by Lucy Kevin
Today, Emily met him precisely in the middle, throwing her arms wide and hugging him.
Michael waited for her to say all the same stupid things as everyone else. But Emily still didn’t say anything. She just held on to him, pressing him tight against her.
She was the only one who knew just what he needed right then. They’d told one another everything growing up. And, of course, Emily had experienced her own tragedies. Michael had been there when she’d found out that her mother had died. With her sisters around her, she hadn’t let herself break down in front of them, even as her sisters all fell apart. Instead, she’d made sure to keep them together as a family, even through the horrible crisis. Michael had been the one to hold her when she’d been ready to cry in secret over the loss of her mom.
Now, it seemed, it was her turn to hold him.
“Come on,” Emily said. “We’ll go to my house.”
Michael couldn’t get words past the lump in his throat, so he just walked beside her while she held his hand. The best part about being with Emily was that, at a time like this, he knew he didn’t have to say anything. And she didn’t have to ask how he was feeling, because she knew.
Finally, though, when he had managed to swallow the lump down, he had to say, “What was it like? After…”
“It was horrible,” she told him in a soft voice. “And it stayed like that for a long time.”
She was the first person who had been honest with him today, and even though it was painful to hear, he’d never appreciated her honesty more. Almost as much as he appreciated the fact that she was there for him, just as she’d always been.
He heard her swallow hard before she told him, “I’m sure Grams has got lunch going.”
Even if Grams wasn’t there, Michael knew Emily would make food for him and everyone else.
They walked up to the Walker house, going through to the kitchen. Emily’s sisters were at home, along with Ava, who was showing Paige a dance move in the living room. Her father, Michael’s English teacher from school, was there, too, reading with Hanna, the youngest of the sisters.
They all looked up at once when he and Emily entered the kitchen. He was certain that one of two things would happen: Either they would all start talking like everyone back at his house, or they would make him go back home to the wake.
But before anyone could say a word, Emily took charge. “Is there any of that soup left, Grams?”
“Of course there is. Come and sit down, Michael.”
He sat, but Emily didn’t leave his side. Rachel moved over to touch his shoulder lightly, before heading out of the kitchen.
“Do you want to play, Michael?” Hanna asked. At just seven, she was the youngest of the sisters.
“Not today, darling,” her father said, before Michael could reply. “Paige, why don’t you take Hanna and Morgan over to the dance studio?”
Paige nodded, her big eyes sad as she looked at Michael, and her sisters followed her out willingly.
“I’m going to have to call your house,” Mr. Walker said. “Just to let them know where you are.”
“But, Dad,” Emily said quickly, “if you do that, they’ll just come get him.”
Her father looked at her and then at Michael. “I can understand not wanting to be there right now. But I’ve still got to let them know he’s here.”
“Dad—”
“Emily,” Ava Walker said. “You know your father has to call. He’s got to do the right thing. Don’t you, William?”
William. Michael didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone call Mr. Walker by his first name. He was always Mr. Walker, or Tres, or “Emily’s dad”.
“Because he’s done such a great job of doing the right thing so far,” Emily snapped back.
It was weird for Michael, hearing her talk to her own father like that, the disappointment in her tone unmistakable.
Ava looked at her sharply. “Emily, that was uncalled for.”
“Really? I’d say that it was completely called for.”
Michael pushed back from the table. “Emily, your grandmother’s right. I mean…at least you have a dad. I’m sorry, if I’m causing trouble being here—”
“You’re not causing any trouble at all, Michael,” Mr. Walker said, waving him back into his seat.
Emily reached for his hand and wouldn’t let go. “I want Michael to stay, Dad. He needs to stay. Here. With us. No matter what anyone else wants him to do, he belongs here with us now.”
All Michael wanted was to stay with them. Not just for the next few minutes, but permanently. Apart from his own home, which was now overrun with long-lost relatives and strangers, the Walker house was the only home he’d ever known.
Thankfully, Tres didn’t so much as pause before nodding and saying, “Mom, can you handle things here for a moment while I make the call?”
“Of course,” Ava replied. “Michael, sit back down and have something to eat while Tres lets them know just how much we’d like you to stay with us.”
A few moments later, they all heard Emily’s father speaking on the phone. “This is Tres Walker from up the street. I wanted you to know that Michael is over at our place. Yes, my daughter brought him home. They’re friends from school.” He listened for a moment or two. “Yes, I understand, but for the moment…no. No,” he said again in an even stronger voice. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Yes, I’m perfectly aware of what I’m saying, and I know exactly how this situation works.”
There was a note of authority in his voice that Michael hadn’t heard from Mr. Walker outside of school. On the occasions when Michael had seen him around the Walker house, he’d seemed nice but always a little bit sad. Michael had never seen or heard him this much in control.
As they listened to the call, Emily was right there beside him, still holding his hand, quiet yet fiercely protective. When Hanna ran back in with one arm in her coat, wanting to hug Michael, it was Emily who gently pulled her sister from him, helped her with her coat, and sent her back in the direction of the others.
“Yes,” Emily’s father said from the other room. “I understand that you need to get back to the mainland and that you want to take him with you. However, have you or anyone else actually asked Michael’s opinion on the matter?” He paused for a moment before saying, “I can see why you might have thought that there isn’t another choice. However, I would like to provide one. My house. My family. We want him here.” Michael’s heart was flipping around like crazy in his chest as Tres said, “I really do feel that it’s the best option. He should stay on the island to finish school. He should stay with us.”
Emily tugged silently on Michael’s hand, pulling him away from the table. She led him through the twists and turns of the big old house and up to her bedroom, one that was clean and neatly kept, with well-read books stacked carefully on shelves.
“It sounds like Dad is actually going to come through on this.”
The note of bitterness that had crept in whenever she spoke about her father since her mother had died was barely noticeable for once. It seemed that this time Emily approved of what her father was doing.
“Thanks for getting him to agree to take me in.” Tres Walker was a good man, but he would never have done what he’d just done if Emily hadn’t pushed him toward doing it.
“If this plan works,” she said, “you’ll be spending a lot more time around here. Will you be okay with that?”
Michael would be so much more than okay with it. He would much rather live with people he knew than with relatives he really didn’t know at all. Especially if it meant he got to stay with Emily.
Because even then, he loved her with everything he was.
CHAPTER SIX
Present day, Morgan and Brian’s wedding...
The wedding planner stepped up to the band’s PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom would like to get some photos of you dancing. Could we please all move to the dance floor with our partners?”
Emily’s sisters were already dancing with the men they loved. They didn’t need an announcement to do what came naturally. Even little Charlotte had found a couple of teenagers to dance with, and she was showing them the moves she’d learned at Grams and Paige’s dance studio. The teens applauded, then showed her a few moves of their own.
“Shall we, Emily?” Michael drew her into his arms without waiting for an answer.
They’d come to the wedding as friends, and as the maid of honor and best man, and now…well, now Emily wasn’t sure if she could stand there comfortably in his arms while the photographers snapped pictures. Not with so much emotion spinning and tangling around inside her.
But before she could try to protest, they were out on the crowded dance floor and the photographers were snapping the pictures the bride and groom wanted.
For her sisters, the moment looked so utterly romantic. Morgan and Brian were so utterly in love that they likely wouldn’t have noticed if an entire marching band were passing next to them just then. Paige and Christian were dancing so close, and in such perfect synchronization, that it was hard to see where one ended and the other began. Hanna and Joel were holding one another tightly and laughing as the photographers got their shots. Rachel and Nicholas were dancing with their usual enthusiasm and athleticism, heedless of the danger of crashing into other couples.
Only Emily was tense. As if she were poised to run and was only just barely able to keep from pushing out of Michael’s arms and running as fast, and as far away, as she could.
It wasn’t because she didn’t love him. On the contrary, she was very much afraid that she did.
Too much.
And too deeply.
Which made it far too much of a risk. For both of them.
“How long do you think they’re going to keep us out here like this?” Emily asked.
“They’re wedding photographers,” he replied. “I’m pretty sure they think they’re in charge of the whole day.” But from the serious way he was staring into her eyes, she didn’t think he was thinking about the photographers. No, she was almost positive he was thinking about them.
Normally, they were able to give each other easy smiles. Because they were friends. But today...today it didn’t feel like anything would ever be easy between them again. All because he’d ruined the chances of easy smiles, and friendly dances, when he’d said I love you.
As the photographer came toward them and the crowd of dancers seemed to close in tighter, Emily ended up pressed tightly enough to Michael to feel every nuance of his muscles beneath his suit. She knew he was in great shape from his construction work and the run he went for every afternoon—and she might have even secretly daydreamed about a moment like this in the past. But right now the last thing she could do was give in to her secret longings for him.
She tried to put some space between them, but the photographer immediately scolded her. “You look like you don’t even want to dance with him when you pull back like that. It will be a terrible picture for your sister and her husband, and I know you can’t possibly want that, can you?”
Oh, brother. Yes, the photographers definitely thought they were in charge. But because she didn’t want to ruin her sister’s wedding, she had no choice but to move close to Michael again. Back into his strong arms, so close that she could feel his heart beating against hers and breathe in his clean, masculine scent.
“Do they need to take quite so many photographs of us?” Emily muttered.
“You’re Morgan’s eldest sister and maid of honor. Of course they’re going to want plenty of pictures of you. Besides,” he said in a low tone that simmered all along her spine, “you’re the most beautiful woman here.”
Yet again, he stunned her. Both with his words and the sheer longing in them. A longing he was no longer trying to hide.
“Morgan is the most beautiful woman here,” she replied, wishing her voice didn’t sound quite so breathless. It wasn’t okay to be breathless around Michael. For so long she’d succeeded at pushing away her desire for him. Today of all days, she couldn’t finally break. “She’s the bride. It’s the rule.”
“Rules are made to be broken.”
A few moments later, when the announcer cut in to say that they’d reached the end of the dance photography, Emily knew it had been a really close shave. Because she couldn’t have spent another moment in Michael’s arms, not when all of her secret longings were bubbling up from moment to moment. Unfortunately, as if Murphy’s Law were the rule of the day, the wedding planner had another message.
“If we could have everyone in the bride’s family, and their partners, over by the arbor, we just have a handful more shots to take.”
Steeling herself not to do anything to ruin her sister’s big day, she let Michael hold her hand as they walked over to the arrangement of chairs by the roses. Morgan and Brian were seated in the middle, and everyone else was on either side of them. Her sisters were next to the men they loved, and Emily was next to Michael.
Emily had helped plan these pictures with Morgan. She had agreed that it made sense for her and Michael to sit together. But that was before.
Everything felt different now. After I love you.
Morgan and Brian were so perfectly happy today, and of course, Emily wished them every happiness in the future. But at the same time, she knew as well as anyone how quickly that happiness could be snatched away. How easily love could leave the kind of gaping hole it had left in her father after her mother’s death...and how horribly unhappy it had made him.
She felt Michael’s hand slide over hers. “Emily?” His voice was low enough that only she could hear it. “You look upset. You’ve looked upset ever since you danced with your father.”
She knew she should be keeping a perfect smile on her face for the pictures. But how could she when Michael was right next to her and she couldn’t find a way to close the lid he’d decided it was time to finally pry off?
“How could you?” she said in just as low a voice, while the photographers bustled about adjusting lights and her siblings talked with the men they adored. “How could you have said those things to me on the hill?”
He held her gaze, his as steady as hers was distraught. “Is it really such a surprise?”
“Okay,” the photographer said, “can we have everyone looking this way?”
Emily turned and sat, facing forward, doing her best to whisper to Michael out of the side of her mouth.
“Today of all days, with Dad upset the way he always is at these things…”
“You know how much I respect him,” Michael whispered back. “How much I owe him. But this is about us. Just us.”
“Come on, everybody,” the photographer said, and again, Emily knew he was talking specifically to her. “Let’s see some big smiles.”
Right then, Emily was the only one in the wedding party whose smile was faltering around the edges. Never in her life had she had to work at something as simple as smiling and having her photo taken with her family.
“Just a few more to go,” the photographer said encouragingly. “Hold that pose.”
Those few pictures felt like they took eons, and when they were finally cut loose, Michael reached for her hand before she could dart away and pulled her behind a rose bush where they could talk in relative privacy.
“If I thought that you would be happy with someone else, I’d back off. Even if I thought you really didn’t want me, I’d back off. But I know you, Emily. I see how you react every time we’re close together. Just like today when we were dancing, how your heartbeat sped up and your breath came faster. Just like mine did from holding you.” His dark eyes held hers, as if he were daring her to lie and tell him it wasn’t true. “If I thought you would be happy with me as the guy who lives down the street and just drops by for Sunday dinner and to fix things, I’d do that for you. But I don’t think you want that. I think you want more.”
He paused again, just long enough for her heart to leap al
l the way into her throat as he said, “Tell me the truth. Am I wasting my time? Are you looking for someone else? For a different man to love you—and for you to love right back?”
Emily’s lips opened.
But nothing came out.
To her sisters, Michael had always been a surrogate big brother. Someone who would look out for them. Someone they could go to when they needed help. Someone to do the job when their boyfriends needed reminding to be polite, or to listen to them when they thought Emily wasn’t being fair.
But with her and Michael, things had always been different. He’d been a friend, not a brother. And then, sometimes...sometimes she’d found herself dreaming of more. Of more than a friend. Of what his kisses might feel like. And of what it might be like not just to let herself fall for him, but to fall all the way, head over heels, heart and soul.
All her life she’d been the strong one. The sensible one. But just then, when she heard a photographer say through the rose bush, “Where’s Emily? We need to get a few shots of Morgan with all her bridesmaids now,” she nearly fell to her knees in gratitude that the photographers she’d just wished would go away weren’t actually done yet.
“I have to go. They need me.”
But instead of letting her go, he continued to hold her hand for a long moment in which she couldn’t look away from his eyes. She couldn’t hide from everything he was now showing her. Not only how much he loved her, but also his clear determination not to give up. Finally, he lifted her hand to his lips for a kiss.
One that was easily the sweetest anyone had ever given her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The day after Morgan and Brian’s wedding, the Walker house was a hive of activity. Between organizing the wedding gifts, Charlotte running all over the place, and the phone ringing, the place had been a zoo. Grams had taken it all in stride, as usual, but Emily had felt a little frazzled. More than a little frazzled, actually, although she knew it wasn’t just because of all the noise and chaos in the house.