Page 9 of The Snowball Effect

She rolled her lips together, holding in her sigh.

Emma had found an easy way to finagle her way out of dinner at first – it was the end of the semester, and she had a ton of work to finish as she ended her master’s program. And then, for the past month, she’d had the reasoning that she was extremely busy at work as she found her footing atOlly. Unpredictable late hours and whatnot, even though the truth was that Emma typically would be able to have dinner most nights by seven.

Again, Kimberly didn’t need to know that. Not before Emma feltready. And she still just… had no idea when that would be.

“Your gram said that you’ve been doing so well,” Kimberly added enthusiastically. “She said you told her you even got an official nod of approval from your stern boss!”

Emma dropped her head back on a silent groan. She knew that Kimberly was her gram’s daughter and all, but was nothing sacred between the two of them, anymore?

If she wasn’t jam-packed at work, what could she say now? Short of,actually, I’m not ready to see you, and I don’t exactly know why, but I also don’t really want to put in the mental energy to figuring that out, anyway?

Which she couldn’t say – first, because her gram had already had two heart attacks in the last three years, and Emma refused to be a cause of any additional stress in her life.

Secondly – and infinitely more complicated – Emma didn’t want to hurt Kimberly’s feelings, either. God. Yeah, shereallywished she could find that book.

“Uh… yeah, I mean, workissettling down, I guess.” And itwas. Allegra gave her a considering, thoughtful nod last week, when she’d overheard Emma discuss an article with one of the staff writers, who’d been waiting to see her.

Emma had ridden that high for days.

“The thing is, I’m still kind of swamped. Now that work is calming down, I have to switch gears to focus on my new living situation,” she lied through her teeth.

Regan was chaos personified, but that would never change, and Emma would never get used to it.

“Oh, yeah! I haven’t heard just aboutanythingabout this new apartment, other than that it’s in the Village, right?” Kimberly asked eagerly.

Emma smiled at the barista as she accepted her coffee, bringing it over to the fixing station. “Yeah,” she confirmed, drawing out the word as she tried to figure out what to add on. “It is. And it’s, you know, it’s a really new circumstance for me, because I’m not living with my old roommates or anything. This isn’t like I was just moving in with some random strangers I found online. Regan is… different…”

She trailed off, and this time, it had less to do with her mother and more to do with the fact that she had no idea how to summarize the entirety of Regan and still keep this conversation as brief as possible.

Her mom gasped, the sound so jarring in her ear that Emma fumbled with the lid of her iced coffee. “I didn’t know your new roommate wasn’tjusta roommate! You never mention your romantic partners!”

Dumbfounded, Emma nearly dropped her phone as she wracked her brain to think over what she’d just said, trying to figure out if her words alluded to Regan being anything more than what she was – that was, Emma’s pathologically irritating housemate.

Shedidn’t think so, but it wasn’t crazy that Kimberly had made that leap. After all, when her mother was Emma’s age, her life was consumed by her various love interests.

“I remember the first time I moved in with Johnny. Do you remember him?”

The dreamy quality of her mother’s voice did absolutelynotalign with Emma’s memories of Johnny, whom she absolutely did remember. He’d been her mom’s most long-lasting and prevalent on-and-off boyfriend throughout Emma’s early childhood. He’d also been an abusive alcoholic, resulting in Kimberly moving back to Gram’s in tears.

“Sure do,” she confirmed grimly.

“The first time we moved in together, it was so… encompassing. We were so wrapped up in each other and in making the apartment our little home. It’s a big thing, moving in with someone like that.”

Emma remembered very well howwrapped upin Johnny her mother had been. So wrapped up that Emma didn’t recall her mother coming back to see her and Gram for weeks.

“Yeah,” was all she said.

“I understand, Em. I really do. You should take some time now to revel in living with your Regan for a little while. I’ll just keep reaching out, and when you’re ready, we’ll confirm dinner plans? You can bring Regan, too!” Kimberly readily added. “I’dloveto meet her.”

Emma couldn’t hold back her scoff as she walked back toward the elevators. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Before her mother could say anything else, she cut in, “All right, I have to get to work. Have a good one.”

“Bye! I love you!” Her mother managed to get in before Emma disconnected the call.

She shook her head as she rode the elevator back up to the twentieth floor. If her mother believed Regan was her girlfriend rather than just her roommate, Emma would gladly take that excuse as far as it would take her from making any dinner plans.

At the very least, she supposed she’d found the silver lining to her new living situation.

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