Her room was a mess. Tomorrow she was going to Grayson Manor for lessons with Victoria. She was certain that every single piece of clothing she owned was on the floor, even the only dress she owned, she wasn't even sure why she pulled that out considering it was pink and frilly and fit her when she was thirteen. She let out an exasperated sigh and flung a hanger at her door at the same time it opened to reveal Nolan. Crap.
"Hey, I noticed your mailbox wa- Emily what's going on? Do you have a date?"
Emily wanted to die or be dropped into a vat of acid, either option was preferable to what she would have to go through now. She couldn't tell Nolan the truth, he'd suspect that she had a crush on Victoria. Why else would she try and look nice for once. She could lie but Nolan was always able to tell when she lied.
She pursed her lips and let her gaze go everywhere in the room but Nolan, who stared at her for a couple seconds before realizing he wasn't getting an answer. Instead of flopping on her bed like Emily expected him to, he began picking up clothes from the floor before discarding them with a distasteful look on his face.
"Come, I'm taking you shopping. You can't go out on a date with these clothes."
"I'm not sure whether or not to thank you or be offended," Emily muttered.
"And the school is having that ridiculous dance soon so we should probably get you a dress for that too."
"Why would I go to a dance?"
"Because Mrs. Grayson is going to be there of course! You can swoon over her as you dance the night away with some random dude I'll find for you."
Emily could have swore that her heart skipped a beat and all the blood drained from her face. How did he know? Did he even really know? She never knew with Nolan.
"Why," she began trying her best to sound nonchalant, "would you say that?"
Nolan paused for a moment, he sensed a tense conversation coming up so he knew that he would have to word this carefully.
"Because everytime we walk into class you practically jump at the sight of her and take a deep breath? I'm just kidding Ems, no need to panic."
Emily kept her mouth shut and let Nolan carry the conversation to a different topic, if she said anymore she was afraid of what Nolan would think it meant. She hated this, they didn't keep secrets from each other, its why their relationship worked so well. There was no point in telling him, Victoria was married for God's sake. Still an uneasy feeling settled over her as Nolan drove them to the mall.
It took a few hours to find an outfit that fit Nolan's standards and after he bought it for her - even after many attempts that Emily had made to buy it herself- she took them to Häagen-Dazs and bought both of them two scoops with sprinkles.
They spent the rest of their time just wandering about the mall and stuffing their faces with ice-cream. Nolan got new shoes. They ran into Ashley, Nolan ended up having a five minute debate with her over their last test in Math while Emily just stared at her shoes.
It all would have been fine, had they not run into Victoria. Please, please, please, please do not see us, Emily prayed but her prayers weren't answered as Victoria did in fact come towards them. Emily wanted to duck into the nearest store but since Victoria had obviously spotted them it would be rude to do so.
"Hello," Victoria began, a polite smile on her face, "What are you two up to?"
"I'm helping Emily pick out clothes for her date tomorrow," Nolan replied, holding up the bags.
"I hope this date doesn't interfere with our lesson tomorrow Miss Clarke."
Emily was going to die. Right now. The floor was going to swallow her up and she would be at peace. She was willing to bet that her face resembled a tomato right now. Nolan's eyes widened as he turned his gaze from Victoria to Emily.
Her phone rang. She pulled it out, throwing an apologetic glance at Victoria, it was Amanda. Victoria gave them both a curt nod before heading off to deal with her own business. Nolan continued to stare at Emily with his mouth slightly agape, he really had been kidding before.
"We gotta go, Jack and Amanda are drunk as hell, we have to go save them," Emily said, her voice tense as way to tell Nolan that if he said anything he'd regret it.
Emily took a deep breath before knocking on the door to Grayson Manor. She'd avoided three calls from Nolan earlier this morning and felt terrible about it but she wanted to stay as far away from that conversation as possible. The door swung open to reveal a person who was definitely not her teacher and was wearing what looked like maid clothes.
"Um, I'm here for Mrs. Grayson," Emily tried to force politeness into her voice.
"You are Emily? Follow me please."
Emily followed the lady through the foyer and into the kitchen, all while trying to keep the awe off her face. She knew the Graysons were rich but she didn't know they were this rich. The air inside the house smelled Vanilla, like Victoria. Then a wave of homesickness washed over Emily and she couldn't understand why, she couldn't even remember what home felt like. Now was not the time to get emotional, she could do that later when no one else was around.
Victoria was backing her, her body was fitted snugly in a purple dress and her hair was pulled to the side. She looked breathtakingly beautiful and Emily just looked plain. Her white shorts and crochet crop top were nothing compared to that dress, though to be fair Emily had to admit that she still had a bit of filling out to do.
"Mrs. Grayson," She said politely, trying to stop her face from breaking into the huge smile that it wanted to. It was truly amazing the way Victoria made her feel, especially since she only knew her for such a short time and in that time had managed to piss her off more than once. She made her feel alive, like her heart beat for a reason and blood rushed through her veins just to appease the older woman. It was a feeling that Emily was unused to and it frightened her. Oh it frightened her a lot. She was more than aware of what it was like to lose people but she didn't know how she would react to losing something she never really had. It was a different kind of a loss, mourning something invisible yet still real.
"Miss Clarke, do come sit down."
Emily could have sworn that she purred but she was also able to believe that she would hear what she wanted to hear. Though Victoria did always seem to have a bit of purr in her voice naturally, she wondered what her voice would be like in be-, she really needed to stop having such R rated thoughts around the object of her affection. She honestly had a problem.
Victoria had told her to hold onto the homework she set on Friday, a worksheet that contained 100 practice questions. Fun stuff. In all truthfulness Emily had gone over it when she had gotten home last night to make sure she at least got most of the questions right.
"Right, you can start off with the first fifty questions and we can see where we go from there. Sound good?
I''ll just be over here grading some tests," Victoria said, pointing to the chair opposite Emily.
Emily didn't trust herself to do anything but nod and angled her head to that she could see both Victoria and her paper. Thankfully she was able to finish the first side of the paper quickly, instead of telling Victoria like she should, she let her gaze lay on the brunette. It hurt to look at her but yet it was addictive. The more she looked the more it hurt and the more addictive Victoria became. She couldn't understand how the older woman made grading papers sexy but it was certainly making it harder to look away.
Victoria felt Emily's heavy gaze on her and looked up at the same time that Emily swiped her tongue across her top lip. And something washed over her. Victoria was trying to find an explanation for it but her brain just kept coming back to one word. Lust. No, she was just going crazy. Conrad hadn't been able to satisfy her for awhile and she was just latching onto the only other person who actually didn't seem to mind interacting with her.
Victoria cleared her throat," Finished the first fifty?"
Emily nodded before sliding the paper across to Victoria's outstretched hand. It was then that this became a bit awkward, as Emily never really liked people looking at her work and there was really nothing else for her to do but glance around the house. As should be expected she could only glance away for so long before her gaze finally returned to Victoria.
Victoria handed her back the paper after going through all of her answers, "Impressive. You got all correct, though the first page was easy. The next fifty are harder, less likely to get them all right."
"Is that a challenge?" Emily asked, unable to stop from grinning like an idiot.
"Yes," Victoria replied, letting a tiny smile grace her lips.
Emily set to work on the next fifty not really expecting them to be difficult. They were extremely difficult and her eraser was used more than she wanted to admit. She didn't want to disturb Victoria from her grading, though she was there to get tutored. After trying #61 for the sixth time she eventually let out a whine of frustration which caused Victoria to look up.
"Thank goodness I'm here, how would the rest of the class handle without having you for a tutor to help me with these last questions," Emily said, sounding defeated, she hated anything she couldn't solve.
Victoria got up and walked around to the chair next to Emily and sat in it, to be able to help her better, " I didn't set the last fifty questions for homework. We needed something to work on today and I was curious to whether you'd attempt to try them yesterday. The rest of the class will get questions like these soon but I wanted to push you forward ..."
"So I could catch up with them.," Emily finished for her. She knew she was near the bottom of her English class but she didn't know it was that bad.
"I have great hopes for you Emily. I believe in you and I know that with a little work you could easily push your way to the top of the class."
Emily didn't know what to say to that. Victoria saying that only made her feelings for her grow. Emily couldn't even understand how Victoria could believe in her. She didn't care, in this moment she didn't care about anything but Victoria.
They wrapped about an hour later. Emily pulled her wallet from out of her bag and opened it, "How much?"
"Nothing. Emily trust me, I'm not taking any money from you."
Emily figured she should have expected that answer. What would forty dollars be to a millionaire? Still she was tempted to give her something, considering that Victoria had helped her a lot today.
"Next Saturday?" Victoria asked.
"Yes, please. And thank you for today, you helped a lot."
"So enjoy your evening. You have plans, a date correct?" Victoria asked, trying not to sound invasive.
"No, that was just Nolan goofing around. My plans for the evening include lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. Gonna be a boring Saturday."
"You're welcome to stay here. There's a huge TV in the basement that hardly ever gets used, you're welcome to give it some love."
"Well it beats spending the rest of today in my room, so I'd be happy to," Emily said, trying to force a casual tone.
The TV was huge. It covered the entire wall and Emily was willing to bet that it cost a pretty penny. The wall opposite to the TV held a wall filled with DVDs. A black leather couch faced the TV and Emily just stared around the room, no idea what to do next.
"Pick a movie," Victoria said at the same time her phone went off, "Excuse me a moment."
Emily trailed over to the wall of DVDs, running a finger along each one as she walked from one end to the other. She felt like a kid in a candy store. Eventually a title in red caught her eye, Remember Me. It used to be one of her absolute favourite movies but she hadn't watched it for a few years.
When Victoria came back downstairs Emily was nestled between a couple of pillows and couch.
"Remember Me," Victoria said when she caught sight of what was playing, " One of my favourites. Do you mind?"
Emily shook her head and Victoria sat down next to her, closer than Emily imagined she would. She was trying not to go into overdrive and just watch the movie. Every few minutes or so Emily glanced over to the beautiful woman next to her and just wondered. Wondered what it would be like to hold her. Wondered what it be like to hear her say, "I love you." Wondered how she was gonna eventually screw everything up.
By the end of the movie she was shaking and tears were rolling down her face. She forgot how much this movie made her cry. She almost didn't notice when Victoria lightly stroked her arm. Emily turned to look at her.
"That movie seemed to put both of us in tears," Victoria said, a tear rolling down her face.
There was something that seeing Emily with tears rolling down her face that caused a protective feeling to bubble up in Victoria and before she knew it she had raised her hand and wiped away one of the tears from Emily's cheek. As much as Emily tried to resist she leaned into Victoria's palm and they remained there until Emily's phone buzzed breaking them from their moment.
It was Nolan, calling again to ask her questions she wasn't ready to answer. Questions she didn't know she could ever answer. She needed to get out of here now before she did anything stupid.
She jumped up from the couch, "WellthatwasniceI'llseeyouMonday," she said quickly before waving and leaving the room.
Victoria just stared after her in shock, shocked at herself and Emily. She wasn't even sure what just happened and she wasn't even sure she wanted to.
Emily ran out of Grayson Manor as though she was on fire, her breath coming in short pants and she wasn't even surprised to see Nolan's car parked on the side of the road. This was probably the first time she was glad that he couldn't mind his own business.
As he drove her home they sat in silence. Emily just watched as the trees thinned and her heart beat got slower. She had told Nolan to take her home but she didn't even know where home was.