“Tired?”
“Yeah. I’m tired.” Tired of putting on a happy face for the camera. Tired of pretending his head didn’t hurt, and bone tired of acting as if everything was right in his world when it clearly wasn’t.
“I’m sure you are.” Emily reached for his hand, her eyes crinkling with empathy. “I know today is going to be rough.”
He nodded.
“Right.” She inhaled and exhaled. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I need you to tell me your preference for tackling the day. If you’d like, I could take you out from morning until night and keep you so active you don’t have a chance to think. The other option is staying here, in case you’d rather hang out in front of the TV and wait for the day to go by. Either choice is fine by me, but if you decide on option number two, I’d like to stay with you. We don’t have to talk. You don’t even have to look at me. But if you needed me, I’d be here. So what would you prefer, curtain number one or curtain number two? Oh, and I should warn you, behind curtain number two you’ll also find a donkey.” She giggled. “That’s fromLet’s Make a Deal. I used to love that show.”
“Yeah, I recognized the reference.”
“Well?”
Michael opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say.
Emily cocked her head, waiting for his response, and smiled. “No rush. Think about it.” She walked over to the couch, sat, and picked up the coffee table book he kept on the side table. A volume on classic cars, it probably didn’t interest her at all, but she flipped through the pages as if fascinated by the MGB’s and Ford Prefects.
What did he want to do? He’d never contemplated how he would mark the occasion. In his darker moments, he doubted he’d even make it this far.
One thing was certain. There was no way in hell he wanted to sit in his house, staring at the walls and pondering Jane’s fate. If he did that, he’d likely do a mischief to himself by the end of the day.
But did he really want to go out in public and chance a difficult conversation with Emily? Maybe he’d feel better if he kept his mind busy. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a heartache to talk to her. One glance at her smooth legs and shapely profile and he was already feeling more eager than he would have expected. For some time now, he’d felt as if he were swimming in a fog, but it was already starting to disperse.
He cleared his throat. “I would love to spend the day with you.”
She sat up and closed the classic car book. “That’s great.”
“But I have one request.”
“I am willing to entertain any and all requests.”
“Could we not talk about what happened at the daycare? At least, not right now. I know you must have questions about what I did to Trent, but I can’t go there today.”
“Of course not. We don’t have to discuss anything that makes you uncomfortable.” She shrugged, her lips quirked in a half-hearted grin. “Michael, I don’t care if we talk about the weather all day long, as long as you’re still talking to me.”
“Em, my behavior the past few days…”
“Is understandable. I don’t want to hear any more apologies.” She rose to her feet. “In fact, now that we’ve begun a list of taboo topics for the day, apologies are top of the list.”
He was starting to want to smile. He supposed wanting to smile was good. It was a step, anyway. “What else makes your list of taboo topics?”
“To keep the peace, we should probably stay away from politics, religion, and the general state of the world, but other than that, have at it.”
“Sounds fair. What do you want to do today?”
“I have a few ideas. You have the power of veto over all of them, but I think you’ll like what I planned. Do you trust me to show you a good time?”
“I have no doubt you could show me a good time, Em, in any situation.”
She smiled. “Good. Let’s go.”
***
“No more. Please, God. No more.” Michael tried not to groan.
“Oh, come on. You can take it,” Emily teased. “A big man like you? I know you want more.”
He pushed away from the table and set his plate aside, even though everything masculine inside him demanded he keep going. “I swear to God, Em. I can’t, so please stop shoveling your leftovers onto my plate. You can’t even finish your own breakfast.”
