Emma Ever After: A feel-good romantic comedy with a hilarious modern re-telling of Jane Austen. Brigid Coady
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was nice meeting you, Emma.’ His smile made her heart beat a little faster.
Damn it, maybe she wasn’t as immune as she thought.
But he was eight years younger than her. As she realised that, her heart beat normally again.
‘It was nice to meet you, Ed.’ She said shaking his hand.
She turned to Will who was looking at her appraisingly.
He didn’t offer her a handshake.
She was sure that Will could read every small part of her soul, all the lies she told, as if he had stripped off her masks.
It was a look she only usually saw from one other person. Gee.
She wouldn’t squirm, but she could feel her body itching to shiver.
‘Emma,’ he nodded. ‘Bring your A game next week.’ He said it like a challenge. As if she wasn’t up to it.
Why was her back straightening?
Will was small and slight, like Peter Pan, but he looked like he’d fight dirty.
The pair of them moved as one. She watched them walk out of the door before collapsing back into the chair.
She stared at the thick document before her.
Bloody hell.
‘Do we have any ice?’ Emma said, her head in the freezer in the kitchen.
‘What?’ Gee had his feet up on the battered sofa that they kept in the corner of the room.
‘Ice.’ Emma slammed the freezer shut. She was sure she’d seen some in there last week. Maybe she was imagining things. Her head was all over the shop since the meeting earlier in the week. Maybe having the party wasn’t such a great idea?
‘Johnnie and I used the last of it for Margarita Monday.’ He had his phone in his hands holding it over his face.
She hoped it dropped on him, squishing his nose.
Sometimes it was annoying to be faced with someone who had once won the vote for ‘most perfect smile’ on Sugarscape (RIP).
‘Well, go out and buy a couple of bags,’ she said. Did she have to think of everything?
If she was having this party then it was going to be perfect. Work would see what a great place she lived in. She could take her mind off the presentation she had to give next week and she could get Jamie’s mind off Rob. He had been way too excited about a small chat they’d had in the print room on Thursday. She needed to stop it now before it went any further.
Man, if she left it any longer she’d actively have to break them up. And no one wanted to do that. It wasn’t fair, it was much messier and took longer. Easier to never let it get that far.
No, it was best she diverted Jamie with Dan now. Head off all the heartbreak.
Which was why she needed ice.
Because how else could she make sure the drinks were perfect if she didn’t have ice? She needed Jamie and Dan just inebriated enough that they would fall in love.
Okay, she’d take lust for the moment. Either way, as Ogden Nash said, ‘Liquor was quicker’. Admittedly he’d been talking about icebreaking at parties but romance worked the same way.
‘Gee.’ She walked over and snatched the phone from his hand.
She could just casually drop it on him…
He looked up, his face all confused and grumpy.
The violence melted away like the ice they didn’t have. She hated that he had that effect on her when she was in the right, her annoyance was justified wasn’t it?
She wanted to scream.
‘Ice.’ She reiterated.
‘Ice?’
‘Party. Ice. Cocktails.’
‘Okay, okay…’ He was suddenly off the sofa and standing next to her, and in another movement, he’d taken back the phone.
How the hell did he do everything so stylishly? So easily? She said it out loud without realising.
‘Yoga,’ he whispered in her ear.
She shivered. It was a lie, he didn’t do yoga, and she almost called him on it. Instead she said, ‘Stop it,’ pushing him away and rubbing her ear as if it had cooties. No way did Gee need to know he could still give her goose bumps when she wasn’t expecting it.
Mind you, she thought, she’d never come clean and told him he’d been her teen idol.
‘You know what I like about you most,’ a drunk Gee had said to her on the night they finished their last exam in their first year at uni.
‘No, what?’ Emma was staring into the bottom of her plastic cup. Had she really finished another pint of beer? How many was that?
Everything felt a little fuzzy and blurred around the edges, like someone had smeared a coating of Vaseline on life.
‘You don’t care that I was in a band. Not once have you squealed or asked whether I’d snogged Johnnie.’ He patted her cheek. ‘That’s nice, that is.’
Emma looked up and tried to bring his face into focus.
He was so pretty. She shook her head and felt dizzy. No, not pretty, but beautiful. She’d always thought that ever since she’d first seen him on the TV in that reality show.
Hold on, what was he talking about?
‘You treat me like I’m Gee,’ he carried on.
‘Yeah, Gee.’ She could feel words bubbling up in her. Maybe she should tell him? That actually she had a massive crush on him, that she had done since she was sixteen and ever since they’d started uni… well, he was the only one. The only one who made her feel safe.
‘Gee,’ she began. Should she do this? She was about to throw away some of the only stability she’d had in her life but… he was worth it. Wasn’t he?
She was never going to have the guts to say it sober and as she didn’t get drunk very often because she hated feeling out of control, this was her chance,
She could do this.
‘Gee…’
‘Yeah?’ He got closer, his hand resting on her hip. She wondered whether he’d kiss like she imagined when she was sixteen.
‘Hey, Gee.’ A slight man slid between them, causing him to let her go. The strange man’s hand slid down Gee’s arm possessively. ‘Haven’t seen you since that night.’ His emphasis on ‘that night’, dripping with innuendo, had her reeling back.
Oh…
‘Hey…’ Gee furrowed his brow. ‘Erm…’
‘Andy,’ the guy purred.
‘Yeah, Andy, nice to see you mate.’ he said. ‘I’m in the middle of something.’ He manhandled the guy out of the way and looked back at Emma.
‘What were you going to say, Ems?’ He asked seriously, as if the answer was extremely important.
No, because if she told him it would be ruined. Because Gee came with complications and she would be just another fan who wanted him for who he was. If she told him things would be messy and out of control. Okay, so he made her feel as if she were flying sometimes, especially when he looked at her like she mattered, like she was worth everything. But those feelings were only fleeting highs with lows. With him she would be on a rollercoaster. Love was a series of moments that faded. But friendship… that was steady. Safe. No, it was better if she kept things as they were, told a little