbled something I couldn’t hear, but Van was now the one rolling her eyes at him. I couldn’t remember if they’d bickered this much when I was living in Rehoboth. In fact I couldn’t remember Van being around Lucas enough for them to even bother bickering. Looked like that was another thing that had changed in the years I’d been gone.
“Hey, man.” Lucas hugged me hello, and then I had to dodge out of the way as Ally launched herself at him, squealing with joy.
He swung her around, grinning at her, and Ally giggled excitedly. “How’s my favorite niece doing?”
“Are you here for dinner, Uncle Lucas?”
“That’s exactly why I’m here,” Lucas assured her. “I’m going to babysit while your mom and aunt have a fun night out together. You think you can keep an eye on me for a few hours? Keep me out of trouble?”
Ally laughed again and I smiled. This could be a good night, I thought. My best friend, and this darling kid that had totally stolen my heart, just hanging out? I could definitely get behind that.
“Emma and Van are going to take forever,” Lucas noted dryly, nodding towards the bedroom where Van had swept in to join Emma, closing the door behind her. “What shall we do in the meantime, huh? What are you up to?”
“Coloring!” Ally said, pointing towards the table where Emma had set out her crayons and a bunch of paper.
I settled down at the table with Ally and held out a crayon to her. “Draw us something,” I said. Her drawings were an insane mess of colors and odd shapes, and I loved them. Kids, man. There was no concern in Ally for whether or not it was something the rest of us liked. There was no self-critique. She just drew what she wanted, for the sake of wanting it. She was completely unself-conscious about it. I’d do a lot to gain that sense back, to not care and just create.
“What are you drawing?” Lucas asked, sitting down and angling his head to get a good look. “Is that a cat?”
Ally giggled. “No, Uncle Lucas! It’s a house!”
I looked at the picture. That did not look at all like a house. I could kind of see why Lucas had thought it was a cat, but… “It looks more like a dinosaur to me.”
Ally laughed harder.
“Draw us something else,” I suggested. “We’ll see if we can guess what it is.”
“Ooh, okay!” Ally grabbed a new piece of paper and started scribbling immediately. Her whole face was lit up with excitement, a big grin on her face, and my heart leapt. I didn’t think there was anything more adorable in the world than this child in this moment. She was so fucking cute.
Yeah, maybe I was biased, given that this was the first kid that I had really spent any number of time with, but I didn’t think there was any kid in the world who was as cute as Ally was. Spending an evening with her and Lucas was going to be no problem at all.
Ally finished her drawing with a flourish and a small, “Ta da!”
She showed it to us proudly, a big smile on her face, and I examined it like I was at the MET and taking in a Vermeer. Lucas looked just as focused and rapt. Ally was clearly soaking up the attention.
“I’m going to guess a chocolate fountain,” I said at last.
“Hmmm, I was gonna say a grizzly bear.”
Ally shook her head. “It’s a brown cow! With chocolate milk!”
I wasn’t sure if she knew that brown cows didn’t make chocolate milk and she
was just having fun, or if she really thought that was where chocolate milk came from, but either way, I was delighted. I laughed and then mooed at her, like a cow.
Ally giggled and mooed back at me, and soon the three of us were all mooing at each other.
“I see that you’re all having fun,” Van said, re-entering the room. She was smiling at us, and didn’t seem to be annoyed at me, or upset in any way. All right, that was positive. Looked like I might’ve made a better first impression on her than I had on Emma.
“Uncle Lucas and Parker are being so silly!” Ally said. “They’re making up stuff for my drawings!”
That put a whole new and delightful spin on things. Ally thought her drawings were so obvious that we had to be making up other ideas of what we saw, just to entertain her. It was so fucking delightful I could hardly stand it.
I looked over at Van, who was certainly dolled up—she was wearing a dress that clung to every single one of her generous curves, the dark color contrasting her pale skin, her makeup fun and colorful. She looked more than ready to party.
Lucas raised his eyebrows at her. He couldn’t have been more disapproving if he’d tried. “Are you sure that you want to go out looking like that? We’re not eighteen anymore.”
“No, I’m twenty-three,” Van scoffed. “Still young and carefree. When I’m forty you can start judging me, maybe, if I’m feeling generous.”
“Would it kill you two to not bicker for five minutes?” Emma said, emerging from her room.
If I’d been holding something, it would’ve dropped to the floor, slipping out of my fingers. My whole body felt numb and it took everything in me to keep my jaw locked and not let it drop open.
Emma wasn’t wearing a typical club dress like Van was, and if I had to guess, I’d say that was because she didn’t own a typical clubbing dress. Clubbing outfits tended to be tight and short, revealing a lot of skin and showing off the body that way. Leaving little to the imagination and giving freedom of movement for dancing at the same time. Emma’s dress was a bit more formal, like something you’d wear to a fancy dinner or the theatre, that just happened to also be daring and sexy. It was a dark blue dress that offset her dark brown eyes and hair perfectly, with a long slit up the leg and long gauzy sleeves that kept catching your eye as she moved her arms.
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