Curated: A Museum Love Story by Nellie Wilson

Author:Nellie Wilson [Wilson, Nellie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-01-26T13:00:00+00:00

28

Emmy

I watched them.

It was one of the few ways I could see you smile.

In her time with Ryan, it was unusual for Emmy to be speechless. But here she was, unable to even come up with a sarcastic remark to throw back in his face. This was a snippet of a genuine connection between the two of them, and it felt wrong to cheapen it.

“Oh” was the only brilliant reply she was able to muster, but she was saved from having to say more by it finally being their turn to order coffee. Emmy opened her mouth to order her standard black coffee but couldn’t get the barista’s attention.

A sour heat flared in her belly as she watched the young — young and thin — blonde with perfect California beachy waves make doe eyes at Ryan as she asked him for his order.

Emmy was a feminist. She knew that all women were valuable and beautiful and that her muscular body was its own form of feminine power. She knew that. But at the moment, she hated that this ideal of coed beauty was shining all of her attention onto Ryan, while Emmy felt like a lumbering ox next to him. That one guy she had hooked up with years ago echoed into her head: “I don’t want a woman who can deadlift me.” Followed by her father: “I raised a daughter, not a son.” Followed by a joke Phoebe had made early in their friendship when she had referred to Emmy as Miss Trunchbull.

“Em?” Ryan said, breaking her out of her anxiety spiral. “Dirty chai, right?”

“No, just a black coffee,” she replied. A dirty chai was like $7.50 at this point. Plus she liked oat milk so she didn’t poop all day.

“I’m buying,” Ryan said, subtly placing his palm on her lower back, sending waves of sensation cascading all over her body. “You said you drink dirty chais when someone else is buying.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” Emmy said, dazed that he had remembered a throw-away comment she had made a few months ago. Ryan nodded and ordered himself a vanilla latte, Emmy only jumping in to add her non-dairy milk to the order.

They slid over to the side and waited with the mix of undergrads, graduate students, and professionals who were waiting for their orders. Emmy took a deep breath and looked up at Ryan, surprised to find he was looking down at her already.

“Does that happen to you all the time?” she asked before she could think better of it.

“What?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow. Of course he could raise an eyebrow, she thought grumpily.

“That.” She flapped a hand at the cash register. Ryan still looked at her in confusion. “Getting hit on. Getting ogled. I mean, you own a mirror, right? Somewhere in the geology collection, there’s a mirror, right? You know what you look like?”

Ryan flushed again, and Emmy felt a surge of joy. “A-ha!” she said, poking him in the ribs. Fuck, that was a thick layer of muscle.

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