“You think?” Leo asked, raising his eyebrows.
“It’s been so long; I can’t be sure.”
“Get sure, and if the answer is yes, then bloody well tell her. No good ever comes from holding it in.”
I thought about what Leo said. He had been in the same situation I was in, and it turned out great. I could only hope for the same for Emma and me. My nerves were high, but I had to tell her. It was the right thing to do.
Chapter Fifteen
Emma
The dinner was over. Things had gone off without a hitch and I was packing up my supplies as well as the leftovers.
“Hey,” Ms. Howell said, coming into the kitchen. It was her place after all.
“Hey,” I said, keeping focused on the task at hand.
“That was really great.”
“Thanks,” I said and smiled at her. Ann was a bit imposing, but I wanted to like her.
She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m serious, I have a lot of clients who would be interested in hiring you for their events.”
“So do I,” Carina agreed, as I took the current load of equipment out to the table, “though in my case it’s moms.” Carina was setting up a special school right here in L.A. I admired her spirit.
“Wow, really?” I looked at both of them. “I’ll make up a portfolio when I get home tonight and email it to you both.”
“That’s perfect,” Ann said.
“What’s perfect?” handsome Noah asked, coming in from the lounge where he, Jim, and Leo were trying Jim’s new whiskey.
“You!” I giggled, throwing myself at him in an attack hug, kissing him passionately.
“Whoa,” Noah said, backing off, “what was that for?”
“You’re my hero!”
“Thanks?”
Given his new heroic status, it was only appropriate that he help me with loading my stuff into the back of my hearse.
“Wow. There really is a lot of room back here,” he said.
“I know right? There used to be runners built into the floor to help put the coffin or casket in, but I had a mechanic take them out after I inherited it. Same place I got the paint job. They gave me a good deal,” I explained.
“Coffin or a casket?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t they—”
“No, they are not the same, it is a common misconception and understandable really. The main difference mostly has to do with shape and lid style,” I explained.
“Such as?”
“Well, I have never heard of an open coffin funeral nor has there been a last or indeed the first nail in a casket. It really doesn’t work that way,” I said, giving the best explanation I had ever heard.
“Oh, okay, I think I get it.”
“Faster than most people,” I admitted.
“Thanks?”
“Your welcome,” I beamed.
Part of me was still pissed at Noah for leaving last night without so much as a goodbye. There was another part, however, a rather large one, that still wanted him to fuck me senseless.
We drove back to my apartment, Noah following my hearse in his hot rod. He had helped me get the stuff down to my car, so it only stood to reason that he would help me take it back up. This in no way meant that anything was going to happen. I wasn’t even sure if he was interested anymore. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care, mostly as a way of staying sane.
The paranoid part my mother had installed in my wiring was screaming at me not to let a strange man into my place. I simply reminded myself that while I didn’t know him super well on a personal level, something that would surely come with time, he was hardly a stranger. He had taken my virginity for goodness sake and knew me in lots of other ways, all of them being really good. More than enough to convince me Noah wasn’t dangerous to me, or anyone else really, despite his commanding size and power, which at the moment were being put to use in my assistance.
Taking all five boxes at once, Noah baked slowly away from the open back door of the hearse, careful not to drop anything.
“I got it,” I said closing the door.
“Just don’t let me bump into anything and it should be all good,” he explained.
Doing my best to shepherd him to the apartment, there barely a wobble from the boxes despite Noah not actually being able to see over the top of the mighty pile. Gracefully, he got the boxes to the kitchenette without incident and, without even needing to be asked, organized them by sized, opened them, and started unloading.
“You really don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I don’t mind,” he said and just kept on trucking.
I quickly got in there to help before he could do it all himself. I wasn’t sure why, but he seemed keen on punishing himself or making amends for something. It was quite an efficient way to do it, both of us working on it that is, and everything was put away in record time.