Gentleman Nine

by Penelope Ward

  The dog had fallen asleep on me.

  Rory suddenly stood up from his chair. “I put something together for you. I didn’t know what else to get you.”

  He went to his bedroom and returned with a thick book then sat back down, this time next to me. “I printed years’ worth of our digital photos. I put them in an album in chronological order.”

  Looking down at the thick book, I said, “I can’t believe you took the time to do that.”

  “Well, I’ve been dwelling in the past anyway these last few months. Might as well illustrate it all.”

  He moved closer to me, and the warmth of his body was unsettling. I slowly opened the album and began looking through the photos, which started from when we had first gotten together. God, we were so young. And I was so happy.

  Flipping through the pages, I really began to remember all of the reasons I’d fallen in love with him, how happy we were together.

  I came across the set of photos that were taken the first night we’d ever made love. We were sitting in front of a fire at the cabin Rory had saved for months to rent.

  He and I had waited a while to have sex. I was seventeen and had just graduated high school when I lost my virginity.

  We lied to our parents, telling them we were going on a camping trip with friends. In reality, Rory had rented a cabin in the woods for just the two of us. Everyone always complains about their first time, how miserable it was. Not mine. My first time was one of the best nights of my life. We were surrounded by candles and a fireplace. Snow was falling outside. And Rory had taken his time with me. He’d had sex with one other person before we’d gotten together, so I wasn’t his first. He knew what he was doing and made love to me so slowly and sensually, making sure to break me in easily. There was a little blood, but there was never any pain. And once we did it a couple of times and it was no longer painful, we couldn’t get enough of each other. We stayed holed up, screwing each other’s brains out in that cabin for two days straight. It was bliss.

  “I’ll never forget that night,” I whispered.

  Rory was lost in thought for a few seconds before he said, “Yeah. It was pretty fucking awesome.”

  It took the better part of an hour to get through all of the photos he’d printed out. Seeing nine years playing before my eyes like a movie made the ache in my chest even more profound. But he was trying to get me to remember when I’d never actually forgotten.

  “I’ll always cherish this album. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Glancing out the window, I noticed that the snow was really starting to come down. Had it been snowing like this the whole time we were here?

  Rory turned the news on, and the weather lady was immediately warning against being out on the roads unless it was an emergency. It hit me then that there was no way I was getting home tonight.

  He looked at me with a slight smirk. “I swear…I didn’t plan this.”

  “Black ice? That’s kind of scary.”

  His mouth curved into a smile. “Scarier than spending the night here alone with me?”

  “Just by a little.”

  We shared a laugh before he said, “I’ll sleep on the couch. But you won’t be sleeping alone in my bed. Bruisey’s gonna want to sleep next to you, like old times.”

  “Poor Bruisey. He’s gonna be so confused.”

  “Since we’re gonna be here a while, why don’t I make us some hot chocolate.”

  Hot chocolate.

  That immediately made me think of Channing.

  “Sure.”

  I slipped out from under the sleeping dog and joined Rory in the kitchen where we sat and sipped the hot cocoa he’d made. Under any other circumstances, being snowed in with this handsome man who’d been my entire life for so long would have been a dream.

  He must have been able to sense my inner turmoil when he said, “Don’t feel guilty when you look at me. I caused this myself. All of it.”

  “No, you didn’t. You didn’t cause the accident. You were in shock, and you did what you thought was right. You thought you were protecting me. This whole situation…it’s nobody’s fault. I don’t blame you for anything anymore now that I understand what really happened.”

  “My entire reason for coming back was that I could no longer live with you thinking I didn’t love you. I just waited too long.”

  Leaning in and grabbing his hands, I said, “I know you love me. It’s one of the few things I’m sure of right now.”

  My touching him may have been too much because he suddenly ripped himself away from me and walked across the room.

  Placing his head in his hands, he said, “When I thought about my future, I always pictured it with you. Now, I see…nothing. I just don’t know what it looks like.” For the first time, I could see his eyes water. He seemed angry with himself for losing the composure he’d tried so hard for. “So much for a drama-free Christmas,” he muttered.

  Getting up and pulling him into a hug, I wanted to just take his pain away, reassure him that everything would be okay, that I still loved him. I did. But it wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t just us anymore.

  His heart was beating rampantly, and my own was matching his rhythm. He was breathing fast, frantic breaths into my neck. And slowly his lips travelled upward. My body stirred as his mouth landed on mine. I didn’t have the heart to pull away, nor did I want to.

  The kiss got more intense fast. We’d kissed thousands of times before this, but never had it felt so desperate, so forbidden, so bittersweet.

  Somehow, I ended up pinned against the wall. He whispered over my mouth, “I want you, and I can’t have you, and that’s fucking killing me, because I still feel like you’re mine.” He leaned his head against mine. The pain in his voice was palpable, and it permeated my entire being. “I miss your laughter, miss the way you used to look at me, miss your love and goddammit…I miss fucking you. I miss fucking you so damn much. I’d just about give my life at this point to be inside of you again.” He buried his face in my neck. “I’m so fucking hard right now.”

  I was beginning to realize how very dangerous this was. His words were making me wet. My body was turned on as he continued to press against me. I was getting carried away. I couldn’t remember the last time things felt this intense with Rory.

  I’m a terrible person.

  I couldn’t let this go on a second longer.

  Pulling myself away from him, I said, “I’m sorry.”

  He placed his hand over his face, scrubbing his skin and nodding as if he’d expected me to pull away. “It’s okay.”

  I retreated to his room for the rest of the evening. As expected, Bruiser followed me into the bed.

  Drowning in Rory’s familiar scent, I cried myself to sleep, my tears seeping through the fabric of his pillow.

  ***

  Rory dropped me back off at my place early the next morning.

  Once home, when I logged into my messages, I realized an email from Channing had come in overnight.

  Dear Amber,

  Attached is something I put together for you today. It’s a playlist of songs that remind me of us. Who knew that moving back to Chicago and being away from you would turn me into such a sap? Tell Milo I don’t need him to emasculate me anymore; I’m doing a damn good job of that myself. In all seriousness, I hope you like it. At the very least, don’t laugh at me.

  Merry Christmas.

  Love, Channing

  Plugging my headphones in, I lay back and pressed play on the first song.

  It was Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day. There was no doubt behind the meaning. Lainey had died in September. He’d mentioned once before that this song would always remind him of her. It touched me that he’d chosen to start with that one. As painful as it was, the fact would always remain that Lainey’s death was what really brought the two of us together as friends.

  The next couple of songs, which included Best Friend by Jason Mraz and You Are The Sunshine
of My Life by Stevie Wonder, I could only assume, represented our friendship as teenagers.

  When What Hurts The Most by Rascal Flatts came on, it completely changed the tone of the playlist. I knew that reflected the time after he returned home from college—when everything had changed between us.

  He’d only included the one melancholy song, which transitioned into another song that made me crack the hell up. It was Just a Friend by Biz Markie. That was apparently representative of the beginnings of our time together in Boston and his denial about his feelings for me.

  The final song was Perfect by Ed Sheeran. The lyrics made me cry because they seemed to represent his ultimately falling in love with me. It truly was perfect.

  ***

  “I kissed Rory.”

  The guilt had felt like it was killing me. After hours of listening to Channing’s playlist, I finally built up the courage to dial him and vomited out those words the second he picked up.

  The silence on the other end of the line was deafening, so I continued, “He was just so hurt and emotional, and I got caught up in the moment and the memories. I felt like I needed to tell you. I don’t ever want to keep anything from you.”

  He finally spoke, “Yeah, well some things I’m not sure I want to know.” There was a long pause before he expelled a long breath into the phone. “Did anything else happen?”

  “No. It snowed really badly here last night. It was too dangerous for him to drive me home, so I spent the night there. He slept on the couch. I slept in the bedroom with Bruiser. Then, he drove me home this morning. I came home to your playlist. It was so touching. I can’t even tell you how mu—”

  “Thank you for telling me.” Even though he was thanking me, he sounded beyond pissed. “Since we’re being honest…I should tell you that I kissed Emily last night.”

  His admission took a few seconds to compute. I swallowed. “What?”

  “Yeah. She came by to say goodbye before heading back to Boston, and we ended up kissing before she left.”

  My mouth felt parched as I swallowed hard. “Oh…”

  It felt like he’d just shredded my heart to pieces even though it was incredibly unfair of me to react that way. My brain felt depleted, unable to form a coherent response.

  “Are you still there?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Not really.”

  “Save your hyperventilation, Amber. It didn’t happen. I just made it up, so you would know what this feels like.”

  The breath I’d been holding finally escaped me. “Oh, my God.”

  “Feel that relief? Well, I’m feeling the exact opposite right now. A part of me prepared myself for this, but that’s not making it any easier.”

  “Yeah. Well, I completely deserved that.”

  Sounding understandably pissed, he said, “I need to just…not talk for a little bit, okay? I’m gonna let you go.”

  He hung up before I could say anything further.

  ***

  That night over the phone, Annabelle tried her best to cheer me up after I recalled what happened with Channing.

  “Stop beating yourself up over it. No one crucifies The Bachelorette for kissing ten different guys in a week or taking three of them to a fantasy suite.”

  “I’m not the freaking Bachelorette. I have no excuse. And Channing didn’t sign up for some reality show.”

  “Anyone in your position would’ve done the same thing. You’re supposed to be figuring things out. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about. Kissing Rory was part of the process. This is a man you’ve made love to countless times. You just kissed him. You didn’t let it go any farther. It was a moment, and it passed.”

  Feeling weakness throughout my entire body, I said, “I don’t feel so well, Annabelle. I feel like I can’t even stand up.”

  “It’s stress. It will always catch up with you.”

  “Maybe. It feels like more than that, though. I don’t know.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  The answer to that question came easy. “Honestly? It feels like I’m dying from a broken heart.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  CHANNING

  Maybe I was being too harsh on her. After all, she didn’t have to admit anything. Amber was being honest, and I’d basically punished her for it.

  But I couldn’t help my reaction. It downright pissed me off that she’d kissed Rory. It made me jealous as all hell. While I could accept giving her this time to sort things out, I sure as fuck didn’t have to be happy about it.

  It had been four days since I hung up on her. I was being a dick. And I never called her back. She hadn’t called me either, though, so I had to wonder if I was losing this war.

  On top of worrying about Amber, I had a lot to handle at home. While Mom was stable, I was spending my days figuring out a daytime situation for her. It no longer seemed feasible to have her all alone while I worked, so I was looking into hiring someone to look after her even if just for parts of the day.

  I ended up moving back into the house I grew up in to care for her but kept my apartment for the time being. My life in Chicago looked nothing like it used to and suddenly came with a tremendous amount of responsibility.

  But this was my mother—the only family I had left. If it was the last thing I did, I was going to make sure she was safe and well-cared for. No one was going to do that better than I could. No one loved her like I did.

  Mom was still sleeping when my cell phone rang on this particular morning. It was Amber’s friend, Annabelle. Her number had been programmed into my phone from that one time I asked for her assistance in hand delivering Amber’s Christmas box.

  But it was odd that she’d be calling me.

  I answered, “Annabelle?”

  “Channing, hi.” Her tone was melancholy.

  “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  “Amber doesn’t know I’m calling you, but I thought you should know that she was admitted to the hospital a couple of days ago.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “She has pneumonia and severe dehydration. I think she was so stressed out that she stopped taking care of herself…caught something. I’d gone to her condo to check on her after she stopped answering my calls, and she was in bad shape. She told me she felt like she was dying, so I drove her to Mass General. Anyway, she’s been here ever since. They’re pumping her with antibiotics and steroids, and they’re not letting her go until her lungs have cleared. I just thought you should know.”

  My heartbeat was out of control, and a rush of adrenaline shot through me. I suddenly felt helpless. “Fuck…I obviously had no idea. We…hadn’t been speaking.”

  “I know. She was really messed up over that. She’d kill me if she knew I was calling you right now, but I felt that it was the right thing to do. I figured you’d want to know.”

  “You said…Mass General?”

  “Yes. Room 805 if by some chance you can fly out here.”

  ***

  I couldn’t believe that I had no idea she was so sick. That was proof that I’d let my anger go too far. Were it not for Annabelle calling me, I would’ve still been in the dark for God knows how long. If something had happened to Amber when we weren’t speaking, I’d never forgive myself.

  I ended up driving my mother over to her sister’s house, which was nearly two hours away from Chicago so that I could head to Boston.

  I didn’t even know whether Amber was going to want me there; I just knew I needed to be there.

  The ride from the airport to the hospital was a blur. With only a small backpack, I had no idea how long I’d be staying or what was going to happen.

  When the Uber dropped me off in front of Mass General, I rushed to the eighth floor as fast as I could.

  It shouldn’t have shocked me to see him standing right outside of her hospital room door. But it did. I hadn’t expected to have to run i
nto Rory at that moment.

  My body went rigid, and my fists instinctively tightened. My guard was fully up when he turned around and noticed me.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  Rory tossed his empty cup of coffee almost violently into a nearby trashcan.

  Nice to see you, too.

  “She’s sleeping. In fact, she just fell asleep. I would wait to go in there. You’ll wake her up, and she needs her rest.”

  “I’m sure if it were up to you, she’d be sleeping all day if it kept me out.”

  I wasn’t about to take his word for it. Peeking through the glass, I could see he wasn’t making it up, though. Amber looked like an angel as she lay there with her eyes closed, an IV connected to her arm. She was wearing a light blue hospital gown, and her hair was disheveled

  An incredible sadness came over me. It felt like I was breaking inside with each second that I watched her lying there helpless. Look at how much I missed because of my ego. This was a lesson to never, ever part with someone angry—never assume you’ll have all the time in the world to work things out. Amber was probably going to be fine, but what if that weren’t the case? Pneumonia is no joke.

  Rory and I were now both side by side, silently competing for space to look through the narrow window on the door. If testosterone in the air could have cured her illness, Amber’s lungs would have cleared in no time

  He spoke first. “I’ve never seen her this sick.”

  My anger was rising. “We fucking did this to her.”

  He abruptly faced me. “You’re blaming me?”

  “I said we. Not you. This whole situation. She’s been under so much stress that it wore down her immune system.”

  “I never meant to cause her pain by coming back,” he said.

  “I know that.”

  Rory seemed surprised that I’d agreed with him and seemed to calm down a little. “When did you get in?”