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The closet was cramped and hot, but Andy and Emily sat in it together anyway, both weary from the long morning they had already had. They weren't too far from the lobby; Andy would hear the phone if it rang from the front desk. She had already almost killed herself propelling from the closet in heels yesterday to answer before it went to voicemail.
“You know,” Andy said carefully, her eyes flicking to Emily. “We could be doing this where I'm not going to break an ankle over the phone.”
“No,” said Emily, blunt and short. Andy sighed and let her head thunk back against the wall.
“Alright then,” Andy mumbled.
They had been doing this more often lately. Sitting together in the self-lit closet behind the lobby, just breathing and talking quietly. Neither of them would admit to how much this soothed the lonely ache in them both. Serena was Emily's only friend, and all Nate did was guilt Andy. There were things she knew that Serena didn't, though. At least, that was what Andy suspected when more personal conversations started.
While they did their best to keep anyone from knowing, Nigel had already called them out. They had both started wearing pants to work more often than dresses and skirts, and Nigel had asked Emily if she'd been struck by lightning and had a complete brain rewire. She'd flushed and stuttered, and Andy had wanted to defend her, but Nigel had just waved his hand and warned about getting caught.
“I should be furious with you.”
Andy's head snapped up so she could look at Emily. That British drawl was deadly, and her blue eyes were on the toe of her black boots instead of on Andy.
“W-what did I do?” Andy stuttered. She clenched her fingers in her lap, her knees bending a bit. They were sitting against opposite walls with their legs stretched out on either side of the other's as they always did, but Andy was starting to feel cramped.
“Oh please, Andy,” Emily snapped, her eyes flicking to look at the brunette. “You think I don't see what's going to happen? You're getting too good at this job.”
Andy sighed. “Em, I really don't want to have this fight again,” she said tiredly. “I told you, I don't...I don't want your job. Mine is stressful enough. I don't want her to like me any more than she needs to like me for being a good second assistant.”
Emily snorted. “Who doesn't want to move up in their career?”
“This isn't my career,” Andy retorted. Their gazes were fully on each other now, and Andy could see how close to internal resignation Emily was. It made her chest ache. “My year’s up in a few months. You'll go back to being the favorite.”
Emily seemed to lose her desire to have the conversation, too, because she went quiet and leaned her head back. Andy watched her for a few long moments before reaching to put her hand on Emily's ankle, the leather of her boot cool against her skin. Emily's eyes snapped to her hand, but Andy felt the slow relaxation move through the redhead's leg anyway. Andy was better at physical cues than she was given credit for, it seemed.
“I want to be a journalist,” Andy continued, her voice quieter. “and Miranda knows it. Maybe I am doing a good job now,” she added with a shrug. “But it's literally so I can get a solid reference.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Well no shit, Andrea,” she said impatiently. “Miranda seems to be forgetting that little fact, though. That you don't even want to bloody be here, that you're abandoning all of us when your year is up, and making the year the rest of us were spending trying to move up a complete waste of time.”
Andy could only stare at Emily, her eyes widening a bit. She hadn't thought of it that way. Emily was above her, had been there longer, and was so loyal to Miranda that Andy didn't even want to suggest trying to find someone equally loyal to Emily. She knew Emily was also there for her own reasons, but she also knew those reasons still involved fashion. She wasn't wasting anyone's time. Not with the passion she put into her work.
But what was Andy supposed to do, then? Ignore an opportunity to get her own career started? Who said she wouldn't do fashion journalism? (She knew damn well she wanted to be an investigative journalist. Lying to herself was pointless.) How did anyone get anywhere if they didn't take the opportunity in front of them?
A small huff of amusement from Emily brought Andy back to reality. “You're no better than the rest of us, Andy,” she said. “You act like you're leaving here with all of your morals intact.” Emily's voice rose when Andy's face twisted into disgusted offense. “You're already robbing someone who wants to be here of their chance. You're going to rob me of Paris. Yes, Andy, you are, stop looking at me like that.”
Andy was quiet for a long time. Her knees finally bent up toward her chest and she folded her arms on top of them. “Um,” she said quietly, her eyes on the heel of her own shoe now. “I…” Andy finally sighed heavily. “I don't know what you want me to say,” she said. “You throw this in my face every day. I-I try to apologize and you just throw it at me again the next day. What do you want from me?”
Emily was the quiet one now. She didn't look at Andy at all: just stated with such intense focus at the toe of her boot that it would have melted if she had that ability. Andy watched her fingers flex in her lap and her jaw subtly clench. They were small gestures, but Andy had come to recognize them as the stress responses they were. Emily wasn't often haggard or careless, but when she was, there were a lot of physical tells.
“I don't know,” Emily finally said. “I suppose I just want you to feel horrible.”
Andy snorted. “That sounds like you, yeah.”
They were quiet again, and Andy listened for the phone. Relieved when she didn't hear it, she tilted her head back against the wall again and shut her eyes. Even during bickering or disagreements, they didn't leave the closet until they were both ready. And when one left, the other did, too. It was a strange etiquette they had developed and stuck to without having to voice its existence.
Andy's hand dropped to Emily's ankle again after a while. She squeezed through the leather of the boots only once before letting her fingers just rest there. Emily looked down at Andy's hand, then glanced up at her face. The brunette had expected a “get your hands off of me” look, but instead she was met with a very tired, subtly lonely look.
“Let's go get a drink after work,” Andy said quietly. “Or food, or - whoa, okay, not food,” she said quickly when Emily's lips pinched in a sudden bout of nausea. She still wasn't eating, apparently. Andy really had to figure out how to convince her to have a salad. “It'd just be nice not to have to go and not talk to Nate right away.”
Emily's brow lifted a bit. “Personal life still hanging by a thread?”
“Just waiting for the scissors at this point, honestly.”
“Ouch,” Emily drawled, looking the least sympathetic Andy had seen her.
“Are we getting drinks or not?”
“What makes you think I want to drink with you?”
“You do other stuff with me.”
She saw Emily stiffen and panicked that she may have gone too far. “Like…like sitting in a closet with me in the middle of a work day because neither of us get a breather.” She was proud of herself for that save when Emily's brow quirked again, but she seemed otherwise satisfied with the answer. Of course, she didn't accept nor reject Andy's offer, either.
Andy watched Emily for a few moments, studying the way her red hair stood out from the white wall in a shock of color. Her blue eyes were deeper in the closet lighting; still bright, but Andy could see the depth to them in here. It drove her nuts how beautiful Emily was, and she suddenly knew that the loss of the makeup and the clothes wouldn't change that. Even if Andy did like the red Emily's lips were slicked in that day.
“You're staring.”
Andy blinked, her eyes lifting to look into Emily's. Her features adopted a pouty look that seemed to always work on the redhead. She wished she knew why; Andy didn't particularly think herself cute when she did it, but it was her golden ticket to pretty much anything she wanted. Emily rolled her eyes.
“Come on, then,” Emily said, holding a hand out to Andy. She took it and pushed herself to her feet, still kneeling as she worked her way around to rest her back on the same wall as Emily. Her attempt to sit turned into Andy toppling into Emily's lap and hitting her head on the wall with a loud thump that someone was definitely going to hear. She burst out laughing and gripped her head, shifting and trying to squirm off of Emily's legs.
When Emily laughed, too, Andy felt something in her chest loosen and the ache started to ebb. A jolt of want drove her to lean closer when Emily pulled her to sit up on her lap, and within a few seconds, their lips were moving together and they both deflated against each other. This wasn't new, either: Emily had kissed her a month ago, and it had never stopped. Another unspoken etiquette: they don't leave the closet without one kiss.
As the kiss deepened, Andy felt Emily's tongue graze the lining of her lips. Andy parted them further, inhaling slowly when her tongue slipped in and stroked along the roof of her mouth. Andy's hand moved to grip Emily's jaw, and she felt her snatch her wrist and pin it to her thigh.
“You'll get fingerprints all over me, and I don't have time to redo my makeup,” Emily mumbled against Andy's lips. The brunette huffed in amusement into the kiss.
“Sure, Em.”
Emily was straddling Andy's lap as best she could in the small space when the phone suddenly rang in the lobby. Emily ripped her mouth from Andy's and jerked her head around to look at the closet door. Andy sat there, dazed and kiss-drunk, until Emily was suddenly moving. Andy had no idea how she managed to get out of the closet and on her feet, but she was gone, and her breathless voice sounded a moment later from the lobby.
“Miranda Priestly's office.”
Andy laughed quietly. Of course. Emily had always been adaptable to whatever situation she was thrust into.
By the time Andy got up and out of the closet, Emily was hanging up the phone and submitting the phone message into the computer. Andy stopped abruptly, staring at her with wide eyes.
“What?” Emily snapped.
“Um,” Andy said, then tapped her lips. “Lip-lipstick -”
Emily's eyes widened and she snatched open her desk drawer. Grabbing her mini makeup bag from the bottom, she stood and hurried toward the glass door.
“Um!?” Andy squeaked, rushing after Emily and stopping before the back hall that led to the bathroom. “If yours looks like that, mine probably does, too!”
“Deal with it,” was all Emily said before disappearing into the bathroom. Andy stared down the hall, lips parting before snapping shut again. Her expression set a moment later and she marched down the hall to bang on the restroom door.
“You're not getting me in trouble, you jerk!” Andy called through the door. There was a rattle from the other side of the door before it was jerked open far enough for Emily to stick her hand out. Andy stared in disbelief at the toilet paper hanging out of the redhead's hand. “You've gotta be kidding me,” she muttered incredulously.
The glass door opened and Andy heard heavy items hit a desk surface. Miranda was back. She snatched the toilet paper and rubbed hard at her lips as she rushed across to the small kitchen area to wet it. The panic was worth it: she didn't see herself hiding in a closet with Nate when they were supposed to be doing something else. She didn't, it seemed, see herself with him anymore at all.