Operation Beautiful

Chapter 45: lorraine, just leave them alone

Chapter 45: lorraine, just leave them alone

“Okay, so explain this one to me,” I say, pointing to one of the post-its on the wall. I would have been perfectly happy to take them down so I could have Emmaleigh sit in my lap again, but she wants them to stay there until she gets her camera.

“Hold on, hold on,” she says, digging through one of her drawers by the bed. “Ah! Found it!” She turns around and looks at me. “Do you want to be in the picture?”

“Not especially...” I say awkwardly. “I’m not a model, you know.”

Emmaleigh opens her mouth to say something, but shuts it again, blushing. “Okay,” she mutters. “Well, why don’t you come over here, then?” I go to stand behind her, wrapping her waist in my arms and resting my chin on her shoulder. “That tickles,” she laughs, moving her shoulder. She snaps a couple pictures and leans back against me with a sigh. “I just can’t stop smiling.”

“Good to know,” I say, giving her a quick squeeze. Then I point to the post-it from before. The one which asks if I’m a jerk for kissing her. “But really. Why did you write that as though you were Jessica?”

“Well, it was kind of embarrassing to write it from my own perspective,” she says with a bashful shrug. “And I was having trouble putting down what I was feeling so I just pretended I was Jess.”

“I’m guessing you told her later, huh?” I ask, thinking of how it took Jessica two weeks to start yelling at me.

“I had to eventually. She’s my best friend. I just wanted to wait until she cooled down a bit after...everything.” Her cool fingers rest against the back of my hands, her head against my shoulder. There’s a knock at the door and Emmaleigh breaks away quickly, taking down the post-its as fast as she can. Mark opens the door and pops his head in.

“Keep the door open, please,” he mutters a bit darkly. Then he looks at the heart of post-its on the wall and turns to grin at me. I can feel the blood rushing to my face.

“Uh, yeah. We’ll do that,” I stutter. He disappears and I find it difficult to look Em in the face again. “So...did you know that Haley’s in China?” I ask, moving onto the bed and avoiding her eyes.

“Really?” She moves to sit next to me and almost on reflex I pull her onto my lap. I don’t know why, I just like the way it feels to have her in my arms like this. “Since when?”

“I don’t know. She left yesterday, so she’s probably reached by now.” I explain about Haley’s mom and Emma laughs.

“If her mom can’t straighten things out, Haley sure will.” Then her tone gets more serious. “Trevor must be worried.”

“Yeah,” I say, playing with her fingers. “I haven’t talked to him yet, though.”

“Mmm.” Emmaleigh leans back with a yawn. “What time is it?” She turns to look at her alarm clock and then at me. “It’s like 7:30! What’d you come here at 7:30 for?”

“It was, uh, 7, actually,” I mutter, scratching the back of my head in embarrassment. “I wanted to make sure you were sleeping. Otherwise it would kinda...screw the whole thing over.” I gesture vaguely to the now-blank wall.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Emmaleigh says quietly, turning to kiss my cheek quickly. We hear a click from the doorway and turn to find Lorraine with a camera. “Mom!” Emmaleigh wails, embarrassed. She covers her face in her hands as her mom smiles.

“What? You guys are just too adorable.”

“Uh, thank you,” I say, aware that Emma isn’t going to be lifting her head any time soon.