“What are you two doing?”
“We’re getting married twice. We’re going to do a small ceremony in Chicago with just our friends. Well, our family these days. My dad and Seth both know about it and understand. It’s just really important to us to have our day be just our day. We’re going to do it at Hailey and Charlie’s place. It’s going to be like ten people max. Then, we’re going to do the whole big thing in Connecticut for Lena’s parents. My dad will walk me down the aisle; Lena’s dad will walk her. Seth is going to officiate. He’s taking it very seriously.” She chuckled. “Anyway, it’s going to be in June. We’re thinking about having a joint bachelorette thing with all of us girls the night before in Chicago and doing the wedding the next day. Then, she and I will head to Connecticut for final preparations and stuff.”
“Okay.”
“So, you could either stay in Chicago for the week and then fly out with everyone else or fly back, I guess, and then fly back to Connecticut the next weekend.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I do need to figure that out.”
“I’m not sure how much time you can take off or if you can work remotely. I assume Keira can take time off whenever she wants since it’s her business, but that she probably needs to know the dates.”
The mention of Keira’s name brought Emma back to reality. She scanned the passengers as they continued to exit the plane and enter the lounge. She didn’t see Keira yet but kept her eyes on the crowd as she continued.
“Yeah, I’ll have to talk to her. I don’t know how much vacation time I’ll have saved up by then, but I’ll check. I can ask my boss if it’s okay for me to work there if I can’t take enough time off. I doubt she’ll have a problem with it.”
“Great. You can just stay at our place,” Summer offered. “Both of you, obviously. We’ll only be there for one night, and then we’ll head to Connecticut. We’re going to get a hotel in the city for the night before and the night of the wedding. We thought it would be fun to get the honeymoon suite somewhere really nice for a few nights.”
“That does sound like fun.” Emma squinted to try to find Keira in the dispersing crowd with no luck.
“Where are you?” Summer asked.
“At the airport. I just got back from a work trip.”
“Oh, that’s why I keep hearing the announcer’s voice.” Summer laughed lightly. “I’ll let you go. I’ll send you an email with all the details. You’ll get a save the date for Connecticut, but the Chicago deal is strictly confidential.”
“Understood.” Emma laughed and continued to look around for her girlfriend.
They said their goodbyes and hung up while Emma’s eyes drifted to the gate agents at the counter and the lack of people now coming off the plane. She stood and grabbed her roller bag, moving closer to the gate so she could see Keira more clearly as she deplaned. Another minute went by, and the passengers coming out of the tunnel were fewer and farther between. She pulled her phone out of her pockets and went to find Keira in her favorites at the same time she received a text from her. Emma was sure she’d misread it on her home screen. She unlocked her phone and went to the messages app to re-read Keira’s text. She flopped back down into her chair and felt like crying again.
CHAPTER 35
Keira sent a text to Emma the moment she’d noticed her looking away instead of at the crowd of deplaning passengers. She knew it was immature, but she wasn’t ready to talk to Emma. She’d thought the hour-long flight and the time sitting at the airport before it while Emma was flying would be enough time for her to process just how she felt, but the moment she saw Emma, she knew it wasn’t. She knew she needed to spend the rest of the night alone trying to figure out what she was going to do. She wanted them to work out, to be together, and to be happy.
“Key, you okay?” Kevin asked when he entered her room. “What’s wrong?” He moved to sit on the bed next to her.
“I think the list of what’s not wrong is actually shorter.”
“Is it the money thing? Maybe I can help more. I can help with the security deposit or your rent for a month or two on your new place.”
“You’ve already done more than enough. Even if I could take more of your money, it wouldn’t solve the problem. That’s not even why I was crying.”
“Then, why?”
“Because this whole thing is ruining my relationship with Emma. We met, and it was instant with her, Kev. I felt it right away, and I’ve never really felt that before with anyone.” She sighed deeply and tried to roll the tension out of her shoulders. “I want to be with her. I know I want us to move in together one day and do all those things couples do.”
“And does she not want that?”
“She wants it now.”
“Now?”
“Well, she wants part of it now.”
“And you’re not ready?”
“I’ve never lived with a girlfriend before, Kevin. I don’t know if I’m ready for it. But I also know that I like this part too. I liked that we’re still in this phase where we’re getting to know one another. I’m picking her up for dates or vice versa, and we do the back and forth thing between our places. And the sex is still like all the time and amazing. And–”
“Okay, I get it.” He pulled away and placed both hands between his knees.
“I also kind of feel like the only reason this is coming up right now is because I don’t have a place to live after next month. She says she’s ready, and that the situation isn’t the only reason, but she wouldn’t have even considered it had I not mentioned that I’m about to be homeless unless I figure something out.”
“Okay. I’m writing you a check.” He went to stand.
“Kevin, stop. Kev, I’m not telling you any of this to make you feel bad about leaving. You shouldn’t feel bad. I want you to be happy. You don’t have to take care of me. I am a grown woman. I’m responsible for me. You’re not.”
“I’m your friend.”
“I have other friends, Kev. I’ll lean on them if I have to. But you don’t have to keep trying to save me. It’s given me this crutch; this thing to fall back on. I feel like maybe I need to lose the safety net. I need to be forced to move on from what happened when we lost Michelle and the business started to suffer. I need to figure this out.”
“Alright,” he agreed. “So, Emma wants to move in and you don’t? Is that why you’re crying?”
“I’m crying because it’s all too much. It’s like… it’s all happening right now. I met Emma, fell for her; you’re moving away, and I need a new place to live, which I can’t afford. I need to find a job. My mom told Emma I should just move back home.”
“You’re moving back home?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. I hadn’t talked to Emma about that yet. I’d been thinking about it for a few weeks now. It’s a good, temporary option for me. But then we got to that hotel, and the stupid clerk was flirting with Emma. I was standing right there. Emma told her she wouldn’t do a long-distance relationship. She was totally trying to get the woman to stop, but she meant it. She doesn’t want long-distance.”
“But, Key, if LA is the best option for you, then she might have to. If you want to move to LA–”
“I don’t,” she interjected instantly. “I have no desire to move home. While it would be right for me because I could save money, Emma’s right. It wouldn’t work for us. I’d lose her.”
“It’s like an hour away by plane, Keira.”
“It’s more than just that, Kev. I don’t want to be away from her. I hate that I’m not with her now. We fought this morning, and I left her at the airport.” She hung her head. “I left my girlfriend at the airport because I couldn’t deal with the possibility of her breaking up with me.”
“You think she’ll break up with you just because you might live somewhere else? That’s not okay, Key. You’re going through so much right now.”
“I honestly don’t know. I saw her sitting there, waiting for me. All I could do was text her that
I needed time to think about things. I love her, Kev. I can see all those things with her. I’m worried that maybe our timing is off. I feel like I can’t move in with her, and she’s taking offense to the fact that I might stay with Hill or Greene until I can find a place.”
“Oh.” Kev leaned back on his hands.
“Oh, what?” She turned to him.
“You might stay with them, but you won’t stay with her?”
“It’s not like that. I’ll be sleeping on couches until I find a place. And if Emma isn’t completely done with me, of course, I’ll stay with her some nights too. I’ll save up and find a place.”
“Okay, I get it.” He sat back up. “I get why she’s upset, Keira.” He turned to her. “I’m not telling you what to do. Only you know what you’re ready for or what you want. But I’d be pretty pissed if Tracy wanted to couch-surf when she could just stay with me. I wouldn’t try to hold her hostage or anything. Once she found an apartment, she’d go. We’d go back to how things were before. Maybe we’d move in together officially later. Maybe we wouldn’t. But I can see why Emma doesn’t want that for you. Imagine you’re in her shoes. Your girlfriend, the woman you love, needs a place to live. She’s considering moving hours away from you, which would require a lot of work for your relationship, or she’s going to crash on couches all over the city. You’d want what was best for Emma. Even if you weren’t ready for something to be permanent, you’d still offer your apartment, Key. You’d want her to stay with you full-time instead of dragging herself and her stuff all over the city.”
Keira thought about the idea of Emma with a backpack and a suitcase, walking through San Francisco and carrying it up flights of stairs to someone’s apartment where she’d open it, sift through her stuff, maybe borrow their washer and dryer to do laundry if they had one; keeping her toiletries in a plastic bag and her clothes folded neatly inside her suitcase for quick transport later. She pictured her pulling a thin fleece blanket over herself at night and trying to get comfortable on the couch. She envisioned her showering in the morning, making sure her presence wasn’t felt by cleaning thoroughly, grabbing a protein bar from her backpack for breakfast in order to not be too much of an imposition and then pulling her entire life back down the stairs to move it to the next place.
“God,” she muttered, realizing that by picturing Emma doing that, she’d begun to understand why she’d have such a problem with Keira doing it. “I’m so dumb sometimes.”
“You’re not dumb. You’re just in a difficult situation right now.”
“I don’t want to live on couches, Kev,” she told him.
“I know you don’t. I don’t want that for you either.”
“What happens if I tell Em that I’ll stay with her and it ends up ruining things? What if I can’t make enough money to contribute? What if we break up because of this?”
“Weren’t you just crying because you thought you might break up because you wouldn’t do it?”
◆◆◆
Emma wanted to call Keira and hear her voice and either fight until they came to a resolution or just apologize to one another and try to move on. She still couldn’t though. She realized that she needed time and space in the same way Keira did. She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her phone. She decided to turn it off for the night but heard her email notification. She opened the email from Summer outlining the wedding plans. Emma noticed something at the bottom. It was Summer’s email signature. That gave her an idea.
◆◆◆
Keira still had work to do. In actuality, it was more wrapping up things for the business and not working on a lot of event details, but she woke on Friday morning with a plan. She made herself a large coffee, sat in front of her laptop, and spent the first two hours of her morning trying to find a new place to live. She’d made a budget for what she could reasonably afford and decided that if she couldn’t find something for that budget after a couple of hours, it wasn’t going to happen. She found places that could work but were farther out than she could reasonably move back and forth and still get to a job and spend time with Emma and her friends. She found three places that she’d have to live with roommates. Keira would do that if she had to but was hoping she’d be able to live on her own if she went further out from the city.
After her time was up, she clicked away the apartment search from her browser. She still had her original three options. She could move home and stay with her parents. If she lived there rent-free and worked at the gym for her cousin, she could reasonably make enough to move back to the bay in about a year, after taking care of all the accrued debt the business and, subsequently, she owed. She’d have enough to find an apartment in the right part of the city. She could take the time to find a job she could enjoy as much as event planning or maybe, by then, she could try one of the more established firms again and risk the embarrassment of having gone out on her own and failed. She’d be more secure with that option.
As Keira began her job search to find something in the city, she included LA and San Francisco in her places to search. She started thinking as the available jobs began to materialize on her screen. She could couch-surf and spend a week at Hill’s and then Greene’s or maybe longer at a time, and she wouldn’t be paying rent because they wouldn’t let her. She’d have a job by then, and she could contribute to the household a little and pay off the debt first. Then, she could start saving for the next phase of her life.
Of course, she could also just do what she now realized she really wanted to do and just move in with Emma. Maybe moving in was a strong way of putting it, since she would be staying at Emma’s place until she got one of her own. It did scare her no matter what she called it though, because it was actually the same thing. Keira wouldn’t have an apartment she could stay in like she’d done the night before after their fight when she said she needed space. She’d been able to climb into her own bed, cry, and think while Emma went to her apartment and possibly did the same. If she stayed with Emma, they’d be in a studio apartment together. There would be nowhere to hide.
“I don’t want to hide,” Keira said out loud to an empty apartment as she placed her empty coffee mug on the table.
Keira didn’t want to hide anymore. She didn’t want to keep things from Emma. She didn’t want to hold back and not let Emma know what she was thinking, how she was feeling and tell her about the problems in her life. Keira wanted Emma to be the person she could do that with. And Emma had been there, offering that all along.
She’d encouraged Keira to tell her everything; the good and the bad. She’d listened and offered advice. She’d never made Keira feel like a disaster or a failure and was there to help her when she really needed it. Emma’s reaction to Keira possibly moving back in with her parents had been understandable because, once again, Keira had tried to keep something from her that Emma had a right to know as her girlfriend but that also Emma was trying to help her solve. Of course, Keira didn’t want Emma to view her as a problem in need of fixing. If she was lucky enough that Emma still wanted to be with her, they’d have to talk that out. Keira could take care of herself. She needed Emma to do all those other things she’d done for her; the listening and being supportive.
She decided she needed to know where she stood with her girlfriend but checked the time and realized Emma was at work. She dove back into her real work and started figuring out ways to wrap up and close out the business she’d once built from the ground up with her best friend. She’d call Emma after she got done. Maybe they could have a quiet night in talking and trying to determine their next steps.
CHAPTER 36
“Emma, are you in there?” Keira knocked for the second time.
She’d fallen down a rabbit hole at home while making calls to people and trying to figure out how to cancel certain accounts. Some of those steps required talking to a representative or canceling a contract prior to the end date. She was utterly exhausted by the time she finished the last call and finally checked the time.
It was evening. She figured Emma would have left work and would be home by now. She’d picked up a meal from Crabby’s, which was a dive restaurant that served seafood. The owner was a friend of Kevin’s and told her she got the friends and family discount one time. She’d never used it and wasn’t sure how genuine the offer was until she got waved up to the counter immediately and received a big bear hug from the owner. Twenty minutes later, she was carrying a large paper bag with two orders of fish and chips and two cold Coronas on the house. She knocked a third time and then decided she’d be eating this meal for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow as she turned to walk away, defeated.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you. Sorry,” Emma explained when she opened the door. “I was in the shower.”
Her body was covered up only by a towel. Her dark hair was over her shoulders; still dripping from the water.
“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve called.”
“You don’t have to call, Keira. I gave you a key, remember?” Emma asked. “The point of the key is that you don’t have to call or knock. You just come in.”
“We fought. I didn’t know if I should just come in after that.” She walked in next to Emma and breathed in her freshly showered scent as she did.
“You can use the key whenever you want. Even if we’re fighting, you and only you can come in anyway, okay?”
“I’ve never really done this part before.” Keira stood there with a bag of food held in both hands in front of her body. “I brought dinner. I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten.” She held the bag up for a moment and then lowered it back down.
“I haven’t,” Emma replied and smiled. “Should we maybe talk first though?”
Keira had hoped that they could eat their meal together and get out some of the tension with small talk, but Emma was clearly on task tonight.
“Sure.”
“Just let me grab something.” She held the towel to her body and moved toward her dresser.
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