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“Yes.”
“What kind? I have cheddar, mozzarella, gouda—” I started listing them all out.
“Whatever is fine, I eat everything,” Emma interrupted me. “But let me make the sandwiches, you’re gonna cut yourself if you only use one hand.”
I took out the gouda before closing the fridge again. I stared her down. “You are my guest. I am in my own kitchen. You will sit down and watch while I make your food. You have proven yourself to be a hazard in the kitchen already. I have video evidence.”
Emma chuckled at my attempt at a joke and held my phone over the kitchen island so I could assemble the sandwich in the light. She tried to protest again but another grumble from her tummy defeated her argument.
“I’m gonna make one for myself as well. I got hungry as I wasmaking yours,” I said as I slid the plate with her finished sandwich in front of her.
I quickly made the same sandwich for myself, putting the knife and cutting board in the sink when I was finished. When Emma handed me my phone back and I turned the flashlight off, we were back to the comfortable darkness and the soft candlelight.
“Thanks for the sandwich,” she said before biting into it.
We ate and then I carried the pillows from the couch back to the bed in my room. I used the flashlight on my phone again and dug through my closet for a t-shirt that Emma could wear as pajamas. I walked out of the bedroom while she changed to give her some privacy and to change into my own sleeping shirt. Not that I would see much in the darkness
When I went into the bedroom again, Emma was already under the sheets so I climbed in from the opposite side of the bed. Then Emma scooted closer to me. Her ice-cold feet touched my own and I had to put conscious effort not to move away from her.
“Can I cuddle you?” She eventually asked, her voice almost inaudible.
“Uh, yeah,” I murmured. “How do you want to do this?”
She told me to turn on my side and asked me if my arm and my wrist brace were alright like that. They were. Then she wrapped one arm around my ribs and buried her other hand in the hair on the back of my head. I didn’t expect her to want to cuddle me, I thought she would’ve wanted me to hold her, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Why? Because my whole body seemed to come alive at her touch and I felt such pure bliss to be in her arms like this. Then her leg hooked over my hip and I melted completely, an involuntary sigh escaping my lips.
“Is this alright?” She asked, her warm breath hitting the back of my neck.
“Yeah,” I whispered back.
Then silence stretched on, broken only by the occasional thunderclap outside.
At some point we both started to drift off, the exhaustion of the day catching up with us. As sleep began to take over, I felt Emma’s hold on me loosen and her leg slipped off my hip but she was still holding on to me. Her embrace felt safe and comforting. I now understood what she meant when she said I made her feel safe. There was something incredibly intimate and calming about being held by her. Her warmth against my back, her steady breath, and the way she held me made me feel more at peace than I had in a long time.
When I woke up in the middle of the night, the storm was still raging outside and Emma was still holding me. In my sleepy haze I thought for sure that this was all just a dream and in the morning I would wake up without her.
The next morning we woke up to the sun peeking in through the curtains. The storm had passed and somehow Emma had ended up spooned into my chest. I stroked her hair and planted kisses on top of her head and forehead as she stirred awake. She looked up at me with a sleepy smile.
“Morning,” she said, her voice husky.
“Morning,” I replied, unable to stop the smile that spread across my face. We lay there for a while, neither of us wanting to move.
Eventually we got up and I made breakfast, watching smugly as Emma walked around my apartment wearing my shirt, with her hair messy and her legs bare. I could get used to that sight.
We sat down for breakfast, me with my coffee and Emma with a bowl of oatmeal.
“I found out you used to do twenty-four-hour streams beforeyou went pro, for charity. Do you think we can do one? Lauren said it was customary for new hires to come up with an event and host it with the rest of Team Solid,” Emma said once she swallowed her spoonful of oatmeal.
“We’ll have to talk to her about the specific format, but a twenty-four-hour stream could be fun,” I said. “She’ll suggest we have it at the team compound, but it can be fun.”
“I actually have an idea for the format.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “Guess the rank replay reviews. We can do that here, it doesn’t have to be a big fancy event.”
“You’ve got my attention,” I urged her to continue.
“Well, viewers will send clips from their games along with their donations to the charity and we will have to watch them and guess their rank. If we guess wrong, we have to match their donation.” She explained.
“That will get old after two hours, max,” I countered.
“True, that is where Team Solid will come in. We will have a different member come in every few hours, depending on how many people actually want to participate. They will have to bring a very old game of theirs, before they were good at the game, and we will watch it in full while roasting their gameplay and their teammates' gameplay, and then in the end we’ll guess what rank they were in that game.” Emma added.
