by Rye Hart
“Just because we started a protection and security business doesn’t mean I’m attracted to women who need protection,” I said. “She’s a smart, passionate young woman who seems to hold her own just fine.”
“But she is young. Why the hell is she with your crabby ass?”
“You’re a dick.”
“Hey, just asking the obvious question. So, what are you scared of?”
“What the fuck? I’m not scared,” I said. “I fucking slept with her last night.”
“And I’m sure you did your men everywhere proud. But I can hear it in your voice. Don’t let your ex ruin this for you. It’s the first time you’ve branched out since her.”
I drew in a deep breath and allowed that reality to sink in.
“I like her, Jack. She’s refreshing.”
“That’s good. You should like who you screw,” he said.
“No, you fucker. I mean, I like her. As in, I want to talk with her. Get to know her. That type of shit.”
“Oh, you got it bad for her. Damn. Well, no wonder you’re scared. The last woman you were with was a shithead that tried to take you for everything you had.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“What I’m saying is, you have trust issues. And that’s okay. But if you feel this pull to talk with her, don’t fight it. Sometimes your gut knows better than your brain. Remember when we were first starting out?”
“You thought I was an idiot for wanting to start that company,” I said.
“Yeah. Because you were thinking with your gut and not your head. But I trusted you, and your gut took us to the fucking top. I trust your gut, even if you don’t right now. If it’s telling you to open up to this woman, then do it.”
“What if she turns out to be like her?” I asked.
“You want my honest opinion?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“No one could turn out to be like her. That bitch was a piece of fucking work. You knew you should’ve never married her. You went against your gut on that one, and it screwed you over big time. If your gut’s with this woman, go for it.”
“How the hell did you make that seem so easy?” I asked.
“Because you’re rotting your brain away in the mountains. It’s okay. I expected you to get dumber.”
“Asshole.”
“Dick. You’re missed here, by the way. You know you always have a spot here if you want to come back. Namely, mine. Because this job is bullshit, and I’m over it.”
I chuckled into the phone as I shook my head.
“I don’t know if I’m coming back,” I said.
“Don’t worry. It’s been four years. You have Lanie now, and plenty of shit still going down. It’s here if you want it, but I’m not holding my breath.”
“Well, I should get off here. Lanie still isn’t up yet, and if she sleeps any longer, she won’t nap.”
“Have fun with that. I’m about to go deal with a bunch of whiny toddlers too,” he said.
“The Board of Investors?” I asked, laughing.
“That’s them. Talk with you soon. And by soon, I mean not a month from now.”
“So, two months?” I asked.
“Goodbye, asshole.”
CHAPTER 13
AMANDA
“Well, I’m checked in!”
“You know you can come stay with my at the cabin. You think it’s a death trap, but it’s just a little old,” I said.
“I’ll take my chances with the hotel. There’s this cute little coffee shop I passed by. It was called ‘Coffee Creations.’ Want to meet me there?” Sarah asked.
“I’ll meet you anywhere. I’m so excited to see you!” I said.
“Meet you in fifteen?” she asked.
“Make it thirty. I take it easy going down this mountain.”
“See you then. I have so much shit to tell you it’s insane.”
I was ecstatic that Sarah was finally in town. I knew she couldn’t stay long, but it would be wonderful to see her. I cleaned myself up a bit before I went into town, taking it slow as I drove down the mountain. It didn’t matter how many times I traveled that road in my life, I would always have minor panic attacks going down it. Coming up wasn’t an issue. But being pointed down at the ground for seven miles?
It turned my stomach every time.
By the time I arrived the coffee shop, I was ready to lunge into Sarah’s arms. I wrapped myself around her and picked her up. I swung her around as the two of us giggled, and I could feel people staring at us in the coffee shop.
But I didn’t care. This was my best friend, and I had no idea when I was going to see her again.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Sarah said. “I can only take so much loving at once.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you,” I said as I sat her down. “Ready to get some coffee?”
“Oh, I already bought it for us. A large white chocolate mocha latte for me and a large hot mocha raspberry coffee with creamer for you.”
“Bless you,” I said breathlessly. “I have the most incredible best friend alive.”
“And don’t you forget it. Oh! Before we leave, remind me to stick all your art shit in the trunk of your car.”
“It’s not shit, and you’re not going to at least come visit the cabin?” I asked.
“Nope, but you can always come visit me in my hotel room,” she said, grinning.
“Wimp.”
“Weirdo.”
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
“I’ve missed you, too. Any word from your dick ex since his shit on the plane ride down?”
“Not a word,” I said. “Now, what’s all this drama you spoke of? I’m ready for my daily dose of pettiness.”
I watched Sarah’s face sink the moment I brought it up, and I reached over and took her hand.
“Boyfriend shit, I take it?” I asked.
“Ex-boyfriend shit,” Sarah said.
“What? What happened?”
“I found out he was cheating on me, Amanda.”
“Well, he wasn’t really a winner, to begin with,” I said.
“Come on. Work with me here.”
“Sorry. How did you find out?” I asked.
“He called me from jail.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Back up a second. How the hell did Blake wind up in jail?”
“I haven’t told you?” she asked.
“I think I’d remember a fucking conversation about Blake going to jail, Sarah.”
“He got into a fight with someone at a gas station. From what he told me, some guy was yelling at his pregnant girlfriend, and Blake stepped in. Punches were thrown, and both of them were arrested.”
“Oh. So he’s not, like, in prison. He’s just being held,” I said.
“Until a couple of days ago, yeah.”
“Okay, so fast forward a bit. When did you get this phone call?” I asked.
“I was his one phone call you get while you’re in holding.”
“He didn’t call his parents or something?” I asked.
“I guess not,” she said, shrugging. “Anyway, he was giving me the details of what happened, and I told him to stay there. That I was coming down to the station to bail him out or whatever I had to do to get him.”
“So, you went to the station?”
“And there was some bitch there who had already bailed him out. I walked into the station and saw them coming out, hand in hand with her lips attached to his damn neck.”
“But you were the only phone call he made?” I asked. “How did that other girl know he was in there?”
“It was the pregnant girl,” Sarah said flatly.
I had to take a second to wrap my mind around that fact before I drew in a deep breath.
“So… let me get this straight. Blake got into a fight with a man in the gas station who was yelling at a pregnant chick. We assume it’s the man’s girlfriend, but really it’s a girl Blake knocked up?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said
.
“And she went to the station to bail him out.”
“Yes.”
“After he called you to tell you what was going on,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Have I told you this asshole’s an idiot?” I asked.
“Why the hell do I get tangled up in men like this?” she asked.
“Because you don’t listen to a damn thing I tell you. I told you he was no good from the start.”
“My heart hurts, Amanda.”
I got up from the coffee table and pulled Sarah into my arms. No matter how happy I was that she was away from that man, it didn’t discount how much she was hurting. I held her close as she sniffled into my neck, her hands gripping my body tightly.
“It’s going to be okay, Sarah. It’s gonna be okay. When did all this happen?”
“Two days ago,” she said.
“Before or after we talked about the contractor shit?” I asked.
“After.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Things got busy, and when I saw him with that pregnant woman I didn’t want to stay in the city. I couldn’t. I needed to get out.”
“I understand that feeling,” I said.
“Can you stay with me tonight?” she asked.
“I can, but I’ve got somewhere to be in the morning.”
“Oh? Did I come in at a bad time?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said as I pulled her away from me. “I told Brian I would watch Lanie.”
“Ah, the sexy neighbor,” she said, grinning. “How’s all that going? I need a nice, juicy distraction.”
“How about we save those stories for when we get to your hotel room?” I asked.
“Oh, my gosh. You didn’t. You slept with him?”
“Keep your voice down, would you? Let’s take this stuff back to your hotel,” I said.
“I cannot wait to hear this.”
I followed Sarah back to the hotel she was staying at, and we scurried up to her room. Sarah threw the door open, and we piled onto the bed before I turned on the television. I flipped through the channels until I landed on a Patrick Swayze movie, then the two of us began to gossip. I told her about my steamy encounter with Brian and how waking up in his arms felt like heaven, and Sarah gushed about how she wanted to see a picture or something of him before she left.
“If you come up the mountain, you could see him in person,” I said.
“You don’t want that, trust me. I’m all about manly men, and once he saw me, you’d be shit out of luck.”
“Are you saying you’d steal him away from me?” I asked.
“In a fucking heartbeat, especially if he’s got the kind of muscles you’re talking about.”
“Oh, oh, oh! Roadhouse is coming on next!”
“We haven’t watched Roadhouse in years,” Sarah said.
“We haven’t done anything like this in years,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked.
I took a long drink of my coffee as I thought on that question. Why hadn’t we done this in so long?
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “I guess life got in the way. We became serious about college, and I was trying to do stuff with my art. We joined that honors fraternity, which basically took up the bulk of our spare time. Then came being preoccupied with boys.”
“We grew up too quickly, Amanda.”
“Life has a weird way of doing that to people,” I said.
“Well, here’s what I say. I say we should order way too much pizza, watch movies all night long, and stay up talking. Then, you can get loads of coffee before you have to venture back up the mountain to see your hunk of burning love.”
“Seriously? Don’t call him that,” I said, giggling.
“Piece of man meat?”
“Nope.”
“Luscious mountain man?’
“Hell no, Sarah.”
“Big Daddy Papa Bear?”
“I’m going to hit you with a fucking pillow,” I said.
“Oh really?”
Suddenly, a pillow whacked me in the face. My coffee went tumbling to the floor, spilling out all over the carpet. I looked over the edge of the bed and saw the caffeinated goodness staining the carpet. I felt the ache deep in my soul. The beautiful black gold was spilling everywhere as Sarah cackled behind me.
“You’re so paying for that,” I said.
Grabbing a pillow, I threw it in her face. I stood up and grabbed another one, then proceeded to whack her over and over again. She rose to her feet and started defending herself, and soon the two of us were jumping on the bed trying to push each other off. Pillows were flying and the comforter was tangling around our legs, tripping us up and collapsing us to the bed. We were sweating and breathing heavy, with pillows strewn all over the floor and the smell of raspberry coffee fluttering around the room.
“You can get one tomorrow morning,” Sarah said, huffing.
“But I wanted it now,” I said breathlessly.
“We’ll get soda with the pizza.”
“I get to pick the soda,” I said.
“We’ll each get a soda.”
“A two liter for each of us?” I asked.
“Yep. Because we need the caffeine to stay up and catch up.”
“I have to babysit tomorrow, Sarah.”
“And you can go tired with sunglasses on your face like every other twenty-two-year-old asked to babysit someone,” she said.
We laid there on the bed, our bodies splayed out and our limbs cockeyed. My hand searched for hers, and I grasped it, running my thumb around in the palm of her hand. I heard her sniffle, and I pulled her close to me, holding her tightly as she cried into my shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay, Sarah. I’m going to help you get through this.”
“I loved him,” she said desperately. “I really did love him.”
“I know you did,” I said as I stroked her hair. “I know.”
CHAPTER 14
BRIAN
I watched Amanda leave to go meet who I assumed was Sarah, but I never saw her come back home. I went to go check on her and make sure the two of them were all right, but when I knocked on the door, no one answered. I was worried when I fell asleep and didn’t hear a car return. Had Amanda forgotten about coming to watch Lanie?
I woke up Monday morning and started making breakfast. If Amanda didn’t show up, then I would have to cancel the meeting. I couldn’t take Lanie with me, and I had no other backup. I would simply have to reschedule during a time when the nanny would be able to watch my niece.
And it would serve me right, trusting some young, bobble-headed girl. She was in over her head with that cabin, and it sounded like she was in over her head with her own life. Aspiring to be an artist and trying to paint her way through life. It was a child’s dream. I couldn’t believe I’d opened myself up to someone like that. Someone so frivolous and forgetful and—
A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I set the scrambled eggs aside and went over to the door. I opened up, not really knowing who to expect on the other side. But the moment my eyes took in Amanda standing on my porch, guilt rushed over my body.
Until I started studying her.
She was in the same outfit as yesterday. Her hair was thrown up haphazardly, and her sunglasses hid her eyes. Where the hell had she been last night? Why had she not come home? Who in the fuck had she been with? Was there really a ‘Sarah’?”
My mind started running at a million miles a second, but I tried to shake the thoughts from my brain. She wasn’t any older than drinking age, so I didn’t know what I expected from her. She was still in her youth. Her prime. She had the right to go out with friends and get into trouble and have one-night stands and make memories. I had no right to lay any sort of claim to her, even though my body was thrumming with jealousy.
I wanted to know where she had been, but I didn’t hold that kind of position in her life.
“Morning,” Aman
da said.
“Thanks for coming to watch Lanie,” I said as I stepped off to the side.
“It’s not a problem. I’m sorry I’m a few minutes late. Getting up the mountain this morning was rough without coffee in my system.”
She walked into the house, and my eyes lingered on her. She had a light stain on the back of her shirt. And there were only a few things a beautiful woman like herself could do to get stains on her back.
I shook the anger from my body and tried to focus. I had bigger things to deal with than what some random college graduate was doing. I had to get my mind right for this meeting with my PI. I watched as Amanda went over to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup like she owned the place.
“What time is your meeting?” she asked.
She turned to look at me, and my eyes whipped up to hers. She’d perched her sunglasses on the top of her head and her eyes looked tired and there were bags underneath.
“Soon. I need to get ready and get out of here.”
“Then go get ready,” she said. “I’ve got this.”
I held her gaze one last time before I relented and started for my room.
I heard Lanie pad down the hallway past my room as I hopped into the shower. I could hear the two girls chattering away, with Lanie giggling and squealing with delight. That girl really did enjoy it when Amanda was here, and that fact both elated me and angered me. Did Amanda not understand what she was getting into with me? She couldn’t go off gallivanting around with whoever the fuck if she wanted to be with me.. She had a three-year-old that adored her What if something had happened to her last night? I didn’t have her number, and she didn’t have mine. She would’ve had no way to call me for help.
That was going to change today.
I finished with my shower and dressed. I had a few stops in town I wanted to make before my lunch meeting with the PI. I picked Lanie up and planted a kiss on her cheek, letting her know that Amanda would be taking care of her today. Lanie bounced up and down in my arms with happiness before she reached out for Amanda.
Then I wrote my number on a piece of paper and tacked it to the fridge.
