Mrs. Jasinski stood in the hallway in her housecoat, a foil-covered plate balanced in one hand that smelled like butter and apricot, her eyebrows somewhere near the fluorescent lights. She looked like a woman who had just received the best Christmas present of her life and was trying very hard to appear scandalized about it.
Grant's chest was heaving. Her back was still against the wall and his hand was still in her hair and—oh God—his knee was between her legs. Neither of them moved, because moving would mean acknowledging that this had happened in a public hallway on Christmas Eve in front of a seventy-four-year-old woman carrying gingerbread cookies.
"Evening, Mrs. Jasinski," Grant said.
His voice was wrecked. His face was completely composed. The combination was devastating.
Mrs. Jasinski clutched the plate. "I was bringing these down for the Petersons." She looked at Grant. Looked at Emmy. Looked at the way Emmy's coat was hanging off one shoulder and Grant's hair was a disaster and the general state of two people who had clearly been seconds from a felony.
“They just had a baby, you know. Sweet little boy. Well," she said. She looked Grant up and down with the frank appraisal of a woman who had earned the right to look at whatever she pleased. "It'll be nice to have someone who can reach the smoke detectors."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I saw nothing." She shifted the plate to her other hand and fixed Emmy with a look. "Tell your father gently. That man's blood pressure cannot handle surprises."
She shuffled past them toward the elevator, muttering something about young people and calling her bookie.
Emmy looked at Grant. Grant looked at Emmy.
She started laughing. It was breathless and ridiculous and slightly hysterical and it was the best sound she'd made in three weeks. Grant's mouth twitched—the deadpan cracking, the first smile he'd aimed at her in weeks—and then he was laughing too, his forehead dropping against hers, and the laughing was almost as good as the kiss because it wasthem, the frequency underneath everything, the thing that had always been there.
"How about a cup of coffee?" Emmy said.
Her whole body was humming when she filled the kettle.
A low-frequency current running under her skin, warm and electric, like her nervous system had been rewired in the hallway and hadn't figured out its new settings yet. She reached for mugs, for the coffee canister, for the pour-over filter she kept in the cabinet above the stove, and every surface she touched felt sharper, more real, the way the world looks after a thunderstorm when the light comes back different. She was making coffee. An ordinary action. An ordinary woman in her kitchen on Christmas Eve, except her lips were swollen and her blood was running hot and Grant Knight was leaning against her kitchen counter watching her with an expression that suggested coffee was not what he was thinking about.
"You're shaking," he said.
"I'm not shaking. The kettle is heavy."
"The kettle weighs two pounds."
"Everything feels different." She set the kettle on the burner. Turned to face him. He was close—closer than the kitchen required, his hip against the counter, arms crossed in that way he had when he was comfortable, taking up space like a man who knew the room would accommodate him.
"Grant." She took a breath. "I need to say something, and I need you to let me finish before you?—"
"Emmy."
She couldn't bear the tenderness in his eyes.
"I know, I know, but just let me—I rehearsed this, okay, I've been rehearsing it for three weeks even though I never thought I'd actually get to—" She was talking too fast. She could hear it—the bright, hard register, the armor clicking into place. She forced herself to stop. To breathe.
"I used you," she said. Quietly now. "I walked into Cecelia's office and lied about you to get a job. I spent three months treating your privacy like currency and your trust like collateral and your—" Her voice cracked. She kept going. "Your quiet, steady, infuriating kindness like something I was owed. And when it blew up, you were the one standing in the middle of the crater and I was the one who lit the match."
Grant didn't move. Didn't interrupt. His eyes were on her face with that attention-still quality.
"And I love you," Emmy said. "Which is—I know. I know the timing is—I'm not saying it because I expect you to—I just needed you to know that I know, finally, after everyone else on the planet apparently already knew, that I'm in love with you, and I'm sorry it took me burning down both our lives to figure it out."
It came out messy. Imperfect. Nothing like a pitch.
The kettle started to whistle.
Neither of them reached for it.
"You went to Bailey," Grant said.
Emmy blinked. "How did you?—"
