[F]riend visits my girl[f]riend and [m]e, and things take a surprising turn (Part 1)

This was a couple years ago now. My terrific girlfriend Emma (25 at the time) and I (then 26) had been together since just after we started college, and lived together with some other friends in a medium-sized house. We're really fortunate to have a great relationship where there's virtually no drama and our values are very in sync.

We have an old and good friend, Danielle (25 at the time of this story), who we met about the same time we met each other, and after almost 6 years of Danielle being best friends with Emma and hanging out with us all the time (even in the couple years after graduation), she had moved across the country for a job and been gone almost 2 years from the city where we live and went to college. So, she decided that she'd make a week-long venture back here to see lots of friends, and since we had enough space in our house to have a sort of "guest room", we of course offered it to her for the duration of her trip. Emma is always a good friend and hostess, and I know she was ecstatic to see our friend who we can expect to meet up with once per year at best. She was talking about it every day for two weeks beforehand.