Page 92 of Common Grounds

“Obviously.” She taps her foot and folds her arms. “Emery is the type to hide away when things get a little uncomfortable. Or when she knows she’s wrong. And I have a feeling this is a little bit of both.”

“I hope you’re right,” I say quietly.

She crosses the distance between us and puts her hands on my shoulders. She’s much shorter than her sister, so she has to look up at me, but I meet her intense gaze all the same. “Patience, Trevor. I’ll try to talk to her, but you have to let her come to this conclusion on her own, or she’ll dig in further.”

“Didn’t you just say your mom dragged her out of her room to get her to talk to you?” I wince.

Cass laughs bitterly, but it turns into a giggle as if she remembers something funny. “Yeah. What I didn’t tell you is she sat at the kitchen table in silence for three hours before finally coming clean, and then she didn’t talk to our mom for three days afterward as punishment for making her tell me before she was ready.”

“What makes you think she won’t ice you out for days?”

“Because, unlike our mother,” she spits the word out as if it tastes bad, “I am doing this from a place of kindness and love. She was annoyed Emery had locked herself in her room and hadn’t done her chores. And unlike that necklace,” she pauses and eyes me up and down, “she stands to gain something from figuring out her shit this time. Now, will one of you boys please help me carry the box of menus from my car? I had to park two blocks away, and they’re heavy.”

Mike jumps in front of me. “I got you,” he says. “I think our guy here could use a minute.”

As I watch them walk away, I wonder, even if Cass is right, maybe I should extend an olive branch. Maybe Emery really has realized her mistake and does want to be with me. Maybe she needs to hear from me to know it’s okay to talk. I could save Cass the trouble by just calling her.

I take my phone out of my pocket and pull up Emery’s contact info. Before I can think too hard about it, I press her number and bring the phone to my ear.

And I try not to let myself sag too much when it goes straight to voicemail. I hang up before I hear the beep.

Chapter thirty-five

Emery

How the actual fuck am I supposed to write this article? I can’t write at my apartment. Even with music, it’s too quiet. I can’t write at the office because it’s too cramped and sterile. And if this process has taught me anything, I do my best writing where I can observe my surroundings. The only place I really want to go to write is off-limits, for obvious reasons.

I pace around and feel sorry for myself for the rest of Monday. On Tuesday, I fall into a cycle of writing a few sentences, deleting them, writing more, deleting them, rinse, and repeat. On Wednesday morning, I realize that, not only is this process absolutely futile, but I’ve run out of coffee.

This is how I end up at Donna’s Diner.

Donna tries to poke good-natured fun at me like she usually does. I try to smile and jab her right back, but everything feels flat. She gives me some space after that, but when she comes to refill my coffee and tells me, sincerely, that my last article was more like the stuff I used to write, I can only muster up a half-hearted thank you.

I don’t see her again after that.

I put in my earbuds and turn up the music. I sit there for about an hour with my cheek resting on my palm, my elbow propped on the table. I mostly watch my cursor blink. My coffee grows cold, but I don’t feel like making the small talk required if I wave Donna over for a refresh, so I sink my cheek further into my hand and close my eyes.

I don’t think I can do this. After our little moment yesterday, I am pretty sure I could tell Randall I can’t write the fourth, and he’d be okay with it. But I want to write it, and I want to do it right. Trevor’s grand re-opening is this weekend, and I want to help him turn the corner. I want to do it for him.

Because I like him. A lot.

And that admission starts the 80s movie montage behind my eyelids. I am powerless to stop it. His smoldering, amber eyes, focused on me. The picture Ethan took where I’m out of frame, and he’s smiling at me like I am the only thing worth smiling at. His forearms peeking out under his plaid shirts. The scent of him, all coffee and sugar and vanilla. His hot tongue on my skin, chilled by whipped cream. The sweet taste of him when his lips part and my tongue slides inside.

Sreco.

Happiness. Luck. Something sweet.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I consider the idea that I could write this article as some kind of love letter to him. That it could move him so deeply, he would forget the hurt I caused on Sunday, or, at least, forgive it.

I inwardly chastise myself for fantasizing like I’m in some kind of romcom. An article in Baker’s Grove Living can’t be a love letter to Trevor. It can barely be an I-tolerate-you letter to this city.

And I berate myself even further for entertaining the idea of some kind of relationship with him in the first place. That’s how we ended up here, and I’d do well to remember it. I’m not a relationship kind of person, and I don’t know how many more red flags need to go up before I convince myself once and for all that this is for the best.

I sigh deeply, trying to let my music and the ambient noise of the diner soothe my nerves. It only grates on me. I pull out my earbuds, drop them on the table, and open my eyes.

And jump about a foot in the air.

“Holy shit,” I shriek. “What the hell?”

---