CHAPTER NINE
CHANNING
Was I a dick for wanting her to acknowledge that I had a leg up on Rory in one thing?
I’d always suspected that I was Amber’s first kiss. But I never asked her, because we’d simply never spoken about that moment in time. I could never handle talking about Lainey’s death, and the circumstances of that kiss were somehow tied into the tragedy of my sister’s passing.
As far as first kisses went, ours was far from typical, far from sexual even. It was eclipsed by our mutual sadness and devastation. But in the midst of one of the darkest days of my life, that kiss was like a lifeline—my oxygen. It had given me a reason to breathe just when I thought my lungs were ready to give out.
“I always figured that was your first kiss,” I said. “But I never knew for sure until you just confirmed it.”
“I wasn’t sure if you remembered, Channing. I often wondered if you truly mentally blocked out that whole day.”
“Much of that entire time is a blur, to the honest. But that moment…that kiss…is not something I could ever forget.”
***
It was the evening of Lainey’s wake. I’d managed to pull myself together somehow, standing in that line and shaking hundreds of hands that were attached to blurry black figures.
As much as I knew I needed to cry, I wouldn’t allow myself to. It was hard enough to watch my mother breaking down. I didn’t want her to have to see me cry because I knew it would kill her. So, I held it in.
The preacher began to read something, and I knew I couldn’t take it. So, I slipped away, disappearing to a gazebo out in the back of the funeral home.
To my surprise, Amber was there. Her hair was covering her face. She was alone and crying and didn’t see me at first. She’d been composed all night, too, but seeing that she’d stopped fighting it gave me silent permission to do the same.
Unable to hold my tears in any longer, I let go in that moment. Moisture filled my eyes. I was too numb to even realize that I was crying were it not for the vibration of my ribs shaking in pain. Joining her on the bench, I held Amber in my arms and let those first tears fall into her hair. My crying was so intense that it was silent.
We continued holding each other for an immeasurable amount of time. At one point, she turned her face toward me, and I could taste her breath; it felt like oxygen. Suddenly, tasting more of it became all I wanted in the world. Desperate to feel anything other than my pain, I took what I needed and kissed her.
My eyes were closed, my breath shaking. It was hard and passionate and desperate, so different from any other kiss I’d ever experienced before or ever would experience again in my life. It was an expression of our pain and yet a reminder that we were alive when we’d otherwise felt dead inside. Each thrust of my tongue and each moan into her mouth numbed that pain. It was intense and beautiful and sacred. It provided a momentary peace that words couldn’t.
Interrupted by the footsteps of Amber’s father, I pried myself off of her just in the nick of time, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. My heart was pounding. My palms were sweating. Amber looked dazed as she got up and left.
And we never spoke of it again.
***
“I was very lucky to have found you there that night,” I said.
Tears began to glisten in her eyes. “I never told anyone about that kiss, not Rory, not anyone.”
“Neither did I. It wasn’t the kind of kiss you talked about.”
“Clearly, we didn’t.”
“Well, you said Rory was your first everything. I thought I would take the liberty to remind you that technically that one belonged to me.”
“It definitely did.” She smiled.
Feeling the need to lighten the mood, I said, “I think I’m gonna make some tea. You want some?”
It was late, but I was enjoying hanging out with Amber and wanted to prolong our little night cap.
My reaction to her finding those photos on my phone surprised me. It affected me, and I couldn’t figure out exactly why. I’d flaunted my body to women enough times that you’d think it wouldn’t have. But this was different. This was Amber. She already had some preconceived notions about me, and while many of them were true at one time, I’d changed quite a bit in the past couple of years.
After steeping two hot teas, I handed her one. “So, I finished The Law of Attraction. Are you ready to talk about our books?”
She looked down into the steaming hot water and cringed. “Don’t kill me, but I haven’t finished The Alchemist.”
“Slacking on our arrangement?” I teased.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve had a hard time concentrating lately. I’ve been a bit too preoccupied to read. I know I said I’d have it finished.”
Whatever could be preoccupying you, Amber?
“I’m just kidding,” I said. “It’s a book. It will always be there when you’re ready to open it again. But I’m ready to talk about The Law of Attraction.”
She wiped her mouth and eagerly gave me her full attention. “What did you think of it?”
“Well, the biggest takeaway is that if you want something in life, you can’t focus on the problem. You have to focus on the solution, or rather, focus on what you truly want. When we stress, we dwell on the things that bother us, and the more attention we give to those things, the more we attract that negativity into our lives. Whether someone believes in the attraction component or not, at the very least, the book teaches the obvious, which is that dwelling on negative shit gets you nowhere.”
“Do you believe that you can actually attract something by focusing on it?”
I rubbed my chin and thought about it for a moment. “No way to know for sure. That’s a mystery of life. But now that I’m more consciously aware of that possibility, I’ll let you know if I experience it happening to me.”
She sighed. “I love the concept of the book, but honestly, I’ve found it hard to implement. Even trying hard to block something out of your mind is still inadvertently focusing on it. It’s scary to me to think that if I’m lamenting over Rory, or telling myself that I’ll never find anyone else…that I could be attracting that exact situation.”
“Okay, so, just in case that’s true…try to think about something you really want and practice focusing on that instead.”
She looked at me in silence then asked, “What if what you want is something you can never have?”
“Well, that’s what you’re telling yourself. That may not be true. Maybe you should try to think more positively.”
Was she referring to me, or was that just my ego?
Either way, my advice would have been the same, but now I was left feeling rattled and wondering what was really going on in her pretty, little head.
Today was probably one of the most confusing days of my life. There was no doubt I still had feelings for Emily. It was so good to see her, and I was immediately reminded of all of the reasons I fell for her in the first place. She seemed genuinely sorry about the way things had ended between us and made it clear that she wanted a second chance.
When she’d asked me to go back to her place, I almost budged. But I knew what going there would have meant. It seemed like forever since I’d been inside of a woman. I hadn’t slept with anyone since before moving to Boston. This was the longest I’d gone without sex since I was a teenager, and truthfully I was nearing my breaking point. But I somehow resisted, deciding instead not to take advantage of the offer.
While a part of me suspected that it wasn’t exactly the end of the story for Emily and me, I couldn’t ignore the fact that Amber had been on my mind the entire day. When she appeared at the Common, something shifted. Things were awkward in a way that was different from just running into your friend.
Emily sensed it, too. She asked me if there was anything going on between Amber and me. I told her the truth: Amber and I were just friends.
So, why did it not seem as simple as that answer?
***
Emily and I decided to have dinner in Chinatown.
Looking around at the bamboo-style wooden décor and waterfalls at the restaurant, I dragged my fork over the Singapore noodles.
As I gazed out at a window across the street that was dressed with ducks laying upside down in a row, Emily interrupted my thoughts.
“You seem like something’s on your mind.”
“Just thinking about work.”
“Has it been busy?”
“Yeah. I have limited time here to get what I need to get done, so there’s a lot of pressure.”
Of course, work wasn’t really the subject of my obsessive thoughts tonight. I still didn’t know what I was going to do about Saturday. The truth was, I was seriously considering just letting the Gentleman Nine thing blow away. Maybe I’d send Amber a message from the G9 email account cancelling tomorrow night, or maybe I could just not show up at all. I honestly had no idea how to handle it. And now with Emily in the picture, things were even more complicated.
Emily leaned in and threaded her fingers through mine. “Can we go back to my place? I can make you forget all about it for a while.”
Sex with Emily had been the best of my life. I felt like I needed to go. I needed to figure out where my feelings for her stood, and one way to do that would be to bury myself inside of her, to see if that amazing sexual chemistry we had before still existed.
It had been too long for me. And focusing my sexual energy on someone other than Amber was probably a good idea at this point in time.
I forced the words out. “Sure. Let’s go to your place.”
***
Once back at Emily’s apartment in Waltham, she didn’t waste time setting up a romantic atmosphere. The shades were drawn, and the lights were dimmed. She played Coltrane and poured me some of my favorite gin, which she’d bought likely knowing I would end up back here.
“I just want to put something out there…” she said.
I threw back the liquor. “Alright.” It burned the back of my throat.
“If we decide to give this another try, I would be open to moving to Chicago. I know in the past, I said I was tied to this area, but I feel like a new start could be really good for me. I know we’re not there yet, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that—that I would be willing to move for you.”
No, we definitely aren’t there yet.
“Noted,” I simply said.
At one point, she left me in the living room while she ventured into her room. I looked around aimlessly, my eyes landing on her bookshelves then wandering over to a sculpture of an elephant in the corner.
She returned to the living room before taking my hand to follow her back into the bedroom.
Why am I nervous?
This was by no means my first rodeo—far from it.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Candles that she’d lit flickered around us. She lifted off her dress to reveal a red, lace bra and matching panties. Red was always her color, accentuating her long, dark hair. My dick twitched as I took in the sight of her body.
She pulled me into her, and we kissed as I tried to calm down, caressing her back. Emily was rubbing her bare skin against me. I knew I could have slipped inside of her in two seconds flat and that she’d be wet and welcoming. But for some reason, instead of relaxing into everything that was happening, my muscles tightened. I realized in that moment that I was resisting. Why? Why was I moving away from this when my body was turned on? Something was off.
Threading my finger through the back string of her thong, I pulled on it and closed my eyes, determined to let myself get lost in her tonight. The thong made me think of Amber’s lingerie. Images of her underwear laying on the grass of the Boston Common flashed through my head. All of my thoughts then moved to Amber. My heart was now palpitating because suddenly the ass I was gripping was Amber’s. At least, in my mind it was. And I was getting harder.
To get lost in Emily was what I wanted, but it wasn’t what I needed. It started to hit me all at once: Amber was showing up to a hotel to supposedly fuck a stranger tomorrow. Tomorrow. But she didn’t really want him. She wanted me. Why couldn’t it be me? I was leaving town anyway. Why couldn’t I be the one to give her what she needed in the meantime? Either I was losing my mind, or this was making a lot of sense. I couldn’t figure out which option was correct.
And now, I was painfully hard thinking about this. Shit. I was in no state to be screwing Emily when all I could think about was sex with Amber.
Prying myself away, I said, “I don’t think I can do this tonight.”
She looked shocked. “What? Why?”
“I’ve got some things on my mind that I can’t shake. I’m really sorry, but I think I need to go home.”
The mood was understandably awkward for the next several minutes as Emily got her clothes back on.
“Will you call me when you’re feeling better, then?”
“Of course. I just need a little time to sort some stuff out.”
Everything was suddenly very clear to me. Before I could focus on anything with Emily or anyone else, I had to get Amber out of my system.