Page 117 of Summertime Friends

The marketing meeting for Hayes Hotel with Emerson and her team was the last of the day for both of us. She brought all of her stuff with her when they walked here from her office.

Emerson and I took Cal’s suggestion before taking the train back to her place for the evening. My glass desk now has an excellent, sweaty outline of her body pressed up against it. I left a note for the custodians that I’ll clean it tomorrow. But I might leave it. It’s branded now.

“Are you going to tell me why you have a small suitcase with you?” She laughs. “Are you. . . moving in?”

“Not yet.” I smile at her, rolling the carry-on-sized suitcase into her dining area. It’s not a dining room, but her apartment has enough space that she can fit a round table with four chairs on the backside of her couch. I set the suitcase on the table. “This is for you.”

She stares at me, confused. Big green eyes, and the corners of her lips uptick.

“Not the suitcase. What’s inside of it,” I clarify.

Last night, George appeared at my door. This suitcase and his in hand. Thankfully, Emerson wasn’t over.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“You asked for me to ship you a box of books. Do you know how many pounds that was about to be? Thought it would be easier to ship me!”

“We also heard from a little birdy that someone might be dating Emerson Clarke.” Beatrix brushes by her husband, hugging me.

“Wonder who that is?” I speak loudly to get Cal’s attention from upstairs.

I take the suitcase George packed the novels into, wheeling it behind me and shutting the door. Three years’ worth of them, hand-picked and annotated for her.

The first one was for her birthday that year. I picked up a first edition of her favorite novel,The Great Gatsby, intending to send it to her, but I decided against it. They compounded from there. Anytime I saw a book she might like, I’d buy it, read it, annotate it, and write to her about what was happening in my life then, as I used to do on FaceTime.

There are twenty-three of them.

I’ve wanted to give them to her. Always knew I would. That’s why I asked George to send them to me. A short-lived thought crossed my mind about saving them and slowly giving them to her, but I was too excited and too nervous that this chance with her might slip away.

“You can open it. It’s not dangerous,” I tell Emerson.

“Okay,” she says slowly.

The sound of the zipper echoes in her place. She flips open one side of the suitcase against the refurbished table. The smell of books fills the space.

“Are these books?” She picks them up, one at a time, reading the titles out loud, flipping them over to skim the back. Emerson opens a few, flipping through the pages. Her jaw drops open as she turns to face me. “Are all of them annotated?”

“Yes,” I kiss away the single tear falling down her cheek.

“Why? How?” She asks.

I tell her about the birthday book, catching her up to the most recent purchase, which was from the day we ran into each other at the coffee shop. It was a silly little second-chance romance that I thought was fitting. She giggles, informing me that she has already read the book and, like me, thought of us.

Emerson sets down the book clinched to her chest, draws me in close for a hug, and presses a soft kiss to my lips.

“Thank you,” she says to me endearingly.

“I never stopped caring for you,” I add.

She kisses my palm that’s cupping her face, then walks out of my embrace, jogging down the hallway toward her bedroom.

She returns to the table, holding a box in her hands.

“This. . . this is my memory-shrine-box-of-stuff. It has all of my memories from growing up and from our summers together. . . and apart.”

Emerson takes off the lid after setting it on the table next to the suitcase, pulling out photos, letters, field day ribbons, and smalltrinkets. I recognize some of them, but what catches my eye are news clippings and printouts of digital magazines in her hands.

“It also contains articles about you from over the years. About your new hotels or profiles on you, I’d keep them in here because I didn’t stop caring about you either.”

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