Page 44 of The Emma Special

“Those thirty days went lickety-split, didn’t they?” Summer asked.

“Hmm, about that.” Emma blew out a breath. “I…” She shut her mouth.

Summer groaned. “Out with it.”

“Let her think,” Katie admonished.

Emma shook her head. “Too much thinking. I’m going to say it, and you’re not going to judge me. Then you’re going to tell me how to fix it because I cannot with the drama at work, but…”

“I will dump this tea on your head.” Summer lifted her mug. “So help me if you don’t spit it out.”

Emma covered her eyes with her hands and took a deep breath. “You guys know how I joke around and sometimes accidentally flirt when I’m having fun. James is nice and wonderful and so, so handsome.” She lowered her hands. Her three friends were all looking at her with “Yeah, so?” expressions.

“When he was gazing down at me, I maybe definitely said that I wanted to kiss him, and I think he basically answered ‘me too,’ and then someone walked in and that was that. But now I can’t stop thinking of what it would be like to really kiss him, and I need those thoughts out of my head because of all the reasons! Then he strong-armed his brother after the stapler flew across the room, and I almost swooned in front of his red-faced dad. What do I do?”

Allison held up a hand. “Hold up. You said what now?”

Summer lowered her chin to her chest. “Oh, dear.”

Katie’s comforting hand was already on Emma’s back. “We can fix this. Calm down, hun.”

“We’re just friends!” Emma shouted.

“Uh-huh. And I’m a middle-aged man named Bart,” Summer said.

Allison raised a finger. “I have questions about that first part. Mr. Hottie was gazing down at you?”

“Don’t call him that,” Emma mumbled.

Summer looked around the couch and chairs. “This needs documented. Who has the diary this week?”

Emma didn’t answer. She sipped her coffee and let her thoughts wrestle and fight until something intelligent could come to the surface. The other girls were definitely making eyes at each other.

“Mind if we join you, ladies?”

Emma’s insides went cold, then blazing hot. There in the actual flesh was James Moore and another man standing beside her couch. Heavens to Betsy.

Emma shook her head like a small tremor and let it grow until her whole body was signaling no way, no how could he join them! This wasn’t some free-for-all meeting room! If the boys wanted a club they should go find their own coffee shop. What kind of self-respecting⁠—

“Yes!” Katie blurted her big ol’ mouth and stood to greet them. “Please, do. There’s a seat by Emma and one of you can take the chair.”

James smiled at Katie. He was up to something. Definitely conspiring. She knew the look because she’d conspired plenty of times herself.

He gestured to his friend who wore baggy, paint-stained jeans and had shaggy copper hair. “This is Daniel Holiday. He went to school with us.”

Allison reached out her hand first. “Hi, Daniel. I remember you. You were the one always sitting outside Mr. Kennedy’s office.”

Daniel took her hand and lowered his head as if he were bowing before a queen. “Allison, an honor to see you again. You were the one taking junior English your freshman year and pre-read all the literature.”

Allison’s brow furrowed. Her head tilted slightly to the right. “And you were the one taking it the second time because you refused to read any of it.”

Katie clapped her hands as if they were all breaking from a team huddle. “Okay, then. Now look at us, all grown up adults. Living our fruitful, Christian lives full of forgiveness and mercy. Daniel, how’s your sister? I read about her engagement in the paper last month.”

James finally sat beside Emma in the middle of the couch, leaving room for Katie to squeeze in the corner with Summer. An unnerving heat slid up the side of Emma’s neck. She couldn’t think about the almost-kiss encounter at work. Wouldn’t.

“How’s the baby?” James spoke softly.

Emma shivered as his warm breath touched the shell of her ear.