Standing quickly, I set Olivia down gently and would have bolted for my room, but Emery barred my path.
“You gotta let me—”
“Stay,” he commanded, scowling at me before turning to Mal. “I need a huge favor, if you would.”
“Of course I would,” Mal said, glaring back at Emery. “You know I would. You know me.”
After a moment, Emery nodded. “I do.”
“Then,” Mal growled, “act like it and talk to me.”
Emery shook his head and looked at the floor, almost like he was trying to gather up pieces of himself before his gaze was back on Mal. “I’m sorry.”
Mal was shocked. I read it clear as day on his face. His brows lifted, his lips parted, and he couldn’t stop staring.
Emery exhaled sharply. “I am. You know I am.”
“So am I,” Mal said quickly, moving to take a step forward but stopping himself, holding himself in check.
Emery squinted at him. “What do you have to be sorry for? I’m the one who pulled away… after.”
“But I let you because I thought you needed space. Jules did too.”
I was so lost. Since when were Malachi and Emery friends? Mal had never said a word to me, and I hadn’t been talking to Emery enough to ask him.
“Yeah,” Emery barely got out. “I did. Need it.”
“But it was too much,” Mal said solemnly. “And it went on too long.”
“That’s hard to gauge.”
Mal cleared his throat. “So you know… Jules wants you back almost desperately.”
Emery sighed, and there was a trace of a smile that he had not given Lydia, but now, a bit for Mal. “Does she?”
“You know she does.”
They were silent for long moments. “I worried about her too,” Emery told him. “It was so hard, and I know I wasn’t the only one grieving.”
Mal gave him another warm smile. “I know. She knows. She’s Jules, after all.”
Emery’s smile was wan, but he agreed. “Jules knows everything,” he said as though it once upon a time had been an oft-repeated mantra.
“Yes, she does.”
They were having a quiet moment, communing, and I was overwhelmed with the enormity of it, seeing it for what it was.
Change. There was change happening right in front of me.
I glanced over at Lydia to see if she was noticing, to see if she recognized it as well, but she wasn’t paying any attention to Emery or Mal or anyone else. She was engrossed instead in whatever Shelby was showing them all on her phone.
“We all had to reconfigure our lives, to the way things looked after,” Mal explained. “It wasn’t easy.”
“No.”
He shrugged. “But it’s been long enough, don’t you think?”
“I did. I do. I wanted to… reach out,” Emery said hesitantly, and I could tell from looking at him that it was hard for him to say what was in his heart.
“So did we.”
Emery cleared his throat and then spoke under his breath so Mal had to take a step closer. “Lydia didn’t want to try and compete with what Andrea had been to you guys, especially to Jules, so… you know.”
“That’s what she figured,” Mal choked out, clearly a bit unmoored by the conversation at the same time April slipped her hand into his. I had no idea she knew Mal well enough to simply take his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. There was so much history here that I had not been privy to.
Emery chuckled, but it sounded sad. “I wish we’d been talking so I could have discussed things with her.” After a moment he added, “And you.”
“Same,” Mal said gruffly, taking a breath. “So, favor you said?”
He coughed softly. “Yeah, could you take my girls with you and feed them? Brann and I will be over there in a couple of hours to pick them up.”
Mal nodded. “Will you talk to us when you pick them up?”
“Yes.”
“There’s more I need to say to you too,” Mal said to me.
“Whatever you want,” I conceded, too overwrought to say anything but yes to him.
Those dark eyes of his were back on Emery. “So then, can I tell her… lunch?” He asked the question like he was tip-toeing through a minefield, as though one misstep would cost him everything. “It would mean a lot.”
Emery nodded.
Mal tipped his head ever so slightly to his left, indicating Lydia and her friends. “Even though you didn’t like it at the town meeting last year—it’s still a valid alternative to this.”
“I know,” Emery said grudgingly. “I spoke to Anne last week.”
Mal’s brows rose again. “You did?”
“I did.”
Whatever they were talking about, Mal was now wearing an expression I hadn’t seen before. It was like his guard came down, though I’d never realized he’d had one up. It was as if I hadn’t seen the real guy until right then. Totally at ease and open, Malachi Jezic looked like a completely different animal. The transformation was really something.