I was working at my desk in my room when I realized that Gemma was in the house, late at night a few days after I’d driven out to see her. I was wearing sweatpants, which is to say that I was innocently shirtless, and hadn’t even heard her when she got in. I hadn’t received a call or text from her since I’d left her hotel room, and made good on my promise to wait until she was ready to talk, even though I knew they had the wrap party for the film last night. I mostly trusted that she wouldn’t get drunk and straddle Ben or anyone else.

I checked my phone to see if she’d announced her presence at all, and indeed, she had texted a link to a short video of a gleefully excited yellow lab puppy running and tumbling down a flight of carpeted stairs to greet the person filming it. I would have liked to think that it meant she was that excited to see me, but I knew immediately that she was using my trick, and what would follow was going to be less than good news.

Her bedroom door was closed, and when she came out and saw me in the kitchen, that now-familiar How Dare You Be Bare-Chested In My Presence look flashed across her face before being replaced by a look of studied composure. I watched her take a deep breath and saw her lips form the words: “Here we go.”

“Hello,” she said to me, perfunctorily. “Good to see you.”

“Hello,” I replied, matching her tone and manner. “It is good to see you too. Thank you for the video.”

“You are welcome.” She didn’t move from her bedroom doorframe. She clenched her fists and looked as though she was preparing to launch into a big speech, so I didn’t say anything for a bit. After about twenty seconds, it had become clear to me that she wasn’t going to speak yet, so I tried to assuage her by bringing up a neutral topic, from a safe distance.

“So, I was at a conference thing all day today, but yesterday I set something up on the back deck, and I must say, coming home to lay in it for a few minutes was pretty great. Care to give it a try?” I used the app on my phone to turn on the deck lights, which now illuminated the optional hammock that I had installed out there. It hung between the house and a sturdy pole with hooks, so the hammock could be easily removed to make room for chairs.

She gasped and walked over to the patio doors for a closer look, seeming genuinely impressed, but also sad.

“Wow. You did it. Very clever use of space. Well done.”

“Get on in it, I can bring you out a drink.”

“I’d love to. But another time. I…actually just came to get some things.”

I did not like the sound of that, but I maintained my casual stance and let her continue.

“I’m going to stay at Chloe and Ethan’s until I’ve finished breaking down the film set, and then I plan to start looking for my own place when I have time. It shouldn’t take too long.” She finally looked back at me, for a reaction.

“I just don’t see why you need to do that. Or why you’d want to. You can’t afford your own place without a roommate.”

“I can. A small one. In Pasadena, or Burbank.”

“You would live in Burbank just to get away from me?” I slowly made my way out of the kitchen and leaned against the counter on the dining area side.

“I like Burbank. It reminds me of the rest of America.”

“Can you even afford a nice place in Burbank? I’m not being a dick, I’m really asking. I haven’t looked into rental units in the Valley for a while.”

“I can make any place nice. And yeah, I have some jobs lined-up. Ethan referred me to his colleagues at his architecture firm. I have gigs coming up styling houses for photo spreads, and a real estate staging job.”

I walked towards her, hands in my pockets, encouraged because she wasn’t backing away, but confused about her need to move out. “Okay. I’m happy to hear about the jobs. But why are you doing this? You’re not even going to give us a shot?”

When I was standing a few inches from her, staring down at her, I could tell it took a lot of effort for her to remain so close to me, but she was looking down at my feet. “I’m doing this because I want to give us a shot, Walker. I can’t look at you when I say this, so don’t make me, okay?  Promise?”

She was starting to sound like my Gemma again. “Yeah. Promise.”

Big deep breath in as she stared down at the floor, talking to it instead of me, her hands shoved into the back pockets of her jeans.  “I realized I was in love with you very soon after we got married...”

What?

“Not in an I have to have him kind of way, but in a shit I can’t stop thinking about him and he’s my favorite person way.”

I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I never would have labeled that being in love. I felt bad about that as much as I felt relieved and confused, hearing these words from her beautiful lips.

“I was still technically with Andrew. Or I guess I was legally with you, but still secretly with Andrew. I don’t know,” she waved one hand in the air dismissively, “you know what I mean. So it never occurred to me that these feelings I had for you would ever be something I needed to act on because you’ve never shown any interest...”

I started to interject, to reiterate why I hadn’t shown any interest.

“I know, I know, just let me get through this. When things ended with Andrew, I felt so vulnerable with you that it felt necessary to get over you. So I tried to.  I almost did. I really wanted to.”

“So…if you aren’t over me then why is it so important that you get away from me?”

She finally looked up at me. “I said I’m almost over you.” She pulled a face and attempted an adorable, terrible Al Pacino Godfather 3 impression: “Just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in!”

I don’t know how I managed to keep from grabbing her and kissing her, but I managed. Years of practice.

She reached out to hold one of my hands and played with my fingers. “I have thought about this. A lot. Believe me. You are my best friend. But I don’t know this other side of you. And I don’t want to live with you again until I know if I want to live with you like this. In a new way. Until we both know for sure that it’s what we both want. I can’t just flip a switch. Or maybe I’m afraid to. Andrew and I just fell into a relationship because it was the easiest thing to do. We grew up together and it was what people expected. I don’t want to make that kind of mistake with you. You always said you’d help me out, whenever I need something. So if you really want me.” She took in a deep breath and pushed it out before continuing. “As more than a friend. I’m going to need you to figure out a way to make this work. I love you and I don’t ever want to lose you, but I’m not one of your fangirls. I need you to woo me. You’re going to have to work for it.”

Wow. The friend side of me wanted to high-five her for that little speech. The would-be lover side of me was used to defending myself against that kind of demand from a girl that I was pursuing. She bit her lower lip and looked up at me through her eyelashes, and she was getting no argument from me.

“Okay.”

“Really?”

It took her by surprise when I pulled her in towards me and rested my hands on her waist.

“I mean. I don’t want you to move out. Let’s clarify some things. Are you saying that you don’t want us to be friends while we try to date?”

She placed her trembling hands on my chest, pressing her forehead against them. “I don’t know how else to do it.”

I touched her chin and tilted it upwards so we could look into each other’s eyes. “So we’re going to pretend that we aren’t friends and we’re going to pretend that we aren’t legally married so that you can mentally and emotionally handle dating me.”

“Well it sounds weird when you say it like that but it makes sense to me. When I’m totally redecorating a room I have to strip it as bare as possible so I can see it in a new way and get a fresh take on it.”

It made me happy that we had the same sort of approach to rebooting our relationship, but I couldn’t refrain from grinning at that. “So stripping bare is on the table.”

I nearly lost my balance when she held my gaze and grinned back. “Like I said. You’ll have to work for it.”

Game on. I lowered my lips to her ear and whispered: “I just hope you can handle how long and hard I work.”

“And I hope you can handle how hard I’m going to make you.” She covered her mouth and pushed herself away from me. “Work. How hard I’m going to make you work is what I meant! I have to get out of here.”

I stayed where I was, trying to process everything.

She ran back to her room and came out again carrying her laptop, suitcase and handbag. “Text me when you’ve left the house so I can come back and get more stuff, okay? I haven’t watered the plants, so you need to remember to water them on Sunday and I made sugar water for the hummingbird feeder--it’s labeled in the fridge and you have to remember to change the nectar every three days and rinse out the feeder. Plus add birdseed to the feeders in front and back if they ever get low.”

“Done. Hey, hold on.”

“I can’t talk to you anymore.”

“Then just listen to me. I want to say one thing.”

She paused, still facing the front door, away from me. I went over to her.

“Can I say goodbye to my best friend before you take her away from me?”

Her shoulders slumped. She sighed. “I’m not taking her away forever.” She slowly turned to face me.

I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a big long friend-hug. She relaxed into it. Eventually.

“Get ready, because I’m gonna woo you like you’ve never been wooed before.”

“Well I’ve never really been wooed before. So you’ve already got a running start.”

“I think we both know I don’t need that.”

She pulled back, clearing her throat.

“I’ll call you.” My eyes took a long slow stroll from her confused face down to her shifty feet. I liked everything I saw and it felt good to really look at her, for a change, but I wanted to see so much more. Now that I had the green light to officially think of her not-just-as-a-friend, my brain was flooded with absolutely filthy thoughts and images. “Yeah, you’d better go before I start working hard on you right here and now,” I growled.

She was out the door before the words “hard on” had escaped my lips, which was probably a good thing.

I couldn’t believe she told me she was in love with me. How did I not see that? How could she have been so good at hiding it? Or did I just have my head up my ass this whole time? Was that why she was always so mad at me?

She needed to be seduced, and I’m the guy who’ll give her whatever she needs, no problem. But the wooing? It felt new to me. She was right, I was spoiled, but I could still remember the last time I had to work for it to try to get a girl to go out with me. It was the tenth grade. I spent a week psyching myself up to approach Serena Birdsong at her locker and ask her to go to a movie with me. I’d sent her a Candy Gram, let her cheat off of me in Algebra, and did her physics homework once. She was a total film nerd so I thought for sure she would say ‘yes.’ She did not. She didn’t even bother to say why. I was crushed. I was humiliated. But that was when I started running. I started running to silence the sound of her saying “Nope. I don’t.” in my head. I kept running because I started picturing some faceless wonderful girl running ahead of me, and I just wanted to catch up to her.

Now that this girl was a woman with a face, she was still somehow out of reach. But I would pace myself. I’m a marathon runner. I knew I’d get there.