...go get some more fruit.

I mostly ignored both the pool game and the board game as I returned to the food. Once there, the chips caught my eye and I popped a few into my mouth before snatching up a couple more tangerine slices. Turning around, I was stopped in my tracks.

Standing in front of me was one of the girls that had been playing cards with my brother. Emma was none of the little girl I remembered and all of a beautiful young woman. I immediately started trying to unsee the knee-to-elbow one-piece navy dress and black heels she was wearing. However, the image of her failed to depart and I returned my gaze to meet her own. The blue-eyed girl's brunette hair fell not-quite perfectly straight halfway over her small breasts. Emma's beauty wasn't that of an eye-catching, hottie type, but instead, the more I looked at her the prettier she seemed to be. It was a subtle attractiveness that intrigued me.

"Hi there. Emma, right?"

She smiled, then nodded. Without saying anything, she brushed past me to the table of food. I turned after her to find her bent slightly over the table. Unable to help myself, I glanced downwards. Nothing extraordinary, yet still appealing.

"The game over already?" I asked.

"Nope. I just lost."

"I see."

After popping a couple grapes into her mouth, she rotated towards me, and immediately we both knew we were too close. Emma flinched as if she would back away, but she didn't. I reached past her for a couple grapes, and backed slightly away so we weren't as close–but still closer than two people would normally stand.

"You going back to watch the rest of the game?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I'm heading back there. But its a really long game and rather dull when you aren't playing."

I smirked. "Oh, one of those games. I wanna talk to my brother though, so I guess I'm headed back that way to watch too."

Before leaving, I grabbed a red plastic cup and filled it with an assortment of fruit. Once starting to walk back, Emma fell into step beside me. "You've been away at college, right?" she asked.

"Ummm, yeah." The question wasn't one I expected, but I immediately knew the likely implications of her knowing something about me. "I just graduated last semester actually."

"Cool."

The next several seconds were filled to overflowing with silence. I could feel the rising awkwardness, but I decided to wait and see if she would be the one to break it. Eventually, she did.

"You said you needed to talk to your brother?"

I offered the cup of fruit to her casually. "Wellllll, I don't _need _to right now. But I should at some point."

She took a moment to select a large green grape. She held it between her subtly-pink colored lips before sucking it with a Pop! into her mouth. Once she had swallowed it, she spoke again. "And I don't really need or even care_ _to go back and watch the game."

I quickly transferred the cup from my left hand to my right, and grabbed hers with my free hand. When I began to walk faster and pull her around a corner away from the conference room, she did not resist. We entered a large, dimly lit room with several smaller adjoining rooms. I set my cup on a table in the center of the room and turned to meet here eyes. She was probably two or three inches shorter than me, but that was with her heels on. Her eyes met mine without faltering.

"Looks like we made a wrong turn."