Never Say Never

there is anyone out there for me.”
“There’s someone out there for everyone,” Emily said.
Camila smiled, but without joy. “That’s very idealistic, Emily, but…I’m not so sure it’s true. It’s all right, though.” Camila drained the last of her scotch. “I don’t need anyone else.”
Emily didn’t believe her.
Camila shifted her gaze to Emily’s bookcase and changed the subject. “You have quite a collection of games.”
In fact, her bookcase had almost nothing but games. She didn’t own many books, and most of those she did own were still in a box under her bed.
“Oh yeah. I’ve built it up over the years. When me and Cassie were teenagers, we played a lot of games, especially after my foster dad passed away. It kept our minds occupied,” she said, recalling the dark days. “And I played games with my roommates in college.”
Camila was scanning the collection.
“Do you, um, want to play something?” she asked, not expecting Camila to say yes.
“How about Scrabble? Or Catan.”
“Either one. Let’s start with Scrabble.”
Not surprisingly, Camila was very good, and she won the two games they played. Feeling defeated, Emily suggested they move on to Catan. She was usually a formidable opponent.
But Camila was better.
“No fair,” Emily whined when Camila flipped over a card for the winning point. “Rematch?”
Before Camila could agree, the bedroom door creaked, and Jaime wandered into the room, rubbing his eyes.
“Hi, sweetheart. Did you have a good nap?”
He nodded, and Camila lifted him up onto the couch to sit between them. “Hungry,” he said after a few minutes. Emily grinned; the kid had his priorities straight.
“Should we get you home for some food?”
“Want to stay here.”
“I don’t know if I have any food for you here, bud,” Emily told him. She wasn’t actually sure what was in her cupboards. Maia often cooked dinner for her and Cassie, horrified that between them they could barely fry an egg.
“Can we look?” Jaime asked.
“If Emily doesn’t mind.”
Emily carried Jaime to the kitchen, setting him on the counter, Camila following behind.
“So full disclosure. I don’t even know what food I have.”
“How can you not know what’s in your own kitchen?”
“Um…because I don’t cook,” she said sheepishly.
“Then what do you eat?”
“Well, the nights when I don’t eat at yours”—a perk of the job she was going to miss whenever she moved on—“I usually end up at Cassie’s place. Maia cooks. Sometimes she cooks here. If I have anything here to fix, that’s why.”
“What if no one’s around to cook for you?”
“Um, takeout. Usually. It’s not that I don’t want to cook, I’m just really terrible at it. I set off the smoke alarm. A lot.”
“Well, let’s see what I can teach you that’s relatively easy.” Camila reached for a packet of penne. “We’ll make pasta for Jaime. Can you at least boil some water?”
Her eyes sparkled with the tease. Emily stood close enough to see flecks of gold in green. Camila’s perfume invaded her senses, and she was so, so beautiful that it almost hurt to look at her.
“I’m not completely inept.” Emily pretended to be offended as she grabbed a pot.
“Hmm. You do usually feed my son, right?”
“Yes.”
Jaime was less sleepy now, perked up at the thought of food. Emily gave him paper and crayons to keep him occupied.
“What are we having?”
“I’m thinking risotto. Although that would depend on you having vegetables, which seems like a long shot.”
“Excuse you, I own multiple vegetables. They are just frozen.”
Camila looked in the freezer and nodded. She dug out two pans, dumped broccoli and carrots in one and rice in the other.
“Do you want me to do anything?” Emily asked. She felt useless, standing in her own kitchen while Camila did the work.
“No, it’s all right. I wouldn’t want you to set off the smoke alarm.” She was smiling, clearly in high spirits.
Emily stared, pretending that she was interested in what Camila was making, but in truth she was simply mesmerized, unable to look away. She barely listened when Camila explained what she was doing.
She dreamily reveled in the domesticity of Camila in her kitchen cooking her dinner while Jaime colored nearby. It was something she desperately wanted, wished she could have every day, and the surprising depth of that desire took her breath away.
Her thoughts were cut off by her phone. If it was Cassie, she was going to ignore it. But it was Megan, and Emily mouthed an apology to Camila as she turned her back and pressed the phone to her ear.
“Hey.” She felt almost guilty for imagining life with Camila when this morning she had woken up next to Megan. She wasn’t doing anything wrong—she and Megan were casual and would never be more—but it didn’t sit right.
“Hey. So this totally sounds like an excuse to see you again, but did you notice a pair of keys at your place? I can’t find mine, and I think they might’ve fallen out of my pocket last night.”
“Oh. Um, hold on, I can look.” She kept her phone in her hand to keep Camila from seeing Megan’s name on the screen and checked around and under the couch where Megan had tossed her jacket. The glint of a keyring caught her eye. “Got them.”
“Great. Could I swing by and pick them up later? I’m with clients until eight. If that’s too late, I can try and get there earlier.”
“No, eight is fine.”
Camila should be long gone by then, and Emily thought maybe she and Megan should talk because she didn’t know if she could keep up casual sex when she clearly had feelings for Camila.
“Okay, I’ll see you later.”
“Everything all right?” Camila asked. Emily nodded.
“Yeah, someone lost their keys.” She held them up, relieved that Camila didn’t ask whose they were.
Dinner was delicious, and then they played a couple of rounds of Uno with Jaime until he started yawning.
“Thank you for today,” Camila said, lingering at the door. If this had been a date, it would be the moment for a goodbye kiss. “I had fun.” She said it