11

I really have no idea why I made such a big deal over Emma having birthday cake and the whole thing with the candle. Just part of my stubborn son of a bitch mentality perhaps… But when I kissed her cheek that blew even me away. I didn’t see it coming until it was over with and I’d done it. It just felt like the right thing to do. I didn’t know why, it just did. And once it was done and I’d had a momentary thought of “oh shit, what did I just do,” then I knew that it was okay. Emma didn’t smack me or burst into tears or anything weird and we went back to watching Trading Spaces while sharing the best piece of chocolate cake that I’d had in a long time. It wasn’t exactly the way I would have spent my birthday, but for some reason I got the impression that for Emma, it was cool.

We made it through about two full episodes of Trading Spaces and laughed at the bad reactions at the end of the shows while doing our own critiquing of the rooms before we both dozed off. It was probably about three when the sound of a cell phone that didn’t belong to me woke me up. I looked around the room in confusion until my eyes settled on Emma and I remembered that she was there with me. Just as I was about to tap her in order to wake her up, she opened her eyes and immediately grabbed for her phone in that way that just screamed, “I’m awake! I’m awake!”

I chuckled at her and busied myself with the oh so important job of putting our dirty room service dishes on the tray near the door and in the meantime casually listened to her side of the telephone conversation. “Hey… Yeah I’m next door with AJ. He came back to the hotel and found me in the hall soaking wet and let me stay with him until you called me back…” I looked at my watch, it had been at least five hours since she’d left that message for him, and I knew for a fact that Skinner’s cell phone couldn’t vibrate with a voice mail message without him dropping everything he was doing to check it. I’d even seen him check his voice mail the middle of a sound check making us all wait for him to finish. It pissed me off to think that he’d received that message from Emma telling him that she was locked out of the room and soaking wet and yet he’d ignored it for five hours. Even I’d picked up on the sadness in her voice as she left that message for him, and I didn’t even know her, he should have known. “Okay…” she said quietly and nodded like Skinner could see her. “I’ll be over in a minute… Bye…”

I stood there by the dirty dishes and looked at Emma, “Skinner?”

“Yeah… he just got back. He said that he didn’t get my message until just now…”

Skinner was a fucking liar, we both knew it. I nodded, “Cool…”

Emma stood up and folded the blanket that she’d been using before moving toward the door where I was. “Thank you, again.”

“You’re welcome, again…” I said and smiled. “Anytime…”

“I’ll have these clothes washed and will get them back to you today, okay?” she said tugging at the multiple layers of clothes that she’d borrowed from me.

I nodded, “Sure… no rush. I’ve got more clothes with me than I need anyway.”

She picked up the somewhat damp clothes that we’d laid out on the chairs to air dry and then smiled at me. I looked into those green eyes of hers all over again. Beautiful. “Well, I should probably go… Skinner might pass out soon and then I’d be stuck in the hall again.”

She chuckled but both of us knew that her statement wasn’t exactly a joke. “So, I’ll see you around, I’m sure…” I told her as I opened the door for her. “I’ll look for you at sound check…”

“Yeah…” she said and smiled again. “See ya…”

I nodded and she stepped into the hall. She gave a little wave and I found myself calling out to her, “Hey Emma?”

“Yeah?” she said and twirled around to look at me.

“Good night…”

She smiled one of those really bright smiles that went all of the way to her eyes and I think she even blushed a little bit. “Good night…”