“Listen, Dad, can I call you back tonight? I’m heading out to lunch.” Pause. “What time does bingo finish?” Pause. “All right, I’ll call you after eight.” Pause. “I love you, too, Daddy. Bye.”
Emma places her phone back in her purse and turns her head to gaze back out the passenger side window. I find myself wondering if she puts off going home because of the people in her town, the ones who made her life hell. I have so much I want to say to her, so many questions to ask. I hate not knowing the simplest things about her.
I want us to be the way we used to be.
“Do you know what you’re having?” I ask once we’re seated at the restaurant.
She shrugs. “Probably just a salad.”
“You’re having more than that. You look like you’ve lost weight.”
“My weight is none of your business,” she says. “And I’m having a salad.” She places her menu down and gives me a look that says, ‘you can’t tell me what to order.’
I suppress my grin as I glance over the selections. When the waitress approaches the table, I speak first.
“We’ll have two double cheese, double bacon burgers with fries on the side and two chocolate shakes.” I pick up both menus and hand them back. “That will be all, thank you.”
Emma gasps, and I give her my best smile, that says, ‘I can, and I just did.’
“Unbelievable,” she mumbles under her breath.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a small velvet box. “I bought this for you.”
“What is it?” she asks as I slide it across the table.
“Open it and see.”
Her hands are a little shaky as she lifts the lid. Inside is a white gold heart-shaped locket. I had Duke’s paw print and his name engraved on the front.
“Oh, Ashton,” she says as tears rise to her eyes.
“You can open it… there’s a latch on the side.”
Emma’s eyes move from the opened locket to me. “A picture of us?” Inside is a small image of the three of us. Emma and my heads are resting together as we both smile into the camera. I’m holding Duke up in front of us. It’s just one of the many selfies I took with my phone, but this one is my favorite.
I bought the locket as a memento for her. I know she’ll always carry Duke in her heart, and I can only hope as years pass, she remembers me too. Because I know with all certainty, I’ll never forget her. What we had may have been fleeting, but they’ve been some of the happiest times of my life.
“Our family,” I say, smiling.
It’s funny how quickly things change. Last week we were a family, now Dukes’s gone, and Emma’s slipping away as well.
The crushing pain in my chest intensifies at the thought.
Life is so unfair sometimes.
“It’s beautiful. I love it. Thank you.” She swipes the tear that leaks from her eye as she looks at me across the table. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What did I do wrong?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, sitting up straighter in my seat.
“Come on, Ashton. You’re pushing me away. Why?” I clear my throat, glancing around the restaurant. I don’t want to have this conversation with her. “At the very least, I deserve an explanation. You owe me that. Is it because I said I wanted to have sex with you?”
My eyes snap back to her. She was so shitfaced that day, I’m surprised she remembers anything she said.
“That wasn’t the word you used.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine, is it because I said I wanted to fuck you?”
I chuckle when she blushes.
“This isn’t funny, Ashton, you’ve hurt me. One minute we were friends and the next we’re not.”
“I’m still your friend, Emma. That will never change.”
“Just not friends who kiss and give each other orgasms, right?”
“Em…” Thankfully, the waitress returns with our food. “Eat, and then we’ll talk, okay?”
“Fine.”
She devours her food, and it pleases me. “Thank you,” she says to the waitress when she collects our plates.
“Would you like to look at the dessert menu?”
“Yes,” I say.
“No,” Emma counters.
The waitress looks between us both, unsure of what to do. “How about I give you some time to think about it?”
When she leaves, Emma brings her attention back to me. “Talk.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about the truth? I’m a big girl, Ashton, I can take it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Is the thought of having sex with me so repulsive?”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she says.
I reach for her hand across the table. What I wouldn’t give for one single night, a taste of what life with her could be like. But, this is reality. My reality. She deserves better, and I’d only end up hurting her, crushing her spirit, destroying her, just like I did with Anastasia.
I can’t do that to my sweet-thing.
“Being near you, with you… inside you, is all I fucking think about, Emma. I want you more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.”
“You do?”
“Of course.”
A smile creeps onto her face. “What’s the problem, then?”
“The problem is, I’m trying to be the good guy here. Can’t you see that? I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t do relationships. I’m not capable of love and all that bullshit.”
“I said I wanted to have sex with you, Ashton, not marry you. Maybe I’m not looking for a relationship either.”
They all end up looking for a relationship eventually. Besides, she’s not a one-night-stand kind of girl. I know that much. Yet, the temptation is too great.
“What are you looking for, then?”
“You, just you. You once said all I needed was a real man. Be that man for me, show me what I’ve been missing.”
Emma’s asking me to give her an unforgettable night. This woman wants to experience something she hasn’t in the past, something she’ll never forget. I can give her that. I’d gladly fuck her into the middle of next week so hard and goddamn deep she won’t know where she ends, and I begin.
“But, what about tomorrow?”
Emma shrugs her shoulders. “We’ll worry about tomorrow… tomorrow. We’ve done everything else, I can’t see how taking that extra step will complicate things.”
Things are already too complicated.
From the moment I met her, sex is all I’ve thought about, but now that it’s staring me in the face, I’m unsure if I can go through with it. I’ve grown accustomed to having her around, and this won’t end well for either of us.
Grow some balls, Barclay, you want this.
Why am I stalling? I’m either in or I’m out.
In and out, Christ, that’s not helping.
She stands. “Maybe I should go.”
I don’t think so.