God, she was so bad at pretending.
“Just now,” he said. He was still staring at her intently. He also still hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“Ah,” she answered, working hard to maintain her smile. The sound of her pulse in her ears was almost deafening, drowning out any other thoughts that could have led her to say something else.
The silence expanded between them, so heavy that it felt like she might choke. Her eyes went down, away from his gaze, to where the sleeves of his sweater were pushed up just enough to reveal a hint of the roped muscles of his forearms. Damn it, she loved that sweater, how years of wear had made it so soft that she would sometimes steal it until he would catch her wearing it and demand its return. That had been back before he graduated college; now his broad chest stretched it more, tightened its seams against his shoulders, his arms.
God, she was staring. She looked away, darting her eyes to the table, to the wall, to the fridge. Yes, the fridge!
“Do you want something to drink?” she asked, walking over to it. His brow furrowed and she immediately knew why. She never offered him a drink. “I’m only offering because I’m getting something. Not because you’re like a guest. Because you’re not a guest. That would be weird, right? It’s just that Dad bought these new avocado kombucha sparkling drinks, which sound awful, I know, but they’re actually not that bad. Well, he says they’re not bad. Anyway, do you want one?”
“I’m fine.”
She grabbed the first bottle on the shelf and opened it as she turned back to the island.
Pretend pretend pretend!
She brushed her hair off her shoulder and took a deep sip as if she did this every day. As if the fermented soda wasn’t burning away her taste buds.
“Good?” he asked, a wary smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he watched her eyes water.
She swallowed, ignoring how her throat felt like it was eroding away, and put the bottle down. “Great.”
Another pause.
His gaze slid down her body. “You’re dressed up for a Friday afternoon.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her dress, smoothing out its wrinkles. “I had my interview at the Met a little while ago.”
“That’s right.” He nodded. “I forgot. How’d it go?”
“Well, they offered it to me,” she said with a slight shrug. There was a look of approval in his eyes, so much so that she almost had to look away. But she didn’t. She maintained his gaze as she continued. “I turned it down, though.”
His eyebrows bobbed up in surprise. “What?”
Emma lifted her chin. “The interview went really well. The woman I spoke with was lovely; by the end I think she actually liked me. But as I was leaving, she mentioned that the reason I was there was because they recognized my name. I didn’t get the interview because of my grades or my hard work. I got it because I’m a Woodhouse.”
His face fell. She could tell he was trying to work out what to say, running through the possibilities until he finally just sighed. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t even going to tell you, since I didn’t know if you were ignoring all my texts or just the mundane ones.”
“None of them were mundane,” he murmured.
“Oh, so you did read them,” she said with a forced smile. Silence fell again and it was another moment before she continued. “Why didn’t you respond?”
“I’m sorry. I should have.”
Her brows knitted together. He rarely apologized, and Emma wanted to savor it, but anger still simmered in her chest, as if accepting it would be letting him off too easy. “So what are you doing back?”
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a deep breath. “There’s something here more important than anything in LA.”
Oh God. He was going to bring up Nadine. The room suddenly felt too small, like there wasn’t enough air, and panic swelled in her throat. She couldn’t talk to him about this. There was no way to listen and not reveal everything she felt. He would read it right there on her face. She had to change the subject.
“Oh, I have some good gossip for you,” she blurted out.
“Is it about Davina and Montgomery Knox?” he asked, walking to the island opposite her.
She blinked. “You know?”
