The Best Lines

by Nicole Pyland

  Ember and Eva made their way to the upstairs apartment. It had changed over the course of the past year. The bed was still there, though it hadn’t been used since they’d moved in together. The restaurant still used it as storage overflow, but the boxes had been pushed against the back wall and were more organized now. And there was still a table. Tonight, Ember had set it up for them. Again, there was a single long-stemmed red rose in the center, and there were two plates covered with a silver cloche. Ember pulled off Eva’s coat for her and laid it gently on the bed before lying her own down on top of it.

  “This is amazing. Thank you.” Eva kissed Ember’s cheek and squeezed her hand before walking over to the table, allowing Ember to pull out her chair for her.

  Ember then knelt next to her. “Do you love me?” Ember asked and placed a hand on Eva’s thigh.

  Eva glared at her as if that was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked her. “Of course, I love you.”

  Ember lifted the cloche covering Eva’s plate. Eva’s eyes moved to it despite still trying to register Ember’s question and wondering what had brought it on. She didn’t need to wonder though because in front of her, there was a beautiful round chocolate cake, and on the top, there was fondant icing in the shape of a white paper napkin. The detail was astounding. It had the short vertical lines around all the edges save one where it looked like it would actually fold.

  “I’ve been torn because I really like your name. Eva Dash is such a cool sounding name.”

  “Superhero.” It was the only word Eva could utter as she briefly flashed back to their meeting at the bar.

  “I was thinking about how your name could still be cool with the alliteration. You could be Eva Elliot instead,” Ember said and swallowed hard.

  She pulled something out that Eva hadn’t noticed before and Eva took her eyes off the napkin that had, “Will you marry me?” written on it in black icing. Ember held an engagement ring inside a small velvet box in front of Eva.

  “Eva Elliot?” Eva’s heart was racing. She’d heard so many engagement stories over her thirty years. She’d heard the story of her parent’s engagement, both her brothers’, her sister’s, Alyssa and Hannah’s, many of her colleagues and students, and she’d read hundreds or maybe even thousands. This was the best one by far. “Eva Elliot?” She said it out loud again while Ember waited for her answer. It sounded so right to her. “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Absolutely, I would love to be Eva Elliot.” She smiled wide and Ember stayed kneeling, but pulled the ring out of the box, used trembling hands to slide it onto Eva’s ring finger and remembered to thank Alyssa later for scoping out Eva’s ring size for her because it fit perfectly.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Eva wrapped her arms around Ember who stood and lifted Eva up with her.

  Ember kissed her with a wild passion as if she’d been holding it in all night but couldn’t any longer. Eva kissed her back, matching her speed and desire until she reached around Ember’s back and pulled down the zipper. No words were exchanged as they tore clothes off one another and made their way over to the bed where they’d first made love. They touched one another hurriedly. It was as if they’d been waiting to touch one another for days. After they each came, they didn’t move from the bed. Eva held Ember against her chest as they both inhaled and exhaled softly into the night.

  “Happy Anniversary,” Ember finally muttered, causing laughter to ripple from Eva.

  “I hope you realize that we’re eating that dessert in bed, then we’re getting dressed, and I’m taking you home because I want to do this more in our bed.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Let’s go to your office for a minute,” Eva requested after they removed their coats and dropped their purses in the kitchen.

  “Office? No, thank you. Bed.” Ember wrapped her arms around her from behind.

  “Humor me.” Eva turned her head, kissed Ember’s cheek, and her eyes went to her hand. “This is beautiful.”

  “Alyssa helped me pick it out,” Ember confessed.

  “I’ll have to remember to thank her. Come on.” Eva kicked off her shoes and began walking quickly toward the stairs.

  Ember kicked off her own shoes and followed behind.

  “Babe, come on. I want to have more sex with my fian-”

  Eva stood in Ember’s office. Ember’s eyes widened as she took in the space. In the past week, they’d finally painted two of the walls with evergreen chalkboard paint and Ember had only just started using them for school. She had a small sofa in one corner and a desk against the back wall, but other than a small bookshelf that was half-full, the room itself was still unfinished. What Ember was seeing though was Eva standing in the middle of the room, holding a book, but on the chalkboard walls, there was something Ember hadn’t written there herself. There were candles on all the flat surfaces, and their light was all that lit the room.

  “Eva?” Ember sought an explanation.

  “You seem to have forgotten that I still need to give you your present.” She began and swallowed. She was nervous, which made absolutely no sense given what had just happened. “I ran the numbers, Em. I did the math.” She paused. “Or I tried to do the math, but it was really hard.” She pointed at an equation on the wall behind her and Ember, still standing in the doorway, looked beyond Eva to read it.

  ∑ (n-k) (n-k-1) (n-k-2) … (n-k-r+2) x k x (1)

  n (n-1) (n-2) (n-r+2) (n-r+1) (r-1)

  “Is that…” Ember tried to interpret what the equation would be used for without any context.

  “It’s an equation mathematicians have suggested can tell someone the right age to propose to their girlfriend,” Eva answered. “I googled it. You’re always so excited when math can be used for stuff like this, so I looked it up. It didn’t make any sense to me until I saw a part in the same article that dumbed it down for me. It suggested you choose the oldest age you’d want to get married by. That would be the n. She pointed behind her at the variable in the equation. Then you decide the earliest age and that’s p. You subtract and get that result. Next, you take that and multiply by a number. It was under 1, but I don’t remember. It was .3 something, I think, and that gives you another number, which you add to the minimum age and that gives you the result,” Eva concluded. “So, I used the math for dummies version and ran my number, which was thirty-one, and I turned thirty in October. I ran your number, which I’d been covertly trying to find out from you for the past couple of months, and it’s thirty-two.”

  “I turn thirty-two in December.”

  “You do,” Eva said. “So, I figured that since I did the math and it proves we should be married by thirty-one and thirty-two, I could maybe propose to you and you’d say yes.” Eva pointed to the wall that shared the door. Ember hadn’t noticed it because she’d been standing in the doorway. On that wall Eva had written, “Will you marry me, Ember Elliot?”

  Ember stepped all the way into the room and took in the whole picture. There was math on one wall and words on another that told her Eva loved her and wanted to be with her forever. She turned to see Eva still standing there holding a book. She approached until she could look down at it.

  “To Kill a Mockingbird?” She laughed lightly and felt a tear run down her cheek.

  Before she could lift her head to meet Eva’s eyes, Eva opened the book and revealed she’d hollowed it out inside. There was a ring box resting in the middle.

  “So, will you?” she asked. “I already said yes to you, but even so, you deserve a proposal as much as I do.”

  “Eva, this is…” Her words trailed off and she removed the box with some difficulty but opened it and revealed the ring her fiancée had picked out for her. “My ring?”

  “Hailey should probably get a phone call from you. She told me you’d seen this in a jewelry store when you were looking for a gift for her to get someone, but now I’m guessing that was a lie.”

  “I was there wit
h her looking for that.” Ember nodded to Eva’s left hand. “This is exactly what I wanted.”

  “I can’t take credit for it. I had a human cheat sheet,” she confessed. She pulled the ring out of the box and slid it on Ember’s finger. “I love you, Ember Elliot.”

  “I love you like crazy.” She placed both hands on Eva’s cheeks and pulled her in for a deep, slow kiss that they both allowed to end naturally after several minutes.

  “How about we head to bed and call everyone with the good news tomorrow? I still seem to have some energy in me to do what you suggested earlier,” Eva said and kissed Ember’s neck.

  “Can I meet you in there?” Ember asked. “I want to play with this for a while. Do you have the article bookmarked so that I can take a look at it to check their reasoning?”

  Eva lifted her head and followed Ember’s gaze to the chalkboard. She was staring at the equation Eva had left there.

  “Yes, I’ll get it for you.” She smiled at her, kissed her cheek, and left the office to get her laptop.

  When she returned, Ember was standing at the board, in her navy cocktail dress with a piece of chalk in her hand. Eva put her laptop on Ember’s desk and opened the link. She carried in some other items and approached Ember from behind while she stared at the board. She unzipped Ember’s dress and allowed it to fall to the floor. Ember hardly moved. Eva unclasped Ember’s bra and removed it. Ember knew what was happening. This was part of their routine. Eva would find her in front of the wall, still dressed from her day at school, and she’d remove her clothes to replace them with comfortable clothes before leaving and returning with coffee or water, depending on the situation. This time, she tapped one of Ember’s ankles, which caused Ember to lift her foot, so Eva could slide a pair of sleep shorts onto that leg. They repeated the action and Eva slid the shorts up to Ember’s hips. She tapped Ember’s shoulder. Ember lifted her arms while her eyes remained glued to the board. Eva smiled as she placed one of her own t-shirts over Ember’s torso and then wrapped her arms around Ember’s waist.

  “Thank you,” Ember said and placed one arm over Eva’s. “This won’t take long. I just want-”

  “Take your time, Em.” Eva kissed her neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  COMING NEXT

  Just Tell Her

  Chicago Series Book #2

  Charlie Adams has two best friends. Ember Elliot and Hailey Grant, the woman she’s secretly been in love with since the moment they met over a decade ago. She has watched Hailey date all the wrong women and never said anything about how she wanted to be Hailey’s forever love.

  Hailey Grant had a first love that she was comparing every other woman to. When that woman comes back into her life, Hailey has to get to know her again after all this time. As Hailey tries to figure out if her first love is actually her forever love, she sees something is different about Charlie.

  When the two women embark on new relationships, they’ll have to finally confront their growing attraction for each other and decide if they can be brave enough to risk the most important friendship they have for possibly something more. Charlie might just be the girl who gets the girl after years of watching Hailey be miserable with other women who didn’t deserve her, and Hailey might have just had the right woman by her side this whole time.

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  To contact the author or for any additional information visit the official website: https://nicolepyland.com

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  NOVELS BY THE AUTHOR

  Stand-alone Books:

  All the Love Songs

  Chicago Series:

  Introduction – Fresh Start

  Book #1 – The Best Lines

  Coming Soon:

  Book #2 – Just Tell Her (Available for pre-order)