Loving My Best Friend's Dad(29)

“Wh-what are you doing here?” she asks finally. “Renee’s not-”

“I came here to see you,” I tell her.

“I don’t, I don’t understand.”

I close the door firmly, and she goes to sit on her bed. The room is cramped, with two beds pushed on either wall and a window between them. Even if Emilia hadn’t sat down, I would have known exactly which side is hers. There’s an invisible line down the middle of the room. Renee’s side is a whirlwind of snacks and clothes and everything else. Emilia’s side is neat and tidy, her books stacked on her desk, her laptop perfectly in the center. Nothing out of place.

It takes only two steps for me to stride across the room to her. I sit down, taking her hand. It’s warm and soft and small, and I feel a surge of emotion deep inside of me.

“I came to tell you that I missed you,” I say gruffly. “That I can’t be without you Emilia. That I want you to be mine.”

It doesn’t get plainer than that. I watch as pink suffuses her cheeks, her eyes as wide as saucers. Hope stirred in them, and it gave me the encouragement to continue.

“I let you walk straight out of my life without a goodbye because I knew that you meant more to me after one week than any woman ever has. It was supposed to be for a week, and our circumstances were so different that I thought that it was best to say goodbye. Now I realize that I’ve been a colossal idiot, so I’m here. I’m laying it all on the line. I’m a father to your best friend, I’m a workaholic who until I was with you, never had a vacation, and we’re on completely different stages of life. But I don’t care about any of that. I love you Emilia, and if you can look past the differences and love me too, then I want to make you mine. Forever.”

Tears gather in her eyes, and for a tense moment, I wonder if she’s about to cry. Shit, did I go wrong there somewhere? She uses the back of her hand to wipe at her eyes, and when she looks up at me, she’s smiling.

“I thought that when I lost your phone number, that that was it,” she says, sniffling a little. “I was sure of it. I- I’ve been so unhappy. I haven’t even been able to study. And now here you are, you’re proposing to me? I can hardly believe it/”

She gives a laugh, one so lovely that I just know I can’t live without the rest of my life.

“So your answer is yes?” I ask her, just to be sure. The feeling in my chest is tighter than ever.

“Yes!” she says, throwing her arms around me. “Yes yes yes!”

And I feel that tightness in my heart letting go, releasing its grip on me at last, because she’s mine. Emilia is all mine, and I’m all hers. I’ll be here to provide for her, take care of her, she’ll never want or need a thing. Will our families, friends, and everyone around us whisper and judge? Sure, but with Emilia by my side, none of that shit will matter. All of those obstacles can be overcome, will be overcome. We had the luckiest beginnings, somehow in a city of eight million, we happened to meet that night, and we were both somehow in the right place at the right time.

“I love you Emilia,” I tell her. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

“I love you too Nate,” she whispers, pressing those beautiful breasts against me, her soft curvy body pressed against mine again. “I never want us to be apart again.”





Epilogue


Emilia


Two months later...

“Sorry,” I tell my lab partner. “I’m going to be sick.”

Before she can say anything, I’m tearing out of the room, running as fast as I can to the bathrooms. I barely just make it, throwing open the door to the stall and bending over as I give up the oatmeal I had this morning. I don’t know why the formaldehyde is getting to me these days. It never used to. Well, it’s more than just the formaldehyde. Almost everything makes me nauseous. At first I chalked it up to being worn out, but I have a niggling thought in the back of my head that tells me it’s something more.

I unravel some toilet paper to wipe my mouth, the diamond on my finger glinting in the harsh fluorescent lighting. What would Nate think if he knew?

My mind flashes back to when I said yes to Nate’s proposal. He’d immediately drove me over to the pitiful mall we have in town to pick out a ring. Even though he pointed out a bunch of flashy ones, I settled on a simple square diamond in a platinum band. I know that Nate comes from money, but that’s not why I married him, and a smaller diamond doesn’t mean he loves me any less. He agreed, but only on the condition that he would get to pick our wedding rings.

As soon as we came back, he wanted to tell Renee. I knew that it was coming, and heck, I felt terrible too for not revealing the truth to her from the beginning. We decided the best way to do it was together, so we sat and waited for her. It didn’t take more than two seconds for her to piece together the fact that her dad was here, my ring, everything. She stormed out of the room, and I haven’t seen her since. From what I hear, she’s rented a house for herself off campus.