"Nowhere." Emmy took a sip of coffee. "Just thinking."
"About Tyce?"
"About—" She stopped.
Teaching moments. 4.2 million followers. A frame-by-frame breakdown of her grip while she slept.
And underneath all of that, like a splinter she couldn't stop touching: Grant's face at 0:47. Grant's voice behind the clubhouse, quiet and certain:He set you up. Her own voice, sharp with humiliation she'd aimed at the wrong person:I don't need you to rescue me.
"About how stupid I am," she finished.
"You're not stupid."
"I defended him. To Grant. I told Grant he was being paranoid, that Tyce was just—" She laughed, and it came out broken. "That Tyce washelping my career. Opening doors. And the whole time, Tyce was setting up his shot. Literally. He was positioning me for content."
Harper's eyebrows climbed. “Grant tried to warn you?”
“Yesterday. After it happened. He found me behind the clubhouse and told me exactly what Tyce had done, and I—" Emmy's throat tightened. "I told him I wasn't a little girl. That I didn't need his protection. That I was aprofessional."
"Oh, Em."
"And then I walked away. Back toward the parking lot where Tyce was waiting to drive me home." She stared at the flowers on her counter. "Grant was right about everything. And I chose Tyce anyway."
"You didn't know?—"
"I should have. That's the thing. I'm supposed to be good at reading people. That's my entire job. And Grant saw through Tyce in five seconds, and I spent weeks telling myself Grant was just being overprotective."
The flowers sat there, white and elegant, from a man who'd watched her choose wrong and sent an apology anyway.
You're right. I'm sorry.
Right about what? That she could handle herself? That she didn't need protection? Or right that she'd been blind, and he was sorry she'd had to learn it this way?
Emmy stared at the arrangement. 2.3 million people had watched her worst moment. Her boss might fire her Monday. Tyce Duke had turned her humiliation into a content strategy.
And she couldn't stop thinking about Grant Knight at 0:47, arms crossed, watching her fail.
That was the thing she couldn't say out loud. Not to Harper, not to anyone. The video wasn't the problem. The video was embarrassing, but embarrassment faded. What kept her up last night, what had her refreshing a frozen frame instead of drafting her resignation letter, was the look on his face. The way he'd known. The way she'd told him he was wrong and then proved him right in front of everyone.
She didn't know what that meant. She wasn't ready to know.
"More coffee?" Harper asked, already standing.
"Yeah," Emmy said. "More coffee."
West
Dinner? I'm near your place.
Emmy frowned at West's name. West didn't do spontaneous anymore—not without prompting. Pre-Brynn West would've shown up unannounced, DoorDashed enough food to feed an army, and fallen asleep on her couch. Married West texted first, checked his calendar, undoubtedly ran the whole plan past his wife before hitting send.
Emmy
Sure. Where?
He named a place two blocks from her apartment.
Emmy changed out of her robe for the first time all day, wrestled her hair into something that wouldn't frighten small children, and walked over.
