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Alex felt Emma freeze, and he had the strangest urge to take her hand.
He didn’t.
But he wanted to.
“So I was, I don’t know . . . I’ve got a big family, and always pictured a big old wedding like that. And I asked you how you pictured your wedding. Not in the proposal kind of way, just casual conversation, you know?”
Emma nodded, although she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t written a single word.
“You said you didn’t want to get married. Ever,” Jason said, his voice kind, rather than accusatory. “And it’s not like I’d been secretly naming our children and house hunting in the suburbs, but—”
“But you did want to get married some day,” Emma finished for him.
“Yeah.” Jason smiled. “Definitely have always seen myself going the wife and kids route, you know?”
“Well,” she said with a forced smile. “You’re almost there! When’s the big day?”
“Not for six months,” Jason said. “I didn’t realize what a big wedding entailed until I met Gretchen. There’s cake tasting and flowers and seating arrangements and catering decisions—”
“Yeah, it’s crazy,” Emma cut in, her voice just the tiniest bit sharp. “So happy for you, though! Okay, so that was the last of my official questions, but if there’s anything else you want to add, anything about our relationship or me . . .”
Jason shook his head as he set his glass of wine on the coffee table. “Just that you were lovely. Are lovely. Are you seeing anyone special?”
“No. Not at the moment.”
Jason stood, and Emma and Alex did as well. Jason headed toward the front door, and Emma followed him out.
Alex grabbed all three of their wine glasses, lost in thought. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. Any of this.
He started to head toward the kitchen when Jason paused in the process of shrugging on his jacket. “You know, there’s one other thing that I thought about for months after we broke up,” Jason said.
“Yeah?” Her voice held an artificial brightness.
Jason opened the front door and glanced down at her, his smile regretful. “I wish I could have made you smile more. The big, genuine kind that makes your eyes crinkle and all of your teeth show.”
Emma let out a little laugh. “I seem to be hearing that one a lot.”
Alex’s gaze flew to her profile at that. She hadn’t smiled for her other boyfriends? He thought back. He can remember her laughing all the time. Her smile wide, her eyes laughing. She was shy, so it had taken awhile to get beneath the surface to earn a real Emma smile, but once she’d trusted you, she’d been so easy to make happy. They’d both been happy, feasting off the other person’s laugher.
Apparently that sort of effortless joy was something she’d grown out of.
Or maybe you destroyed it.
“Nice meeting you,” Jason said with a wave at Alex.
Alex lifted a hand in response, turning away before they hugged good-bye.
When she came back into the kitchen, she tossed her notebook onto the counter and plowed her fingers into her hair.
He itched to go to her . . . to somehow ease the weariness from her. But he didn’t know how. Didn’t know that she’d want it.
“Happy now?” she asked. “The article moving along to your liking?”
Not by a long shot.
“Are they all like that?” he asked. “The meetings, I mean?”
She released her hair, bracing both palms against the counter. He topped off her glass a bit and shoved it toward her, but she didn’t reach for it.
