Emma

 

Will carried Emma to his waiting limo. The driver frowned at the sight of her but silently handed Will a blanket and bucket, presumable for her to puke in. And he hadn’t been wrong. Emma felt queasy the whole ride home, but she refused to be ‘that girl’. Girls that puke in limos never get the guy.

Once Will helped Emma in the car, he slid into the seat next to her and patted his lap for her to lay her head. It might have seemed like an intimate gesture if they hadn’t grown up doing it. Emma used to fall asleep with her head in Will’s lap gazing up at the sky, dreaming up fashion designs while he edited footage for his next film. Sometimes they’d talk for hours and others they’d sit in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. Emma was an only child and Will might as well have been. His brothers were so much older. They were in college before he even started high school.

For a while, Will and Emma had been each other’s worlds. Secret keepers, dream chasers and shoulders to cry on. That’s what he was offering now. And the torn part of Emma’s heart was too tired to resist. But as she lay with her head in Will’s lap and he slowly stroked her hair, she couldn’t help resenting that he was here for her now, but not when she’d truly needed him. Where was he last year when her parents’ divorce had turned ugly? Where was he when they asked her to choose? New York or Boston? Mother over Father? Sleeping with Liz Vanderveer, that’s where.

Emma let that knowledge settle over her. She didn’t think she would ever get over it. But it’d been a year. It was stupid to think Will wouldn’t have moved on after Emma left. Besides, they’d never officially been anything more than friends. Liz had seen to that. But just because Will hadn’t turned into Emma’s happily ever after, didn’t mean they still couldn’t be friends. If anything, tonight proved that Will was still a great guy. He’d rescued her from mortal embarrassment at Cranston’s and was making sure she got home safely.

She needed to find a way to let last year go so she could start being Will’s friend again. Because truthfully, losing him as a friend had been almost harder than losing the possibility of more. Besides, how could Emma miss something she’d never had?

Will

Will smirked as he stood in his building’s elevator with Emma. “Mistletoe seems to keep finding us.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I think you keep looking for it.”

Will nudged her with his shoulder. “We can’t deny it forever. It’s bad Christmas juju.”

“Fine,” Emma said, taking Will by surprise.

She turned to face him and a lump formed in his throat. Was Emma really going to kiss him? Shit. He hadn’t thought this through. He didn’t want their first kiss to be in an elevator while she was drunk and covered in martinis and blood!

But Emma didn’t kiss him. Instead, she raised her hand over her head and glared at the mistletoe. “Here’s your holiday high-five. Now leave us alone bad Christmas juju.”

Will smiled and met her hand with a solid smack. It made her sway on her feet and he quickly caught her from going down. The elevator doors dinged open and he led her out. “Okay, let’s get you home,” he said, scooping her up in his arms again.

Emma

It was strange being inside Will’s new apartment. It was the same, yet different. Decorated in pale grays and blues, the place still had the same sterile feel as their old apartment. Perhaps that was the reason Emma and Will always chose to hang out at her house when they were younger.

“So this is the new place?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“It’s nice,” she commented. “Big.”

Will shrugged. “More like empty. But that means you have five bedrooms to choose from.”

“Seriously? Five?” Emma huffed. “My father couldn’t even manage a guest room for me.”

“Yeah, that’s completely foul, Em. But you’re more than welcome to stay here next time you’re in town.”

“I don’t think there’s gonna be a next time.”

“Why not?”

“This whole trip has been a disaster. My father hasn’t spent any time with me. All he cares about is Tara and his stupid new family. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

Will pulled her into a hug. “Only an idiot wouldn’t want you, Emma.”

She looked up into his deep blue eyes and felt it—that thread of love that had always been there between them. The tether that made her want more, made her want to forgive him for anything. It was thin and frayed, but it was still there and it gave her hope. “Thank you for tonight, Will. For being there.”

Will tucked her hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger for a moment too long. “I’m always gonna be there for you, Em.”

The way he was looking at her made Emma burn. Will’s eyes sparkled with intensity as his thumb brushed her cheek. And that’s when it happened. Emma’s stomach lurched. She’d been fighting the angry storm of alcohol the whole car ride home. And now, in Will’s warm embrace, she was losing the battle. The martinis had worked themselves into a frenzy—they wanted out, and they wanted out now.

Emma pushed Will away violently, her eyes darting frantically around the room. Bathroom! Where was the bathroom? She wasn’t going to make it. Emma raced to the first option she found and emptied her stomach into the pot of a poor unsuspecting ficus tree.

So it turned out Emma was ‘that girl’ after all. Maybe not the girl who puked in the limo, but she had a sneaking suspicion the girl who puked in potted plants was just as doomed in the romance department. Not to mention that she spent the rest of the night on Will’s bathroom floor praying to the porcelain gods.

The last thing Emma remembered was pressing her cheek to the cold tile floor as she balled herself up in a fetal position trying to wish the past few days away. She prayed that this was all just a bad dream—that she would wake up in her bed in Boston and shiver away the Christmas break-turned nightmare. But the cataclysmic headache and twitch of her empty stomach told Emma this was real. And no amount of wishing or hoping would take the ache from her heart. Her family was broken for good, and she and Will were hanging on by a thread.

As Emma drifted to sleep, she prayed for a Christmas miracle. Because that was her only hope of turning this holiday around.

Will

Will went to check on Emma again. He hadn’t wanted to leave her side, but she’d begged him to give her some privacy between fits of heaving into his toilet. He felt awful for her. Being that kind of sick was the worst. It only happened to Will a handful of times before he learned his alcohol tolerance. Plus, he was an athlete and had an obligation to his team.

Will played lacrosse at St. James Academy, mostly because he was a Taylor and the sport was practically a mandate in his family. But he actually didn’t mind. It wasn’t his passion, but Will was dedicated enough to the team to keep himself in fighting shape. And that meant hangover free. Which wasn’t always easy to do when hanging out with Cranston’s crowd. 

Luckily, Will’s brothers had handed down their secrets of lessening the dreaded post binge-fest hangover. Will had already checked the kitchen to make sure he had all the supplies necessary to make the famous Taylor boys cure-all. Then he’d grabbed a bottle of Pedialyte and two aspirin and headed to his bathroom.

He gently knocked on the door, and when Emma didn’t reply, Will pushed it open slightly, revealing Emma asleep on his bathroom floor, her cheek mashed uncomfortably against the white tile. His heart ached for her. She was going through some tough things with her family and he wished there was more he could do. But for the moment, getting her somewhere more comfortable was all he could offer.

Will knelt next to Emma and stroked her hair. “Em, do you want to come to bed?”

She murmured something incoherent and shook her head without opening her eyes.

“Emma. You can’t sleep on my bathroom floor. Come on. Let me take you to bed.”

“No,” she groaned. “Floor good. Moving bad.”

Will smirked. How was she this cute even when she was sloppy drunk? He shook his head at himself realizing nothing had changed. He was still in love with Emma and would do anything for her—including rescue her from her own stubbornness.

Starting tomorrow, he was going to find a way to help her turn her holiday around. But first things first—he scooped her up and carried her to his bed, propping her up on a bunch of pillows even though she groaned and protested the entire time.

“Just let me sleep, Will.”

He opened the Pedialyte and put a straw in it. “Drink this and then you can go to sleep.”

She reluctantly took the drink. When she was halfway done he gave her the aspirin. She gulped the pills down and finished the drink, handing it back to him. “Can I please sleep now?”

Will nodded, tucking her in. He turned off the lamp and kissed her head. “Night, Em.”

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about last year. I really wish we had worked out.”  

Will froze. How long had he waited to hear those words? He stared at Emma, but her eyes had already fluttered closed. He watched the steady rise and fall of her breathing as he tried to calm his emotions. But he found he didn’t want to stifle the hope swelling in his chest or the racing of his heart. Emma was the only one who’d ever made him feel that way and it had been so long since he’d let himself even wish for a glimmer of a chance with her. But here she was in his bed, telling him they’d wanted the same thing all along.

That was all he needed to know. He would fight for her. He would let go of last year and all the drama that went with it. If he could focus on the present, focus on Emma, he knew they could get back to the place they had been before everything fell apart. And this time they would work. They had to. Second chances like this didn’t come around for no reason.

Will settled himself on the cold leather couch in his room. He knew it was crazy to hope that he and Emma could finally be together. Especially now that she lived in Boston and college was only a few months away. But as Will gazed at Emma’s porcelain skin, illuminated by the soft glow of the moonlight filtering in from his windows, he realized it would be even crazier not to try.