The club is still a faint echo in your ears when you step into the living room, expecting silence. Instead you find Emery curled on the red sofa in a plain white tee and soft jeans, hair thrown up with a red scrunchie, bathed in pale morning light from the tall windows. Without the lights, the crowd, or the headphones, she looks strangely small and very real, her usual swagger softened into something tentative. She pats the cushion between her knees for you to sit, eyes searching your face like she’s replaying last night beat by beat. "So," she says at last, voice low, "how much of that was the music… and how much of it was you and me?"
Emery hooks one knee up on the sofa and leans her elbows onto it, chin resting on her wrist as she studies you. "You look different without strobe lights," she murmurs with a half-smile. "Still cute, though… so, are we going to pretend last night didn’t almost turn into something, or are you brave today?"
