Trouble Afoot

"Why are you being weird?" I ask Emma as she furiously scrubs her countertop. Her latex covered hands flying across the surface.

She looks up startled for a moment, her blue eyes wide behind the frames of her glasses before she realizes it's only me. "What? I'm not being weird. I'm just cleaning."

Right. I've been sitting here for close to an hour and she's barely looked in my direction, she hasn't once bugged me about the Kiera situation, and I know she's been dying to, and she's – for lack of a better word, jumpy.

"You're fidgety and you keep looking over your shoulder as if you expect someone to break down the door and hold you up." I inform her with a dry expression as she sets down the spray bottle of bleach with a huff, as if I've put her out completely by asking such a question.

"Don't be ridiculous," she rolls her eyes and there's a such an insincere quality to it that I'm instantly paying closer attention.

I don't really know what's been going on with Emma recently but I do know that I'd heard her say some pretty messed up stuff to Kiera that day in Montauk. I never did get around to confronting her about it and I probably won't now because Kiera isn't my business- she made that perfectly clear in front of all of our family and friends. But I am still curious as to why Emma would say something like that.

She knows the effect those words would've had on Kiera and I'm not dumb enough to believe she slipped up. Emma doesn't slip up.

If she said it, she meant to; the question is what affect did she expect the words to have because all it really did was upset Kiera and piss me off but she didn't know that I'd heard.

And ever since the trip she's been jittery. Walking around while constantly looking over her shoulder, it's odd… even for Emma.

It's then that the door slams behind me and Emma jumps practically a foot in the air. I shoot her a pointed look as if to say see but she just rolls her eyes. "Shut up," she says, but it lacks any fire.

Still, I see the look of residual panic floating behind her eyes and I can't help but wonder what's going on with her.

"Hey," Kiera calls coming into view, my shoulders stiffen in response.

We haven't seen each other since our ill-fated bathroom encounter. That was dumb and I know I shouldn't have. I really had gone up there to talk to her about what had happened between us but then she'd looked at me with those doe eyes, kind of like she's doing right now, and I'd crumbled.

I'd given in to it without much of a fight and I'm not proud of it but it happened and there's nothing we can do to change it now.

"Dastan," she says coolly, acknowledging my presence but not giving me anything more than a nod. I'd sort of gone no contact after that night at my parents house so I can't blame her for the apathy in her tone, I see it for what it is: a defense mechanism.

She's unsure of where we stand or how to go forward from what happened. So, I do her a favor and put her out of her misery.

"Kiera," I respond equally as cool but I offer her a small nod, knowing she'll know it means we're cool. She might never love me and I might have made a fool of myself, again, but we could be adults about it.

"Oh, would you two give it a rest!" Emma's, usually soft voice, interject. She slaps her gloved hands down onto the counter, huffing a harsh breath that blows strands of mousy brown hair off her forehead. "So you got caught screwing around, it's not like every single one of us didn't already know that you two were sneaking around behind our backs, you're not as subtle as you think. Besides, you guys need to let go of this ridiculous fairytale you've been holding on to."

Startled, Kiera and I share a loaded look. Emma isn't one to miss the subtleties of our conversations and she's usually good at picking up out nonverbal cues so the fact that she missed this one is telling.

What's more telling is her reaction, Emma's always been very supportive of my relationship with Kiera. Always being the voice of reason in overemotional moments but right now she seems almost pleased by this turn of event.

Again, my kind calls up the memory of her telling Kiera we all thought of her as a burden. I've never known Emma to be intentionally cruel but seeing as how she knows dn well that those words have a bad effect of Kiera and she chose to use them anyway it seems like that was her intent.

"Em," I begin cautiously as Kiera approaches her other side.

"Are you alright?" Kiera asks in that soft voice she usually reserves for Zia.

"I'm fine," Emma says after a prolonged moment in which she steadies her breathing. "Just stressed about work." She clarifies when it doesn't look like we're going to let it go.

Just then another knock sounds at the door and Emma looks almost grateful for the interruption as Kiera leaves to get the door. A second later she walks back into the kitchen with my father hot on her trail.

He walks up to the counter and drops a brown paper bag onto the surface with a sincere smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes he says to Emma, "You seemed a little stressed."

She smiles back sheepishly in response. "I'm fine, guys really."

But she reaches for the brown paper bag anyway. "Thanks old man." She tells my dad and in that moment two things happen.

I watch, entranced, as my father's shoulders stiffen his eyes locked on Emma's gloved hands.

Something sits heavy in the air, and then I see the slight tremor in Emma's hands as she pulls back the bag. Something passes between the two of them and I see his eyes swing back and forth between her hand and the bottle of bleach.

What just happened?

"Where'd you get those?" he asks her pointing to her black latex gloves.

"Huh?" she responds, moving to take them off. I lock eyes with Kiera over my father's shoulder to see if she's noticed the strange charge in the air too but her eyes are resolutely locked on Emma's gloves too.

What's so damn special about those gloves?

"Where'd you get the gloves?" my father repeats.

I see a bead of sweat roll down the side of Emma's temples and she reaches up to brush it away. "Online," she shrugs indifferently, but her expression reads anything but indifference.

Okay, this is weird.

"Right," sad responds with a hasty nod, looking slightly green around the gills. Kiera's expression reads much the same way.

"Anyway, I should be getting back to work. I just came to drop these off." He turns dropping a kiss on Kiera's temple before patting me on the shoulder and practically sprinting out of Emma's apartment.

What. The. Hell?

We all stand there in the loaded silence for a moment after he leaves before Emma awkwardly clears her throat, waving the brown paper bag in the pace in front of her, " Who wants brownies?" she asks with the most put on smile I've ever seen her wear.

My internal alarms are going off in overdrive. Somethings off here and I don't know what it is but it seems like I'm the only one out of the loop. I work to keep my expression neutral as I watch Emma walk to the other end of her kitchen, with her back to us I see the stiff set of her shoulders and the tense energy vibrating in her small frame.

It seems like there's trouble afoot.