Four
So far, being married to Emma was pretty much exactly like not being married, except for every now and then it would hit me when I looked at her that she was legally my wife. There was a strange security in that kind of thing. Not ownership, because neither of us owned the other, more of a connection that made me feel safe. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I loved it, but I hadn’t voiced it to Emma. I didn’t know what she would think.
I had the interview at the co-working space, and I thought it went really well. The manager was non-binary, so we ended up talking about how important queer issues were to us, so that was a nice little connection.
The job sounded great and paid well, and I didn’t think I’d have to deal with half the bullshit from the hotel. I left the interview feeling confident and the first person I messaged about it was Emma. She didn’t get back to me right away, so I spent the entire ride on the T back to my apartment staring at my phone and waiting for her.
I’d taken the day off for my interview, and also to catch up on some things at home while my roommates were at their respective jobs. The place was a complete fucking disaster since I hadn’t been around much.
First was the trash, then I tackled the dishes. My phone dinged with a new message and I quickly wiped my hands on a dishtowel before I picked it up. I was greeted with a picture of Emma smiling and giving me a thumbs up for nailing my interview. That was followed by a second pic with her sending me a kissy face.
Something in my stomach fluttered, and I couldn’t help but smile. I sent her a kissy face in return and went back to the dishes.
A few hours later, the house was more livable and I had my second load of laundry in the dryer. I ordered sushi from my favorite place and hopped into bed with my freshly washed sheets to watch a Jane Austen movie for the thousandth time.
Of course I heard stomping feet on the stairs and braced myself for the noise. Moments later, there was a knock at my door.
“Yeah?” I said, and the door opened to reveal Eddie with a grim look on her face.
“Landlord is selling the house, so we have to be out in 30 days. Sorry.” She turned around and shut the door to her room, leaving me sitting there in a state of shock. The fuck? I hopped out of bed and knocked on her door.
“What?” she said, whipping the door open and looking at me in irritation.
“Is that it? How do you know he’s selling the place?” She rolled her eyes and sighed so long I thought it would never end before handing me a piece of paper. I scanned it and she was right. Our landlord was selling, and we had 30 days to be out, even though our lease wasn’t up.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath.
“Is that it?” Eddie asked, tapping her foot and crossing her arms.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, handing the paper back. I went back to my room in a daze. Our lease didn’t end for several months, so I hadn’t thought I would need to look for a new place this soon. I was completely fucked now. Thirty days wasn’t a lot of time to find a new place. I wanted to cry.
I immediately called Emma, and she picked up right away.
“So, my landlord is a dick and I have to move in 30 days.” Panic had started to set in and I thought of all the terrible things that could happen if I couldn’t find an apartment.
“Move in with me,” Emma said after a pause. “You can stay with me for a few months until you can find another place. It’ll just be temporary. You can save some money and maybe get better roommates.” Oh. I hadn’t even thought of that. Fuckkkkk.
“Are you sure? I don’t know how much rent I can do.”
“Don’t worry about it. You can help me with utilities. I’m not going to let my best friend be in a bad situation. I love you, Cal.” Her voice broke a little as if she was getting emotional. So was I.
“Wow, that would be amazing. You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do. You’re my wife, remember? And my go home.” Right. That.
“Okay. Okay. Are you sure? You’ll have me there all the time. I’ll sneak into the kitchen at two in the morning to make a charcuterie plate. I’ll sing too loud in the shower.” Emma laughed.
“I do know you, Callyn. I’ve known you my whole life. Nothing you could do is going to shock me.”
I grinned. “That sounds like a challenge.”
Emma groaned on the other end of the line.
“It’ll be fine. You can move in now if you want. I can put most of my stuff in the basement.” That didn’t sound like a horrible idea. I mean, I’d have to pay rent here anyway, but the sooner I got out of here, the better.
“This weekend? Can we use your car?” I didn’t have one, but Emma had a nice SUV that her parents got her when she went to college that would hopefully fit everything I needed to move.
“Sounds good. We’ll be wives and roommates.”
In spite of being best friends our whole lives, we’d never actually lived together. We hadn’t gone to the same college, and we hadn’t graduated at the same time, so it had never really worked out for us to be in the same apartment. Plus, our incomes were so different. She had parental support for her rent when she’d been younger. I’d had to scrape by on my own. I was sure we’d be able to live with one another with no problems.
“That’s still really weird, Em,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I mean, I know it’s only temporary.” Emma sucked in a deep breath and was silent for a second.
“Right,” she finally said. “Anyway, I’ll clear out the spare room. Is there anything else you want to bring? I can move out some of my stuff and put it in storage so you can make this place more of a home, even if it’s just for now.” I’d always moved in with other people who already had furniture, so I didn’t have much of my own. Just some lamps, a dresser, a bed frame, and a mattress. Pretty pathetic. I was going to be out of luck if I had to furnish my own place. I’d missed my chance to go “shopping” when all the college kids had moved out and put their shit on the street. You could outfit an entire house for free if you weren’t worried about potential bedbugs.
“Uh, not really. My bed is pretty much shit. Yours is nicer.” Maybe this was a chance for me to start over with everything and maybe get some new stuff. I’d been getting by with the same crap since college.
“We’ll pick out some new sheets for you, and you can decide how you want to arrange the room.”
“Sounds good.” All of the tension I’d felt when Eddie had dropped that particular bomb on me was gone. I was going to live with Emma. This was going to be fucking awesome.
“I swear, I don’t remember having this much stuff. I’m pretty sure some of it multiplied overnight,” I said as we brought yet another box into Emma’s living room. Well, I guess it was my living room now. Weird.
“Callyn, your stuff isn’t tribbles.” I squinted at her, wondering what the reference was from.
“Star Wars?” I asked. Emma gave me a sad look and shook her head as if she was terribly disappointed in me.
“Star Trek, original series.” Right. She’d been begging me watch it forever, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Maybe now that we lived together we could do a marathon. I could just picture it, the two of us cuddling up on her expensive couch and sharing a blanket and a giant bowl of popcorn topped with cotija, lime juice, cayenne, and butter. We had sleepovers all the time, but this would be different. We’d be together all the time.
“Is that the one with the sarcastic talking raccoon?” I asked, trying to remember. I had the worst time remembering character’s names from different movies and shows.
“Oh my god, you did not just ask me that,” Emma said, collapsing on a box with a groan.
“What?”
Emma shook her head.
“I’m going to make you flash cards and we’re going to practice.” I knew she wasn’t joking. Emma had had to put up with me whispering “which one is he again?” so many times during movies, but she was always patient with me and expla
ined who the character was so quietly that only I could hear her and no one else in the theater got mad.
“Fine, fine,” I said, looking at all the boxes. I was finally free from my old place and my old awful roommates. There was going to be a lot less sex going on in this apartment, I’d wager. I mean, I wasn’t going to be having any (except with myself), and I didn’t think that Emma was either. My stomach rolled a little bit at the thought of Emma being that way with someone. It was weird to think about her that way, so I should probably stop.
“Callyn?” Emma asked, and I jumped at the sound of her voice and felt my face go red.
“Yup,” I said, cracking the tape on the box and yanking out the first thing my hand could find, which turned out to be a candle.
“Where should I put this?” I said, not able to meet her eyes.
“Can I smell it? You know how picky I am about scents.” She took the candle from me and inhaled deeply. “Oh, I like that. Smells like pine and campfire.”
“Yeah,” I said, still trying to snap myself back to normal. Emma took the candle from me and made some space on the mantle. Yes, she had a fireplace, which was sheer luxury in the city. She lit it and inhaled.
“Should we order some food? I’m starved.” I was hungry too. Moving was exhausting work. My back was going to be angry tomorrow.
“Sure,” I said, pulling some other items out of the box. Emma pulled up the app to order and asked me what I was feeling like.
“Since it’s your first night here, you get to choose where we order from.” She handed me the phone and I scrolled through. Hell yeah, way better options than my old place.
“What are you thinking?” I didn’t want to order from anywhere that she wouldn’t like.
“I’m open to anything. Get what you want.”
“What about . . .” I trailed off and scrolled. “Pasta? I need carbs.” I added eggplant parmesan and garlic knots and Emma went for spaghetti and meatballs.
“And cake. We need cake,” she pointed out.
“Always.” I added two pieces of chocolate cake to the order and some seltzer waters.
Emma had cleared everything out of the room, except for the bed.
“Where is all your shit?” I asked.
“Uh, closet? Basement storage. Some of it is in my room now. Is this going to work for you?” This room was way bigger than my old bedroom. I wouldn’t even know what to do with all this space. I’d lived in Boston so long that I’d forgotten what reasonable living quarters looked like.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said again, but she waved me off and brought in another box.
“You’re my best friend. I’d do anything for you.”
“Plus, I’m your wife,” I called to her, as I pulled some bedding from a box and started making the bed.
“Exactly!” she called back.
Five
“To our first night as roommates,” Emma said, toasting us both. I’d gotten everything unpacked, and Emma had helped me add my decorative touches to the common spaces, which I hadn’t asked for, but that she insisted on.
“Roommates, best friends, and wives,” I said. That was a lot.
“Roommates, best friends, and wives,” she repeated. We clinked our seltzer bottles together and reclined on the couch.
“A lot has happened in a short time,” I said. “And we still have Lara’s wedding extravaganza.”
“I know. That’s going to be a lot. It’s a good thing I love her, because I wouldn’t go through all this for just anyone,” Emma said. I agreed.
“I’d be your maid of honor. You know, for the next wedding. The real wedding.”
“I don’t know if I want to get married. I mean, again, you know. Sober and all that,” she said.
“Really?” I couldn’t remember her ever saying anything like this. To be fair, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d talked about marriage or anything related. I knew every single thing about her, but not this, for some reason.
“Yeah. I don’t know.”
“I can’t really picture it either.” That had never been my thing. I hadn’t planned an entire destination wedding to Belize down to the rhinestone flowers on my dress. Sure, I’d wondered about weddings and marriage and kids, but I wasn’t sure about anything.
“Anyway, I’ve got one wife already, so I’m not thinking about another one.” She smiled and I couldn’t help but smile back.
My wife. For now.
“It’s so quiet here,” I said a while later. We’d devoured the cake and I was full and content. I hadn’t realized that in my old place I hadn’t really ever been able to fully relax. I’d always been stressed and annoyed and now it was like I could breathe freely.
Emma’s hands wove through my hair and I closed my eyes.
“Are you saying I’m boring?” she said behind me.
“No. I’m saying this is nice. It’s a relief.” Almost as if this was meant to be.
“Good. I’ve wanted to ask you to move in for a while, but I wasn’t sure how. I know that seems silly, since we share everything else. I don’t know.” I looked at her over my shoulder.
“I wanted to live with you too, but I knew I couldn’t afford it.” I was being blunt, but whatever. She knew how much money I didn’t make.
“It’s okay. I’ve got money.” I knew she’d made decent money at her old job, but she was in school now and not working. I knew she wanted to get a part time job at some point, but was concentrating on getting a foothold in school first.
“I’m going to get another job, I promise. I had that interview and I’m just waiting to hear back. The pay would be great there. Plus, I’m working on my negotiating skills so I can start out with better pay,” I said. I mean, I was going to try to do that. I’d only really practiced what I would say in front of a mirror. Things were totally different when I was in front of a boss or potential boss. At least I had a lot of incentive now to negotiate for more money. I couldn’t be a financial burden on Emma.
“Hey, it’s okay.” She tucked her arm around me and pulled me back into her chest. “We’ve got this. Just you and me against the world.”
“You and me,” I said, yawning. It had been a long day, but I didn’t want to go to bed just yet. I had a new book that I’d been saving for a few days to read and it was calling me.
“Do you mind if I read?” I asked.
“No. Why would I? This is your house. You can do whatever you want.” I grinned at her.
“Does that mean I can rearrange the towels in the linen closet?” Her eyes narrowed.
“You can do whatever you want except that.” I huffed and got up to grab my tablet. When I came back, she had her phone out.
“What are you looking at?” I said, peering over her shoulder.
“If you’re gonna read, I’m going to read as well.” We’d done this countless times before. Emma and I had spent so much time together that silence was always fine.
“What are you reading?”
“A nonfic about terrible rich people being terrible.” Of course she was. “And you?” she asked.
“Screw that, I’m reading about ladies falling in love and banging. Why would you want to read anything else?” I couldn’t imagine. Emma just laughed and went back to reading.
I cuddled up with her on the couch and turned my tablet on.
We read in silence until I was completely exhausted. I turned my tablet off and looked at Emma. She had leaned back on the couch and her eyes were closed. I studied her for a few moments before gently getting up.
“Hey, Em, you fell asleep.” I stroked her shoulder and her eyes fluttered open.
“Hey,” she said, a sleepy smile forming on her lips. My heart thumped against my chest in a frenetic beat. I’d seen her thousands of times before. Why was I feeling like this was the first time I’d noticed how completely beautiful she was? Her eyes were definitely blue tonight.
“Hey,” I said. “We should probably go to bed. Or, at least, I’m going
to. Remember, big day tomorrow.” We were headed out to see one of Nova’s art shows and then seeing a movie before having dinner at a new taco place that was opening, mostly because we wanted free tacos.
“You’re right,” she said, stretching her arms above her head. “Should we brush our teeth?” I held my hand out and helped her up from the couch and she followed me into the bathroom.
It didn’t seem strange to brush our teeth together, since we’d done it hundreds of times before. I kept meeting her eyes in the mirror and smiling. Why did this moment feel so perfect? I wish I’d sucked it up and moved in with her years ago. Could have saved myself so much pain and aggravation. Sure, I might have been even more broke than I was now, but what did that matter?
Emma wiped some toothpaste from my mouth and laughed.
“Missed a spot.”
“Thanks,” I said, putting my toothbrush in its charger right next to hers. We had the same one, but different colors. Hers was white while mine was a sparkly blue.
“Goodnight wife,” I said, laughing. Emma stared at me for a second and then leaned forward, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
“Goodnight wife,” she said in my ear. I froze, completely unable to move. Unable to breathe. It was like my entire body stopped. As if that kiss had hit my internal pause button.
Emma left the bathroom and I finally inhaled. My skin burned where her lips had touched me. I put my hand to feel my cheek, just to make sure my skin was normal.
That gesture reminded me I needed to wash my face, but I didn’t have the energy, so I just pivoted and went to the guest room—my room now. I heard music coming from behind Emma’s door. She always slept with music on, just like I slept with the TV on. We both had anxious minds that needed something to distract them. On the surface, we seemed so different, but in so many small ways, we were just alike.
I got in bed, unable to stop thinking about the kiss. What was my deal? I was sure that Emma had kissed me on the cheek before. Hell, she’d seen me naked as fuck on so many occasions. What was a little cheek kiss? Puzzled, I stripped out of my clothes and went to bed in just a tank top and my undies. In the summer I slept naked, so I was definitely going to have to get a robe for when I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Didn’t need to terrify Emma with my nudity.
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