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After a moment, Charlie held his plate out. Emmett put one scoop of my salad onto Charlie’s plate and winked at me. I nodded my thanks.
“Emmett, what did you eat in the Navy?” Charlie asked.
“All kinds of stuff. But we had the best food whenever we were on shore leave. I recall one of my favourites being Thai food.”
“I ate Thai food a lot back in Australia. It’s amazing.” I pulled a prawn off the skewer with my teeth.
“Where is Thailand?” Charlie asked.
“It’s in Asia,” Emmett answered.
“Not far from Australia, sweetie,” I added.
“Can we go there?”
“Not likely, Charlie. It costs a lot of money,” I said.
“But I want to try the food.”
“We’ll order some Thai food for dinner sometime, then. How about that?” I suggested.
“You know, a Thailand trip isn’t such a bad idea. We could go to Australia at the same time, and you could visit your mom and siblings,” Emmett said.
I gritted my teeth. “Please don’t get his hopes up.”
“Yeah! I could see Grandma for real!”
“We could go for Christmas.”
I could feel my frustration building. These were all nice sentiments, but they were idealistic and far beyond my reach right now. “We can’t afford to.”
“Yes, we can. I can book flights and accommodation in Phuket and Australia, if we can’t stay with your mom. It wouldn’t be a problem.” Emmett actually pulled out his phone.
“Emmett, stop!” With a grumble, I got up from my seat and stormed into the house.
I went to Charlie’s bedroom and paced around, desperately trying to calm myself down. I saw all the things he had given my son. I was grateful for Emmett’s generosity, but I didn’t want to owe him too much.
“Olivia.”
I spun around to face Emmett. He stood inside the doorway of the room, looking a little annoyed.
“What was that?” he demanded.
“You’ve done more than enough for Charlie and me, Emmett. You took us into your home, you set up his entire room, and you’re taking us away this weekend. Now you want to take us abroad, as well?”
“Do I need to explain myself to you?”
“Yes!”
“Well, I won’t. I shouldn’t have to. I love you and Charlie, and I’m prepared to show you both how much.”
“You can’t buy our love!”
His face reddened. “You know what? I’m going to go back out there and enjoy my dinner. I don’t want us to say something we’ll both regret later. I’ll let you cool down.”
He actually turned his back and walked away from me when I wanted to fight and scream. Why did I want to do that?
Emmett was right. I needed to cool down and figure out what had triggered me before I attempted to talk it out. Emmett was the most amazing person in my life, and it was wrong of me to try to jeopardize that.
