Emmy watched Will lead the distraught farmer out the still-open front door. Their voices carried back to her, indistinct, for a minute. Then Will returned—alone.
“Is he gone?” Emmy asked.
“Yeah. I watched him drive away.”
She sighed with relief. “Good.”
“Yep. Yeah.” He paused, then said, “Uh… hey. What the fuck?”
“I can’t help it if I’m popular with single white men,” Emmy said wryly.
“I think I heard you telling him something in Japanese. What’d you say?”
Emmy gave him a small smile. “I said, ‘I’m a jellyfish.’”
Will let out a surprised laugh. “I should have guessed.” He shook his head. “I can’t tell if I should find all this funny or go follow him to his farm and beat the shit out of him. I’ve never beaten anyone up before.”
“Don’t hurt him. His broken heart must be painful enough,” Emmy said, her lips twitching. Sheer relief had herfeeling just a little loopy. She walked herself into his arms, and the last nervous jitters died when he wrapped her in his embrace. “Thanks for rescuing me. I guess things didn’t work out with your mistress.”
“What? Oh, right. I forgot about that, what with the strange man in my kitchen proposing to you. Why’d you let him in? Not that I’m victim blaming,” Will added quickly.
“I didn’t let him in. Come on, I’m starving. I’ll fill you in while we eat.”
She hadn’t had breakfast. She’d been too caught up in plant research. It wasn’t quite lunchtime, but she decided to put together some sandwiches anyway, telling Will about her morning as she did so. Will sat patiently at the table and listened to the story. By the time she finished, the humor had died out, leaving him frowning with worry. He was likely thinking the same thing as her: How much worse was this going to get?
“I wanted to take you to dinner tonight,” he said slowly.
Emmy set his lunch in front of him and sat down with her own. “Why? Not that I’m complaining.”
“I thought it’d be romantic. Maybe not grand-gesture level, but romantic. And kind of celebratory. I got the check from my mom. Thought that was worth a night out. But now… I don’t know.”
Emmy thought about it while she ate. A part of her was still in mourning over the dead flowers, but she knew she had to let that go. He’d only killed a few of them. It could have been worse.
“Maybe we should spend the rest of the day brainstorming our escape plan,” she offered between bites. “If we stillhaven’t figured anything out before we leave for dinner, we can brainstorm and celebrate at the same time.”
“I actually have some ideas,” Will said. “Sure you want to risk going out?”
Emmy batted her lashes at him. “With you at my side, Will? I’ll never be afraid.”
He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sure. Okay. Just remember the part earlier where I said I’d never beaten anyone up before.”
“Nonviolence is sexy.”
“It’s gonna have to be. Have you ever punched someone in the face? When I was doing my ER rotation, I stitched up plenty of people who’d gotten into fistfights. It’s not pretty.”
“I have not had the pleasure of fistfighting anyone, and I hope never to change that,” Emmy told him. “I’ll just take your word for it that it’s not fun.”
They finished eating and fell into the easy routine of cleaning up together, just like a normal couple. Emmy smiled to herself. “Normal” wasn’t a word she’d had a lot of occasion to use in the past few weeks.
Once everything was in its place, they went back to the table. Will took out his phone and tapped on an app.
“Okay, hear me out.”
“The last man who said that to me ended up crying his brains out in a pickup truck.”
Will shook his head. “I’ll try to keep my emotions in check. Look, I downloaded a romance novel.” He showed her his screen, where the book cover was on display. “Let’s call it research.”
“Research for what?” Emmy asked. She nodded toward his phone. “I’ve read that one, and I can promise you, you’re not going to learn any new sex positions from it.”
