Page 41 of Save the Date

“Fair enough. Let me get us set up.”

As Will went about connecting various wires to his laptop and what she assumed was some sort of fancy recording device, Emma felt herself growing more and more annoyed. Any intimacy they had built together appeared to have vanished. Emma knew she was supposed to be moving on, and she was genuinely excited about seeing Matt again, but realizing Will was so unaffected by her was bringing up old feelings she didn’t want to confront—like how easy it had been for Ryan, her actual fiancé, to walk away from her without a second thought. As a therapist, she had seen countless clients do everything possible to hold onto their exes or unimpressive partners. But no one seemed to have any issue forgetting about Emma.

“I think we are almost good to go—”

“This doesn’t feel weird to you?” Emma interjected. “Us immediately shifting from sleeping together to interviewing each other?”

“Actually, I was just planning on interviewing you,” Will joked. When Emma didn’t laugh, his mood became more somber. He let out a sigh. “Of course it’s fucking weird. Two weeks ago, I was thinking about where to take you to dinner and now I’m writing episode outlines about you marrying someone else.”

“Then why are you acting like everything is fine and you don’t care about me at all?”

Emma felt a rush of embarrassment as the words left her mouth. She hadn’t used that kind of language in a long time, after ruining one too many relationships with her insecurity. And the reality was, Will didn’t have to care about her. They’d only been out a few times and she was clearly projecting her past hurt onto him. But that didn’t make the emotion she was feeling any less real.

“I’m sorry. I think I’m just having a hard time being back here.”

Will nodded with understanding. “I broke my lease after Simone left. It cost me thousands of dollars, but I couldn’t live there anymore. I kept finding myself expecting her to come home. It felt like my body was trained to wait for her.”

“Did it get better when you moved?”

“For the most part. There were still moments of hearing my phone ring and thinking it was her. But the change in scenery definitely helped—even if I had to cancel a trip to Machu Picchu to afford it.”

“I’m paying for this place with my book advance. It’s probably the worst financial decision of my life, considering I’m not even staying here, and I don’t exactly have a ton of savings.”

Will shrugged. “If there is a time for bad decisions, it’s probably right after your fiancé walks out.”

Emma laughed but it rang hollow. “That’s probably what you think this whole thing is, right? An impulsive reaction to getting my heart broken? Instead of rebounding with a fuck boy like a normal person, I’m rushing into marriage with a stranger?”

“I honestly don’t know what I think about it, which is why I want to do the show. The internet’s trained us to have big, clear opinions about everything and if you don’t know where you stand on an issue then you must stand for nothing, or whatever. I like that this operation isn’t clear-cut. I like not knowing how to feel about it. It makes for great conversation, and it’ll force our listeners think for themselves.”

“You think ambivalence is a good thing? Because I hate not knowing how to feel about something. It makes my skin crawl.”

“So there’s no part of you that thinks going through with Operation: Save My Date might be a mistake?”

“There definitely is, I’m just powering through anyway. Exposure therapy and whatnot.”

Will laughed and Emma’s attraction to him bubbled up to the point of bursting. She realized how much she liked the timbre of his voice and how unapologetically he allowed himself to enjoy things. The thought made her remember how much he had seemed to enjoy exploring her. He’d taken his time soaking in each part of her body without making her feel self-conscious or overly exposed. She’d felt like something worth observing under his gaze, but Emma knew she needed to get back to focusing on the podcast before he caught on to her internal monologue or she flung herself at him.

“When do you think this will come out?”

“We’ll want to bank a few episodes first, so maybe in a month? I figure we aim for a new episode once a week until the wedding and then we’ll see if there’s enough momentum to justify a second season.”

“What happens if I don’t make it to the wedding?” Emma asked, mostly to gauge his reaction.

“Then we pivot. And maybe go out to dinner,” Will said with a smile. As if he hadn’t just asked her out on a hypothetical date if her entire life plan failed.

She hated herself for knowing she would say yes.

“Should we start recording?” Emma asked, attempting to squash her growing desire for him by being productive.

“Sure.” Will moved Emma’s mic in front of her and explained that her mouth needed to be closer to it than felt natural to get quality sound. They did a few sound checks and then he hit the record button.

“We are rolling,” Will announced as Emma fixed her hair, briefly forgetting that podcasts were an audio medium. “Don’t worry about providing context or explaining who you are or anything. This is just going to be a conversation and I’ll writeproper scripts for the episodes later once we figure out what we have and how we want to present it.”

“Okay,” Emma said, feeling nervous and tongue-tied for once in her very vocal life.

“Great. Let’s start off with a softball question. How was your date last night?”

Emma failed to hide her surprise. Was Will asking for the show or was he asking for himself? “That’s where you want to start?”

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