Lie To Me (Jay McGuiness Fanfic)

Chapter 9

Emma

Thursday and Friday pass without anything eventful happening. I go to class on Thursday and work all day on Friday, but I don’t hear from Jay, not that I was really expecting to. On Saturday morning, I get a text from one of my good friends Scarlet “Girls night at your place tonight? It’s been too long. I’ll let Jamie and Lena know.” Scarlet is a pre-law student who never has time for anything and she’s never the first one to suggest a girls night. That’s weird. I text her back saying yes and stay laying in bed for a while. I can’t even remember the last time we had a girls night. Ever since June when my cousin Lena had her baby, Mia, things have been complicated. Not because of the baby, but because everyone’s lives changed around the same time she was born.

 The memory of the summer and everything that happened suddenly comes back and I jump up from bed before another wave of nostalgia came hit me. Looking at the clock, I see that it’s already 12:30. Well, there goes my morning. As I’m serving myself some cereal, my phone rings. I glance at the screen- Yaya. Crap. I haven’t called my grandmother all week. I’m about to ignore her call but then I remember how she showed up at my door last time I did that. “Hi yaya! I was just thinking about calling you.” I brace myself for her Greek temper “Emma Marie where have you been? You better have a good excuse for not calling me all week., young lady.” Here we go. “I’m sorry yaya I’ve just been so busy with school and work and I wanted to call you but I wan-“ “Save it Emma, I don’t want to hear your excuses. Next time, remember to call your old lady and let her know you’re alive. You’re lucky I have Lena to bother all the time. And if I were you, I would keep in touch more because who knows when I’m going to die.”  This lady is so melodramatic sometimes. Yaya, who lives in Queens with Lena and Mia, tells me about everything that’s been going on lately when suddenly she says “Emma baby, I’ve been thinking, why don’t you move back here? It must be lonely now with Dy…well, you know” Oh no, not this again. I try to think of another excuse that won’t hurt her feelings again. “Yaya, you know I can’t. I have the lease on this apartment for 18 more months. I can’t just leave now.” This isn’t the first time I’ve explained this to her, but she doesn’t seem to understand. I hear her sigh loudly “Well okay, but you know this will always be your home, kardia mou.” I say goodbye to yaya and promise to remember to call her.

  I feel bad after the phone call. I could hear the sadness in yaya’s voice. I take my cereal and sit on the couch in front of the TV, hoping that will keep my mind from thinking too much. That doesn’t work, so I go for run. This is a second time in less than a week. A record. I run along the waterfront and when I see the Brooklyn bridge, I think of Jay and the way he pulled me towards him before he kissed me. The memory makes me smile like an idiot and motivates me to run faster. I end up running for over an hour. I feel better when I get home.

 Since I’m hosting the girls night, I go out and buy all the necessities: brownie mix, chocolate chip cookie mix, tortilla chips, everything I need to make my famous guacamole and enough wine to serve a party of 50. We tend to drink a lot. By the time I get home, it’s almost 5. The girls are coming at 7:30. I find Jamie sitting on my kitchen counter, looking at the calorie count on a bag of pretzel and almost have a heart attack. “JAMIE! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” My heart is beating really fast and I’m trying to slow it down. Jamie looks at me like if she didn’t just scare the life out of me “Uhh I told you I was coming early. Did you not read my text? Again? Really, Emma, you have a phone for a reason. Use it, woman!” I pull my phone from my pocket and sure enough, there’s a text from her. Jamie doesn’t wait for me to reply, “Anyways, I’m here because I had no food in my fridge and I’m hungry but also because we need to talk about what you’re going to tell the girls about Jay.” Wait, what? I start putting things into the fridge and try to avoid looking right at her “What about Jay?” I’m still turned away from her but I can feel Jamie looking at me in annoyance. She jumps off the counter and walks right up to me, forcing me to look at her.  Jamie is barely 5’4 tall, and at 5’8, I’m always towering over her, so it’s always amusing when she gets mad “Emma Marie Larner, you better not be doing this again! Are you laughing at me right now? I’m being serious! What are you telling them?” I try to make a serious face, for Jamie’s sake, but I can’t. I’m still laughing at Jamie when I say “Nothing, I’m not going to tell them anything because there isn’t anything to say.” Jamie’s mouth drops in shock “Are you freaking kidding me right now? You meet the celebrity of your dreams, go on a date with him, kiss him and you say there’s nothing to say? What is wrong with you, Emma?! See, this is why I came early!” I laugh again “Jamie do you realize what you’re saying? Did you forget who Jay said he was? I can’t tell the girls because he’s not Jay, he’s Luke. Can you just imagine what Scarlet would say if I told them the truth? She’d get all lawyer like and say I could sue him for hiding his true identity from me and honestly I don’t think I can handle that right now!” Jamie walks around me and opens the pantry. “Okay fine, but you have to tell them something!” I ignore her statement and hand her some money. “Since you’re here, why don’t you go get the pizza? Make sure you go to Ben’s though.” She narrows her eyes at me “Nice try, dude. I’m gonna go get the pizza but when I come back, you better have a plan before I go all Hulk on you.” With that, she walks out.

I make the brownies and chocolate chip cookies, and I’m starting on the guacamole when Jamie walks in carrying 2 boxes of the Mario Brothers’ pizza. Not only do we drink a lot, we also eat a lot at our girls nights. No shame. Jamie drops the boxes on the counter and crosses her arms on her chest “So what’s your plan, missy?” I look up at her and say with a grin, “I guess you’ll find out when they do.” Surprisingly, she doesn’t look annoyed like I thought she would be. “Fine, but if you don’t say anything before 2 am, I’m going to tell them myself, or maybe it’ll be the wine talking by then but whatever.” After that, Jamie changes the subject and starts talking about her job.

At 7:25, the doorbell rings and I buzz Lena in. Even though we’re cousins, it’s hard to tell at times. Lena has a nice olive skin tone with soft straight hair while I’m pale white with curly (almost always frizzy) hair. The only thing we have in common is our height. Even though we're Greek, we're both tall. Lena and I were both raised by our grandparents: my mom’s parents, her dad’s parents, so we grew up like sisters. Just as Lena is settling in, the doorbell rings again and Scarlet comes up. Like at every girls nights we’ve ever had, we argue over what movie to watch: Moulin Rouge (Me), Sex and the City (Lena), Letters to Juliet (Jamie) and She’s the Man (Scarlet). We decide to watch Sex and the City first and then Letters to Juliet, but first we had some catching up to do. We open up a bottle of red and sit in our usual positions on the living room floor. Its nice to have some time with the girls again after so many months. Lena talks about Mia, but I notice she avoids talking about Bryan, Mia’s father. I’m going to have to ask her about that later on.

We’re halfway through the pizza, laughing about some old joke when Scarlet turns towards me and says “Emma, why are you so quiet tonight? Do you have something to tell us?” I look at Jamie and she purses her lips, trying to hide a smile. I didn’t actually plan what I was going to tell them about Jay. I was sort of hoping I would think of something at the moment or it wouldn’t come up at all. But now I have to tell them. I try to act normal and have a sip of wine as I say “Well, I met someone.” I pause for effect and of course, the girls are right on cue, asking who he is and what he does and where I met him. “His name is Luke, he’s from London and works at a record label. We met down at the bar.” By the looks on their faces, the girls are obviously expecting me to say more. Scarlet rolls her eyes at me “That’s it? Have you gone on a date yet?” I explain the date to them while trying to keep myself from smiling too hard. “Do you think you’ll see him again?” I don’t look at them as I say “I don’t know, we haven’t really spoken since then.” Scarlet slurs as she says “Are you kidding me? Who does he think he is? Just because he has a cute British accent doesn’t mean he could treat you like that!” Okay, Scarlet’s drunk already. “Scarlet’s right, Emma. I don’t like this guy already and I haven’t even met him yet.” And now Lena’s drunk too. They obviously didn’t understand what I meant but I look at Jamie and smile. Well, I told them like she said I had to, and I’m glad I didn’t tell them the whole truth. They’re too drunk now to understand, anyway.

****Author's note****

Hey everyone!

This chapter is more about Emma and her relationships with her family and friends. There isn’t much about Jay because I’m trying to write more about her character.

There’s probably a lot of typos too because I’m too tired and can’t be bothered to look over it right now. I’ll do that tomorrow.

Either way, I hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading!