Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,66
making sure you get to your car okay.”
“Oh,” she said.
“If you didn’t have your own car here, I would have driven you home and walked to the door.”
“Oh,” she said again, heat igniting her cheeks.
“And can I get your phone number?”
“Yes,” she said, accepting his phone when he gave it to her, and calling herself. Then she handed it back to him. “Now we have each other’s.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll see you.”
He didn’t try to kiss her again.
She couldn’t decide if that made him a gentleman, or if it made her disappointed.
Or if it was both and that was okay.
She considered that while she drove home, her lips burning. Her phone rang, and she answered it, putting it on speakerphone.
“Where are you? Your mom has called me twice, and I feel mean ignoring her.”
“I’m sorry,” she said to Catherine. “He kissed me.”
“Wow,” Catherine said. “I figured you’d make a guy wait way more dates to get a kiss. Or at least...take you out and not to his garage.”
“He kissed me.”
“I mean, he seems like the kind of guy who would have kissed you on the first date. You’re the one who doesn’t seem like that kind of girl.”
She guessed maybe she did think that she was the kind of girl who would wait until the fifth or sixth date to kiss a guy, but this didn’t feel just like a date.
It felt like...a shift.
Like he had come into her life and things had rearranged themselves. Like the conversations they’d had tonight had created new ideas inside of her and she wasn’t going to be able to go back and not have them there anymore.
The way that he had talked about her caring for herself.
And he thought she should go to Boston.
Maybe it wasn’t the best thing for a guy that you liked to tell you to move across the country, but...he believed in her. That felt like it mattered.
“I really like him.”
“Good,” Catherine said, her ire clearly decreasing. “I’m glad you like him.”
“Thank you. I’ll figure out how to fix it. I’ll just say that we lost track of time.”
“Okay. And then stop lying.”
“You lie to your parents all the time.”
“Yes. But you don’t.”
Catherine hung up right as Emma pulled into the private drive and she sighed, trying to figure out exactly what she was going to say to her mom. She parked in front of the Lightkeeper’s House and stared for a moment, and then she killed the engine and trudged inside.
“Where have you been?” Her mom was right there, looking pale and afraid. And mad.
“I’m sorry. Catherine and I lost track of time.”
“Catherine didn’t answer her phone, you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I know. I’m sorry. By the time I realized how late it was and that I’d missed calls from you it was too late for me to fix it.”
“What were you doing?”
“Hanging out,” Emma said.
“You normally have your phone welded to your hand, Emma.”
“I didn’t tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Mom,” Emma said, “I’m not even going to live at home in a couple of months. You can’t police everything I do all the time.”
Emma didn’t know where her anger came from. Because she was the one who had lied. And she was the one who hadn’t kept track of the time. And her mom was afraid, and Emma could understand why. Except for some reason all of it just made her mad, and she didn’t want to deal with it.
She didn’t want to deal with her mom’s feelings. She didn’t want to have to live to make her happy.
She didn’t want to have to calculate her every move to spare her mom worry. Because she had been doing it for too long.
Tonight had felt amazing.
And she had felt free.
She had had something that belonged to her, only to her. And she hadn’t gotten the lecture on safe sex and waiting until after college to get serious about someone. She had just...gotten to see where it went. And she’d liked that.
“Emma Jane,” Rachel said. “I pay for your life—your minimum-wage diner job doesn’t. And who do you think will be financing your collegiate independence? Not you. So, yes, I do get to know where you are, and who you’re with, and what you’re doing.”
“Not if I don’t tell you.” Emma turned and stomped toward the stairs, but her mother’s hand coming down hard on the countertop stopped her.
“Listen to me,” Rachel said. “I have lost enough. I’m not going to lose you, too. Not to some fit of teenage rebellion.”