Emma's phone rang from her pocket and it took a few seconds for her to root through her many layers of clothes to find out exactly which pocket it was in.

The New York winter was hitting hard already. Even with her winter clothes on, and a hot chocolate in her hands, she could still see her breath. And it was only November.

"Finally! She picks up!" Liv's exasperated sigh greeted Emma at the end of the phoneline.

"Hi Liv." Emma smiled to herself.

"Tell me you haven't been picking up your phone this morning because you overslept after having a hot date last night…"

Emma stifled a laugh, Liv would not be content until Emma found herself a husband.

"Well you were right about the sleeping in," Emma huffed as she picked up her pace upon juggling the hot chocolate and her phone to check her watch. She needed to catch the bus. Now. "But not about the date part."

"What about the hot part?" Emma could hear Liv smirking and kicked herself. With that tone of the voice, the I caught you out and I'm not letting this go one, Emma would be hearing about this for a long time. Just like Spring Break.

Emma let the sounds of the early morning traffic fill the silence as she debated how to approach this new subject.

"But seriously what is with you and Nate? I mean please, is writing and correcting the new code word for sleeping together?"

Straight to the point, good old Liv, Emma blushed.

"Okay, what has brought this on?" Emma asked, as she paid her fare and found an empty seat near the back of the bus.

"Because! You've been spending most of your free time with Nate all of a sudden and don't get me started on the rumours you two started, looking all cosy at Grammy's party."

"I've always spent time with Nate. He's my friend too remember?"

"Yeah and I'm your best friend and his sister and neither of you will do your work anywhere near me."

"Well maybe that's something about you?" Emma teased.

"No. You always get stressed out with your correcting and school work, just like when you used to have to do homework and assignments and Nate always gets ridiculously tetchy about anyone interrupting his flow of writing. And suddenly you two can just spend cosy nights in together?"

"I don't know what explanation you want Liv, Nate and I can just work together." Even as she said it, Emma scrunched up her nose. That wasn't the right description. It never felt like work.

Spending time in the evenings together, in her apartment or his, arguing over the choice of take out, while he wrote draft articles and she attacked the pile of uncorrected assignments and tests. It was work, but it didn't feel like it. He was the only person that she could listen to and not get annoyed at. She would read his work and he would help her organise her work better.

It wasn't exactly the first time they had found such a good rhythm.

Emma rubbed at her sore eyes. This assignment was killing her.

And it was only her second one ever. She had done well on her first one but now she was afraid that it was a fluke and she would just end up messing everything up and drop out of college during her first semester of freshman year.

Liv had told her she was being dramatic before she left for some party earlier that night.

Emma stayed home, like she always did. She had looked forward to college for so long but it just felt like it wasn't fitting right. And she hated that fact. She used to love going out with Liv and laughing until she cried but now with all Liv's new friends and the new city and new environment, Emma just didn't have the need for it anymore.

A knock came to the door of the dorm that she shared with Liv and Emma just presumed it was just some new friend of Liv's calling around. Emma had yet to make any real friends and nobody ever called around to see her. She ignored it as she went to make herself a fresh pot of coffee.

But another knock came to the door and Emma just rolled her eyes.

She just wanted a quiet night alone so she could try and salvage her education.

She swung the door open quickly, ready to tell the person to go away. Liv wasn't home.

But she lost all ability to breathe, never mind talk, when she was met by Nate Learner on the other side.

Despite all her efforts, her lingering crush was still there.

She thought college would be her fresh start. That she could finally get over him. That she could create a whole new life in this new place and put Nate firmly back in the 'friend' box. She shouldn't have high school crushes on her best friend's brother in college.

But no such luck.

He stood there, his hair damp from the rain, his familiar eyes and easy smile that still made her slightly weak at the knees.

"Hey Em."

"Hi Nate. Eh…Liv's not here right now…" She said.

"Good. I came to see you." He nodded over her shoulder, "Can I come in?"

"Sure, I guess…" She stood aside to let him. She cringed to herself, the table was a mess of haphazard notes and empty coffee mugs and she was in the only clean clothes she had left, her worn out leggings and an old band hoodie. She swallowed, the hoodie had been Nate's. Emma had been handed it by his Grandma one cold night when she was going to walk home to put over her t-shirt and well, she had kept it because she was seventeen and still in love with him. Now she was turning nineteen and found comfort in having him near her somehow.

She hoped he wouldn't notice.

Her other plan for college was to become so mature and irresistible to Nate that he would just fall head over heels in love with her. But with her lack of social life and bad study schedule and messy rooms, it didn't look like that was going to happen.

She hated that she still hoped about the possibility every night.

He took a seat at the table, not seeming fazed by the mess and her haggard looking appearance. "I've missed you, you know." He said and she was pretty sure she was hallucinating from too much coffee because she was sure that he was blushing at his own admission.

She missed him too. But she was also avoiding him too. Her life was a mess of stressing out that she wasn't doing good enough and being embarrassed by how much homesickness was affecting her. And she didn't want to be a liability for him.

"I thought you would be out tonight but Liv said you were staying in so I thought I'd call, is that okay?"

"Of course it is. You don't need to ask." She said as she pretended to organise the notes all over the table.

"So…how it is going?" He asked, "You guys seem to be taking college by storm eh?" He asked but the smile didn't meet his eyes.

"What?" She asked, blindsided by the statement, as she got another mug down for him.

"Well Liv is always busy and taking extra classes and having dates and parties to go to and I hadn't heard from you in ages so I presumed you two were doing okay?" Now he questioned his own statement, she could feel him looking at her. He could always read her like an open book.

It was why she was avoiding him. She didn't want to admit it to anyone else apart from Liv that things weren't as brilliant as she pretended they were.

She gave up making the coffee and leaned back against the counter. "I mean Liv is doing great. Me?" Emma shrugged hopelessly, mortified when her lip started shake. She would not cry.

He stood up quickly and engulfed her in a hug. She gave up all pretences of being fine and leaned into his embrace, curling her own arms around him. He was always there for her.

"Is it bad that I'm slightly relieved? Liv is having this wonderful time and my freshman year sucked." He admitted with a soft laugh that she felt more than heard.

"I thought it would go better than this. I thought I was better than this." Emma admitted, not willing to let go just yet. "I'm already drowning in study and I have this assignment due and I'm not getting anywhere with it and it feels like it's all pilling up on me and…" She breathed deeply, "I'm a crap friend, sorry for not keeping in touch."

"Hey don't worry about that, we'll always be there for each other right?" He asked, even if her own hold had slackened, Nate seemed quite contented in her arms.

"Right." She nodded.

But she needed to move. Now. Or she would get far too attached to being his arms.

He gave her a lopsided grin, "And hey if there's one person who knows how to claw his grades back up in college, it's me…want to take another look at that assignment, I may not know anything about teaching but I'm an expert at referencing."

They seemed to effortlessly fall back into their old dynamic that happened whenever Liv wasn't around. They hadn't been alone together in so long and it somehow felt easier to breathe, to just be when it was just her and Nate. They could be themselves.

He got her through the assignment and was there when she found out what grade she got. He helped her on the condition that she would visit him over in his campus for coffee the next time she was free. There she had poured over an article he was writing to submit to the college newspaper that would eventually land him a spot on the newspaper team.

College life did get easier with Nate now with her. He would swing by after her lectures to catch up and she'd get up extra early to trek across the city to get her hands on the first copies of his newspaper just to read his finished articles and send copies home to her parents and his Grammy.

"Remember in freshman year in college? We had a good rhythm." Emma argued to Liv as the bus chugged along.

"Yeah but that was years ago. And we were in college and you had no life."

"Ouch. Thanks Liv." Emma said sternly.

"I'm sorry but it's true." Liv said, "Oh my gosh remember that though?. I honestly thought you two were hooking up."

"Excuse me?" Emma half laughed in panic, her cheeks flaring red.

"Oh come on, he'd hang around our place all night and you would dash over to his campus at a moment's notice. I just thought you two were being way too obvious."

"Okay just to clear up any doubt, Liv we were so not sleeping together." She enunciated her words just to be sure.

"Oh I know that now. You dropped Nate as soon as Fletcher came along and you were never a 'love them and leave them' kind of girl anyway."

"I did not drop Nate." She argued as she stood up for her stop.

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't." She remained adamant but was trying to remember how things went. It all got a bit blurry after she met Fletcher, she became love struck and everything had been a happy haze.

"Do you want to ask Nate because you totally did. Not that I minded, I didn't want my brother sleeping with my best friend." Emma swallowed hard, hearing Liv's opinion. That was why her stupid crush on Nate could never amount to anything now either.

This was far too much for her early morning commute.

She got off at her stop and started walking quicker thanks to the feeling akin to panic curing through her veins.

"Just please don't drop him this time." Liv said and suddenly it was clear to Emma why they were having this conversation. Liv was worried about Nate.

"Okay, why would I drop him and why are you so worried about him?"

Liv was quiet on the other side of the phone line. A sure sign that Emma had caught her out. It was the downfall of their life long friendship, it was hard to keep things from the other.

"Wait, what's that Kevin? An emergency? Sorry Em, gotta go."

Her best friend cut her off.

Emma glared at her phone as she kept walking. She debated calling her back or better yet ring Nate and clear all her sudden confusion up. But she had to get work.

And maybe she had far too much to contemplate on now.

Had she really just pushed Nate out of her life as soon as Fletcher arrived?

Months later, after solidifying their comfortable routine and as Emma became happier in her new college environment, her life was changed.

She had had a shower and was walking out to the living room to dry her hair when she heard the hushed tones of a Learner argument. Liv and Nate disagreeing over something, but both went silent when she appeared.

"Hey, what's up? You two okay?" She asked.

Liv looked between Nate and Emma, "We're fine, right?" She asked her older brother.

He gave her a weird look, but it was one Emma knew. Like Liv was backing him into a corner.

"Sure." He said, as if he had no other options.

"Oh did you hear Nate and Laura broke up?" Liv said in a peppy tone. Emma hadn't hear, and she couldn't say she wasn't slightly pleased. Laura was lovely really, but Emma knew her dislike for the other girl sprang out of jealously. She hated it. She didn't want to be petty and jealous. But she was.

Laura took up some of Emma's Nate time and Laura was everything that Emma wasn't. Had striking curly red hair, curves in all the right places, she was top of her class and outgoing, and Nate liked her.

Therefore, it solidified the fact in Emma's mind that Nate would never like her.

"Oh really? I'm sorry." Emma lied.

"Nate broke up with her, why was that again?" Liv asked him.

Nate couldn't have looked more uncomfortable. A far cry from when he would sit on the opposite side of her bed as they shared a pizza at night after they had finished studying and conversations about whatever came to mind, without a care in the world.

He shrugged, "She just wasn't what I was looking for I guess."

"So…I decided I'm dragging him to Jake's party tonight, and he can find what he is looking for. You're coming too Emma." Liv said sternly.

"How long do we have stay?" Nate asked Emma, leaning down to whisper in her ear as they entered the party later that night.

"Liv will forget about us after a while." She reassured him as she watched her friend walk in ahead of them, seemingly stopping to talk to everyone in the hallway.

"Give it an hour and we can plan our escape then?" He asked with a grin, placing a steadying hand on the small of her back as some guy barged down the hallway with too many beers in his hand and Emma stumbled for a split second in her high heels.

"Yes please." Emma grinned back. Emma was starting to like going to parties with Liv again, making some friends for herself. But if the other option was spending time with Nate then there really was no competition.

"Hey, you want to go for pizza afterwards?" He asked, "Just the two of us?" He added as an afterthought.

"Sure, sounds great." She said, swallowing the disappointment that resurfaced every time it felt like they were solidifying their friendship and the chance of acting on her crush dissipated further.

"Cool. It's a date then." He said but she only half heard as another guy bumped into her.

"Sorry. You okay?" The taller guy asked, with a beautiful smile and strong shoulders, as he put a hand on her arm.

"Yeah I'm fine." She said, butterflies suddenly sprouting in her stomach.

"My friend's an idiot." He nodded to the guy with too many beers who was falling over the place and knocking into everybody. "Hey, can I get you a drink?"

She couldn't remember the last time such a good-looking guy had shown interest in her. "Oh, sure." She blushed, pushing a stray hair behind her ear.

"I'm Fletcher, by the way." He said, shaking her hand, causing her become slightly breathless.

"I'm Emma." She responded and was rewarded with a huge smile. "Oh and this is…" She turned around to introduce Nate because she always hated being forgotten about by Liv when a new guy came along but he wasn't behind her anymore. "…sorry I thought my friend was there…"

"Doesn't matter, stay there, I'll get you that drink." He leaned in to tell her above the noise of the party.

She bit her lip as she watched him go.

She caught sight of Nate standing against the door to the living room. "Hey," She called above the noise, "Are you okay?"

She worried suddenly because she had never seen such sadness on his face. She had seen him lost and upset after his parents' death, ecstatic and terrified when he had been accepted to college, devastated when their family dog had died and contented when they used to sit on the stairs at home.

But this looked more than sadness, more like misery.

"…Oh…yeah…" He said but he wasn't convincing either of them. "…Eh I just saw Laura…" He said but his voice was off and he wasn't meeting her eyes. "Heartbreak sucks." He sighed.

Emma would know, she spent years wallowing in it when Nate would never look at her as anything different than his sister's friend. But she hated seeing him looking that upset.

"I'm sorry." She said.

But Fletcher appeared by her side, "There you are. Here you go." He handed her a drink. "Hey man." He said to Nate and Emma was nearly sure he was sizing Nate up.

"Hey." Nate nodded back, "I better go find Liv." He excused himself. "See you later Emma." Giving her a reassuring smile, he disappeared into the crowd.

Emma was on her break later than day when it hit her. She had always remembered that party as the first time she had met Fletcher. She had spent all night talking to him and left with Liv, staying up until morning as they dissected everything that had happened with Fletcher.

It was only now, after the Fletcher haze had abated and Liv's warnings about Nate circled in her mind, that she remembered.

She had promised Nate that she would hang out with him afterwards. But she never did. He must have left the party by himself. And after that, well Fletcher worked himself into her routine and Nate kind of fell out of it.

She still saw him all the time of course, they were still practically family, or they would all hang out as a group but it was never as cosy and comfortable as it had been when it had been just the two of them.

Emma now put it down to finally finding someone who could keep her undivided attention away from Nate Learner. It was probably for the best for the love sick nineteen year old girl who only wanted Nate. And Nate had never brought up their sudden lack of alone time.

He had found another girlfriend soon enough, a blonde and ambitious girl, again, nothing like Emma had been. But Fletcher was there to soothe over the pain until she no longer got jealous of every one of Nate's girlfriends, until she moved from seeing him as her eventual happily ever after to seeing him as her friend's brother.

Emma nibbled at her sandwich.

But what happened now that Fletcher wasn't around to distract her anymore. Now her crush was flaring up again.

What happened when she remembered that all her childhood, dreaming of the her wedding at the Plaza, she had always dreamed of Nate waiting for her at the end of the aisle?

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Hope you're enjoying this story.

I'd love to know what you think, especially about the flashbacks, do you think they add to the story or slow it down too much?

I want to make this story the best it can be :)