CHAPTER THREE
CHANNING
God, she looked exactly the same as when she was sixteen. It made me feel like a perv, even though I knew she was in her twenties and only a couple of years younger than me.
How she hadn’t aged was beyond me. The same petite body. The same straight, long, dark auburn hair with the exact same bangs cut straight across the forehead. The same brown doe eyes. They used to be full of wonder, but tonight they were mostly dark.
Fucking asshole took away the light in her eyes.
My mother always told me I shouldn’t go to bed angry, that it would affect my dreams and that the negative energy would carry over into the next day. But as I lay in bed that night, I really couldn’t help obsessing over the bomb that Amber dropped. Never in a million years would I have predicted that he was the one responsible for their break up.
She was so upset and wound up over Rory; I wished I could have just kissed the fuck out of her to make her forget—or even better, show her what it’s like to be with a real man. That may have been an inappropriate thought, but nevertheless, I had it. A lot of inappropriate thoughts were moving in and out of my head. And that was pretty funny considering I couldn’t ever act on them.
Years ago, I’d come to terms with the fact that Amber and Rory were together, because I assumed at the very least, he would do right by her and cherish her. It was the only reason I didn’t beat the shit out of him when I came home from college and realized he’d broken our pact, pursued her, and had fucking taken her virginity.
Back when we were teenagers, I’d always known that Rory wanted Amber. What I never considered was that she could return his feelings. The three of us would hang out together, watching movies or just chilling down in my basement, and I’d catch him staring at her when she wasn’t looking. He’d be fixated on her, and I would be fixated on his fixation with her. She was oblivious to his feelings and even more oblivious to mine, because I hid them really well. It was no exaggeration to say I’d probably hooked up with all of Amber’s friends. So, yeah, I was really good at throwing her off. I’m certain she never suspected that I liked her as more than a friend. My actions certainly never demonstrated that.
None of the girls I’d hooked up with in high school or college meant anything to me. Amber was really the only girl I’d ever developed feelings for at the time. They never escalated to the point of love, but I cared about her, wanted to protect her.
Before Lainey died, Amber was merely my sister’s friend. After Lainey passed away, Amber and I got closer. She was the only person keeping me sane during one of the most difficult periods of my life—those months after my sister’s death.
But actually dating Amber back then was never something I considered a realistic option. I was too young and unpredictable. Not to mention, I was the spawn of an asshole, womanizing father. What if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree? I was certain I’d end up hurting her. She was like a sister to me—a sister I secretly wanted to fuck but knew I never would. And I guess my attitude was that Rory should have felt the same way since the three of us were supposed to be friends. He and I should’ve wanted to protect her, not take advantage of her. But yet, what we should’ve felt didn’t matter. We both wanted her.
So, when Rory came to me and confessed his feelings for Amber one night, I felt like I needed to tell him how I really felt about her, too. My jealousy was through the roof, even though I didn’t think he was any kind of competition for me. That had been the one consolation—or so I thought. We agreed that since we couldn’t both have her, that neither of us would tell her how we felt. We’d come to the understanding that it was better to keep our friendship intact—both with each other and with Amber.
I therefore didn’t feel like I needed to watch my back when I went away to the University of Florida, leaving my friends behind. I trusted that he wouldn’t move in on her and even more so, I figured that if he did, she wouldn’t return his feelings. It was like double security in my mind.
Homesick, I decided to transfer back to a state school after my first year in Gainesville was up. When I came home that summer and found out that they were together, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. I alienated myself from both of them for a while. During that time, my manwhore ways were worse than ever once the school year started up again. It was a bad combination of acting out due to anger along with being the new, hot guy on campus at the local college I’d transferred to.
Over time, though, I began to accept things as they were. After all, even if Amber had been available, I knew I wasn’t the right guy for her anyway. She deserved someone who wouldn’t screw her over, someone like…Rory. He was safe. I grew to accept them together, and she and I were able to renew our friendship, although things were never exactly the same again between the three of us—especially between Rory and me. And he knew why.
Had seeing them together still hurt like a motherfucker? Yes. But I’d accepted that he was the better man for her. Sucking up my jealousy and pride, I ended up moving on.
So, finding out that he’d broken her heart all these years later was a tough pill to swallow. If he were in front of me right now, there was no guarantee I wouldn’t injure him.
I flipped my pillow around and fluffed it while Kitty purred and curled up into the crook of my neck. A sneeze from behind the bedroom door was the first indication that Amber, too, wasn’t getting any sleep.
I got up. She was leaning against the kitchen counter blowing her nose.
“Are you okay?”
She jumped a little. I’d startled her.
Amber sneezed again then said, “I think I might be allergic to your pussy.”
“Well, that’s a new one. Can’t say I’ve ever heard that before,” I joked. Then, it really hit me that she was serious. “Fuck. You’re allergic to the cat…”
“I’m not sure, but it’s a good possibility, seeing as though I’m suddenly sneezing incessantly.”
Shit.
As much as it pained me to follow through with my original plan to take Kitty to the shelter, I knew that was going to be even more necessary now. I’d secretly hoped to be able to keep her around.
“I’ll find a place for Kitty tomorrow, make some calls during my lunch break.”
“Kitty?” She laughed. “Is that her name?”
“Yeah. I know…not very original, but that’s what I started calling her and it stuck.”
“I’m gonna start calling you Stud.” She stuck her hand out in jest. “Nice to meet you. I’m Bitch.”
I took her hand, which was so small it felt breakable. “My friends call me Dick.” My smile faded into a frown when I said, “Kitty will be gone by tomorrow.”
“No.” She blew her nose. “Don’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s only a few months. I’ll get on some medication or something. That cat loves you. She belongs with you. It would break my heart to see you have to take her to a shelter. I can’t let you do it.” Blowing her nose again, she said in a stuffed-up voice, “By the way, I know where she came from.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I couldn’t sleep, so I was watching a repeat of the late evening news. A pet store on Devonshire was supposed to get a delivery of cats. The truck was parked while the driver left it unattended. They think someone broke into it and set the cats free.”
“No shit? She’s stolen property? Maybe I’ll take her back there, then?”
“No! You can’t.”
“Well, I can’t let you just…be sick.”
“It’ll be fine. Seriously. Sneezing never killed anyone.”
“That’s pretty insane that you would want to keep her around.”
“Yeah, well, I might just be a little insane.”
“Actually, no, it’s how you are. You’ve always had a kind heart.”
“A lot of good it did me.” She rolled her eyes.
I knew she was referring to Rory and once again wanted to kick his ass.
“God, you must think I’m such a fucking Debbie Downer,” she said. “I haven’t stopped talking about my breakup since you got here.”
“Debbie Downer? Nah. More like Negative Nancy.” I winked.
She sniffled. “Have I mentioned I’m really glad you’re here? I think I’ve smiled more in the last twelve hours than I have in three months.”
And that’s exactly the reason you need to keep yourself in check, Channing.
You can’t risk crossing a line and hurting her.
Your job is what it’s always been, to be her friend, to make her smile.
You weren’t supposed to mess with Amber before she got her heart broken. But after? Now it’s even more important not to fuck up.
“I promise to make an effort to be a little more upbeat,” she said as she looked over at the clock on the wall. “You should go back to bed. You start your job tomorrow. I’m sorry for waking you.”
Feeling more wired than ever, I shook my head. “You didn’t wake me. I got up because I heard you, but I hadn’t fallen asleep yet.”
“Why can’t you sleep? Are you anxious about work?”
I couldn’t exactly admit to her what was really keeping me up.
“Something like that.”
***
After work the following day, I decided to roam Cambridge before hopping the train back to Amber’s.
Crowded with college students and homeless people, Harvard Square was bustling. The faint sound of live music registered, although I wasn’t sure exactly where it was coming from.
Passing an outdoor café where a bunch of people were sitting around playing chess, it hit me that sightseeing alone in a new city wasn’t really very much fun, so I called Amber to see if she’d want to join me down here. As luck would have it, she had the night off.
We planned to meet at this small, used bookstore that I’d discovered on Brattle Street. It was tucked away, and you had to go down a few steps to access the door.
The place smelled like burnt coffee and old paper. Rich with eccentricities from corner to corner, it was seriously one of the coolest places I’d ever stumbled upon.
I checked the door every few minutes to see if she’d arrived.
When Amber finally entered the place, I noticed that she was making small talk with a hunched-over old man on her way in. She was the type of person who always noticed people, didn’t just walk by them in a fog, but really noticed them. Amber was smiling and chatting up the man before she finally held the door open for him. That was probably the highlight of the old fucker’s entire year.
I loved observing people when they didn’t know I was watching them. Getting to see how someone conducted themselves in their natural state without knowing they were being watched was a true window into their soul. And Amber had a kind soul. That had always been apparent to me.
I waved at her from the corner table I’d snagged.
Amber unraveled her scarf and took a seat across from me. My eyes fell to her neckline and to her perky breasts that were stretching against her pink, fitted sweater. Her hair was staticky from the cold.
She looked around at the musty shelves. “This place is really cool.”
It smelled like incense all of a sudden. It was coming from the opposite side of the room where a woman with dreadlocks stuffed into a knit cap was selling crystals next to the occult book section. A man played guitar in the other corner.
“It’s like a coffeehouse slash used bookstore. I stumbled upon it and thought you might like it here. I remember you used to read a lot.” I suddenly got up. “I’ll be right back.”
After I fetched us two coffees that were served in ceramic mugs, I returned to my place at the table.
Amber blew on the steaming liquid before she said, “I thought I was supposed to be showing you around, not vice versa. I never even knew this place existed. Really cool find. I could spend all evening in here getting amped up on caffeine and searching for obscure books. Do you think that’s strange?”
“No, actually. That’s why bookstores make good first dates for people. I’ve taken a few women to bookstores—granted not one as cool as this.”
She scrunched her nose. “I wouldn’t have thought that.”
“Well, for one, there’s never a lack of things to talk about. Each book is a conversation piece.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled. “Yeah, but you’re really not getting to know the person if you’re talking about books and not each other.”
“I beg to differ. You can tell a hell of a lot about someone by what they read.”
“Or what they don’t read...if they’ve never picked up a book.”
“Exactly. Now you’re getting my point.”
“I can imagine you’ve dated some women like that…who didn’t read? At least from what I remember…”
“Plenty. And the truth always comes out. Not that I have anything against someone who doesn’t habitually read, but sometimes it can mean there’s an overall lack of interest in things outside of themselves.”
A smile spread across her face. “I’m impressed, Lord. But given some of the girls you used to date, I didn’t think such things mattered to you.”
“Sounds like you’re judging a book by its cover, Amber.” I winked. “See what I did there?”
“I do.” She laughed.
The sound of her laughter brought me back in time to our youth for a moment. There were very few remnants of that time, but her laughter was one of them. Her laughter used to be my medicine.
“I’m not exactly the same guy I was in high school and college.”
“You mean, you don’t…” She coughed intentionally. “Get around anymore?”
“Get around? You mean sleep around…fuck around…right? Just say what you really mean…”
“I was trying to be bookstore friendly.”
“Look around. I’m pretty sure you can say and do anything you want in this place.” I grinned and inhaled a curious scent that smelled an awful lot like marijuana. “By the way, do you smell pot?”
She sniffed the air. “I do.”
I took a sip of my coffee and addressed her previous question. “I still appreciate a pretty face and a hot body, but it takes a lot more than that to thrill me now. A man can only take so much ass before he needs something more. My brain needs to be stimulated just as much as my dick.”
Amber looked a bit flushed. “I see.”
Needing to redirect my mind from focusing on how adorable her blushing was, I said, “You know what else is great about first dates in bookstores?”
“What?”
“If it ends up being a dud, you still get to take something new home to cuddle up with in bed.” I wriggled by brows.
“I like the way you think, Lord.”
My eyes landed on a situation happening in one of the aisles. “Even observing people in bookstores can be fun.” I pointed to this dude I’d been watching before she arrived. “Take that guy, for example. Look how he’s not even opening up the book he’s holding. He’s been watching that woman who’s browsing next to him the entire time. He’s pretending to be interested in The Nightingale, but really, he’s totally getting ready to make his move. And that choice of book was no accident, either. It’s a popular book. The likelihood that she’s read it and liked it is high. So, he’s counting on it as a potential conversation starter.”
“That theory makes sense, but how can you be so sure of what’s about to happen?” She drew her own conclusion. “Ah…you’ve picked women up in bookstores before, too.”
Shrugging, I admitted, “I might have done the casual aisle thing once.”
“Did it work?”
I simply smirked.
Amber rolled her eyes. “I didn’t even need to ask. I’m sure everything works for you.”
It amused me that she assumed things were so easy for me. “Why do you think that?”
“Because women have always been unable to resist you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the bookstore aisle or the pet aisle at the supermarket, the story is the same in the end. You get the girl. You can have any woman you want.”
“I’ll have you know that’s not always the case, Amber Walton.”
“Someone rejected you?”
She was still clueless as to how I used to feel about her, never imagining that she was the first person who came to mind when she asked me that question. Even though it wasn’t a blatant rejection, she had no idea how it felt for me when she got together with Rory. Besides Amber, there was only one other woman in my life whom I’d wanted but couldn’t have. I don’t think I’d ever spoken about the situation with Emily to another person. If anyone could understand, though, it was Amber.
“Yes, actually. Someone did reject me once.”
“Really?” She leaned in. “Do tell, Channing.”
“There’s not much to tell. Her name is Emily. About a year ago, we met at the wedding of a buddy of mine. It was a three-day event in the Bahamas. We had this weird, instant connection. She was probably the first woman I can honestly say I could’ve seen myself in a relationship with or at least trying for it.” I paused as I thought back to that weekend. “Anyway, we had an amazing time together. We were inseparable. I hadn’t felt that way about someone in a long while. When the weekend came to an end, I went back to Chicago. And she went home to Massachusetts. We stayed in touch long-distance.”
“Wait…she lives here in Mass?”
“Yeah…somewhere outside Boston, ironically.”
“So, you’d gotten closer to her over the phone and then what?”
“Yeah. We were talking a lot—lots of Skype sex. And I found myself thinking about her a lot when we weren’t communicating. I was supposed to come out to visit her, but she ended up getting back together with her ex-boyfriend out of the blue. I’d known about him all along, but she never gave me any indication that she was still into him. Anyway, she explained that she felt terrible for leading me on and all of that but that she had to follow her heart. There’s really not much more to tell. It’s nothing compared to what you’re going through with Rory, but I’m not unfamiliar with disappointment.”
She seemed truly shocked. Amber had definitely witnessed some of my biggest moments of vulnerability in those months after Lainey died. But over the years, I’d put up such a good front around people, that I made it easy for her to forget that I’d ever had a sensitive side. She probably thought I’d hardened a lot more than I actually had.
“Wow. Thank you for sharing that with me. I guess it was dumb of me to assume that you were immune to getting hurt.”
“I wasn’t looking for anything serious. But Emily just came out of the blue.”
“That’s how it happens sometimes, I would imagine.”
I was done talking about Emily. I’d pretty much gotten over that whole thing, but rehashing it made me feel like shit. This was a taste of how Amber must have felt the other night when I made her talk about what happened with Rory.
Glancing over at the man macking in the aisle, I said, “See? What did I say about him?”
The dude was now holding the book behind his back as he chatted with his female prey.
“Holy crap. You were right.” Amber was cracking up. “Oh, my God. She’s leaving with him now!”
“See. That was slick. Slow and steady wins the race.”
“Apparently.”
I took her empty coffee mug and returned it to the counter.
Back at the table, I asked, “You want to look around?”
“Sure. Now that the fiction aisle A through L is done being used for Love Connection.”
As we browsed, I brushed my index finger along the books on the shelves while Amber followed close behind me.
“Now, I want you to really think about this question, Amber.”
“Okay…”
“If there’s one book here that you’ve read, that you’d want me to read, what would it be? It should be something that I would probably otherwise never think to pick up on my own.”
She continued to follow me in silence until she finally said, “Probably The Law of Attraction.” She pointed to the non-fiction section. “I saw it over there. I’m actually studying it right now and would love another person’s take on what it teaches.”
“Alright. I’m gonna buy it and read it. But you have to read whatever I pick for you. Deal?”
“Yes.”
I picked up The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. “Have you ever read this?”
“No.”
“Okay, this is my choice for you. We’ll give each other a month to read. Then, we’ll discuss.”
“This is shaping up to be an exciting few months for you, Lord. Cats…staying home and reading. What’s next? Should I be looking for a Bingo hall?”
“Get on that. Also, don’t forget living with Negative Nancy…that’s another one.”
“Yup. That, too.”
I hoped she truly knew I was joking. “I’m really enjoying being here so far. More than I anticipated, actually.”
“It must have been the moldy cheese that did it.”
“Definitely the moldy cheese.” I grinned.
We were standing in line waiting to check out when I asked, “Hey, you hungry for dinner?”
“Yeah, I’m starving.”
I knew exactly where I wanted to take her. “I saw this Jamaican place down the street on the way here.”
“I’ve never had Jamaican food.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, then.”
“What’s your favorite dish?”
Without having to think, I answered, “Curry goat.”
“Did you just say goat?”
“Yup.”
“Snails…goat…do you eat anything normal?”