Amber tried the lock and felt the weight of the deadbolt holding the door closed. Emilia was home. She wondered if she’d even ventured outside. Part of her hoped she hadn’t, London was far too dangerous for someone as trusting as Emilia.
She knocked on the door, hoping that Emilia wasn’t some genius squatter who would now claim ownership of her apartment and complete a hat trick of very shitty events.
A few seconds later, the deadbolt shifted, and the door opened.
“Hey!” Emilia grinned.
“Hi,” Amber whispered, her attention grabbed by the fact that Emilia was wearing a cooking apron. Amber didn’t own a cooking apron.
Did she bring an apron? No, she had no bags… Did she go out and buy one?
She stepped over the threshold and was shocked to realise that Emilia was cooking. She must have been out and bought ingredients—and an apron. It was not what she’d expected at all.
Emilia closed the door behind her.
“You have a lovely market nearby. And your supermarket is huge. There were so many things I’ve never heard of. But I managed to find all of the ingredients, even if I’d never heard of some of them.” Emilia went back to the hob and started stirring ingredients in a frying pan.
“You… went shopping?” Amber dropped her handbag on the table. She couldn’t believe that Emilia had been out and was now cooking a meal for her. And had purchased an apron… and was wearing her clothes? She tilted her head to one side. Seeing Emilia from the back she could now see the woman was definitely not wearing the clothes she arrived in.
You did say she could wear your clothes, she reminded herself.
“Yes. And I went to a coffee shop. And I bought some better coffee. The coffee you have is… very weak.”
Amber laughed. “Yeah, it’s rubbish. I knew you’d hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” Emilia denied. “I just know there is better coffee available.”
“Yeah, yeah. You hate it.” Amber took off her jacket and placed it on the back of a dining chair. “What are you making? It smells familiar.”
Emilia looked at her nervously, biting her lip.
“What?” Amber asked.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I saw a recipe book in the kitchen. I wanted to make you a meal, but I didn’t know what you liked. I saw this pork recipe, and the page was very well worn so I assumed it must be a favourite.”
Amber smiled. She had expected Emilia to snoop around while she was gone. If the worst she had done was check out her mother’s recipe book, then it didn’t worry her.
“The pork with broccoli and sesame?” Amber asked.
“Yes. And the sauce, which smells amazing. It has a lot in it, so I hope I’m making it right.”
“Smells delicious. You didn’t have to do this,” Amber told her. She looked around the apartment. Something felt different. “Did you clean?”
“Oh, yes, I cleaned the whole apartment. It didn’t take long because it’s so sm… it was very clean already.”
Amber walked around in shock. Everything looked so neat and shiny. Her terrible day was being quickly turned around. She may have been disappointed at every recruitment consultant she went to, especially the last one which had closed early for a Christmas party, but coming home to her favourite meal and a clean apartment was great.
“You really didn’t have to do all this,” Amber said.
“I know. I wanted to.” Emilia focused on the meal.
“And it’s adorable that you bought an apron,” Amber teased.
“Well, I am wearing your clothes,” Emilia pointed out.
“Indeed you are.” Amber looked forward to seeing the fitted white blouse on Emilia when the apron came off. She shook her head and turned away. She needed to keep perspective and stop thinking of Emilia in that way, even if she was thrilled about finally seeing her in something other than thick, cosy sweaters.
“Is that okay?” Emilia looked worried. She started to pull at the apron strings. “I can take it off?”
Please, Amber thought. “No, it’s fine. It looks good on you.”
Emilia blushed. “No, no. You look much better in office wear.”
They paused and looked at each other for a moment, each unsure what to say next. The atmosphere was becoming slightly charged, and Amber didn’t know what to make of it. Emilia had spent a lot of time staring at her body that morning, but that could probably be explained by Emilia not seeing another female body very often. She was… curious.
Probably.
A little voice in Amber’s head suggested that maybe Emilia wasn’t just curious.
“Did you have any luck at your meetings?” Emilia asked, thankfully changing the subject.
“No. As I feared, everyone is winding down for Christmas. I need to spend some time online looking for jobs.” She winced as she remembered something. “Oh, damn. I can’t tonight.”
“No?”
“No, I just remembered what day it is. You recall that I volunteer at the local library to read to kids. At first it was a great way to do some market research, you know, speak to kids about books. What better place, right? But then I found I really enjoyed it, so I kept going.” She ran a hand through her hair, stressed that her evening with the laptop was slipping through her fingers.
“That sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe I could come along?” Emilia asked.
“Absolutely, it would be great to have some company.” For all her work-related anxiety, she was surprised at how quickly she agreed. Surely, she should have wanted Emilia gone? Out of her clothes and her apartment? Back in Sweden and well away from her?
But she didn’t. Despite the residual anger still floating around her brain, she wanted Emilia with her.
“I… I’m going to get changed,” she said. She’d left the room to get some space before Emilia had the chance to reply.
She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor for a few long moments. She still didn’t know exactly what was going on between them. Nothing made sense. Emilia was unlike anyone she’d ever met before, and while that endeared the woman to her, it also made it harder to figure things out.
“I’ll talk to her tonight,” she muttered to herself. “Finally clear the air.”
She had no idea what she was going to say but starting the conversation at all would be a step in the right direction.