Yes, I understand how full of myself I sound, how arrogant. I’ll even go as far as to say I sound like a condescending wanker, but I was looking at Amanda Sinclair, and no matter how many times I’d tried to convince myself otherwise in the months since she left, I knew she was “the one”.
Again with those damn quotation marks, eh? I guess you can figure out what state I was in at that point. Keeping myself motionless, keeping myself from running to her and hauling her off her feet was harder than any workout I’ve ever done.
Instead of running to her, I smiled.
She smiled back.
It dawned on me then the Amanda standing in front of me was not the Amanda I’d last seen here in the States almost three years ago. There was a hesitation in her eyes I’d never seen before. A nervousness. She was also slimmer, like she’d shed a lot of weight quickly. Too much weight. And she looked . . . tired. Drawn. She was still the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but she looked far more fragile. Fragile was not a word I’d ever associated with Amanda Sinclair, and it did my head in.
The smile on her lips faltered. A little. “Hi Bren. Thanks for coming.”
Amanda was the only person I knew who called me Bren. Amanda was also the only person to rip out my heart, but I wouldn’t hold that against her right now.
When I didn’t respond, her smile faded completely. To be honest, my brain was still in a holding pattern. Somewhere stuck between kiss her you idiot and this doesn’t mean we’re friends again.
“They served chicken and sweet potato on the flight,” I said.
Way to go, brain. You champion.
Amanda frowned. “Was it nice?”
I nodded.
She frowned some more, studying me. One of the things I first noticed about Amanda, way back when we met on the Thredbo ski slopes, was how expressive her eyes were. You know the saying “The eyes are the window to the soul”? That was Amanda.
For the entire time we were together, I knew what she was feeling. I could see it in her eyes. Except for the day she told me we were over. I couldn’t read a damn thing in her eyes then.
Now was the same. I had no hope of knowing what she was feeling, thinking, as she stood there frowning at me. I suspect, however, that she’d expected something more than a recount of my inflight dinner.
Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Hi, Amanda. You look good.”
And she did. Even with the exhaustion in her face. Yes, she’d lost weight, but no one could ever accuse her of being anorexic. Her hair was longer than it had been in Sydney. It hung over her shoulders and past her breasts in loose, messy waves. She wore makeup, which threw me a little: Amanda had never worn makeup in Australia. Her eyes – still unreadable – were made all the more intense by the dark eye shadow and eyeliner rimming them.
And yet, even makeup couldn’t hide the dark smudges under her eyes. She really looked tired. And haunted. As if something horrible had happened in her –
Before the thought could finish forming, Amanda closed the distance between us, took my face in her hands and kissed me.
This is the point in my story where everyone’s meant to go awwww, I’m sure. Two young lovers with startling natural chemistry (to quote The Sure Thing, one of my mum’s favorite movies) finally reconnect in a busy airport. This is also the part of my story where I forget Amanda ended us without a reason that made any sense, and lose myself in the exquisite beauty and passion of her lips, right?
For one brief moment, that’s exactly what happened. I gave myself over to the kiss, to the feel of her lips against mine. Every fiber of my body remembered what kissing Amanda Sinclair was like. Remembered and reveled. I’ve kissed other women in the interim – Maci Rowling for one – but none of those kisses reached to the very core of my existence like Amanda’s kisses had. Like this kiss did. This one simple kiss.
It was beautiful.
And then I pulled away, removing her hands from my face. “Why am I here, Amanda?”
That haunted shadow filled Amanda’s eyes again, replacing an emotion I couldn’t decipher. “Because I asked you to come?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, there’s that.”
She smiled, a weak laugh falling from her. “I’ve missed you, Bren,” she whispered, before sliding her arms around my body and pressing her cheek to my chest.
We stood in the busy terminal, with people hurrying and dodging past us, Amanda’s cheek against my chest just above my solar plexus, her belly and thighs warm against mine. I don’t know what was in her head, and I didn’t care. What was in my head was the simple belief life had brought us together again. Life, the universe maybe, had recognized it had fucked up and brought us back together. I’d deal with whatever the reason was for Amanda calling me here, fix it, and we could get on with our lives together. Simple. I am Brendon Osmond, after all. Nothing rattles me, not really, and nothing can get me down. The eternal optimist, remember?
It was Amanda who broke the embrace this time. She stepped way from me, her fingers trailing down my sides as she put distance between us. Her eyes, haunted and somehow secretive, met mine.
“I was going to do this a different way, Bren,” she said. I couldn’t miss the choked tension in her voice. “I was going to . . .”
She stopped and looked away, grief eating up her face. Grief, and something close to contempt.
My gut knotted. My pulse thumped hard in my ears. “Going to what?” I asked. Why the hell was I feeling like all the air in the terminal had suddenly turned to steel wool?
Amanda turned back to me, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip. A part of me – the purely male part – reminded me how incredible that lip felt between my own teeth. That purely male memory sent a tight finger of heat into the pit of my stomach and for a dangerous moment I didn’t want to hear what Amanda had planned to do differently. For a dangerous moment, that purely male part of me wanted to take control of the situation. Wanted to haul Amanda back into my arms and kiss her until her knees crumpled and all she could do was cling to me as I rendered her defenseless against the pleasure of our—
“You were going to what?” I asked again, killing the caveman inside me. I smiled, letting her see it was all good. That I was okay, that we were okay. That we were gravy.
She looked at me, and then let out a slow sigh and said, “I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of, Amanda?” I asked.
She let out a sigh that belonged more to a world-weary octogenarian instead of a vibrant twenty-three year old. Although to be honest, vibrant wasn’t the word I’d use to describe Amanda at this point in time.
“I’m scared you’re not going to like me any more after . . .” She stopped and looked away.
My gut knotted. After what? “You became a human drug mule?” I asked. I needed to make her laugh. I needed to see the Amanda I knew, the one I’d once loved. I wanted her to know she didn’t have to rush revealing whatever had brought her to ask me to come.
And I also didn’t want her to reveal it.
Selfish of me, maybe, but there really is bliss in ignorance. I wasn’t ready to know why I was here. I just wanted to be here. With her.
That haunted expression filled her face again for a moment, making my chest ache, and then she smiled.
“Yeah, I’ve become a mule. I transport an experimental drug called Sunshine around the globe. The pay sucks, but at least no one can tell me to stick stuff where the sun don’t shine any more.”
I burst out laughing. The statement – slightly depraved – was thoroughly and utterly Amanda.
“Well, in that case,” I said, “consider yourself still on my like list.”
She grinned. Yes, I could tell there was still a guarded hesitancy to her, but I was prepared to roll with it. “Let’s go.”
We left the terminal walking side by side. The urge to take her hand overwhelmed me more than once. I resisted, just.
“So,” I said as we crossed the road outside the building, dodgi
ng speeding taxis and shuttle vans as we headed for Amanda’s car. “How goes your degree? Second last year, right? Have you had your first prac yet?”
As it had the last time I was in the States, I enjoyed the sense of being in a different country, breathing in different air, standing under a different sky. Southern California bore a similarity to the east coast of New South Wales, with its gum trees and warm, dry heat, but there’s no way it smelled the same. Walking toward the parking lot where Amanda’s car waited for us, I couldn’t stop myself drawing in a deep breath and studying the sky, marveling at how different it all was. Sometimes the simplest things moved me the most.
As a consequence, it took me a while to register Amanda hadn’t answered. I shot her an expectant look. “So?”
She shrugged a lop-sided, one-shoulder response. “Me and university didn’t take.”
My eyebrows shot up before I could stop them.
She laughed, a self-deprecating, playful chuckle that made me forget what I was doing for a moment.
“What? We can’t all be entrepreneurial world-changers like you, Osmond. You own your own personal trainer business yet?”
“Waiting for the thumbs up from the bank, as we speak,” I answered with a grin.
Amanda laughed again, bumping her shoulder to my arm as we walked. “Oh man, why am I not surprised? What’s it going to be called? Buff R Us?”
“Buff R We, thank you very much.”
“The perfect name.” For a wonderful moment, there was the faintest hint of shallow dimples in her cheeks and the Amanda Sinclair I knew in her delight.
It dawned on me then she’d very successfully sidestepped the issue of her teaching degree. I wanted to re-address it, but left it alone. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a bit of a high achiever, and Amanda – at least the Amanda I knew – was the same. Something in my gut told me the reason for my presence here in the US was connected to her incomplete studies and, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t ready to have that reason revealed to me yet.
If you’d told me I was a coward before Amanda stood in front of me again, I would have laughed in your face. But here I was, not asking about Amanda’s reasons for wanting me to come, and not asking about her reason for dropping out of uni.
The things you learn about yourself when your heart gets involved. It truly is a stupid damn organ at times.
“So,” I asked, “you seeing anyone?”
Apparently my brain was as stupid an organ as my heart.
Before I had the chance to process the pending idiocy of my question, Amanda burst out laughing. “No, I’m not. You ruined me for anyone else, Mr. Osmond. Couldn’t find anyone here with your atrocious sense of humor and impressive muscles.”
There’s a point in the life of every guy who spends time working out where something is said that makes them want to check out their own muscles. It’s a confirmation, as such, that the body they think they’ve achieved through an insane amount of hard work, dedication, denial and willpower is, in fact, the one they’re walking around in.
That moment hit me then. For the first time, really. Sure, I’d flexed before to get a laugh (and I’m the proud owner of a tank top that reads on the front I Flexed and the Sleeves Fell Off) but I’d never before felt the need – like a physical pressure – to make sure the “impressive muscles” Amanda spoke of were actually there.
It was an insecure moment, and it threw me. As did the fact I felt my arm curling and my fist bunching, causing my right biceps to flex, before I realized what I was doing. Thankfully, Amanda stopped beside the driver’s passenger door of the most insane car I’ve ever seen and I forgot about my biceps.
“This is yours?” I asked, staring at the neon-purple Volvo station wagon before me. Along its dented side was painted an emerald green Chinese luck dragon, complete with stylized flames flaring from its nostrils. The wheels were the same green. On the top of the antennae was a long, crimson ribbon. It was startling to look at to say the least.
“It’s Chase’s,” Amanda answered with a grimace bordering on a grin as she unlocked the door and pulled it open to reveal purple leopard-print seat covers and neon-green fluffy dice hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Okay. I can see that.” Amanda’s sister is . . . let’s go with unique. “How is she?”
“As snarky and prickly as ever.” Amanda tugged my gym bag and backpack from my shoulder and indicated for me to climb into the car with a twitch of her head. Her lips, I couldn’t help but notice, were also twitching. If nothing else, putting me in her sister’s Volvo was filling her with mirth.
She watched me fold myself into the front passenger seat before nodding in satisfaction and closing the door, trapping me inside the purple dragon-mobile with a thud. I wriggled my butt on the plush purple seat cover, knees up near my chest. The car smelled of roses, oil paint, and possibly weed. That last one I wasn’t sure of. Strangely, the whole package stirred fond memories of Chase in me. If Amanda was driving her sister’s car, I realized there was a good chance I’d be seeing her. There was no bad blood between Chase and I, but she didn’t pull punches with her opinion of anything. That was of course, when she chose to talk at all. As I said, unique.
After Amanda deposited my bags in the back of the Volvo, she climbed in behind the steering wheel and slid the key into the ignition. “Chase is rebelling against her hearing aids at the moment,” she said, pausing for a second as the engine kicked over. I didn’t look behind me to see if an eruption of black exhaust smoke spewed from the back of the car. Even though Chase wasn’t there to witness my misgivings about her motor vehicle, I didn’t want to risk any bad vibes.
“In what way?” I asked. How does one rebel against hearing aids? Especially when one is severely deaf in one ear and moderately deaf in the other?
“She’s not wearing them.” Amanda steered the Volvo out of its parking space and headed for the exit. I’m not going to lie. The car turned heads. “Dad’s about ready to go ballistic on her ass.”
My heart skipped a weird little beat. I’d forgotten how sexy Amanda sounded saying something as American as ass.
“Mom’s at a loss what to do with her. She dropped out of college last week. Six months away from graduating her art and marketing degree and she quits. No real reason. Just comes home one day and doesn’t go back.”
“Whoa.”
Amanda snorted. “Whoa is one way to describe it. When she started quoting Malcolm X at Dad – “just because you have colleges and universities, doesn’t mean you have education” – I had to intervene before their screaming match woke . . .” She stopped. Frowned. Flicked the indicator and turned into the flow of traffic rushing away from LAX. “Before things got out of hand. Dad’s not coping with . . . with it all.”
I studied her profile, suspecting another one of those moments had occurred. The ones connected to my reason for being here. And as before, I let it slide without comment. I was okay. I was good. I was gravy.
I was a coward.
“So,” I said with a dry chuckle, “business as usual, then?”
Another snort escaped Amanda. She didn’t look at me, her attention now fixed on the insane LA traffic heading southbound. It allowed me to take in her profile more so. There were little lines at the edges of her eyes I didn’t remember. Lines somehow out of place on her twenty-three-year-old face.
“Business as usual.” She grinned, flicking me a glance so fast our eyes didn’t connect. “She’ll be happy to see you.”
It was my turn to snort. “The Walking Deltoid from Down Under? Isn’t that what she called me?”
“That. And other things. I think my favorite was Ostentatious Osmond.”
“Oh, nice.”
Amanda chuckled. “And then there was Brendon the Benign.”
“Ouch.” I pulled a mock pout, shifting on the seat. Weren’t Volvos meant to be comfortable? “That one kind of hurts.”
My melodramatic protest earned another quick glance. “Her i
ssue with you was directly proportional to the size of your biceps. Of course, given your arms are bigger than the last time she saw you, you’re screwed. You been bench-pressing trains or something?”
“Semi-trailers,” I smirked. “The axles make them easier to hold.”
“Oh, that’s good to know.”
She really did give me a look this time. Our eyes really did connect. A frisson of heat shot straight through me when they did, sinking into that place between my legs over which a guy has little control. My groin picked that moment to react to Amanda’s close proximity, to the delicate scent of her perfume, to the sound of her voice and its sexy American accent, to her eyes . . .
Clearing her throat, Amanda jerked her stare back to the busy freeway.
I wrapped my fingers around the handgrip above the window, repositioned myself as well as I could in the confined space, and swallowed. “How long will it take to get to San Diego?”
“’Bout an hour and a half. Little less if there’s no accidents on the freeway.”
“Excellent. Can you recommend a hotel?”
A long stretch of silence filled the Volvo, and then Amanda frowned. She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but I saw her chest rise and fall in a deep, slow breath. “I kinda thought you’d stay with me.”
Three
The Austerity of the Aussie Shower
“Okay.”
If she was surprised by my answer she didn’t show it. Strangely, I felt calmer than I had since buying the ticket for my flight here. I hadn’t planned on crashing at Amanda’s place, nor had I even considered the possibility she would offer, but the moment she did, I knew it was the right place to stay.
And for the record, I didn’t say yes to get into her bed. Even if she offered that – which I doubt she would – I was taking the couch. I’ve slept on plenty of couches. The experience is always an adventure . . . and a way of making sure I wake early to get in a morning run or a workout.
Unforgettable (Always Book 2) Page 3
