Cassidy stopped with her, giving her a puzzled look. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she made herself say. “Yeah, just . . . tired.”
“Drink up,” he said, reaching out a hand and tapping the top of her lid. “Unless, of course, you’d rather have a taste of the eggnog.”
Emma pushed at his shoulder as they resumed walking.
“Where to now, Sinclair?” he asked.
It was such a simple question. One he might have asked a million times if they were together . . . if they were married.
She took another sip of coffee, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what the hell they were doing, roaming around the city together like two people who hadn’t agreed just a week ago to stay the hell away from each other.
He was glancing down at her profile, his expression knowing. “Don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what?” she asked.
He smiled ruefully. “Don’t take us there. Not yet. Let us just have one day as friends. For Julie and Mitchell’s sake.”
“Julie and Mitchell aren’t even here,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “And I’m pretty dang sure they are so not thinking of us right now.”
He was silent for several minutes. “I’m happy for them.”
She glanced at him. “You sound surprised by that.”
He cupped his paper cup with both hands and glanced down as they walked. “You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say that I’m happy for them . . . but also jealous. Fiercely so.”
“Ah,” she said, in understanding.
“Aren’t you?” he asked.
Emma hesitated a little. “Julie’s one of my best friends. Mitchell, too.”
They’d come to the western edge of Central Park, and by silent agreement, they sat on one of the available park benches.
“But, yeah,” Emma said, once they’d settled on the bench. “I get jealous sometimes, too. Not in a begrudging their happiness kind of way, just—”
“You just wish there was enough to go around,” he said quietly.
Emma lifted her shoulders. “I guess. But sometimes I’m not sure. It’s like we talked about when I first started my article on my exes. Way back when, I did want to get married. I wanted the husband and the babies and the happily ever after. But now—”
“You still want that, Emma,” he said, leaning forward and then turning his head to look at her. “I know you do.”
Emma glanced up at the overcast sky. “Maybe. Do you?”
He turned his head away, staring down at his coffee cup as he fiddled with the paper sleeve. “Depends.”
“On?”
He didn’t respond, and Emma waited. And waited.
But after a couple minutes of what she assumed was him thinking things over, he turned his face back to hers, the haunted expression of a few moments earlier nowhere to be seen.
“You ready to make it up to me?”
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Make what up to you?”
“The horrible art exhibit. What else would I be referring to?” he asked with a wide grin.