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“Sounds boring,” Emma noted.
“What would you rather do?” I asked. “Ride my ass some more about Molly?”
“What’s her number?”
“You’re not calling her.”
“Why not?”
“Because I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?” Emma repeated. She sounded incredulously amused.
I sighed. “I don’t want you stirring up trouble for me.”
“You wound me,” she said, feigning hurt. “I would never stir up trouble for my favorite brother.”
“Please,” I said. “Trouble was what you did best. You were the bane of Mom’s existence growing up.”
“I challenged her.”
“You aged her.”
Emma smiled at me. “You are good—that was deftly handled, the way you changed the subject.”
“Shall we order?”
“Sure,” Emma nodded, turning towards the waiter that materialized at her right shoulder. “Hello, doll… I’ll have the shrimp and mushroom crepes. And another glass of wine please.”
“I’ll have the steak,” I said.
The moment the waiter had disappeared, Emma turned to me as though our conversation had never been interrupted. “So, about Molly—”
“For fuck’s sake, Emma,” I sighed.
“What?” she asked innocently. “I just want to say hi.”
“Why?” I demanded. “You barely know Molly.”
“On the contrary, we were very good friends.”
“Really…very good friends?”
“Okay, so we could have been very good friends, but she was three years older and we lived in different states. My point is that had we had the opportunity we would have been the best of friends, like you and Jason.”
The mention of Jason sent me into a fresh wave of sweat. I hadn’t spoken to him for a while, but I knew that by now he would know about Molly and the fact that she was no longer working with me. I wondered what she had told him and if she had mentioned that we had been involved with one another these past few months.
“Where did you go?” Emma asked, looking at me pointedly.
“Nowhere,” I said quickly. “Nevermind.”
“Missing Molly?”
“No,” I said, a little too fast. “No… I just… I was thinking about Jason?”
“You never told him, did you?” she surmised. “About you and Molly?”
I sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” I said, feeling like a complete loser. “I am a coward.”
