He hadn't gone far - she'd found him sitting on the curb about half a block away, his head in his hands and staring at the bitumen. She'd shooed her parents back inside the apartment when they'd tried to follow her out. This was something she needed to do alone.
"Neal?" Emma asked tentatively.
His shoulders tensed at her voice.
"Emma," he acknowledged.
His voice was as tense as he was. He didn't know how she would react; he'd said a lot more than he meant to in there. He took a breath and forced himself to face her. She stood before him, her arms crossed across her chest, shoulders hunched in a way he remembered well. She was eying him uncertainly, trying to read his face.
"Did you –" she broke eye contact and then forced herself to look at him again. "Did you mean that? What you said inside? "
"Yes," he said softly.
"Oh," she responded, and shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Still?"
"Always."
Emma swallowed. She didn't really know what to do with that. She'd been quite comfortable being angry at him. Angry was safe and familiar. She still was angry at him. But he loved her, and that was confusing and awkward and tempting and she didn't know what to do with it at all. And what he'd said about why he'd set her up… She wasn't sure now if she wanted him to stay so she could hit him or yell at him or kiss him (and god that really wasn't an option with her being three feet tall and her parents spying on them from the apartment door), but she did know she wanted him to stay.
"Are you coming back in then?" she said breaking the long awkward silence that had fallen over them.
Neal raised his eyebrows at her curiously.
"You want me to?"
Emma shrugged her shoulders awkwardly.
"If you want."
"Your father will kill me."
Emma cracked a smile.
"No he won't."
"Sure about that?"
"Mostly," Emma said with a shrug as they headed back to the apartment.
"Well. That's comforting."