Emma and Luke Are Totally Together
Page 15
I do love the new mug, though.
The following day, when I get another call from Carrie, I’m not even a tiny bit surprised. But when I go up to the front desk, I am taken aback by how large the next package is. Slightly embarrassed, I wrap my arms around it and carry it away. At least it’s not heavy. In fact, it’s oddly light.
“What’d you get?” a coworker asks, grinning as I walk by.
“Um…it’s a surprise,” I say.
By the time I get back to my desk, I’ve collected the attention of several other coworkers, too. I shove the box under my desk and wait until they stop waiting for me to open it. Then, covertly, I bend down and open up the box.
Inside is approximately a million tiny packages of honey roasted nuts.
I stare at the contents of the box. Luke sent me nuts?
No. Wait. He didn’t just send me nuts. He sent me airline nuts.
I’m about to send an email to Luke—an email that basically says thanks for all the gifts, but what gives?—when my work phone rings. It’s the front desk again.
“Hey, Emma,” says Carrie. “There’s a Luke here to see you.”
A Luke. As if there could ever be more than one.
I thank her and hang up.
As I head to the front desk, my heartbeat quickens. I squeeze my fingers into my palms as I round the last corner. Luke is standing in the middle of the lobby, waiting casually.
When I get closer to him, though, I can see the nervousness in his face.
“Hi,” he says. “How are you?”
“Fine,” I say. “You?”
“I’ve been okay.”
“It’s you, right? You’re the one sending me those packages?”
He nods.
“Why?” I ask.
“I’ve been thinking about you. I wanted you to know.”
I notice, then, that he’s holding a bag of takeout. I get a delicious whiff of Thai food.
“Is that…” I ask.
“It is,” he says, and smiles. “Have you eaten lunch yet?”
22
Luke takes me to a little hidden-away park a few blocks from my building. There are a couple other people there, but it’s still nice and private. It’s so lush that it almost feels like we aren’t even in the city anymore.
“Before we eat,” says Luke, as we sit down, “I need to say something to you.”
“Oh, that’s how it is, huh?” I say, smirking. “You lure me out here with Thai food, and now you’re going to deliver a monologue?”
Luke laughs. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“I’m just teasing,” I say. “Monologue away.”
He shifts in his seat. “Well…I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these last couple weeks about everything that happened. And so much is clear to me now. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did in Hawaii. I shouldn’t have been using that stupid app on my phone. I know we didn’t have a rule against it, but still, it wasn’t cool of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “We should have talked about what sleeping together meant.”
Luke nods. “Okay. Maybe that’s kind of on both of us. Regardless, I feel bad about it. But there’s also the morning you came to my apartment, when I told you that I couldn’t even handle being friends with you anymore. In the moment, I really did feel that way. I really did think it was for the best for us to go our separate ways. But now that you’re no longer in my life…well, it’s been awful, Emma. Really awful.”
“It’s been tough for me, too,” I say.
“When I pulled away from you, I was just freaked out about how our friendship was changing. I wasn’t ready for it yet. But I’m ready for it now. I know your feelings might have changed since we had that conversation in my apartment, and if they have, I guess I’ll just have to deal with it. But I can’t go any longer without telling you how I feel. I like you, Emma. A lot. A lot a lot.” His face softens. “I might even love you.”
My heart threatens to burst. “You might even love me?”
“It sure feels that way.”
“Well,” I say, my breath catching, “I might feel the same way about you.”
He starts to move in closer to me. My heart hammers away. But I stop him. “What about Erin?”
Luke leans back. “Honestly, I was never that interested in Erin. It was a silly crush.”
“You’re not just saying that, are you?”
“I’m not. After we got back from Hawaii, I talked to her a few times, and…well, she’s nice, but it made me realize how little I was into her after all.” Then his face turns cautious. “What about Alex?”
I blush a little. “Um…remember when you accused me of sneaking glances at you all the time?”
Luke nods.
“Well…you were right. The whole Alex thing…I’ve realized that it was an excuse I gave myself. I told myself I liked him because I didn’t want to face the truth. But it was you, Luke. I’ve always wanted you. I was just too afraid to admit it to myself.”
Luke grins. “The truth comes out. So…are we doing this for real?”
I nod. And keep nodding. I don’t stop until Luke kisses me—an intoxicating kiss that takes my breath away.
And once we start, I don’t want to stop kissing Luke. I really, really don’t want to stop. But…well…we are in public. And my stomach has started to growl. Loudly. Angrily. Threateningly.
We break apart and both laugh.
“Let’s eat,” says Luke.
“Let’s,” I say. I eye the bag of takeout sitting next to us. Tasty Thai’s logo is imprinted on the bag. “Please tell me you got spring rolls.”
Luke grins and says, “Seriously, Armstrong? Of course I did.”
* * *
“A fake relationship?” asks Mom. “What are you talking about, Emma?”
It’s a few weeks later, and I’m on the phone with my parents, pacing around my living room as I come clean to them about Luke and myself. Luke is here, too; these days, the man is a regular guest in my apartment. Today in particular, though, he’s here for moral support. He knows everything I need to say to them.
I take a breath and explain it to my parents one more time. I tell them again how Luke and I weren’t actually together, how he was just a friend, a coworker. How he does not, in fact, own a startup.
“I’m sorry we lied to you guys,” I say. “I feel really guilty about it.”
“You and Luke weren’t actually together?” Mom says, letting it sink in. The disappointment in her voice has never sounded so potent.
“We weren’t.”
“And Luke’s business…” Dad says. He sounds equally let down.
“Nonexistent,” I say.
“But I don’t understand,” says Mom. “Why did you feel the need to make all of that up, Emma?”
Cue the stomach twist. Because that, right there, is the question that I’ve been dreading most.
I hesitate, looking over at Luke on the couch. Even though he can’t hear the conversation, he nods encouragingly.
“I wanted you to be proud of me,” I say into the phone. It’s so difficult, but so relieving to finally say. “I wanted you to take my life seriously.”
“We are proud of you, peanut,” says Dad.
“Of course we are,” says Mom. “Why would you ever think otherwise?”
“I mean…compared to Catherine…”
“Oh, Emma,” says Mom. “We’re proud of you and Catherine and Garrett equally. We love you equally. I’m so sorry if you’ve gotten a different impression than that.”
I swallow. “But you’re always praising her, Mom. You’re always doing what she wants to do.”
“Catherine and I have many things in common, that’s all. It doesn’t mean I favor her.” Mom pauses. “You know, Emma, we would love it if you shared more about your life with us. Sometimes it feels like we hardly know you.”
It stuns me to hear her say it. But she’s right. I don’t share very much with them.
“Not at all,” says Dad.
I take a moment to gather myself. Then I say, “The reason I don’t share very much is that I feel inadequate when I do. I mean, take my job. I’m not exactly doing important work, am I?”
“What about all those people whose creations you’ve gotten more exposure for? You’ve helped changed their lives.”
“I guess,” I say. “But there’s also…well…at my old job, I wasn’t making very much money, you know. I’m earning more at my new job, but…”
“We would never care about that,” says Dad.
“Of course not,” says Mom.
“Okay,” I say. I mean, it seems so obvious now that they wouldn’t care. But it finally gets through to me when I hear them say it.
“I’m glad you told us how you feel, though,” says Mom. “And thank you for telling us about you and Luke. I do have to admit something, though. I’m sad to hear that it wasn’t real. We liked him.”
“We did,” says Dad.
With a sigh, Mom adds, “You two really did seem like a perfect fit for each other.”
I glance over at Luke, who arches his eyebrows questioningly. A montage of the past few weeks whirls in my head: so many coffee breaks and meals and nights spent together. So many spring rolls.
“About that,” I say, smiling at Luke as I talk. “The thing is, we actually are together now. For real this time.”
In unison, Mom and Dad say, “You are?”
“Yeah. As it turns out, we realized that we actually do have real feelings for each other.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, honey,” says Mom. “That’s really wonderful.”
“He’s not thinking of founding that startup, is he?” asks Dad. “We really could improve our marketing, you know.”
“Sorry, Dad,” I say, laughing. “I don’t think so. I’ll ask him, though.”
“Is there anything else you have to tell us?” asks Mom.
“What? Like about work?”
“No. About you and Luke. Is there maybe a…proposal in the future?”
“Mom,” I say, my cheeks warming up.
“I’m only asking,” she says.
“Yeah, um. You know, I actually have to go. I’ll talk to you guys later, okay?”
In perfect synchronization, as if they’ve planned it, they both sing out, “Tell Luke hello!”
After hanging up, I sink into the couch beside Luke and let all of the air out of my lungs.
“Sounds like it went okay?” Luke asks.
“It did. I feel so much better now,” I say.
“Good,” he says.
“I still have to tell Catherine, though. And Garrett.”
“Not this minute, though, right?”
I give him a look. “Why? Do you have something else in mind?”
“I have a few things in mind,” he says. He walks his fingers up my arm. “More than a few.”
* * *
When I call Garrett and tell him about the fake relationship, he just laughs, calls me nuts, and then we move on from the subject. When I tell Catherine about it, though, she claims that she knew something was up.
“You did not,” I say.
“I did,” she insists. “I had a feeling, Emma. I swear.”
“Why you didn’t say anything, then?”
“I almost did. I bit my tongue.”
“I didn’t know that was possible,” I say, and we both laugh.
Ever since our post-fight conversation in Hawaii, things have been so much better between us. We still have our quibbles, but they’re more lighthearted now. There’s no longer that underlying tension weighing down every exchange.
As it turns out, being on good terms with my sister is so much more pleasant than the alternative.
Astonishing, I know.
* * *
Six months to the day after we officially start dating for real, Luke and I go on a long weekend trip away. We stock up on snacks and books, fill up the tank in Luke’s car, and drive out to a secluded cabin in the woods.
Thanks to rain and more rain, we don’t leave the cabin for the first two days. We still enjoy ourselves, though. We laze around. We gorge on snacks. We roll in the proverbial hay. We read. We talk. We play Twenty Questions.
Actually, we weirdly get really into playing Twenty Questions. Like, so into it that we play it for hours on end.
And so, on the third day of our trip, when it’s finally sunny out and we finally venture up a nearby hiking trail, when Luke stops and asks if he can ask me a question, I assume that he wants to play the game again.
“Hold on,” I say, and take a drink of water. “Give me a second to think of something first.”
But then I turn around, and Luke is down on one knee.
“Emma Joy Armstrong,” says Luke. “Will you marry me?”
I audibly—loudly—gasp. I almost drop my water bottle. Above us, the chattering birds go silent.
“For real?” I choke out.
“For real,” he says.
I say yes. Of course I say yes.
Epilogue
“Oh my God,” says Catherine. “I can’t believe this.”
“What? What is it?” I ask. “Catherine, I can’t see.”
It’s the day of the wedding, and I’m in the middle of getting my makeup done in the bridal suite of the Magnolia Hotel. Hearing the dire sound of Catherine’s voice, I’m desperate to open my eyes and see what Catherine is freaking out about, but the makeup artist is applying eyeshadow to my lids.
Actually, come to think of it, she’s been applying eyeshadow to my lids for ages now. Oh, God. What kind of monstrosity is she turning me into?
“Catherine?” I call out. “Hello? Talk to me, please.”
“I mean, look at it,” says Catherine from across the room. “It’s hideous.”
“I don’t know if I would use the word hideous,” says Mom.
“No, it is,” says Catherine. “I can’t let Emma wear this.”
The makeup artist gives each of my eyelids one last swipe.
“Okay,” she chirps. “You can open them now!”
Tentatively, I open my eyes, bracing myself for what I’m about to see. I’m already convinced that I’m going to look like the Bride of Chucky.
But to my pleasant surprise, my makeup looks good. Actually, it looks great. I still look like me, just…a better version of me.
“What do you think?” asks the makeup artist.
“It’s perfect,” I say. I sigh in relief and smile at her.
“Awesome,” she says. “Now let me just set everything with finishing powder, and then you’ll be good to go.”
While the makeup artist sifts through her makeup organizer, I take the opportunity to look over my shoulder and see what Catherine and Mom are talking about. They’re on the opposite side of the room, examining a veil. My veil. The veil that Catherine said she was going to surprise me with.
“Maybe we can pin them down like this?” says Mom. “Or trim them off?”
“Hey,” I say. “What’s going on?”
Catherine looks at me and sighs. “I’m so sorry, Emma. The veil I ordered for you looks nothing like the photo.”
“Let me see it,” I say. From where I’m sitting, I can’t make it out in detail.
Catherine and Mom exchange looks.
“What?” I say. “It can’t be that bad.”
“May as well show her,” says Mom.
“Okay,” says Catherine, bringing it over. “But please remember that this wasn’t what I thought I was picking out for you.”
As Catherine carries it over, the veil’s hideousness becomes apparent. It looks like it’s made out of cheap tulle an
d ancient yellowed lace. And jutting out from the top are bent wires that look like antennae—with pompoms on top.
“Oh,” I say.
“I’m so sorry,” says Catherine.
“It’s not your fault. Anyway, it’s not like I need to wear a veil.”
“You really don’t,” says Catherine. “Your hair’s gorgeous. Your makeup, too.”
“Oh! Thank you!” says the makeup artist, as if I’m a painting of hers that Catherine has complimented.
“Thanks, Catherine,” I say. I smile at her reassuringly. “And seriously, it’s okay.”
At the makeup artist’s request, I turn toward her again so that she can dust finishing powder over my face. And while my eyes are closed, there’s a knock at the door. I hear Catherine go to answer it.
When I open my eyes, Paige is in the room.
“Happy Wedding Day!” she exclaims.
“Thanks, Paige,” I say, surprised but not surprised to see her.
Paige’s eyes drift to the veil in Catherine’s hands. “Ooh! Gorgeous veil. I can’t wait to see it on you, Emma.”
“Actually,” says Catherine, glancing at me, “Emma had a last minute change of heart. She’s not going to wear it after all.”
“Really?” says Paige. “Oh, but it’s so pretty. I’d love to get married in one like that.”
Catherine and I glance at each other.
“Do you want it, Paige?” I ask.
“No, no. I couldn’t take your veil.”
“But you should. I’m not wearing it. And if you like it so much…”
Paige smiles sheepishly at Catherine. “I’m not even engaged.”
“You never know,” I say. “You and Martin are pretty lovey-dovey.”
“You should take it,” says Catherine, holding it out to her.
Paige looks at it again and sighs dreamily. “Okay. If you insist.”
She takes it from Catherine and places it on top of her head, then peers into the mirror that’s in front of me. And the crazy thing is, it actually looks good on her. There’s still no way it would look decent on me, but somehow, Paige pulls it off.