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“Em, when’s your birthday?”
“Hmm?” Emmett looked up from his laptop, blinking, taking a second to extricate himself from the contract he was working on. He and Elle had been working in companionable silence for the last hour and the question took him by surprise. “My birthday?”
“Yeah,” she said, “when is it?” She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, dressed casually – by Elle’s standards at least – in a t-shirt and pyjama shorts, her long blonde hair up in a ponytail.
The sight made him smile, but it was painful too. He was glad that she felt comfortable enough around him that she didn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances, and he wasn’t going to complain about getting to see her bare legs, which even after spending the winter in Boston were somehow still tanned.
The problem, though, was this: the more time he spent with her, the more often she showed up at his desk in the library at lunchtime to drag him out for food and fresh air, or at his apartment on the weekends to keep him company – and pathetically, the more she called him ‘Em’ – the more hopelessly he loved her.
He was so far gone now that just seeing her there in her pyjamas made his chest ache with the irrational hope that one day their nightly study session wouldn’t end with him leaving at 23:30 to catch the last bus back to his apartment; that she might ask him to stay.
Pulling himself back to the present moment, he pointed at her legal pad, sitting forgotten on the bed in front of her, “How’s that essay going?”
She rolled her eyes at him, “It’s fine. Come on, I’ll get back to work in a second, I promise. I just realised I didn’t know when your birthday was and I want to know how much time I have to find you the perfect present.”
“Oh.” His heart squeezed, knowing he was about to disappoint her. “It’s May 3rd.”
“What?” Elle looked devastated. Coming from anyone else, the reaction would have seemed hyperbolic, but Emmett knew by now that it was genuine: Elle simply did nothing by halves. “Emmett, that was last week! Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugged apologetically, “Habit, I guess. I don’t really make a big deal out of it. My mom always gets me a card, but I haven’t really celebrated it in years.”
Of course, that was only half the story. The other half was that he hadn’t really had any close friends to celebrate with since he started law school, and his mom always got him a card because for a long time, that had been all she’d been able to give him. Now she was doing better there were little presents too, gift cards normally, but the card tradition had stuck.
But as always, Elle seemed to be able to read him perfectly. Her expression softened with immediate understanding and for the hundredth time, Emmett wondered how Warner could have possibly dated this woman for two years and not seen how intelligent she was.
The next thing he knew, she had bounced to her feet and was rummaging in the drawer where she kept her pants.
“Uh, whatcha doing?”
“I’m going to get you a present. Finish what you’re working on because when I get back, we’re celebrating.”
He watched as she disappeared behind the little changing curtain she’d set up in the corner, jeans in hand, “It’s 9pm, Woods, everything’s gonna be shut now.”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
He felt flushed, hot with both embarrassment and pleasure, “Elle, it’s okay. I don’t need anything.”
She shoved the curtain back, now fully dressed, and went to grab a jacket, “Too bad. Come on, get to work. I won’t be long and that laptop is going away as soon as I’m back!”
“Elle-”
She blew him a kiss, shutting him up at once, and slid out of the door, leaving him alone with Bruiser. The little dog had looked up as Elle started bustling around the room and now he laid back down with a huff, perhaps disappointed to be left behind.
Feeling a little dazed, Emmett tried to go back to his contract, but found it impossible to concentrate. He kept glancing up at the door, listening for the sound of Elle’s returning footsteps. After twenty unproductive minutes had gone by, he gave up and just sat back in the desk chair, resigned to his fate.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!”
Elle burst through the door, a bulging plastic bag in one hand and a look of undisguised glee on her face. He spun the chair to face her, trying and failing to hide his curiosity, “Huh. Do I want to know what’s in the bag?”
“You’re going to find out whether you want to or not,” she said happily, setting the bag down on the desk and shutting his laptop with a decisive snap.
“Go on then, put me out of my misery.”
With great ceremony, Elle unveiled her spoils: a store-bought chocolate cake, paper plates, a couple of cheap party hats, a large button clearly meant for a child that read ‘Birthday Boy’, a bag of ice that was already starting to drip and a very large bottle of whiskey. She presented the latter to him with a mischievous smile, “Happy birthday. Sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it.”
He turned his head aside in faux-disgust, “Well, now I obviously can’t accept it.”
She snorted and went to grab two glasses out of her bedside cabinet, plunking one down in front of him.
He eyed it uncertainly, “Elle, it’s Wednesday…”
“And your birthday was on Friday, so that’s what you get for not telling me about it.” When he continued to hesitate, she raised her eyebrows, “You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you?”
He groaned, “Fine, but just one, okay?”
Emmett didn’t trust the innocent look Elle gave him one bit, “Of course!”
Two glasses of whiskey, one Birthday Boy button and a slice of chocolate cake later and it turned out he was right to be suspicious.
Hazily, Emmett recognised that he should have taken things a little slower: he hadn’t had more to drink than the occasional beer in the last four years, of course drinking straight whiskey was going to be too much for him. But it was difficult to worry about the hangover he was sure to have tomorrow morning – or the fact that he was talking way too loudly – when Elle was right there, laughing and waving her hands around as she talked. Right now, she was telling him about her last trip to Paulette’s with such exuberance that her party hat had gone slightly askew. Without thinking about it, Emmett leaned over to straighten it for her.
“Oh,” she said, flushed and giggling, “thanks!”
God, she was beautiful.
“I wanted to ask you something, what was it…oh yeah! What was your best ever birthday present?”
This. You.
For a moment, the words trembled on the tip of his tongue, his usually impeccable restraint undone by the whiskey and the sheer closeness of her. Would it be so bad if he just told her?
Yes. Absolutely.
Moving a little too quickly, he raised his glass to his mouth, spilling some of the whiskey on his chin as he downed the last of his drink. He embraced the burn in his throat, telling himself that it would be nothing compared to how he would feel if he tried to make a move on her and ended up ruining their friendship.
By holding that thought fiercely in his mind, he was able to answer her normally, “My mom saved up for some lower level tickets to a Red Sox game for my twenty-first.”
“Aww,” Elle cooed, “that’s so cute.” She put her head on one side, exposing the hollow of her shoulder, the graceful line of her neck, and Emmett’s fingers itched to touch her. He gripped his empty glass more firmly instead. “I’ve never been to a baseball game.”
“You haven’t?”
“Uh-uh.” Her face lit up with excitement, “Maybe we could go some time.”
He pictured the two of them, somewhere up in the cheap seats at Fenway Park, a huge tub of popcorn between them. He could lend her a baseball cap to wear and snatch glances at her face as she watched the game; she would probably grab his arm if something exciting happened, maybe even hold his hand.
Emmett cleared his throat, “Yeah, that would be fun. After finals, maybe.”
“It’s a date,” she said, her eyes sparkling.
His stomach flipped and he had to look away. His eyes caught on her bedside alarm clock, and suddenly he was very aware that it was late, and they both had Callahan’s class tomorrow morning and he needed to be here early to prep…
“I should probably get going,” he mumbled, putting the glass down on the side.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, laughing, “you can stay here.”
He froze, hardly daring to breathe, “Huh?”
“You didn’t think I was going to get you drunk and then just send you out into the world to fend for yourself, did you?”
Emmett blinked, fighting very hard to stay calm. “But,” he said stupidly, “there’s only one bed.”
“I don’t mind sharing,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He stared at her, wondering if he was actually awake right now or if he’d passed out. Elle’s cheerful expression faded a little, “But if you’d rather not, you can sleep on the floor. I’ve got an extra blanket and some cushions.”
Was this really happening? Here was everything he’d been dreaming about: Elle was actually inviting him to stay the night, and even more unbelievable, offering to share her bed with him. So why was he hesitating?
“Come on, Em, what’s a birthday party without a sleepover?”
“You’re not going to let me go home, are you?” He knew he was stalling but he couldn’t help it.
She tapped him on the nose, laughing as he wrinkled it in response, “Nope.”
He couldn’t share the bed with her. Even though she'd made the offer, it felt selfish, as though he were taking advantage of her.
Ignoring the voice in his head that insisted he was being a coward, he gave a long-suffering sigh, coaxing another giggle out of her, “I’ll take the floor, then. But I should warn you, there might be snoring.”
Elle smiled, and if there was a slightly knowing look in her eyes, he would pretend he hadn’t seen it, “I can deal with that.”
***
Emmett woke slowly the next morning and it took him a moment to figure out why his head was throbbing and his back was stiff, not to mention where the fluffy pink blanket he was wrapped up in had come from. He didn’t own anything like this.
Then from his left, he heard a soft little sigh, and with a jolt he remembered where he was. He turned his head and looked over at Elle. Lying face down, with one arm hanging floppily over the edge of the bed, and the other tucked under her pillow, her hair messy and her cheeks slightly flushed, it was probably the least graceful he’d ever seen her. He smiled, committing the picture to memory. Even if they never dated, at least he still got to be there for moments like this.
As if she sensed him watching her, Elle’s eyes fluttered open, landing immediately on Emmett. She frowned at him, as though for a second she couldn’t remember what he was doing there. Then understanding dawned and she put a hand to her head with a groan, “God, I haven’t drunk alcohol in forever.”
“Same here.”
“Did you sleep okay?” She asked, rolling onto her side and scooting to the edge of the bed to look down at him on his makeshift cushion mattress.
“Yeah, pretty good. I’m gonna have to take Bruiser for a walk to say thank you for letting me use his bed as a cushion.”
She smiled, “He'd love that. So, was it a good birthday party?”
Emmett grinned, “The best.”