Falling Read Online Free PDF Page B

haven’t heard from her in years.”
    Emma is disarmed by his candor about something so personal. Sophie, meanwhile, can’t hide her shock. “So you’re raising him all by yourself? Are your parents around? Do they help?”
    â€œNooo!” Dominic laughs. “I mean, they’re around, but we don’t see them too much. They’re in Trumbull, but they’re kind of busy doing their own thing.”
    â€œSo you’re, like, the perfect man?” Sophie, Emma realizes, is drunk. Not sloppy drunk, but uninhibited drunk, as she leans across the bar, smiling.
    Dominic looks at Emma. “I like your friend,” he says.
    â€œThis is what happens to her when she downs three drinks in as many minutes,” says Emma, wondering how it is that she is managing to hold her liquor so much better than Sophie.
    â€œIs she married?”
    â€œVery much so. With a very large and strong husband. The jealous kind. You know the type.”
    Dominic shakes his head and whistles. “I shouldn’t have poured you guys all those shots, should I? Is he going to show up and punch me?”
    â€œOnly if you’re very unlucky.”
    â€œWill you two stop talking about me as if I’m not here?” Sophie says. “Anyway. I am married and very happily, but Emma isn’t. Emma is very definitely single, and isn’t she gorgeous, Dominic? Don’t you think she’s pretty?” Sophie raises her eyebrows a few times, gesturing toward Emma with her head. “I just want you to know that if you were interested, you would have my blessing.”
    â€œThat’s very kind of you,” says Dominic, laughing, as Emma turns a bright red and silently wishes the floor would miraculously open up and swallow her whole. “But I don’t think it would be a good idea. Landlord, tenant, that whole thing. It can get messy. Also, I’m . . . seeing someone.”
    â€œOkay?” Emma rolls her eyes at her friend. “Can you just stop now?”
    Sophie throws her hands up in the air. “Okay, okay! Forgive me for trying to do some good in the world. So. Who are you dating? Is she cute?”
    Dominic just shakes his head and laughs, excusing himself as he goes to serve a group of women at the other end of the bar.
    â€œHe really is cute. And nice. Did you notice? He’s really nice,” Sophie says, turning to look at Emma and seeing that she is mortified. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Sorry.”
    â€œI think maybe after we’ve finished these drinks it’s time to go home.”
    â€œNo way!” says Sophie. “This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”
    Emma makes it a habit not to get drunk, but this evening, she’s well on the way. At the very least, she has bypassed tipsy and moved firmly into that slightly more serious, happy stage of intoxication. She has a very large glass of water alongside her martini, which she is sipping regularly.
    She doesn’t like being drunk because she doesn’t like being out of control. It has been such a long time since she’s been in a situation like this that she’s forgotten how much fun it is. She isn’t blasted, not nearly as drunk as Sophie, but she is giggly and loose, and having fun with all the men in the bar—so many men! so friendly!—who are talking to them. She is having fun with the fact that Dominic is keeping an eye out for them and warning off any men he doesn’t like the look of.
    It’s been a while since Emma had fun. It has definitely been a while since she has been anywhere where men have given her an appreciative glance.
    For a while, when she first moved to New York, fresh out of her long-term relationship with Rufus, she dated up a storm. Everything was so exciting—the men! the bars! the way strangers would walk straight up to her in a restaurant and hand her their business card.
    It didn’t take long for