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She finds it easy to tease him. George isn’t so serious that he can’t take a joke and she isn’t so childish that she takes it too far. Their relationship has found a happy balance between playful banter, political debates and ramblings about stupid things like space and time and aliens.
She shouldn’t find it so easy to flirt with him. Emma has been friends with George since she was in nappies and he was climbing up trees to get away from the stench of said nappies. At 22 and 26 the two of them should have an established relationships of best friends who never cross any boundaries because that would ruin 22 years of companionship, and it would be weird for John and Isabella, and her friend Harriet has a crush on George anyway and Emma is anything if not a good friend.
Or so Emma tells herself, anyway.
She often finds herself in situations where they do cross the boundary though. In poorly lit bars, Emma rests her head against George’s shoulder as the feeling of too many gin and tonics and a whole night of dancing catches up on her. She feels herself falling into sleep, and it’s not her fault that his shoulder is always so comfortable and at exactly the right height for her to lay her cheek down and shut her eyes for (she swears) only a few moments. She hears George whispering “lovely Emma, would you like to go home?” to which she can only mumble in agreement. She wakes up the next morning with two paracetamol, a glass of water and a smiley face on a post it note. She ignores the feeling of topsy turviness in her stomach for another sort that compels her to run to her toilet bowl.
It happens when they’re at home too. Really, she wonders, can she get no escape? It’s 9 PM on a Friday night and after gorging themselves on saag paneer they collapse on the sofa in Emma’s flat. She thinks nothing of it when she stretches her legs out to rest her feet in George’s lap. When George grasps her ankle with his fingers, she tells herself it’s the strenuous activity of walking from the kitchen to the living room with a belly full of Indian that has her heartbeat racing, and not the patterns that George is carefully etching onto her ankle bone.
It’s limited to touches and looks and stomach flips though. She could never further it. Emma’s had her fair share of men causing unwanted strife in her life, and she doesn’t think her heart would take it if she told him she loved him and he laughed and told her “I love you too, you big twat” with all the love that a best friend has for another best friend. Because that’s what they are, aren’t they? Best Friends. When Elton basically forced himself on her in the back of a taxi they were sharing home who was it that shot up as soon as he heard, promising to “defend her honour” or some ridiculous notion that came out of his mouth? When Frank and Jane walked into the pub holding hands Emma, although definitely NOT in love with Frank, still felt a bit dejected as she saw her first proper attempt at something resembling a relationship sort of, shatter, before her eyes. George was there, and he held her hand as tightly as Frank held Jane’s. Some sort of really shit DJ was playing in the back, and George sidled up to him and requested the song that Emma always used to cheer herself up. It was George who danced along to La Bamba with her, as ridiculous it looked in the middle of the pub with everyone watching. He always just seemed to be right where she needed him.
It’s like this for months- Emma cant’t really place when it had all began. To find yourself in the thick of something was daunting to say the least, and she finds that she doesn’t know how to act around George anymore. She can’t jab him in the side with her elbow anymore, because whenever she touches him her stomach does a weird loop thing. When they sit on the sofa together and she feels her legs creeping slowly towards him, seeking out the warmth of him like a missile, it’s like a bucket of ice water has been thrown over her head. “You alright?” George asks her, noticing the deer in headlights expression she has plastered all over her face. She nods and focuses all her energy on the lion cub that David Attenborough is narrating on, and not the way George’s lopsided grin brings out the cliche rom com character in her.
Emma resigns herself to a life of unrequited love and misery, destined to become a spare part to George when he eventually finds the love of his life. She really isn’t in the mood for Harriet’s 21st birthday party, even if she is her best friend and Emma is never one to turn down an opportunity to get drunk and dance all night. She puts her best foot forward, though, and dons her most sparkly cocktail dress in the hopes that shining like a disco ball on the outside will make her feel the same inside too. When she arrives at Harriet’s flat there is only two other people there- Robert Martin and, of course, George.
This is going to be a long night.