“Just the dish?” I mused, then laughed when she shot me another look. After smacking a kiss on her lips, I let go of her and headed to the fridge to grab some orange juice. “You know, there was a time when I thought you came over every morning on weekends just to sneak in some time with me. Now I find out you only came for the bacon bliss.”
“I came for the view and enjoyed the food while I was here,” she said jokingly. “You in your pajama pants and no shirt being the view, of course.”
She slid the bacon onto a plate and shut off the heat on the stove.
Laughter rolled out of me as I poured the juice and got out some plates. “I knew it. Why do you think I kept coming downstairs without a shirt on?”
“You knew?” she squealed, spinning to face me. “Wow. That’s so embarrassing.”
“Why? If I hadn’t noticed your little crush on me, I might never have caught on to the fact that you weren’t little Emma next door anymore, and we’d never have happened.”
“That’s how you realized I’d grown up? Jeez. If you knew how many hours I wasted on choosing my outfits before I came over, you’d be in stitches.”
“Oh, I noticed the outfits too. Eventually.” I motioned at the general vicinity of her chest. “Your boobs used to drive me crazy over breakfast. That was cruel, by the way.”
My shirt was only buttoned up halfway, and she pushed her arms together and leaned over as she gave a little shimmy while showing off her cleavage. “These old things? I thought you were immune to them. All the boys at school seemed to notice when they made their appearance, but you never even looked at them.”
“I looked. I was just a little more discreet about it,” I grumbled. “It wasn’t something I should’ve noticed about my little sister’s best friend. I felt like a total perv for staring at them when no one was looking.”
She laughed, and I saw the light in those sparkling blue eyes. She walked over to me with a plate of bacon and a plate of pancakes in her hands. “It’s nice reminiscing like this. I’ve always wondered if you’d even remembered my name after you left.”
I sat at the table in the breakfast nook after setting the plates, juice, and syrup down on it. “I remembered a hell of a lot more than just your name.”
She sat down across from me in the exact same spot she used to choose. A wave of nostalgia unexpectedly crashed into me. My sister had changed so many things about the house, but it was just still so familiar. A sense of sadness crept in as I dished up, missing my parents and our family breakfasts as well as the carefree, happy kids we all used to be.
When I looked back at Emma, the sadness melted away as quickly as it had come. Spending time with her had made me realize how good a relationship could feel—and how good things could be between us if we chose to let them.
Emma and I might’ve butted heads over the wedding planning and implementation, but we’d also found a way to make each other laugh and quash any resentments that might’ve reared up. Being with her gave me hope that I might find the right woman eventually after all. A woman just like her who I could have fun with and who actually wanted everything I had to offer—unlike Anna.
I wished the right woman could’ve been Emma and not just a womanlikeher, but I had to leave soon and she wasn’t coming with me.
Or maybe she will.
While I hadn’t considered asking her to come with me before, there was no reason why I couldn’t try to win her over to my lifestyle now. If I stayed another week, it was possible I’d be able to convince her to go with me to Europe when I left.
It was summer, which meant there was no school. I could pitch it to her as a vacation for now, just a break after the hard work she’d put into the wedding and before the start of next year. If she liked traveling as much as I did, she might just decide to leave Rockdale behind her for good by the end of the summer.
Emma had never expressed an interest in leaving this place, not to my knowledge, but she wasn’t unadventurous. She just hadn’t had that same desperate need for more that I’d had back in high school.
The last time we’d spoken about it before I’d left, she hadn’t seen any reason to leave town. Emma had dreamed of going to school, becoming a teacher, and making a life for herself here just like her parents had before her. That had been years ago, though. She’d achieved everything here she’d set out to, so maybe she would be open to seeing what the rest of the world had to offer now.
Worst-case scenario, I took her to Europe and she didn’t like it, in which case I could always make my trips there solo while she stayed at home in New York. I could cut down on the frequency of my traveling if I had to. I just hadn’t done it before because there hadn’t been any reason to. Even when I would have to go, I could make my arrangements so I wouldn’t have to be away for more than a few days at a time.
As I envisioned what our lives could be like, I hoped I would figure out a way to change her mind about living here and only here her whole life. We could always eventually come back here when the time came, either to raise our kids or to retire.
She snapped me out of my thoughts when she smiled and cleared her throat. “Bacon bliss isn’t the only surprise I have for you today. You said you were staying a little longer, so I thought I might show you around town.”
“Has it really changed that much?”
She shrugged. “No, not really, but I want to take you to my favorite place. I think you’ll like it, and I thought you might enjoy having a good look around now that you’re a grownup. Our perspectives about things have changed a lot. You might find that the town isn’t at all as bad as you remember.”
“Your favorite place?” I asked, unable to deny that my interest was piqued. Besides, if I went to her favorite place, maybe I could convince her to let me show her mine.
Plot twist—the whole of New York City is what I’ll have to show her then. So she’d have to pack her bags and leave for at least a few days, during which I’m absolutely sure that the magic of the city will win her over if I can’t do it myself.
24
EMMA