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“Really? Where?” Spinner heard Emma say moments after she answered her cell phone. Apparently, the person to whom she spoke did not require a greeting. “Okay, I’ll see you there.” And with that, she snapped her cell phone closed and began tugging on her winter coat.
“Where are you going?” Spinner asked from behind the counter of their kitchen, a mug of coffee in his hand. It was the rare occasion of him having a weekend off, and Emma was going to vanish without saying anything?
“Oh my gosh, sorry, Spin!” Emma said, pausing in the middle of pulling her boot onto her foot. “That was Manny. She’s in town for Christmas and she saw Sean out at The Dot! I’m going to go meet them.”
Spinner furrowed his brow. He hadn’t been very close to Emma while they went to school together, but he knew a bit about Sean. And that Sean and Emma dated for a long time. And that when he left to go to the military, Sean was probably still very much in love with her. He shrugged and stepped out from behind the counter. “Let me get my coat.”
“What?” said Emma.
“I’d like to see him, too,” Spinner lied.
“You want to go to The Dot on your one day off?” Emma said with her eyebrow cocked.
“I wish Manny could have found him anywhere else, but hey. We were friends, too.”
Emma rolled her eyes and shook her head a little, but she didn’t disagree. “Alright, well, let’s hurry, then.”
Spinner drove his lemon to The Dot with Emma visibly fidgeting in the seat beside him. Spinner wanted to ignore it, like he wanted to ignore the pit forming in his stomach. He’d never had to confront this thought before, but now that Sean was in town on leave for a few days, Spinner had to wonder if he and Emma would have ever gotten together if it weren’t for Sean leaving. Would seeing him again remind her of those old feelings. He had been her first love. Spinner can’t replace those memories with new ones. But eventually, he can’t ignore it anymore and decides to ask, “Are you nervous or something?”
Emma suddenly sits up a bit straighter and stops bouncing her knees and picking her fingers. “What? Why?”
“You look like me off my ADHD drugs,” Spinner said. “You’ve looked almost sick ever since we got in the car and I’m not that bad of a driver.”
Emma sighed. “Yeah, I am nervous.”
Spinner didn’t want to hear that. He wanted her to lie. So he hummed, or maybe it was a grunt.
“Spin, Sean asked to take a picture with me before he was deployed. He wanted to show it to his platoon or whatever.” She looked at Spinner with her big, brown eyes. She looked almost panicked. “I was just excited to see an old friend, at first, but what if Sean…”
“You think he’s still in love with you,” Spinner said. “Couldn’t blame him if he were.”
Emma smiled, the tension having broken slightly. “Does that make me sound so totally vain?”
“A little bit,” said Spinner. “But you two were a big part of each other’s lives for a long time. I wonder if…”
“There might be some lingering feelings?” Emma guessed. “I can promise you, Spin. Not on my part. At all. I feel a little bad, honestly. I’ve hardly thought about him at all since he enlisted.”
Now Spinner sighed. “I feel a little bad, too. Because I feel so relieved to hear you say that.”
Emma laughed. “Well, let’s just get through this awkward reunion, huh? You can help me break the news to him.”
“With pleasure,” Spinner said with that classic, lop-sided Spinner grin.
In two minutes, when they pulled up to The Dot, both Spinner and Emma seemed a little lighter. Spinner held the door as Emma walked through, scanning the small cafe for Manny first, then after seeing her friend waving, her eyes landed on Sean, sitting beside her in his off-duty clothes, looking rather stiff. Emma smiled at him, and he smiled back. It didn’t quite reach his blue eyes.
Spinner waved back at Manny, then at Sean, who looked a little sick.
“Emma,” said Sean as she reached the table. “Spinner.”
“Oh my gosh! How have you been?” Emma asked, reaching for a hug.
Sean gave Spinner a look that Spinner didn’t like. A look that told Spinner that Manny had already spilled the beans about their marriage. A look like he was asking permission. As if Spinner’s wife hugging an old friend should be a problem. Like Spinner might suspect deeper feelings lurking under the surface. As if the worry would be valid. And yeah, maybe Spinner had been a little worried, for a few minutes, but seeing Emma pull away the same way she’d pull away from hugging Manny, Spinner knew his concerns were stupid.
“I’ve been okay,” Sean said. “And you? You two?”
“Great!” said Emma. “I’m at TU and Spinner manages this place.” She gestured.
“It’s changed a lot since the last time I was here,” Sean remarked.
“She burned it down,” Spinner joked, though it was the truth. “But that’s a story for another day.” And he wrapped his arm around Emma, who leaned into him, a movement so subtle that anyone else might have missed it. But Spinner felt it, felt the way Emma was aligning herself with him.
Sean’s face changed. It softened. Spinner recognized the expression: acceptance. “So you guys really got married at Niagra Falls?” he teased.
Manny laughed. “I know, right? No one saw that coming…”
And the reunion wasn’t so awkward after all.