Page 89 of Save the Date

Will opened his mouth but Emma held up her hand. “I’ll take questions at the end,” she replied before taking another deep breath. “So, when I met you and you refused to take the leap with me, I thought it meant you didn’t care about me enough. That if I had been someone else, someone more worthy or whatever, you would have thrown caution to the wind and bought a tux.”

“I already own a tux.”

“Please let me finish.”

Will raised his hands in surrender.

Emma tried to keep going but had lost her train of thought. “What was I saying?”

“That if you were someone else, I would have agreed to get married at a wedding meant for another guy.”

“Right. Exactly. But then, as I continued to get to knowyou, it became clear that the real issue wasn’tmebut the very idea of you marryinganyoneso quickly.”

“I told you that many times.”

“I know, I know. And I would have listened if I had had the capacity to think rationally. But by that point there was too much outside pressure to make the plan work—not to mention my brand-new abandonment issues thanks to Ryan. The whole thing felt too high-stakes for me to back out with the world watching. Especially if I wasn’t even sure ifwewould work. In my defense, you do seem to have a problem with commitment.”

“It’s not a problem so much as an issue.”

“That’s the same thing.”

Will shrugged. She had him there.

“Anyway,” Emma continued as they stood stagnant in the unmoving elevator, “for those various reasons I decided to take the easy way out and move forward with someone who I thought would never leave me if I stayed faithful and put in the work. It didn’t hurt that he looked like a Greek statue come to life.”

Will rolled his eyes at this, as Emma intended. Even in times of strife, it was impossible not to mess with him.

“The problem, William,” Emma said as she took a bold step toward him, “is that he wasn’t you.”

Will looked at her skeptically as she kept going.

“You aren’t my backup plan. You’re my first choice. And to prove that to you, I’m willing to risk never getting married if it means we get to be together.”

Will raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Yep. You heard me. I’m talking no quick engagement, no ominous wedding deadline. Just two people taking the time to see if this connection is as good as I think it is. And if I’m wrong, so be it. It won’t mean that I’m an idiot who doesn’t understand how relationships work. It’ll mean I’m human. Maybe even abravehuman, depending on how you spin it.”

“Are you being serious? You’d be okay with usnevergetting married?”

“Well, I mean, I’d hope that after a certain amount of time—and once you feel comfortable, of course—we coulddiscuss—”

Will’s lips crashed into Emma’s before she could finish her sentence. Without hesitation she gave herself over to him, running her hands through his hair and inhaling his intoxicating scent. Their entanglement felt both deeply thrilling and achingly familiar. Emma had somehow missed touching Will even more than she’d realized. But as he reached his hand up her soft shirt, the elevator doors pulled open, revealing a tattooed woman with big green glasses.

“Ah, so that’s where you went,” Camila said icily from the elevator bank. Will quickly pulled away from Emma as his face turned red.

“Camila, I’m so sorry—”

Camila put up her hand. “I don’t want to hear it. I just want to go home, post about this on Reddit and order expensive takeout.”

“That’s fair,” Emma replied as Camila walked into the elevator. “I’d do the same. Except I don’t really understand Reddit’s interface—”

“Can you get out of there already?” Camila asked, exasperated.

Will and Emma jumped back into the hallway.

“You can bill me for that takeout if you want,” Will offered gallantly as the doors closed. Their final image of Camila being her middle finger.

“I guess we deserved that,” Emma said as guilt started to take hold.

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