Chapter 3: Emma's Game
The hum of the fridge was the only sound in the apartment. Harry stood in the doorway, the empty cake plate held like a shield against his chest. The morning light through Anne’s half-drawn blinds cut the kitchen into stripes of brightness and shadow, highlighting the crumbs still on the counter. The air smelled of burnt coffee and, faintly, of lavender.
Emma leaned against the kitchen island, a mug in her hands. She was dressed in the same clothes from yesterday, her auburn curls deflated into a messy bun.She watched him over the rim of her mug, her eyes clear and knowing.
“She’s in the shower,” Emma said. Her voice was quiet, stripped of its usual playful bounce.“I just came for the plate.” Harry’s own voice sounded too loud. He stepped inside, placing the ceramic on the cluttered counter.The normalcy of the gesture felt absurd.
“Right.The plate.” Emma put her mug down. The click of pottery on granite was precise, final.She didn’t move from her spot, blocking his path deeper into the apartment. “You know, I’ve been thinking.About last night.”
Harry’s breath hitched. He focused on a crumb near the sink.“Nothing happened last night.”
“No. But it almost did.” She pushed off the island and took a single step toward him. The space between them, once filled with joking and cake, now crackled with a different charge. “I saw your hand, Harry.I saw where it was going.And more than that, I saw your face. You weren’t just checking a muscle spasm.”
The directness was a physical blow. All his professional demeanor, his gentle friend persona, evaporated under her scrutiny. He opened his mouth to deny it, but the lie died in his throat.Emma closed the distance. She stood close enough for him to smell the stale coffee on her breath, see the faint freckles across her nose. Her gaze was unwavering.“You want to see her,” she stated, her voice a low, confidential murmur. “Not just her back.Everything. Especially that tight, bare little pussy she’s so protective of. Don’t you?”
Heat flooded Harry’s face, a mixture of shame and stark, naked arousal.He couldn’t speak.
A sly, almost imperceptible grin touched Emma’s lips. She reached out and pressed a single, blunt finger against the center of his chest, right over his pounding heart.“I can help you with that.”
He flinched. “What?”
“I live here too.I know her routine. I know when she’s vulnerable.” Emma’s finger trailed down a few inches, a whisper of pressure through his t-shirt. “You’re not a bad guy, Harry.You’re just… frustrated. I get it.She’s a cute little package, and she’s utterly oblivious. It must be torture.”
Her understanding was more dangerous than any accusation. It validated the ache he’d carried for years, made it seem ordinary, manageable.
“I would never hurt her,” he whispered, the words automatic, hollow.“Who said anything about hurting her?” Emma’s hand dropped. “Knowledge isn’t violence.A look is just a look.You almost took one last night. I’m just offering a clearer… opportunity.”
The shower in the distance stopped running. The silence that followed was thick, heavy with the imagined image of Anne stepping out onto the bathmat, skin steaming, water beading on her shoulders, on her—
“It would cost you, though,” Emma said, her voice snapping him back.She leaned in, her words a hot brush against his ear. “A favor.For me.Nothing too terrible.Just… something I might need, down the line. A professional courtesy from a guy with magic hands.”
It was a deal with a devil he knew. A trade.His secret desire for her secret complicity. The bathrobe hook scraped in the hallway bathroom.“She’s your friend,” Harry choked out.“She is. And friends know each other’s secrets.” Emma took a step back, her expression shifting back to its familiar, mischievous lightness as if a switch had been flipped.“Think about it. No pressure.” She turned and picked up her mug.“You should probably go before she comes out. Wouldn’t want her to think you were lurking.”
Dazed, Harry stumbled back toward the door. His hand fumbled for the handle.“Oh, and Harry?” Emma called, sweetly.He turned.
Her smile was all teeth.“You left your coconut oil last night.It’s by the mat. I put it in the cupboard.” She paused, letting the implication hang. “In case you need it again.”
He fled into the bright, anonymous hallway, the click of the door behind him echoing like the snap of a trap. He leaned against the wall, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs.Shame warred with a terrifying, blossoming hope.She had seen him.She knew. And she hadn’t condemned him.She had offered him a key.
The scent of lavender from the apartment seemed to follow him all the way down the stairs, a perfume that now smelled not of cleanliness, but of conspiracy.