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I heard Emma’s car pull in the drive just as I was lighting the candles. I should have been excited, but for some reason, I felt a nervous sort of dread in the pit of my stomach.
She walked in the door, glanced at the table and gave me a small, excruciatingly polite smile as she hung her purse and coat on the rack. “I’ll just get changed.”
“Okay.” The dread in my stomach thickened. Something was very off with her. I’d sensed it over the last few days and had hoped it would pass. Her lack of a real reaction to the romantic table setting let me know that it definitely hadn’t passed. Shit, maybe this was a really bad idea. Maybe I should just wait it out for a bit longer.
She came back in, tying her hair back and giving me another one of those very polite smiles. “This looks really nice.”
Sofucking polite. Like we were on a first date. “Thanks. Have a seat, if you like.”
“You don’t need a hand with anything?”
“No.” I brought her the glass of wine I’d already poured and went to the fridge for a soda for myself. Dammit. She’d made no attempt to kiss me as I handed her the wine.
Emma moved to the table and sat, folding her arm across her middle, almost protectively, and took a big sip of wine.
“Shit day?”
“A bit. Harder for Nicole, though, who needs to get her whole wheel replaced from trying to drive on a flat.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
I brought the dinner plates to the table and put Emma’s in front of her.
“New plates?”
“No. They were my mom’s.”
“Oh.”
Fuck.
“They’re very pretty.”
“Thanks.” This was agony. Seriously.
Emma was definitely not even slightly receptive to any heartfelt declarations of love or offers of marriage tonight. I had no fucking idea what to do. It must have been obvious to her that this dinner was meant to be something special, between the candles and my mom’s dinnerware, but she didn’t seem that interested.
“The steak’s amazing.”
“Glad you like it.”
“I can never get potatoes to cook perfectly like this. They’re always overdone or still half raw.”
I shrugged. “Just takes practice, I guess.”For fuck’s sake, Em, what are we doing?
“Steven called today.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, he said Dad’s having the time of his life in New York. They caught a ferry that takes you all around Liberty Island. Apparently, Dad was beside himself. I had no idea it was something he’d always wanted to see, but yeah, he loved it.”
“That’s great. Any word on when he’s coming home?”
“Early next week, I think.” Emma reached for her wine glass, kept her gaze averted. “So I might head home tomorrow, give the house a good clean up before he gets back. It’s not good for his CF to have a lot of dust around, you know?” She was babbling now, her words tumbling over one another, and her hand shook slightly as she sipped too quickly at the wine. “Might get the curtains professionally cleaned, if I’ve got time. Yeah, that’s a good idea, since I can’t get it done while Dad’s around. I should have thought of it earlier, actually, because I’ll probably struggle now to get anyone in on such short notice…”
I felt her pulling away from me even as her babbling continued, and the screaming need to drag her back consumed me.
