Page 11 of Cupcak
“A super zero is more like it. And can you stop sharing this stuff, Pop? He’s my boss, not my boyfriend. You’re discrediting what little cred I’ve already built up.”
Pop tsks and waves an arm flippantly while I send Emmy a tight-lipped smile.
“I’ll keep the ice-cream tip in mind—as your boss, of course—I’m too old to be your boyfriend.”
Emmy frowns. “I don’t think you’re old.”
“Compared to you, I am.”
She shrugs. “No you aren’t.”
“I’m forty-five, Emmy.”
She raises an eyebrow in question. “And?”
“And you’renineteen.”
She rolls her eyes. “I know how old I am, Drake. I still don’t see what the issue is.”
She called me Drake.I stare at her, a little bubble of something forming in the pit of my stomach.
“Twenty-five years, for starters. That’s the issue. Don’t you think people should date around their own age?”
She huffs, turning back to the sink. “Boys my age. They’re exactly that—boys. I’d rather date someone more...mature. Someone who knows what he wants.” She scrubs away at the skittle as she talks, and I just let her words wash over me.
I’m mature.
I know what I want.
I want her.
“Besides,” she continues, still going at the skittle with surprising viciousness, her cheeks a furious shade of red. “Forty-five is hardly old, Mr. Grant.”We’re back to that again.“You don’t look a day older than thirty-seven, maybe thirty-eight. If it weren’t for the little grays at your temples, you’d pass for thirty-five. Not that it matters how old you look, of course. I like your hair how it is. I was just saying that to make my point.”
My heart is in my throat, my entire world tilting off-axis. “Your point?”
“Yes, my point—that you’re not too old for me to date.” She looks up suddenly, and her eyes narrow a little. “Unless you thinkI’mtooyoungto date you.” She lets that statement hang in the air a minute.
“Do you…do youwantme to ask you out, Emmy?”
She turns the faucet on again and rinses the skillet, setting it in the draining tray before she answers. It’s an excruciating few seconds. “That depends. Will it affect my position in your company?”
“No,” I respond immediately.
“Well then, I guess you’ll just have to ask me and find out.” Having made her point, quite spectacularly, I might add, she turns away and picks up the pasta pot and starts sudsing that up.
“Er…” I mutter, a little unsure about what to say next, my mind reeling. Do I ask her out now? Or do I wait until it’s a bit more of a surprise? Or am I insane for contemplating dating a nineteen-year-old girl at all?
Either way, this changes things. A lot.
And I don’t miss the fact that her grandfather is still sitting across from me, eating cookie after cookie while watching the entire exchange. I turn to him, embarrassed and awkward, unsure of what to say.
“Another thing you should know, son. Emmy generally gets her way,” he says, helping himself to yet another cookie. It’s then that I remember I’m supposed to be monitoring the cookie jar and slap the lid back over the top of it. Pop chuckles and lowers his voice conspiratorially. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Emmy
“So, you like my hair, huh?” Drake asks once we step outside because the meal is over—he very kindly dried the dishes as a thank you—and I’m walking him to his car. I guess it’d be futile to hope he’d forgotten that comment, or better still, not heard it at all.When am I ever going to learn to just keep my mouth shut?
“Er…” I start, wondering if I can still pretend I don't know what he’s talking about.
