Page 29 of Double Dared
“You are. I took things into my hands, and you could have been talking to Emma, and I ruined it.” He blurted the words so messily, but they were precise and somehow completely off mark.
I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. Instead, I locked my gaze on his eyes. “Maybe I just don’t want some random guy kissing me.” My voice was cooler than I’d intended, cool enough that Taylor winced. “Look, maybe seeing Emma here wasn’t a good idea. I’m so full of doubts, I don’t even know why I’m trying.”
“I’d say it worked,” Taylor said. “She…well, she saw what I did and…and she left.”
I wished I could be hopeful. I wished I could feel the resolve I’d felt a week ago when we’d started these crazy things, when I’d had the intention to carry it out and see it through. I had none of it. “Taylor, I don’t know what I’m trying to do anymore.”
He held his breath, pressing his lips together tightly and not blinking. He just looked at me, and he looked like he was sad for me.
Don’t, I wanted to tell him.Don’t pity me. It’s so much worse if you pity me.
“I need to grow up,” I said. At that, Taylor’s face turned a little more hopeful, but I didn’t tell him the rest. I didn’t tell him anything except that it was all fine. We were fine. I’d see him later. Maybe.
It was late evening when I returned to the corner café on Whitmore Street, its interior bathed in golden and amber lights, its wooden tables aglow with melting candles in brass candelabras.
I sat down and ordered myself a sandwich and a decaf latte because I still entertained some wild ideas of catching a few hours of sleep tonight. I picked up Lord Tennyson and leafed through the pages more for comfort than any real desire to read.
My order was prepared by the time Emma entered the café. My heart sank into my stomach as I looked at her beautiful face and the softness in her gaze. What had she meant to tell me earlier? What had she wanted so badly that she would step across the room to tell meafter months of silence? And what was so personal, so important that she couldn’t speak in the presence of a beautiful man who had just kissed me?
She’d texted back quickly after I’d asked her to see me. I didn’t know if that was good or bad or if it meant anything at all. I knew nothing about anything.
Emma waved at me as she made her way to the small bar in the back, where she made her order, smiled, replied to some question, asked one of her own, then listened intently to the words the barista spoke back. She was like that. She listened to you, heard you, and she was there.
She came to my table and leaned in just as I rose. We hugged lightly, and she kissed my cheek before sitting down across from me. She didn’t say it if she’d noticed it, but this was our spot. Our spot, to which I had brought Taylor once on a rainy day last week.
“You look good,” I said. “Your hair…”
“You too,” she said.
We were silent then. We were silent so soon. I licked my lips and took my coffee to keep myself occupied for a moment, drank a little from the big cup, and set it down. “So I hear you were at the gallery today by the silo. I didn’t see you.”
“You were occupied,” she said softly with just a tinge of mischief.
I could still feel the heat lingering on my lips, still feel the surprising softness of Taylor’s mouth on mine, and the urgency with which he’d kissed me. I could also feel the sheer feeling of stupidity that followed. Ihad believed his need to kiss me had been such that he couldn’t contain it.
“Who is he?” Emma asked.
I shook my head. No one? They seemed like the words I was supposed to say, but I couldn’t get them over my lips. “A friend,” I said instead.
“More than a friend,” Emma said. The waiter brought over a small tray with a teapot and a cup, steam curling in the candlelight. “Right?”
I gave a small shrug, as if to say, “We’ll see.” Instead, I asked her, “How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” she said.
I didn’t.
“Overall, I’d say I’m doing well. But it’s never that simple.” She opened the lid of the teapot and stirred the tea infuser, then replaced the lid again. She poured it into the cup and leaned closer to take in the scent of it. “What about you? Are you happy?”
Was I still trying to make her jealous? Was I still trying to make her feel hopeless and lost and alone because I had moved on with some guy she couldn’t compete with? Or should I tell her the truth? I didn’t know what the truth was, so I just nodded. “As happy as you’d expect.”
“Come on, Harrison,” she said, sharing a smile. “He’s very cute, and he has heart eyes for you. That’s gotta count for something.”
And he has heart eyes for every crafty girl at the market, I thought. I’d even bought him a token to rememberher by. Silly me. “He’s a sweet guy. And Michael? How are things?”
Emma didn’t answer right away. She held my gaze. The candlelight flickered in her irises. “He’s very caring.”
“Was I not caring?” I asked, then wanted to scream at myself.
