I peak my eyes open only to be met by a sharp ray of sunlight that comes through Kalum and Tori’s loft. The brightness burns and I immediately pull the blanket that is wrapped around my body over my head.
At least, I think I’m at Tori and Kalum’s. That’s what it looked like from the .2 seconds I made a connection with the outside world.
Burying my head under the blanket, bits and pieces come back from yesterday.
Talking to Aiden.
Aiden telling me about Amanda.
Amanda admitting that she was the one who arrested Aiden and kept it from me for weeks.
Amanda…
As the memories come back to me, it’s hard to figure out what hurts worse -- my head that is currently playing host to a drumline, or my heart that has broken into a million pieces.
“Dude, get the fuck up and start explaining,” Tori says, ripping the blanket off of me, giving me a full view of the sun coming up on a new day. A day I already hate.
“Coffee…” I know I need to explain things to her, and I need questions answered -- like how the hell I ended up on her couch last night -- but first… coffee.
“Look down on the table you asshole. There’s a cup right there, and aspirin and a Gatorade. Which you don’t deserve by the way. You interrupted me and Kalum last night, and he was in a very giving mood.”
I sit up, which makes my stomach do a quick circus act before settling down. I reach for the aspirin first, swallow it down with the Gatorade before taking a healthy sip of the black magic.
“Thank you,” I finally say while silently praying that everything stays down. “How did I end up here?”
Tori rolls her eyes like she’s already told me this before. “I got a call from the bartender where you were at. He said you passed out on the bar, which means he had to kick you out. He could tell you were all up in your feelings, my words, not his, so he took pity on you… grabbed your phone and called the first number he could. Lucky me I was the winner.”
Fuck… I did pass out last night. I don’t think I’ve ever drunk that much whiskey in that sort of a time period. “I’m so sorry Tori. It was… it was a pretty shitty day.”
“What happened? Why were you getting shit-fucked drunk? Where was Amanda?”
Just the sound of her name makes me want to dive right back into the bottle. But that thought makes my stomach turn. I’m never drinking again.
“Amanda… I don’t… I’m pretty sure Amanda and I are over.”
Tori is silent and I’m pretty sure her jaw will need help being put back in place, but I can’t say anything else yet. Are we over? Neither of us said those words explicitly last night, but it sure as hell felt like a breakup. I mean, who can bounce back from a secret and a fight like that?
“No… you two can’t be over. You’re just getting started. Fuck Ben! Just a few weeks ago you were talking about proposing to her! And now you’re done? Just like that? No. I won’t let it happen. Call her now and apologize for whatever dumbass thing you did.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing anyone can do to fix this. Plus, why is this my fault? Maybe she did something?”
“Enlighten me, Ben. Tell me what you, or she, did that was so fucking horrible that you are sitting here hungover as fuck telling me that you two are done.”
I wasn’t really ready to talk about it so soon, but Tori isn’t going to give me a choice. And fuck it, it’s all going to come out anyway.
“Amanda was one of the officers who arrested Aiden. She was undercover and gathered the information that put him in jail. She knew it, and she didn’t tell me.”
My words hang in the air. Did I not say them? I know I’m hungover, and likely still drunk, but I did just explain all of that to Tori, right?
“Well?” I ask, not able to take the silence anymore.
She sighs, gets up, but not before slapping me upside the head.
“Ben. I love you. You are my best friend. But you are a fucking idiot. If you’re going to let that come between you two, then I am Team Amanda. Now get up and get the fuck out of my house and go be an idiot somewhere else.”
Chapter 38
Amanda
I haven’t been to work in a week.
I have never taken this much time off, but to say that I have felt like absolute shit since Ben left my apartment -- which was also the last time I spoke to him -- would be an understatement. And not just emotionally, but physically too. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Yet I can throw up every morning at 8:40 a.m. like clockwork.
I have no idea what is wrong with me and I don’t care. Well, I think I know, but I don’t have it in me to care right now. I know that’s not what I should say or feel. I know I missed my birth control shot when I was undercover. I don’t remember the last time I had a period. I know I’m experiencing every symptom of being pregnant. But the thought of getting a hold of Ben to tell him that I could be carrying his baby is the most frightening thing in the world to me right now.
I already kept one major secret from him. What’s another to add to the list? Or, likely in his mind, another secret that I kept from him that he will hate me for.
I wish I could stay bunkered down for another night, but even with as shitty as I feel, I’d feel even worse if I missed the grand reopening of Perks, the coffeeshop that Tori manages. Tori has been working her ass off on this for months, giving the cafe a facelift and adding a bigger and better stage for their popular open mic nights that Annabelle started when she managed the shop. If I missed it Tori would kick my ass.
But I don’t want to go. I know Ben will be there. And I’m not ready to see him yet.
For many, many reasons.
As I walk into the new-and-improved cafe, there is no sign of Ben, which is a relief, yet saddens me at the same time. Though I was, and am, scared to see him, I kind of hoped that if we saw each other we could talk and work on getting past all of the hurtful things we said to each other.
Well, the ones he said to me. I know I’m not innocent in this fight, I should have told him the second I figured it out, but the fact that he can’t grasp that I was doing my job during a time when I didn’t even know he existed is absurd.
But even as much as he hurt me, and my heart still hurts from the words he hurled at me, I still miss him. I still love him.
He might have broken my heart, but I know he is the only one who can put it back together. He’s the only man who has ever made me feel that being me is OK. That despite my resting bitch face, and my dangerous job, and that sometimes I don’t feel feminine enough because of work or my upbringing, he made me feel enough. He made me feel beautiful. He made me feel loved.
Until he didn’t.
“How you doing Mandy?” Maverick’s use of the nickname only he’s allowed to use brings tears to my eyes. Likely another hint that I’m pregnant, but I can’t think about that yet. And especially not tonight.
“I’ve been better.” No sense in lying to him. He can likely see the bags under my bloodshot eyes and the string that is holding me upright.
Maverick puts his arm around me and guides me back to a table where Scarlett, Kalum, Annabelle and Jaxson are all seated.
“Where’s Tori?” I ask, hoping to deflect questions for at least a few minutes.
“She’s greeting the customers and making sure the acts for tonight are all set. How are you doing? I tried texting but I didn’t want to impose.”
Leave it to Annabelle for asking me how I am without really asking me. No one at the table says anything, but all eyes are on me.
“I’m fine. Really. It’s good to be out of the house.” The words leave my mouth, but no one believes a word I say.
“You know you can talk to us. We’re here for you.”
Scarlett’s words only slightly comfort me, because now I’m curious as to how much they know. I hadn’t told anyone about the fight, or the fact that we haven’t spoken in a week, but somehow they all knew that it was over. So I’m guessing that Ben told Tor
i, who told everyone else.
“Please, guys, I don’t want to talk about it. I already feel bad enough because you guys are in the middle of this breakup. He’s not here tonight, and Tori is his best friend. I hate that. I hate everything about this.”
“Breakup? Did you two officially end it?”
Kalum’s question earns an eyebrow lift from me.
“What would you call a huge fight where the boyfriend calls his girlfriend a liar, accuses her of using him and faking their relationship, and leaving her apartment with a door slam? Oh, and said boyfriend has not reached out to apologize or even talk since said walkout. And during said fight, the girlfriend slapped the boyfriend after a false accusation.”
No one says anything. And I don’t expect them to. I don’t want them to take sides. It’s not like this is a normal breakup where one friend was introduced to the significant other’s friend group, so the original member gets to stay. No. Ben and I were both brought in late to the party. They are all our friends. These people -- my rocks, my newfound family over the past few years -- now have to choose sides. And I hate that for them.
“Well I for one think he’s an asshole and you are better off without him if that’s how he’s going to react to you doing your job,” Maverick says.
“But she didn’t tell him a huge thing,” Annabelle says, giving me a sympathetic smile as she speaks. “You know I love you and we are friends, but honesty is a big thing. I’m sure he feels betrayed that you didn’t tell him about Aiden.”
“But was his reaction really called for?” I blurt out the question that has been eating at me all week. “He lost it. Literally lost his shit. I knew he’d be mad. I was ready for mad. But that was a mad that downright scared me.”
“Well then maybe him leaving was a good thing,” Kalum says. “Plus, I don’t know how he would continue to handle you being a cop with Aiden being in prison. It’s not like those two factors are going to change anytime soon. It would have been a thorn in your relationship. Maybe this was for the best.”
“It was not for the best and I have told you that all week and now you will continue to not get laid,” Tori announces, walking over to our table. “That’s right Amanda. I have been withholding sex from my husband because his views on this situation are idiotic. I’m Team Amanda. I love Ben like a brother, but he’s being an asshat.”
And as if this was a movie, I look up to watch Ben walking through the cafe door.
I stop breathing. I think I’m going to be sick. I can’t do this.
Though a part of me wanted to see him tonight, after listening to my friends and their mixed opinions and advice on this situation, I can’t be here.
I don’t say a word. I don’t look back. I just grab my purse and run out of the cafe.
Chapter 39
Ben
I see the look of panic in her eye as soon as she sees me walk into Perks.
I feel her hit my shoulder as she runs out of the cafe. At the contact, our eyes meet. We both stand there... just looking at each other. Here we are, two people who know each other in the most intimate ways one can know another person. People have explored each other’s bodies and souls in every conceivable way.
Yet as we stand here, frozen in place in the middle of a Chicago coffee shop, we are strangers. Because the woman I know wouldn’t have kept a huge secret from me.
The sound of the bell above the door shocks her back to the present and she turns, sprinting out of the cafe without saying a word to me. Part of me wants to run after her. Comfort her. Tell her everything is going to be OK. That we are going to be OK.
Then I remember why we just had a silent standoff -- that she’s the reason my brother is in prison and she knew about it for weeks without telling me -- and that’s all I need to let her run away.
Hopefully far. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to talk to her again, but I know it’s not going to be anytime soon.
The closer I get to the table where my -- former? -- friends are sitting, the more I can feel the tension in the air. The looks they are giving me are a mix of sad, murderous and compassion. All of which I get. Who knows how I would react if this didn’t happen to me?
I lean in to give Tori a hug, which she half-heartedly returns.
“Way to not cause a scene,” she says as she backs away from my embrace.
“I’m not the one who ran out. That’s on her. I just walked into a public coffeeshop.”
“No, but you’re the asshole who ran away the first time.” And with those words, Tori turns on her heel and walks away.
“Don’t mind her,” Kalum says as I take a seat. “She’s stressed about tonight, and she hates that you two ended things. Though I get why you did.”
Kalum’s words surprise me. I can’t believe he’s not taking Amanda’s side. But as I look around to the faces at the table, I can tell not all of them agree with me and Kalum.
“She’s a cop,” Kalum continues. “Your brother is in prison because she took him and his crew down. She didn’t tell you. It’s a problem that’s not going to change. I get it.”
Finally, someone who sees my side.
“Well I don’t,” Maverick says loudly, nearly making me jump. “That woman loves you. Did she withhold something that she shouldn’t have? Yes. And she’ll admit that. Hell, she has admitted that. Here’s what I don’t get. I don’t get where the fuck you get off riding in on some moral high horse thinking she’s the only one in the wrong. Wasn’t it you who didn’t even tell her, or us, that you had a fucking brother in prison for months. MONTHS!”
Maverick’s words land the punch he aimed to, but I’m too mad, and proud, to admit how much he’s right. I didn’t tell her, or them, about Aiden for a hell of a lot longer than Amanda didn’t tell me that she knew who my brother was, or at that she was part of the team that turned him in.
“Don’t tell me how to feel Maverick. She was wrong. She should have told me.”
“Whatever man. You justify things however you need to. All I know is that you two are miserable, we don’t know how the fuck to handle any of this, and the girl you just a few weeks ago said you loved is now standing outside a coffee shop crying in the rain.”
I hate that I do, but as soon as he says that, my head snaps around to look out the window, where in fact, Maverick is right. There’s Amanda... standing in the rain that must have just started in the last 20 minutes, and there’s no doubt that it’s not just raindrops that are pouring down her face.
My reaction is involuntary. I shoot out of my chair and take five long strides before I’m exiting the coffee house. If she sees me, she doesn’t react. Instead, she just stands there, continuing to get soaked, looking at the ground.
“You’re going to get sick.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say.
A few seconds pass and I don’t know if she hears me. I take a step closer when I hear the sound of her voice -- a sound I didn’t know how much I had missed until right now.
“That’s not how sickness works.”
“I don’t care, you can’t stand in the rain. Come on, come inside. I’ll leave.”
I go to grab her arm, and the second my hand makes contact with her, it’s like an electric current hits both of our bodies. I can tell she felt it too.
“Let go of me, Ben. You don’t care about me. That’s evident. Just leave me alone.”
I shouldn’t care. I don’t want to care. I still love her, but fuck, I’m really fucking mad at her.
“I might be furious as hell at you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. Come on. Get inside.”
She shakes out of my hold and quickly wipes away the stray tears.
“Why can’t you get over what I did?”
Her question takes me by surprise, and as much as I hate standing out here getting wet, apparently that’s where we are having this conversation.
“Because if you loved me the way you said you did, you would have told me.”
“Can’t you under
stand why I was scared? Obviously with how you reacted, you can understand why I was hesitant.”
“Or maybe I wouldn’t have reacted like that if you would have told me the second you put two-and-two together.”
She lets out a screech that sounds like part frustration, part banshee. It’s so high I don’t know how I heard it.
“We are never going to see each other’s sides are we?”
I shake my head... because she’s right. Call us both stubborn or hard-headed, but, at least right now, I don’t see either of us getting the other’s perspective.
“Maybe. One day. But it’s not today. And it probably won’t be next week.”
She nods, not looking at me, and if I’m right, a new set of tears are dripping from her cheeks.
We both stand there, getting soaked in the rain, but neither of us go to make a move. A cab comes up and rolls down his window, asking if we need a ride.
“You should take it. Get out of here. Get dry. Get warm.”
She nods and begins walking toward the cab, but just as she’s about to step in, she turns back and looks at me.
“If we never speak again, please know this,” she says, trying to push back tears between her words. “If someone keeps a secret, they likely have a very good reason why. And it doesn’t make them a bad person. It just makes them human.”
And with those words, she gets in the cab and drives off, leaving me standing in the rain and wondering if I just let the best thing to ever happen to me get away for good.
Chapter 40
Amanda
For the first time in what seems like forever, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Well, at least about one thing in my life.
I’m still pretty sure I’m pregnant.
I’m still definitely sure I’m single again.
But at least now, I can say that our case against the Flannerys is closed.
Say You're Mine Page 68
