"You should be terrified." Emily unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to him. He was wearing the same jeans and t-shirt from last night because they'd left the Salt Line separately and he hadn't gone home, and his hair was pushed back and he looked like the kind of morning she wanted every morning to be. "She's going to interrogate me. You understand that."
"I'd expect nothing less from your people."
Emily leaned across the console and kissed him. Not quick. Not performative. A real kiss, the kind she'd spent two weeks being incapable of giving him in daylight, the kind that said I meant everything I said last night and I mean it now with the sun up and the world watching. She felt his hand come to the back of her neck, holding her there for an extra second, and when she pulled back he was smiling.
"Go," he said. "Ranger's been alone since yesterday afternoon. He's going to eat my couch."
"Tell him I said hi."
"He likes you more than he likes me. I'm not giving him your regards. It'll make it worse."
Emily laughed. She opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk and the Florida sun hit her face. She closed the door and leaned down to the open window.
"Call me later?"
He smiled. The one that started slow and meant everything. But his eyes shifted, looking past Emily toward the patio, and Emily turned to see Claire watching them through the wrought-iron fence. Claire's lips moved. Two words.
Thank you.
Jake nodded.
Emily watched him pull away. Stood on the sidewalk watching the Range Rover until it turned the corner, aware that she was smiling and not caring.
When she turned toward the patio, Claire was staring at her.
Not at the menu. Not at her phone. At Emily. Mouth slightly open, coffee forgotten, eyes doing the rapid calculation that Claire's eyes always did when she was assembling data into a conclusion. Emily walked through the gate and Claire stood up and pulled her into a hug that lasted three full seconds longer than their usual greeting. Then she pulled back and held Emily at arm's length and studied her face the way a doctor studies a patient who has made a miraculous recovery.
"Sit down," Claire said. "Sit down right now and tell me everything."
Emily sat. The patio was half-full, the morning warm enough for the umbrella but not punishing. The table was small and mosaic-tiled and the cappuccino Claire had ordered was waiting, hot.
"You're different," Claire said.
"I'm the same person I was yesterday."
"No, you're not. You're sitting differently. You're breathing differently." Claire leaned forward. "You're glowing. You are actually, physically glowing, and if you tell me it's the Florida sun I will throw this cappuccino at your head."
Emily picked up the cappuccino. Took a sip. Set it down. And realized she had no idea where to start because the last eighteen hours contained more living than the last three years combined.
"I told him I love him," she said.
Claire's hand stopped halfway to her water glass.
"I'm sorry. You — what?"
"I told him I love him. Last night. I said the words out loud, to his face, and meant them."
Claire sat back in her chair. She didn’t speak for four full seconds, which was an eternity in Claire Harper time. Then her eyes filled and she pressed her fingers against her lips and made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"Emily."
"I know."
"Emily Catherine Callahan."
"I know."
"You have never — in the entire time I have known you — you have never said those words to anyone. You told Brad Henderson you 'cared about him deeply' after two years of dating. You told Rob Webb you 'valued what you'd built together.' You once described a man you'd been seeing for eight months as 'a meaningful presence.'"
