Free Pull (Push #2) by Claire Wallis Page B

Emma and I will be ready for a new place. A new apartment. Maybe even a new town or a new state. The mere thought of sharing a place with her makes me see him again. The grown-up me. I’m going to have to focus on not fucking this up. I’m going to have to trust that she really does believe I was born-again. And, most importantly, I’m going to have to start believing it myself.
    After a brief stop at home to grab some stuff and take another shower, I drive to Emma’s office building. Her purse is sitting in the passenger seat, and when I park the car, I decide to open it to check for her phone. I’m sure the battery is long dead, but thankfully, it’s still in there, along with her wallet, a tube of ChapStick, her key ring, a pad of paper, a few pens, a small bottle of Tylenol, and three tampons in a little pink-flowered tampon travel case. Funny. Who knew such a thing even existed? For some ungodly reason, the thought of her having such an overtly girly thing makes me smile.
    I close her purse and put it back down on the seat so I can get out of the car and wait for her. I lean against the front fender and stare at the sidewalk extending from the door of her office building. I can’t quite see the door itself from here, but I know she’ll be out soon. I like to watch her walk. Especially when it’s toward me.
    A few minutes later I see her, and when she gets to the car, she slinks her arms around my waist and up under my shirt. I put my mouth onto hers because I can’t help myself. Her tongue is on fire, and her fingers brush against my back. I put my hands on her hips and pull her tight into me. She flexes her pelvis against mine, and I just about flip her up onto the hood of my car to fuck her senseless. People are watching us, though, and there’s no way in hell I’m sharing.
    “How was your day?” she says with a smile when our mouths disconnect.
    “Alright.” I shrug, my hands still on her hips. “Spent the afternoon fixing shit I didn’t break, for a man I don’t like. You?”
    “I spent the day filling in the blanks.”
    “How so?”
    “Matt didn’t want to lie, but when I wasn’t at work on Thursday, he had to give them some sort of reason. So he told everyone that I was in the hospital. He said he didn’t know why I was there, just that I was. Obviously, this was before you conjured your story. I mean, not that I would want him to tell everyone that story, but he had to come up with something . So today, I had to tell about a million people that I got food poisoning from bad sushi. Matt backed me up, though, so no worries there.”
    “Sorry.” I run a hand through my hair.
    “Like I said, no worries. Matt was cool. He didn’t say a word about it all day.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Yep.”
    She looks at me for a while and then takes a step back, dropping her hands and boosting her satchel back up onto her shoulder. I take a small step toward her and turn around to open her car door. Once she’s inside, I walk across the front of the car and we drive away in silence.
    On the phone earlier, Emma said she just wanted to go home. But there’s not a thing I can do there that would be enough to express how much she’s changed things. I need to show her a small piece of who I am. I need to show her how much I want to be the new, grown-up me; not just believe that he exists. So instead of getting on the freeway, I drive somewhere else. I’m sure she notices because when I drive past the on-ramp, she turns her head to face me and raises her eyebrows in question. She doesn’t say anything, though, and I suspect she’s not going to. I have to drive fast because we only have another hour or so until they close.
    Twenty minutes later we pull into a parking space in front of Jackson’s Hardware. Emma looks over at me as I shut off the engine.
    “Do you need to get something?” she asks quietly.
    “No,” I say with a knowing grin, unfastening my seatbelt and opening my door. “Come on. I