Page 20 of Your Rule to Break
“Someone who feels mentally hung over,” she pokes back. Emilie lets go of my hand to grab her phone. I don’t need to see much to know she doesn’t like what she sees.
“Everything good?”
She sighs, stares at the message for another minute, and then puts her phone back. “If by good you mean annoying. Then, yes.”
I respond with nothing but big, fat silence.
“It’s my family group chat. AKA hell in the digital world.”
“That bad?” From what I've gathered, the family situation isn’t great for Emilie. I don’t need to pry. She’ll tell me if she wants to.
“Consistently horrible. Currently, my sister is passive-aggressively complaining, in our family group chat, how my last minute plus one has thrown off her entire seating arrangement. What will we ever do with an odd number of attendees?!” She puts her hand on her forehead for emphasis before reaching back for mine.
Her fingers tangled in mine. I like it. Too fucking much.
“Family dinners have been even more insufferable than usual.”
I can’t relate to this. My family is like a puzzle with just enough pieces to keep it interesting, but they always fit together. That’s how we’ve always been.
“Well, you should bring me. I’m known to make things more... sufferable?”
“That barely makes any sense.” She laughs. “I wouldn’t subject you to that. Hell, I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to subject themselves to that.”
From my experience, Emilie rarely does anything she doesn’t want to do. Family shit is always weird, though.
“Lucky for you, you don’t even have to ask. I’m there.”
She turns her face to mine, our pace slower than before. It’s like she’s trying to see if I’m making a joke or being serious.
I shrug and offer a smile. “I’ll have to meet them eventually. Right?”
“Right...” Her voice trails off, like a question, and I can hear her brain waves.
She tosses her empty coffee cup in a trash can, and we stop, looking over the park. I pull her closer to me, our sides pressed together. My hand goes from her low back to softly rest on her hip. My finger instinctively draws small circles, like I've done this a hundred times before. Like it’s the only right choice to make.
Emilie turns her head toward me, looking up. I give her a small smile, taking in her details—ones I already know. The freckles that smatter the bridge of her nose. Her lips that honestly look like someone drew a heart where they’d go.
I’m trying to pay attention. With Emilie, it feels like I should.
“What are you doing?” she asks, pulling me back to the moment. Our noses are almost touching. I must’ve leaned in, looking for more things to catalog.
A camera. Out of my peripheral vision. Consider my ass saved.
I put my finger under her chin and lean close to her ear. “There’s a camera, right over there.” It’s almost like she relaxes just enough for me to feel it.
I press a for-show kiss on her cheek.
Or at least that’s what I tell myself it is.
Chapter 13
Emilie
“What the hell doesa girl gotta do to get a heads up that you’re banging an NFL player?”
I almost spit out my coffee as Keegan puts her phone down, a picture of Zack and me walking hand in hand filling the screen. Just like in college at the University of Michigan, Keegan always knows how to make an entrance.
“You’re late,” I retort while watching her situate her bag and sit across from me. The coffee shop buzzes around us; people working with headphones and having their own conversations is a reprieve from prying eyes or ears.