The whole room beamed a glorious shade of yellow when she re-entered the bedroom freshly showered and smiling at the butterflies in her stomach.
The sun was shining directly into Will's eyes but he wouldn't wake up. He slept heavily, she was learning, every limb had such a deliberate weight.
And Emma longed to feel it.
For three months they had shared a bed and so much more. The closeness didn't come naturally to her, after a lifetime of sanitary solitude. She fretted over every flaw, avoiding his gaze and sometimes pausing in panic. The second time, he was a little buzzed off pinot and she was completely inebriated by his fingers trailing down her neck.
"Oh my God, you're so hot…"
She froze on the sofa cushion, stared at the lint on the shoulder of his sweater.
"…Hey…" he coaxed, catching her eye.
She couldn't articulate her thoughts. She couldn't tell him that 'hot' was too far. That she'd trick herself in to believing that she was pretty or desirable and she could even stop doubting that Will loved her, but 'hot'… it was a lie he told.
"Emma you're so damn sexy….". He must have felt her relax because put his hands all over her, slowly and firmly until she was hypnotised once again.
She grapped her purse from the night stand where it sat on a frantic bed of her scribblings from the night before when they were making lists for Nationals. It started as costumes.
Taffeta
Shoe polish
Nail polish?
It ended in a whirlwind of Emma's inked swirls and shadings on the edge of the paper as she listened to another of Will's stories about how much his parents loved her.
He could have told her anything, she would have listened and nodded along like a lovesick puppy, sketching hearts onto the paper and ruining the perfect order she had intended. Emma knew it was a timely phase, that this hazy, giddy, weightless feeling of being besotted would change. That she wouldn't wake up every morning almost frantic with love.
One day it would change into something else and that was the best part. Change with Will was exciting and calming, it was how she got to know him better, the little details that he didn't even realised. She had started a mental list.
He forgets to put cologne on when he's nervous.
"Don't go…." His voice was muffled in the pillow. He reached out for her waste and found it, pulling her towards him with a squeal and a giggle. She didn't even realise she was standing so close to him.
"'Morning…" he still had sleep in his eyes as he caressed her hip.
"…Stay…"
"We had a deal, remember? It's my turn to cook breakfast"
"Staying in bed will be more fun" he was angling her neck gently with words and his hand. She was never quite sure how he could make her move.
"… I'll be 10 minutes and then I'm making you Emma Pillsbury's world famous chocolate chip Pancakes" she kissed his forehead. "So don't go anywhere".
It was a warning that she followed up with a note on the kitchen counter next to the milk chocolate, knowing he wouldn't be able to help himself.
Do not eat me!
When she arrived with a grocery bag in her hand, she forgot all about the weight of the flour that had made her muscles ache.
He was a vision, in sweat pants and those messy curls that he kept forgetting to get trimmed. But the look on his face… she couldn't place it.
"Hi…" she whispered across the kitchen, feeling shy all over again.
He looked flustered and maybe cold at the same time.
"Will, are you alright?" she asked feeling her voice raise an octave.
Still looking like a deer caught in headlights, he walked to her, stiffly until her body was leaning between the counter and that body of his, her most prized possession.
"Let me look at you…." At last he smiled. Emma breathed. His finger touched her check, glided over her nose, forcing her eyes to flutter.
"I missed you" she almost whispered, feeling foolish.
"I saw your note…" he told her, holding up the paper with pink daisies that was a birthday gift from her parents years ago. Her handwriting, messier than she would have liked but still uninspiring. Yet Will's hand was a little shaky.
She watched him, waiting for an answer to the riddle.
He moved closer and turned the paper over in one slow but deliberate movement. Then it was all there for her to see. In blue ball point surrounded by love hearts and other undecipherable shapes, with curling letters of the alphabet, in a neat row.
Mrs Emma Schuester.
Last week when she doodled it absently, Emma had surprised herself. But Will was on the phone in her ear, he had been for hours and it was so lovely. And her fingers needed a way to release all the energy that was beaming out…. And no one would know. Will would never find out. She'd scrunch the paper up and throw it out when she was done.
Only she'd gotten distracted by his laugh that night, and found the paper with a foggy mind this morning.
She was red in the face, she just knew it.
"Oh… that… it's…." she needed to explain but his eyes we watching her lips and she knew his wasn't really listening.
"Soon" he said.
She took a breath. She thought he mind be holing his own.
"Will you don't-" his finger was on her lip just like all those years ago in the corridor of McKinley.
"Soon" he repeated and she watched as he pulled back and simpered around the kitchen, expertly sneaking chocolate pieces into mouth.
Emma sighed and smiled yet again to herself, maybe change was the best part for him too.