Operation Beautiful

“Okay, so explain this one to me,” I say, pointing to one of the post-its on the wall. I would have been perfectly happy to take them down so I could have Emmaleigh sit in my lap again, but she wants them to stay there until she gets her camera.

“Hold on, hold on,” she says, digging through one of her drawers by the bed. “Ah! Found it!” She turns around and looks at me. “Do you want to be in the picture?”

“Not especially...” I say awkwardly. “I’m not a model, you know.”

Emmaleigh opens her mouth to say something, but shuts it again, blushing. “Okay,” she mutters. “Well, why don’t you come over here, then?” I go to stand behind her, wrapping her waist in my arms and resting my chin on her shoulder. “That tickles,” she laughs, moving her shoulder. She snaps a couple pictures and leans back against me with a sigh. “I just can’t stop smiling.”

“Good to know,” I say, giving her a quick squeeze. Then I point to the post-it from before. The one which asks if I’m a jerk for kissing her. “But really. Why did you write that as though you were Jessica?”

“Well, it was kind of embarrassing to write it from my own perspective,” she says with a bashful shrug. “And I was having trouble putting down what I was feeling so I just pretended I was Jess.”

“I’m guessing you told her later, huh?” I ask, thinking of how it took Jessica two weeks to start yelling at me.

“I had to eventually. She’s my best friend. I just wanted to wait until she cooled down a bit after...everything.” Her cool fingers rest against the back of my hands, her head against my shoulder. There’s a knock at the door and Emmaleigh breaks away quickly, taking down the post-its as fast as she can. Mark opens the door and pops his head in.

“Keep the door open, please,” he mutters a bit darkly. Then he looks at the heart of post-its on the wall and turns to grin at me. I can feel the blood rushing to my face.

“Uh, yeah. We’ll do that,” I stutter. He disappears and I find it difficult to look Em in the face again. “So...did you know that Haley’s in China?” I ask, moving onto the bed and avoiding her eyes.

“Really?” She moves to sit next to me and almost on reflex I pull her onto my lap. I don’t know why, I just like the way it feels to have her in my arms like this. “Since when?”

“I don’t know. She left yesterday, so she’s probably reached by now.” I explain about Haley’s mom and Emma laughs.

“If her mom can’t straighten things out, Haley sure will.” Then her tone gets more serious. “Trevor must be worried.”

“Yeah,” I say, playing with her fingers. “I haven’t talked to him yet, though.”

“Mmm.” Emmaleigh leans back with a yawn. “What time is it?” She turns to look at her alarm clock and then at me. “It’s like 7:30! What’d you come here at 7:30 for?”

“It was, uh, 7, actually,” I mutter, scratching the back of my head in embarrassment. “I wanted to make sure you were sleeping. Otherwise it would kinda...screw the whole thing over.” I gesture vaguely to the now-blank wall.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Emmaleigh says quietly, turning to kiss my cheek quickly. We hear a click from the doorway and turn to find Lorraine with a camera. “Mom!” Emmaleigh wails, embarrassed. She covers her face in her hands as her mom smiles.

“What? You guys are just too adorable.”

“Uh, thank you,” I say, aware that Emma isn’t going to be lifting her head any time soon.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to get going now. Let me know when you guys want breakfast. I'm making pancakes.” She smiles again and disappears.

“Sorry about that,” Emmaleigh mutters, looking down.

“About what?” I joke. “That we are just too adorable?”

“Stop!” she moans, putting her head back in her hands. “It’s so embarrassing!”

“Embarrassing? I think it’s adorable,” I tease. She turns around and tries to frown at me.

“Shut up!” But one look at my face and she smiles, knocking her head against my chest. “It’s hard to be mad at you right now.”

“Yes, well,” I wave a hand around vaguely, “don’t expect that to happen again for a while. I think I pulled my romance muscle on that one.”

She just smiles and turns back around. “I can imagine.” She yawns again and shuts her eyes. “You got up so early...”

“Here,” I scoot us back until my back is resting against the headboard. “That’ll be more comfortable.” She just nods and shuts her eyes again, the sweetest little smile on her face.

After maybe an hour or two of slipping in and out of consciousness, I’m awakened to the sound of stage whispers by the door.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wake them up?”

“Lorraine, just leave them alone.”

“But I made pancakes!”

“But they’re sleeping!”

“At least let me get the camera.” I open my eyes and wave at them as soon as I hear the word ‘camera’. No need to embarrass Emmaleigh more than necessary.

“We’ll be there in a second,” I mouth at them. They nod and go back to the kitchen. “Emmaleigh!” I jog her shoulder a little. She doesn’t move. “God, you’re such a heavy sleeper.” Well, I suppose that’s excuse enough. I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. It takes a couple times but she wakes up again. You know, I think I’m pretty lucky to have a girlfriend who needs a kiss to wake up.

“What?” she mutters with a smile. A sudden thought strikes me.

“Hey,” I whisper in her ear, a little confused and apprehensive. “You are my girlfriend now, right?”

She just smiles and rubs her eyes. “Today just keeps getting better and better.” She scoots off the bed and looks at me. “Pancakes?”

After breakfast Lorraine asks Emma to help her do the dishes. Mark pulls me aside.

“Let’s have a chat,” he says quietly, leading me into the living room. Oh boy. “I, uh, I like you Corey,” he begins. “But you’ll understand that I’m Emmaleigh’s father.”

I nod.

“Personally, I trust you, but I don’t want you guys going too far. Do you understand?”

“No! I--I totally understand! I wasn’t, we weren’t, I would never--” Oh my God. This is awkward.

“Good,” Mark says sternly. “Now, Emma said you’re a foreign exchange student?”

“From Belgium,” I agree.

“I see,” he looks down at me. “And at the end of the year, you will be returning to Belgium, I assume?”

Ah. I see where this is going now. “Um...yes, after graduation I will be going back.”

His eyes bore into mine. “Does Emma know this?”

I stumble over my words at this point, trying to express my sincerity. “Um, Mr. Watson...” I think last name is a good way to go for this interrogation. “You see...what I meant was that I’m definitely planning on going back to Belgium for the summer. I’ve applied to some colleges here in LA and some across the country and some back in Belgium, so I really don’t know where I’ll end up going. I could be back here next year, I could be in Belgium. But...uh...Emma...I haven’t talked to her about it yet, obviously, because everything is up in the air.”

“I see.” His face is stern now, grave. “Corey, I don’t want Emma getting hurt.”

“Mr. Watson, I understand that you’re worried, but...” I’m skating on thin ice here. “But with all due respect, sir, I really like Emmaleigh. And I’m not going to break up with her now just because this might not work out in the future. I don’t want to give up so soon. We got together a grand total of, like, three hours ago.”

Mr. Watson looks at me for a minute, then sighs. “I know, I just...” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m her father, Corey. I’m going to worry about her. Just...take care of her, okay?”

“Definitely.”

“Oh,” he turns around to clap my shoulder, offering a weak and worried smile. “Call me Mark.”

***

“Where were you?” Jessica asks from the breakfast table, her nose in the comics as she eats her cereal.

“Just...out.” I can’t help the goofy grin on my face. Jessica’s small smile falters.

“Out?”

“Yeah. Uh...I talked to Emmaleigh.”

“You guys are going out now?” she asks.

“Yup,” I say proudly.

“That’s great!” Jess says, smiling broadly. She lets the newspaper fall to the table. “I’ll, uh, I’ll be back. I have to...bathroom...” she mumbles.

“Are you sure you don’t want to finish your cereal?” I call after her as she climbs the stairs.

“I will,” she says, raising a hand to rub over her face briefly. “I’ll...be back in a second.”

I sit down on the table, letting my fingers drum aimlessly against the wood. It’s early and I have nothing to do. Matt’s still sleeping, probably. It’s only ten in the morning. I wonder if Trevor will be up. Spike definitely won’t be.