Emily struggles to hide her jealousy over Aaron's flirtation with President Kirkman's new adviser.
It was a rainy Monday morning when Emily walked through the front doors of the West Wing, ready to start the day. President Kirkman had give Emily, Seth and Aaron the weekend off to rest up so they could start afresh on Monday, ready to take on whatever came their way. Emily was more than thankful for the break. It felt like a lifetime since she had curled up on her sofa in her comfy clothes with a glass of wine, a pepperoni pizza and her favourite films.
As she walked down the corridors of her work place, she felt someone walk up beside her and before she could turn around to acknowledge the figure, a take away coffee cup was held out in front of her.
"Double americano, three pumps of vanilla, one pump of caramel. Too ridiculous to forget." Aaron said rhyming off what he had told her not long ago.
Emily took the cup from him gratefully; "I knew there was a reason I was glad the president brought you back."
"Yeah, it's defintely about the coffee, not that no one runs the White House quite like we do." Aaron said as held open her office door for her and let her through.
Emily set her bag down on the desk, before noticing that Aaron had another coffee in the container apart from his own.
"You finally give in and buy Seth a coffee?" she said motioning towards the cups.
"Seth? God no, it drives him crazy, I could never give in to that one." He joked as Emily smirked; "It's for Kirkman's new advisor."
"Natalie Sawyer?" Emily asked, knowing Natalie from when they worked in HUD together. They had never gotten along, they always had this underlying tension because Emily had the job that Natalie wanted and it drove Emily crazy that Natalie charmed everything in her path, but was a snake to those in her way.
"Yeah, we met at the weekend." Aaron said. "Kirkman wanted her to know someone before she came in so we went for drinks. She seems nice."
Emily rolled her eyes; "Beth MacLeish seemed nice but then she shot her husband and herself..." Emily mumbled as she looked through the papers on her desk.
Aaron smirked, leaned against the table and crossed his arms; "are you saying that Natalie is involved in a conspiracy to destroy the government?"
Emily looked up, tilted her head and shot Aaron a glare; "No, I'm just saying that people aren't always what they seem..."
"Ok... we do have to work with her though Emily and Kirkman seems to be a fan so maybe we should try and be nice..." Aaron encouraged.
"I'll be professional. You seem to have the nice part covered with taking her out for drinks." Emily said with a bit of bitterness in her voice, that didn't go unnoticed by Aaron.
"We've gone out for drinks before." he responded, walking towards her.
"That's different, we're different." Emily replied.
"How are we different?" he asked as he stood close to her, smirking down at her petite frame.
"We just... are..." Emily said, shifting in her stance and avoiding his gaze becoming flustered at how close he was standing to her.
"You know Emily, if I didn't know any better, I would say that you were jealous." Aaron said boldly.
Emily finally looked up at him and spotted him looking down at her lips, before anything could happen, a blonde woman appeared at the door, around Emily's age.
"Emily?" the woman said as Emily jumped back from Aaron as if she had been hit with a bolt of lightening.
"Uh... Natalie, hi, sorry, we were just-" Emily said struggling to form the words.
"Discussing some presidential business." Aaron said as he walked back over to the table at the side of the room and lifted the coffee for Natalie. "Welcome to the White House."
Natalie smiled and eyed Aaron up and down; "well this quite the greeting, I could get used to this."
Emily rolled her eyes and let out a sigh, loud enough that Natalie and Aaron turned to look at her, but not obvious enough for her to realise she'd done it.
"You ok Emily? You sound tired." Natalie said, picking up on the tension between Aaron and Emily from the moment she entered the room and she was determined to taunt Emily about it.
"Fine, just a busy day today, no time for coffee." Emily said as she walked out from behind her desk. "We don't really have time to explain the ropes to you Natalie, you're going to have to pick them up as you go along." Emily said as she walked out of the room with Natalie and Aaron quickly on their tail. "Just a few things, you not only work for the president, you also work for me, which means when I ask you to do something, you do it."
"Wow, just like in HUD." Natalie responded.
"No, more intense than HUD. This isn't urban development we're running, this is a country. There's no room for error, no room for sloppiness, if you don't think you can handle that, you know where the door is." Emily said as she marched on through the halls.
"I forgot how intense she was." Natalie said as she ran her tounge along her cheek, hating how much power Emily had in this place.
"You worked together at HUD right?" Aaron asked.
"Yeah, she was above me there too." Natalie said as she folded her arms.
"President Kirkman must have been fond of you to bring you back on his staff." Aaron said.
"Yeah, I loved working for Kirkman, it's a real joy to be doing it again. Hopefully I can do him justice." Natalie said with her sweetest smile.
"I'm sure you'll do just fine." Aaron said as he nodded before walking away. He smirked to himself as he walked down the corridors. It was clear that Emily was jealous of his drinks with Natalie, and he couldn't help but wonder how far he could push her buttons with it.
Emily had been avoiding Aaron all day like the plague. Their moment in her office that morning that was interrupted by Natalie had been running on her mind all day. The unresolved tension between the pair was driving them both crazy, but both of them were too stubborn to do anything about it.
It was coming up to 8pm and Emily was ready to go home. She let out a similar sigh to the one she let out earlier as she walked into her office, and froze in her steps when she saw the scene in front of her. Aaron and Natalie were sitting at the table, surrounded by Chinese take away cartons, talking and laughing.
Emily cleared her throat and Aaron and Natalie snapped their heads round to look at her midlaugh.
"Em, hey" Aaron greeted.
"Hi... I must have missed the memo about the party... in my office." Emily said as she set her papers down on her desk.
Aaron smiled lightly and stood from his chair, lifted an unopened carton of food and walked over to her. "Don't worry, I got you your favourite." he said as he handed the carton to her, which she took, but not without sending a glare his way.
"Rough day Em?" Natalie asked.
Emily hated when people called her Em. The only people that were allowed to call her that were her parents, her sister, Kirkman and, well, Aaron. "Long day. But you look fresh as a daisy, I take it you've been taking it easy then?"
Natalie stood from her chair and walked over to Emily and Aaron. "Aaron here has been showing the ropes, getting me up to speed with everything." Natalie said as she placed a hand on Aaron's arm. "He's been wonderful."
Emily gritted her teeth; "I'm sure he has."
"Natalie also had some great stories to share about you Em." Aaron said.
"Oh really? Like what?" Emily asked, dreading to think where this was going.
"Just some Dewey Beach stories from when you were kids..." Aaron said with a light smirk.
"I knew those stories would come back to haunt me" Emily replied.
"Oh come on Emily, those were the best of times! Dancing all night long, the skinny dipping..."
"Ok!" Emily said quickly. "I think those stories are stories for when we're all too drunk to remember them."
"Yeah, maybe you're right." Natalie said with a grin. "You know I think I'm going to head home, it's been a super long day. Aaron, thank you for dinner, I'll have to repay you the favour sometime, especially since you bought the drinks at the weekend too." Natalie said.
"It's no bother Natalie, I had fun, we should do this again sometime." Aaron responded.
"Absolutely." she said flicking her head to the side. She lifted a piece of paper from Emily's desk and wrote something on it, before folding it over and slipping it into the breast pocket of Aaron's jacket. "My personal number, I like to keep work and pleasure separate... to a certain extent anyway." she teased. "Goodnight Aaron. Emily." Natalie said before struting out the door.
Aaron chuckled before turning back to Emily who had turned away from him and was rumaging through her desk. He had clearly pushed her buttons almost as far as the would go... almost.
"So Natalie is a fire cracker right?" Aaron said, sitting on the desk as she stood beside him.
"That's one word for her... and for future reference, you can take your flirting sessions outside of my office." Emily told him.
"We weren't flirting..." Aaron said.
"Aaron, I am not dumb, I know you have been trying to push my buttons, which is why I have been an expert at avoiding you until now, but you're kinda hard to avoid when you invade my office." Emily snapped.
"Push your buttons? Are you admitting that your jealousy buttons are right on the forefront, ready to be pushed?" he teased.
"I am not jealous, I don't get jealous!" Emily said through her teeth.
"Yeah tell that to your face..."
Emily groaned; "god you are infuriating! Is this a thing with you? Trying it on with all the White House advisors? I totally should have known better, to think that we actually had somet-"
Aaron cut her off as he cuped her face in his hands and kissed her passionately. Emily dropped the papers in her hands onto the floor as Aaron's hands moved to her waist and her hands moved around his neck. Before things could get too heated, Aaron pulled away, leaving Emily wanting more.
Their lips lingered over each other's for a brief moment before Aaron turned to whisper in Emily's ear "goodnight Emily."
Aaron quickly pulled away and walked out of the office leaving Emily's heart racing and any jealous feelings she had, gone. Aaron Shore knew how to push Emily Rhodes' buttons like no one ever had before.