“Sorry again,” Natalie said, her voice quieter now that the call had ended. She leaned against the counter, arms crossed beneath the robe’s lapels. “That coffee smells amazing.”
Emma smiled as she checked her watch. She lifted the plunger and pressed it down slowly. The coffee swirled darkbeneath the mesh. “You’re fine. Work doesn’t wait, even here.” She poured two mugs and retrieved the milk from the fridge. “Everything okay?”
Natalie accepted the mug with both hands, breathing in the scent before she answered. She sighed. “Yeah. Work stuff… Ugh. I turned down a project a few months ago because it would mean missing coming here next year, but my agent just wanted to know if I’d reconsider. They really want me, and… well, they know my grandmother died, so they assumed I wouldn’t want to be here next year.”
“Wow. Tactful.” Emma’s tone was dry. She added milk to her coffee and watched it lighten.
Natalie’s laugh came short and rueful. She leaned forward to doctor her own mug, the robe shifting to reveal the shadowed hollow at the base of her throat. “It’s just business. And it’s nice to be in demand. Especially at my age.”
The words hit hard. Emma’s thoughts stacked up fast—would Natalie take the job now that Bridget was gone? Would she leave before summer ended? Would Emma watch her go again, this time carrying last night with her? The questions pressed against her ribs. Her coffee tasted bitter.
Emma had come home to stay. The thought of packing up again, of fitting herself into Natalie’s world of noise and performance, made her chest ache. Starting over in Los Angeles held none of the thrill Sydney once had.
And Natalie hadn’t asked her to come. Hadn’t said what last night meant.
Emma swallowed the doubt and kept her face calm.
She lifted her mug and took a careful sip, the heat blooming across her tongue. She wanted to reach across the counter, to brush the hair from Natalie’s forehead and ask the questions that mattered. Instead she stood there in her bare feet, heart beating too fast, and waited to see what Natalie would say next.
18
Natalie leaned against the counter, the ceramic mug warm between her palms, steam curling upward in the quiet kitchen. Emma’s robe hung soft against her skin, smelling faintly of laundry detergent. Her shoulders ached in a way that made her feel young and reckless. Her thighs carried a deeper soreness, the kind that flared when she shifted her weight, and the sensation sent a private pulse of heat through her belly. She had not felt this aware of her own body in years.
She didn’t want to be thinking about work. Not now. Not with the morning light slanting through the window and the evidence of last night still written across her skin. But the call had cracked something open.
The project was good. Scripts like this didn’t come often, especially not for women past forty. Something in her had flared when her agent said the producers still wanted her. Wanted her enough to wait and ask again.
Then the other reality hit her. Taking the project meant not being here next summer.
“I told them I’d think about it.”
The words came out flatter than she intended. She took another sip of coffee, the bitterness grounding her, and watchedEmma across the kitchen. Emma nodded once. A small motion, controlled. Her gaze had dropped to the counter, to the milk, to anywhere that was not Natalie’s face.
Emma was already imagining it. The departure. The empty house next door. Next summer without Natalie in it.
The understanding hit Natalie harder than it should have. She set her mug down on the counter and reached for Emma’s hand where it hung at her side.
Emma’s fingers were cool. They didn’t curl around hers immediately. For a long moment they stayed still.
“Hey.” She kept her voice low. “It’s going to be okay.”
Emma’s eyes lifted. Hazel in this light, more green than brown. The faint lines at their corners that had not been there five years ago. Her face was open in a way Natalie had rarely seen it, the guardedness stripped back to something raw and unpolished.
“I know we didn’t really do much talking last night.” Natalie’s mouth curved into a hint of a smile. “And we have a lot to talk about. Do you have plans today?”
“No.”
Natalie ran her thumb against Emma’s finger, the motion automatic, intimate.
“I’m starving,” Natalie said, and it was true. “I’m going to get changed, go next door for a quick shower, and then make us breakfast. Is that okay?”
“Sure.”
The word came out quiet, but Emma’s grip on her hand tightened for just a second before releasing. Natalie felt the reluctance in it, the way Emma’s fingers seemed to want to hold on. She squeezed back once, then let go and walked down the hall to Emma’s bedroom.
The room smelled like them now. Like the particular heat they had generated between the sheets, the scent of Emma’sskin mixed with her own. Natalie’s clothes lay scattered across the floor where they had been abandoned, testament to the urgency that had overtaken them both. She slipped out of the robe, feeling the cool air brush against her bare skin, and hung it carefully on the back of the door.
She gathered her clothes piece by piece. Jeans that had been peeled away while Emma’s mouth was on her throat. Her underwear, bra. Her top, which had been the first thing to go. The memory of Emma’s hands lifting it over her head sent a fresh wave of heat through her belly.
