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Now was the time.
I pressed my lips against hers, and they were warm, and they were right, and they were mine. We kissed under the cherry blossom tree until I felt our lips were seconds from cracking before she pulled away, blinking at me. I got up and offered her my hand.
She took it.
She fucking took it.
Knowing what I’d done, she was still there. What’s more, she was still strong. That was the true beauty about this girl. She never cowered. She always stood tall and thought for herself, knowing what was right and what was wrong in her universe. Always.
That’s what Pink said all those years ago. That we weren’t above the law, but not beneath it either.
There were people around us. Cycling and setting up picnics, taking pictures, and walking their dogs. The place was buzzing with life, but I had just finished talking to her about the death I’d caused. I knew she still had a question in mind, so I waited, allowing her to voice it.
“What are you going to do about Josephine?” Her eyes jerked to me, and I smiled.
“I’m going to punish her where it hurts. I’m going to take her money.”
It was pretty amazing how fast six months could pass. I was in no position to talk shit about Dean because he stayed true to his word, sticking to LA and even helping Emilia’s parents settle in while I was courting their daughter.
Yes, that’s right, courting.
I had no idea how we went from fucking in my office in every position known to man to me holding her bag while I escorted her from the subway to her shitty apartment every night, but it happened. I asked her if she wanted to move in with me, along with Rosie, back to their old apartment in Manhattan, the one I occupied now. I had more than enough space for the three of us, but after she said no, I never brought the subject up again.
We were going to do things her way. I got it. Her way sucked, but I needed to start learning how to play other people’s games if I ever wanted something meaningful.
We didn’t explicitly say out loud that we were dating, but we certainly weren’t fucking, and still, we saw each other every day. It went without saying that our weekends were booked, and we spent them together. Rosie tagged along more often than I would have liked, but I bit the bullet. We went to museums and to the movies. We took walks and even went to Coney Island once. Rosie brought a date along when that happened—a greasy guy named Hal—so I had a few hours to smuggle Emilia behind a building and make out with her until she had concrete burns all over her back from when I grinded against her.
Rosie kept teasing me about the Hamptons, asking what kind of rich person I was if I didn’t have a house there, until finally I caved and rented a place for the weekend, but not before I ran the idea past Emilia’s baby sister and told her that if she was not bringing Hal along, I’d be dumping her sorry ass on the road on the way to the beach house I’d leased.
The week before the beach trip, we visited the cherry blossom tree again. The flowers had long died by then, which was kind of depressing to think about, I guess. Worse, spring was almost over, and I knew I was running out of time.
That night we finally got into bed again, and it was nothing like our first times.
Rosie needed the apartment in the Bronx because her boyfriend was sleeping over at theirs. A perfect opportunity for me. I asked Emilia if she wanted to sleep at my place and she said yes. I didn’t arrange a fancy candlelit dinner or get her flowers because that would’ve been lying, and I promised myself I wasn’t gonna lie to her. But I did order us some Vietnamese from that place she liked and bought some booze. She came over after work and kicked off her high heels—lemon yellow with green dots—muttering something about how she was five seconds from caving and pairing sneakers with dresses like the rest of the female lawyers and accountants of NYC.
I grinned and poured her a glass of wine. I was already in my jeans and T-shirt. “Mmm, women in suits and sneakers. The antidote to an erection.”
She laughed and threw one of the heels at me playfully, purposely missing me by a few feet. I cocked an eyebrow, striding over to her and handing her one of the full glasses of wine.
“You’re aggressive lately. Must be all that sexual tension.” Without giving her the option for a comeback, I turned around and started opening takeout boxes, fixing us our plates.
