Sunlight streamed through Emily's bedroom window and bounced along her walls. She could tell it was a perfect day to be outside, enjoying life, but she stayed hunkered down in her bed, hiding under her duvet.
She checked the time on her phone, which she clutched in her hand. Her yoga class would already have started five minutes ago.
He didn't even text to ask if I was coming, she thought, shoving her phone under her duvet and burying her head in her pillow. She hadn't heard a word from Raine since he'd left last night, even though she'd tried calling him after a couple of hours had passed. She hadn't left a voice mail, since she hadn't known what to say.
Even so, it was more effort than Raine had made. He would have seen the missed call by now, but he had made no attempt to reach out to her. Maybe he really meant what he'd said last night about needing time. It wasn't clear to Emily where they stood. Had needing time and saying he felt done meant he was breaking up with her, or did he just need a few days to cool off and clear his head?
She could have gone to yoga this morning and asked him, she knew. But when her alarm had gone off, the thought of facing him there had been daunting enough to make her hit snooze. Then she'd hit it five more times, until it had been too late to make it to class on time. Lying there with her eyes squeezed shut, Emily had convinced herself their yoga class wasn't a good place for a follow-up conversation to what had happened last night, anyway. There were so many people around, and Kami would have listened in on every word they exchanged. They wouldn't have solved anything in that kind of fishbowl, and she wouldn't have been comfortable trying to. There was no telling what Raine might have said, either, since he seemed to think it was time to let the world know they were a couple.
If they even still were.
Emily rolled onto her back and covered her face with her hands, shielding her eyes from the sun. She didn't want to get up yet, but she had to. There was work for Zeeked to do and a freelance assignment for another site she wrote for, and she knew she should start brainstorming her next column for Wally.
Coffee, she promised herself, struggling to sit up. Caffeine would help her think more clearly.
Emily got out of bed and headed down the hallway to the kitchen, stifling a yawn. She stopped when she saw Shelby sitting at the table.
Shelby blinked a few times, surprise registering on her face. "Shouldn't you be at yoga?" she asked. Her voice sounded hoarse.
"I'm taking the day off." Emily trudged over to a cupboard and pulled out a mug. "It's Monday, right? Shouldn't you be at work?"
"I called in sick. I barely slept last night."
Emily pushed the brew button on the Keurig. "Did you spend the night at Darren's? I didn't hear you come in."
In truth, Shelby could have come home last night, blasted music, and had a party in the living room, and Emily probably wouldn't have heard her. She'd hypnotized herself scrolling through old text messages while waiting for Raine to see the missed call from her, and at some point had nodded off with her bedroom lamp still on. She'd woken up two hours later at the time she usually went to sleep and had stumbled into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. After just barely finding the energy to change into pajamas, she had dragged herself back to bed and had fallen into a dreamless slumber until her alarm had gone off.
"I was supposed to stay there," Shelby said. "Change of plans."
Something in Shelby's tone made Emily glance up and take a good look at her. For the first time, she noticed Shelby's puffy, red-tinged eyes. It could have been from lack of sleep, but she suspected Shelby had been crying.
"What did he do?" Emily tried to keep the edge out of her voice, but she was already mentally plotting how to track Darren down and wring his neck. Nobody got away with bringing her best friend to tears.
"The usual. He backed out of plans we'd made for tonight, even though I'd asked a friend for a favor and had us on a guest list for a show, then spent the night talking down to me and acting dodgy. I looked at his phone when he was out of the room and saw a text from the girl he'd cheated on me with during college. I guess he tracked her down and told her he lives here again. I figured out he bailed on what we were going to do tonight because she asked to see him. I confronted him about it, and he freaked out that I'd read the messages on his phone. We started fighting about things that happened years ago, and I broke up with him. I'm not going down that road again."
"Sounds like a lot of breaking up went on last night," Emily mumbled, stirring creamer into her coffee. When she put her spoon down, she saw Shelby staring at her.
"You and Raine broke up?"
"Maybe. Your guess is as good as mine." Emily took a sip of her coffee.
"Want to tell me what happened? I thought things were going really well?" Confusion was written all over Shelby's face.
"He invited me to his movie premiere and wanted me to walk the red carpet with him."
"And?" Shelby prompted.
Emily scowled. "The premiere is next week. That's still too soon, and he should have known that."
Shelby frowned at her. "Too soon for what? You guys have been spending a ton of time together, and I know you've spent the night at his place at least a few times. Last I checked, you were calling him your boyfriend. Of course he'd want you to be his date."
Guess I need to spell this out. Emily reminded herself to be patient with Shelby about not connecting the dots. She'd had a rough night, too.
"Think for a second," Emily said. "What happens when you're on the red carpet as a celebrity's date?"
Shelby looked at the ceiling. "I don't need to think. You just told me everything. Can I take a guess at how last night went?" She didn't wait for Emily to answer. "He asked you to be his date to his movie premiere, mistakenly thinking that since you two have been getting more serious and are sleeping together, you were ready for what logically comes next, which is telling people you're seeing each other or going out in public. You balked. He realized you still want to hide out all the time, and he got upset because he wants to date you for real."
"We are dating for real," Emily argued. "Or were. I don't know."
Shelby snorted. "Maybe if this was the witness protection program. At some point, dating for real means being seen together. You realize that, right?"
Déjà vu, Emily thought. She hurried to speak before Shelby could give her the same spiel Raine had about feeling like a doormat or a booty call.
"It's not the whole story," Emily protested. "Someone sent Wally a photo of Raine and I sitting together in our yoga class and claimed we're a couple."
Shelby had stuck by her side the last time every detail of her personal life had been broadcast to millions of strangers who'd had a dizzying array of opinions based solely on speculation and half-truths. Emily hoped by reminding her about the people out there who stopped at nothing to start rumors and gossip, she would remember that happily-ever-after wasn't a mission statement of the tabloids.
"I never thought I'd say this, but thank God for Wally. Him running that story will force you to just get over it and let yourself be with a good guy."
Thank God for Wally? Emily wondered if the lack of sleep had affected Shelby's brain.
"I told Wally we aren't dating," Emily said. "There was nothing he could prove from the photo, and the girl who sent it to him was just after media attention." She picked up her mug again, wishing her coffee was spiked with Baileys or that it would magically morph into last night's pinot noir.
"Does Raine know you lied to Wally and denied that you're dating?" Shelby asked.
"Yep."
"Then I wouldn't blame him if he's upset or confused about how you feel, if that's what happened. I don't even understand why what other people think matters to you so much, especially when they're people you don't know and will probably never meet."
"I realize you like Raine, but that doesn't change reality," Emily told her. "You were there when I stopped getting freelance work and started losing advertisers for Zeeked the last time all those people I don't know read about me and had an opinion. I do need to support myself."
Shelby threw her hands up. "You don't think Wally would protect you from all that? Yes, it's annoying he writes stories about you, but even when he does, he's on your side now. He didn't know you at all the last time, or what had really happened. Once he did, he made it right. Do you really think if something happened with you and Raine that didn't sound on the up-and-up, he'd publish something without coming to you first?"
"Tinseltown Buzz would," Emily replied.
"And then Wally would ask you for the real story and publish that." Shelby's expression softened. "You know I want to see you happy, and when you're with Raine, you're happy. But you're using his fame as an excuse for why you need to keep your relationship a secret. You're claiming to have something serious with him, but wanting to hide it makes me think you're trying to keep it less serious than he'd like it to be. Which is pretty low, by the way."
Emily's head snapped up. "Excuse me?"
"I'm just telling you the truth. You're so afraid of getting hurt, you won't even let yourself try."
Emily rubbed her temples. "Can we finish talking about this later?" she asked. "My head is pounding."
"Can I give you my honest opinion of something before you run away?"
"You weren't already?" Emily asked, just loud enough for Shelby to hear.
Shelby ignored her comment, and kept talking. "I think Raine scares the hell out of you."
Emily didn't say anything. She reached for her mug and raised it to her lips.
Shelby continued. "Every guy you've dated or had a crush on since college has been a total player. Cory just happened to be the biggest player of them all. I think you're afraid of what happens if you really let yourself be with someone you could have a future with."
"You're lecturing me on this?" Emily squinted at Shelby. "You just took back the guy who smashed your heart into a zillion pieces in college."
"And I also just broke up with him," Shelby pointed out. "I knew I didn't have a future with him, and that deep down, I was only seeing him again because I was tired of being single. But at least I was honest with myself and owned up to what I was doing."
"Which makes you better at handling relationships than me," Emily said. "Point taken." She swallowed the rest of her coffee and went back to the Keurig to make a second cup.
Shelby squeezed the bridge of her nose. "Believe it or not, I don't want to fight with you. All I'm saying is when you find something that's good, hang on to it. I'm still waiting to find that, but I think you already have."
Emily thought about Raine, and the brief light of hope that had flickered across his face when he thought she'd told Wally about them dating. In her mind's eye, she saw the stony expression that had replaced it when he'd realized she still wanted everyone to believe they were nothing more than acquaintances at a yoga class. He had been so happy to see her when he'd come over, but he hadn't even been able to look at her before walking out the door.
She didn't know what the right answer to any of this was.
"So what do I do?" she asked Shelby. "He didn't answer my call last night, and he hasn't tried calling or texting me. He must have noticed I wasn't in class this morning, but he didn't try to find out if I'd be coming or if I was just running late. Maybe he doesn't want to talk to me."
"Stop putting all the responsibility on him," Shelby scolded her. "Calls and texts are the easy way out, and it's not as if that's the only way to see him. You wimped out on facing him in class this morning, so make the effort to go to his house and talk to him in person. If you really care about him, and he really cares about you, you'll figure it out."
There was no disagreeing with Shelby when she went into lecture mode. Emily had learned that the hard way a few times, so she didn't even try.
"Careful," she warned Shelby instead. "You're starting to sound like a hopeless romantic who believes in happy endings."
Shelby lifted an eyebrow. "And?"
"And I'll go to his house," Emily sighed. "After I get some work done."
"Nope." Shelby shook her head. "Go shower, get dressed, and go over there. You won't be able to focus on work until you do, anyway."
Emily glanced at the clock on the stove. By the time she was finished getting ready, Raine would probably be home from yoga.
She jutted her chin out. "Okay. I'll go see him. But you'd better be armed with chocolate and a chick flick when I get back, just in case."
"It'll be fine," Shelby assured her. "You'll see."
Emily wished she could be as certain about that as Shelby was. By the time she'd showered, dried her hair, and done her makeup, though, she still had no idea what she would say to Raine when she got to his house and he opened the door.