A/N: I know it's been a slow updating schedule on this and all my fics! I'm in my last semester of law school, so, things get busy. Thanks for understanding!
"What I said just now, meant nothing."
i.
Grace had expected Emmett to sleep in. He had talked of an early start, of course, but Emmett talked of lots of things. She was surprised, then, to find him drinking coffee and reading Vogue, at half-past seven.
"Vogue?"
"Good morning, Grace." He smiled beatifically, shifting to a lean of greater nonchalance against the edge of the countertop. "It was this or the New York Times, which, frankly, is boring as shit."
"I'll make sure to save my old Cosmos for you," Julia interjected, stomping in. Julia, at least, had not become a morning person since her departure from Highbury.
"Can I help make breakfast?" Grace asked. It might help the mood if she could make herself useful. Julia's kitchen was nothing like the one they'd known at home; Grace had a feeling that the steak-chef of the night before was a common occurrence, and everything was accordingly organized for a stranger's touch.
"Yeah, there's eggs and yogurt and all that stuff." Julia waved a dismissive hand.
"Nicole Kidman should go back to being a redhead," Emmett mused. "Blonde washes her out."
Julia glowered at him. "What time are you leaving? Not you, Grace. I'll miss you."
"Eight," Emmett said, with a perfunctory glance at his watch. "We'll have lunch in L.A."
The we seemed to work a change on Julia. It was a change with which Grace was all too familiar. She felt her cheeks getting hot. It was—for the best that Emmett had not been privy to the after-dinner conversation between the sisters.
"About time you had a honeymoon," Julia had said, grinning slyly. "Why didn't you invite me to the wedding?"
Julia would never be serious about serious matters. At least, not aloud. Grace toasted some bread and listened to Emmett parry fashion opinions with Julia.
"Pink?" She'd stared disbelievingly at the dress Julia had held up in front of her. "I don't…do pink."
Julia had lifted the maddening shoulder of older-sisterhood. "Surprise him."
Eddie woke up to join in the goodbyes, smiling near-toothlessly. Grace kissed his round head and hugged Ike. When she said goodbye to Julia, Julia whispered, "Don't forget to kiss him. On the mouth."
Grace pushed her away.
"Did you have a good time?" Emmett asked, as they drove away. He had his sunglasses pushed up on his forehead for the moment, so Grace could see his eyes. He looked concerned, but he was smiling.
There were freckles across the bridge of his nose. She had always known this, but she always noticed all the same. "I did." She wasn't going to complain. Julia's prying had been…foreseeable. "Thanks for suggesting this. I don't get to see them a lot."
He nodded. "Do you think Eddie looks like me?"
Grace bit her lip. "Um…well, he is your nephew. I mean, I think he looks more like Julia, but I'm biased."
"Fair. He's not my child." Emmett sighed. "I'd like a legacy, though, you know?"
"To carry on your good looks?" It was out before she could help herself.
Emmett's lips twitched into a grin she couldn't quite read. "Well. That. But also…it would be nice to have little people running around who thought you were perfect, wouldn't it?"
He was so—naïve. Grace tilted her head back. The sun was beginning to glare, but Emmett had yet to lower his sunglasses. "I'm afraid that children generally don't think their parents are perfect, Em. Quite the opposite."
"I did." It wasn't sharp, but it was pointed. Grace sucked in a breath. She had assumed too much, and forgotten the rest.
Of course Emmett had thought his father was perfect. And no one could say when that would have changed, because there hadn't been time for a change.
"But in general," he amended, his tone light and carefree once more, "I think you're right."
It had been a long time since Grace had been to L.A. Emmett, however, was undaunted—he checked them into their hotel while Grace tried not estimate the cost of the surrounding grandeur, and presented the suite of rooms to her with boyish glee. "I thought this would be easier than just having rooms next to each other," he explained, gesturing around the two-bedroom suite. "Is it alright?"
"It's beautiful." Grace took in gilt and ivory and tried not to think about Julia's honeymoon comment. "Thanks so much."
He shot her a quizzical glance. "You keep thanking me. You don't have to."
"I don't know what else to say."
"Well." Emmett's ears were a little red. "It's really fine. I don't mind at all. You're the one doing me the favor."
She repeated that to herself like a mantra that evening, when she had shut herself in her bedroom and unwound the dress Julia had lent her from the garment bag. The dress shimmered in dusty rose, and it was ten times less sensible than anything Grace had worn since she was—sixteen?
(And even then. At sixteen she had been gawky and owlish and not at all prone to wearing pink.)
Emmett had had meetings running through dinner in the hotel's conference rooms, and Grace had assured him (and assured him again) that she would meet him downstairs at eight-thirty, when the gala itself started. At nine, there would be a memorial for Alan Woodhouse.
He hadn't even mentioned his father since that brief, almost-moment in the car.
Grace slipped into the dress. It fit well, zipping up with only a couple contortions. She and Julia were similar in size—still were, for all Julia's postpartum complaints. The only worrying thing was that the dress had a sweetheart neckline—not too revealing, but more dramatic than the simple designs Grace usually wore.
Damn it all, this sparkled.
She pulled her hair back; she slipped in pearl earrings; she added the barest touch of blush to her cheeks.
In heels, she felt too tall.
You're not here for you.
Grace started down the stairs.
It was—of course—one of those sweeping staircases, with a carved balustrade and a fan of lushly carpeted steps. Grace wasn't a cold-hearted pragmatist. She'd seen the movies. But she reminded herself that the girls in movies didn't look like her, and suited their glittering gowns much better than she suited hers.
There was an elegant throng gathered at the bottom of the stairs, trickling out of the ballroom, but Grace could always find Emmett in any crowd.
He was waiting for her.
She waved. He started towards her, and stopped.
"Grace, I…" It was unlike him to stand, lips parted, as if he had been turned to stone. But warm stone; he took her hand and slipped it around his arm, and Grace reminded herself yet again that she was here to support him. To stand by his side.
She wanted—
In one of the long, ballroom mirrors, she saw herself, a little pale above the flowing glow of the gown. She saw…just Grace, dressed up a little more than usual. Emmett had looked like he was seeing something else—someone else.
She just couldn't be certain that it was her.
ii.
He didn't know why, but he could never seem to get used to Grace. One moment she surprised him by leaving her work and coming with him at all, and the next—
He'd never seen Grace like this.
Or maybe he had, and that was the source of all his current trouble.
She looked beautiful. That was fair to say. He was an artist—he stopped, remembering that he had used the same argument for Francesca.
(When Emmett was sixteen, and Grace started college, he had decided that he wanted to kiss her. And then he just—didn't. It was better that way. It would have been the most terrible mistake of his life, and he had never regretted his last-minute cowardice.)
(Never.)
He wasn't—he wasn't even going to think about romance, that was foolish. It was something else. The magic and wonder of Grace, who was so much more than he was, in all the ways that mattered.
"Are you OK?"
He blinked down at the rose-colored sequins, but Grace's eyes were as calm and steady as ever.
"What?"
"You were being quiet." She spoke in an undertone, so that only he could hear. "I just wanted to make sure all of this wasn't getting to you."
It all came rushing back. He lifted his head and faced the framed portrait that he'd passed by half-a-dozen times today, all without looking at it closely.
His dad looked exactly like he remembered.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."
"I'll stay with you," she murmured. "Just let me know what you need."
He snagged a couple flutes of champagne off a passing tray. "Here. Take the edge off."
She sipped; he drained it. He saw one of her eyebrows go up. "It's just one glass."
But the evening became a blur anyway. He didn't want to hold her arm too tightly; she might push him away. They ate and drank and after people had said a good deal about his father and the family charity, it was his turn to stand up.
He wasn't drunk. He just felt that way; light-headed and distant, somewhere in a green summer that had been the very last.
He found Grace's gaze in the crowd.
Thank God that Grace's eyes were always the same.
"My father was born wealthy," Emmett heard his own voice say. It was as though Grace was drawing it out of him. No one else was there at all. "He recognized what a tremendous privilege that was, and he worked tirelessly to share some of that privilege with others. He started our foundation to provide for the less fortunate, with an especial focus on fine arts education. This year, our annual gala has fallen on the anniversary…" He was sure his voice would sputter out like a doused flame, but it didn't, and that was somehow worse. "The anniversary of his death. I'm even more privileged than he was, because I knew him as a father as well as a leader. He left a legacy, and I'm honored to carry that on in a particular way this evening. Please—enjoy yourselves. That's how he would have wanted it."
Something in him staggered on the way back to his seat, but it wasn't his step; he moved smoothly, as though it had all meant nothing.
Grace's hand closed around his. Emmett sat down beside her. She was smiling, but everything was fuzzy at the edges. He wondered, in a clenched fist of panic, if there were tears in his eyes.
"That was so beautiful, Emmett."
"Was it?" He would have crawled out of his own skin if he could. "I'm just glad it's over."
The string quartet was playing. It might have been wasps buzzing, for all Emmett noticed. But Grace stood up.
"Let's dance," she said. "That way you only have to look at me."
The idea seemed better than any other; it would keep at bay the swarm of handshakes and decades-late condolences that would flood in otherwise.
Emmett stood up and followed her out to the floor. A tray of drinks passed by, but he'd wait on that, for the moment.
She must be wearing very high heels; usually, she had to lean much farther back to look him in the eye. Then again, they weren't often this close.
"This is a waltz," he said.
Grace's lips curved. "I know."
He settled his hand at her waist. A pulse jumped against his wrist. It could have been his or hers. He found himself fascinated by it.
She smelled like roses. He stumbled out, "You look gorgeous," and regretted that immediately. These words, this night—it all just kept coming. "I've never seen you wear this color."
Her cheeks were the color of her dress. "I don't usually wear pink."
"It makes you look…well, you always look perfect." He'd called her perfect on the drive down, too. He was running out of words to tell Grace that she was better than he could ever be. "But this is really something."
She smiled, but her eyes were pained. "Em, you don't have to stay this whole time, do you?" She squeezed his shoulder. "You're shaking."
He bit down on the inside of his mouth. "Just nerves." It wasn't. "I need another drink."
Grace shook her head quickly. "No, you don't."
Maybe she didn't understand, not completely. It wasn't like anyone did. He tried for a deep breath. The tray was coming around again. Before she could protest further, he downed another drink. It was something stronger than champagne. "Like I said. Takes the edge right off."
Grace said nothing.
More blurring. In between, Grace made him sit down. And later, after he was fairly sure she had forced a glass out of his hand, they went up to their rooms. They took the elevator, not the stairs. That staircase couldn't belong to him, not like this. He was aware of that very clearly, even if he was aware of nothing else.
Grace helped him out of his jacket. She had taken off her heels at the door of their suite and she was, again, so much shorter than him.
"Yes, Emmett, you're very tall," she agreed flatly, and he realized that he'd said it aloud.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I made a fool of myself." It sounded right in his head; he thought it came out a bit slurred.
"Nobody saw." Grace sounded firm, even though she wasn't looking at him. "I made sure."
She handed him a glass of water and he drank it. She slipped out the knot of his bowtie and hung up his jacket.
Emmett watched her, sagged against the doorway of his room, and felt the ache of years hitch its way up through his ribs. He was just drunk enough that he was pretty sure he'd forget this in the morning. Or at least, he could pretend that he had. "Grace," he asked, "Are we supposed to be in love?"