Page 100 of Talk Wicked to Me

Ollie licked him, tail wagging.

“Good boy.”

Baz headed out of Brennan’s room and opened Emerson’s door as quietly as he could in case she was napping. But the bed was empty, and Emerson was sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back to him, surrounded by piles of pictures, papers, knickknacks, and other things. The flaps on the boxes marked PERSONAL stuck up at odd angles, as if she’d started opening them, and the contents had flown out like a flock of birds.

“Em?” He took a step forward, careful not to step on anything, and she lifted her head, turning with tears streaming down her cheeks, gutting him.

“I opened the boxes.” Her voice was shaky and thin, and she was holding what looked like a piece of paper.

“Aw, Em.” There was no place for him to step without crushing something, so he dropped to his knees where he was, reaching over the piles between them to hold her. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it. It’ll be okay.”

She shook her head against his shoulder. “I’m not sad. I’m happy. They were so in love, and they loved me so much.”

Relief gusted through him. He quickly and carefully cleared a path between them, moving closer to pull her into his arms.

“I’m okay,” she said softly. “I promise.”

“I know you are, darlin’.” He cradled her face between his hands, wiping her tears with his thumbs, holding back the words that held the power to upend, or complete, her night. That was a risk he wasn’t willing to take on what was probably the happiest night of her adult life, so he said, “I needed that hug.”

“Why? Wait. Is something wrong? I thought you were going out with the guys tonight.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just want to spend as much time as I can with you and Brennan before I go away.” He pressed his lips to hers. “Show me everything.”

She smiled and looked around them. “Where do I start?”

“Wherever you want, baby. I want to know all of it.”

“Okay, well, I don’t think I told you that my mom was from Iowa.”

“She was a farm girl?”

“Not really. Her dad was a bookkeeper, and they lived in an apartment in town, not on a farm. But I did see a picture of her wearing overalls.” She laughed softly and went on to explain how her parents had met when her mother was visiting the Big Apple with her grandparents. “I knew my parents had kept in touch after that, but I didn’t know my dad wrote her beautiful love letters. And he never stopped writing them. I found them in there.” She pointed to a three-ring binder, eyes glittering. “There are hundreds of them, and you can feel how much thought he put into them. It’s a shame nobody writes letters anymore. Texts are great because they’re instant, but they’re also cursory. Nobody sits down and writes a three-page text about the color of your eyes or how it feels to hold your hand.”

“Guess I’d better work on my penmanship.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

“If my girl wants handwritten letters, she’s damn well going to get them.”

“Really?”

“Haven’t you figured out yet that there’s nothing I won’t do to see that smile?”

“Thank you.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him. “That gives me something to look forward to, and I’ll write back to every single one of them.”

He was digging that idea, too.

She showed him some of the letters her father had written, and she was right. The emotions in his carefully crafted words hit differently than any text Baz had ever gotten. They looked at birthday and anniversary cards her parents had given each other and spent the next hour going through pictures.

There were pictures of her parents when they were little with Emerson’s grandparents, and of them as young adults, her mother’s head resting on her father’s shoulder, and dressed up like each other when they were college age. Her father wore a wig and miniskirt, and her mother sported fake facial hair and men’s clothes. There were pictures from her parents’ wedding, her mother smushing cake into her father’s face, both of them laughing, the love in their eyes radiating off the image. They laughed at her family’s annual pictures in matching outfits, and Emerson told him the stories she remembered behind some of the pictures, like the one of her doubled over in hysterics beside her father, who had face-planted in the snow on a ski vacation. Baz’s heart melted at photos of Emerson when she was a little girl, doing a horrible job of putting makeup on her mother and beaming at the camera while her father carried her over one shoulder, her arms outstretched, legs straight out, like an airplane.

Every picture told a story, bringing back happy memories, which Emerson shared with him. Like the one of Emerson sitting in a Barbie car on the sidewalk, her father standing beside it, pretending to write a ticket. There were pictures of Emerson and her mother delivering cookies, and with their dog at a dog park, and just as many pictures of Emerson and Gwen having sleepovers and baking with her mother.

Her mother hadn’t been kidding about capturing every moment, and he was so glad Emerson had them.

“Look at this picture of mine and Gwen’s parents.” She held up the picture.

He recognized Gwen’s parents from the pictures on the mantel, only they were much younger in this photo, in their twenties, maybe, their clothes dusted with flour, white handprints on Gwen’s mother’s hip and her father’s chest. The four of them were standing arm in arm, while other people milled around the kitchen.