Harper looked at her—really looked. And Emmy let her. She just stood there in the cold with her nose going red and her eyes going bright and waited.
Harper took the latte. Paused. Then stepped aside.
The first thing Emmy noticed, once she was inside, was that Harper was glowing. Not a metaphor—her skin was flushed, her eyes bright, her whole body carrying the loose, easy warmth of a woman who was well-loved and knew it. Ryan was doing that. Emmy felt a swell of something fierce and uncomplicated: happiness. Pure happiness for someone else, with no angle, no strategy, no need to take credit for it.
Harper's apartment was small and warm and smelled like cinnamon. Emmy realized, with a sharp little stab of shame, that she'd never been here before. Months of friendship—of Harper showing up at her door with croissants and a bobby pin, Harper texting first, Harper driving across town after the golf video—and Emmy had never once asked where Harper lived. Themarigold cardigan—the grandmother one—was draped over the back of a chair.
Emmy sat on the couch. Harper brought her a mug of something warm without asking—chamomile, it smelled like—and sat cross-legged on the armchair opposite, cradling her own.
Her eyes stayed on Emmy—not the guarded way she'd looked at her at the door, but something slower. Curious.
"You look different," Harper said.
"I had a cold from hell. Lost six pounds I didn't have to lose."
"That's not what I mean." Harper tilted her head. "You look like... you. You look like the person I met in that bathroom."
Emmy's chest ached. She wrapped both hands around the mug.
"How are you holding up?" Harper asked quietly.
"I quit," Emmy said. "Elite Connections. Ten days ago."
Harper's eyebrows went up. "You quit."
"Cecelia wanted me to go on camera and sell Grant's private life as a brand story. And I—" Emmy shook her head. "I said no. And then I just... kept saying no until I was standing on the sidewalk without a job."
"Good," Harper said. Simply. Like it was obvious.
Emmy set the mug down. "But that's not why I came."
Harper waited.
"You told me something at brunch. After the Madeline date, after you told me about Ryan." Emmy's throat tightened. She took a breath. "You said I wasn't trying to help you. You said I was trying to be right."
Harper's expression didn't change.
"You were right," Emmy said. "About all of it. Not just Ryan—about the pattern. I needed other people's love lives to work because mine never did. I needed to be the person who saw things, who knew things, who fixed things. And the whole time I was doing it, I was missing everything that actually mattered."She looked down at her mug. "I missed it with you and Ryan. I missed it with Tyce and Sabine. I missed it with—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I missed a lot."
The apartment was quiet. Through the thin walls, someone was playing holiday music—the jazzy instrumental kind that sounded like a department store at closing time.
"I'm not here to give you advice," Emmy said. "I know that sounds obvious, but for me it's actually kind of revolutionary. I just wanted you to know that I see what I did. And I'm sorry."
Harper was quiet for a long moment. Then she set her mug down, got up, crossed to the couch, and sat next to Emmy.
"You know what's different about that?" Harper said. "You didn't follow it with a plan. No 'and here's what I'm going to do about it.' No redirect. You just said it."
Emmy's eyes burned. She blinked hard. "I'm learning."
"Yeah." Harper's voice went thick. "You are." And then her face crumpled—not dramatically, but a quiet, helpless thing, her chin wobbling and her eyes going bright all at once.
"I missed you," Harper said. "You idiot. I texted you five words after the leak and I've felt awful about it every day since. I wanted to come over. I wanted to break in with my bobby pin again and make you eat carbs. But you hurt my feelings and I was being stubborn about it and—" She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "God, I'm such a mess."
Emmy was crying too. Something about Harper's wobbling chin and the smell of cinnamon just broke something open.
"I'm sorry," Emmy said again. It came out waterlogged. "I'm sorry I treated you like a project. I'm sorry I never came here. I'm sorry I?—"
"Stop apologizing and hug me, you disaster."
