Something to Talk About(23)

Emma turned her head to press a quick goodbye kiss to Jo’s cheek. Jo was pulling back from the hug at the same time, and Emma misjudged the distance. She didn’t realize what was happening until she suddenly suddenly suddenly knew exactly what was happening. Her mouth was on Jo’s. Just the corner, just a little, but unmistakably there. Emma jerked away quickly enough to lose her balance. She took a stumbling step before catching herself, straightening up. Jo’s face was—stricken wasn’t quite the right word, but it was close.

“I’m—” If she said she was sorry, she was addressing it, and addressing it made it real and it couldn’t be real. She could not have just kissed her boss. So instead she said, “See you Monday!” much too loudly, and fled—except she couldn’t flee, because she had to wait for the elevator to arrive.

Emma listened to Avery and Jo say good night while she stared unblinkingly at the silver elevator doors. Jo didn’t sound upset. Emma could tell by her tone of voice she was smiling. So maybe kissing her wasn’t the worst thing in the world?

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

It was definitely the worst thing in the world. It could not have just happened. Emma could not be that drunk. She wanted to die.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Emma did not look back at Jo. She did not look at her sister, getting on the elevator behind her. She pushed the button for the first floor, kept her finger on it even after it lit up. She didn’t breathe until the doors closed.

It had been dark on the roof—maybe Avery hadn’t seen. No one else was close enough to have noticed at all, probably, and it was just event staff at this point anyway. But Emma wasn’t worried about anyone else. She was only worried about Avery beside her, suspiciously silent until she took a breath like she was gearing up for something. Emma cringed in advance.

“So I don’t get why you spent the beginning of the party lecturing me and Phil about not calling Jo your girlfriend when at the end of the party you literally kissed her goodbye.”

“Noooooo.” Emma slumped backward against the wall of the elevator. “I didn’t mean to!”

“You kissed her! Right on her fucking mouth!” Avery only swore when she was drunk.

“I didn’t mean to!” Emma said again, loud enough that Jo might have been able to hear, now five floors away. “I just meant to kiss her cheek!”

“That’s still a fucking weird thing to do to your boss!”

Emma realized that now. Realized a lot of things now. Like that she should have stopped three gin and tonics ago.

“I’m drunk and she smelled good and she said such nice things about me tonight and I love wrap parties and it was an accident, okay? Can we please forget about it? It doesn’t mean anything!”

“It means you’re super gay for your boss, just like everyone has been saying.”

“I hate you.”

It did not mean that. It meant Emma was drunk and dumb and had bad depth perception. It meant she was embarrassed as all hell and would probably have to deal with some awkward lecture from Jo on Monday about appropriate behavior in the workplace.

“We’re not done talking about this,” Avery said as she put Emma in a Lyft.

Emma didn’t bother saying bye. Her driver was silent, thankfully. She sat in the back seat in a stew of embarrassment and disbelief. What was she supposed to do now? What did one do after accidentally kissing their boss? She could apologize. Should, probably. But it seemed like the much less mortifying solution was just to ignore it.

Yes, an apology would be nice. She didn’t want to do things that were inappropriate or made Jo uncomfortable. But maybe apologizing would make Jo uncomfortable—bringing it back up and having to address it. The best apology was changed behavior, and it was already never going to happen again. Emma didn’t want to kiss Jo. Jo knew that, even if the rest of the world—including Emma’s own sister—thought otherwise. Emma would just be professional. That would be her apology.

She drank two full glasses of water before climbing into bed. She didn’t think about Jo’s lips once.



* * *



—

The sun was too bright. Emma pulled her pillow over her face. Her head pounded, not horribly, but enough that she regretted drinking so much. Then she remembered saying goodbye to Jo, and her stomach rolled. Her hangover wasn’t bad enough to make her nauseated but her embarrassment sure was.

She’d kissed Jo.

She’d kissed. Jo.

She threw the covers off and got up. It was fine. It had to be fine. There was not another option. She was meeting Jo for lunch Monday to talk about her career path. The rest of the cast and crew were off until late summer when they started filming the next season. Since Emma worked for Jo, she had a job year-round, but she had a week off after the wrap party. Except for lunch on Monday. She was supposed to tell Jo what she wanted to do with her life.

Unless the wrap party changed things.

Maybe instead of asking Emma what career she wanted, Jo would ask her why she thought she could kiss her. Maybe Emma would be fired. But Emma remembered Jo’s voice saying bye to Avery. She sounded normal. Not fake normal like when she was actually upset—Emma had worked with her long enough to know when she was pretending like that. And she wasn’t. She was fine. So this whole thing had to be fine. It was an accident. Accidents happened. People made mistakes. Jo knew that. She gave people second chances. She wasn’t going to fire her. Emma was almost certain.