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That couldn't happen.
That was done.
I had to go back home.
And Amelia had to stay where she was.
That was the end of it.NineAmeliaI heard him moving around all night. I heard this because I didn't sleep all night. Dade left sometime around one in the morning, quietly making his way down the hall. I cleaned. I baked. I showered. I tried not to think about Johnnie Walker Allen. I tried not to remember how his hands and lips felt on my body, how his tongue felt between my legs, giving me something no one had ever given me before. I tried to remember that while he was giving it to me, another woman was waiting for him to give it to her.
"Augh," I growled, getting out of bed around seven the next morning, getting dressed, and heading to work early again.
The last thing I expected as I made my way downstairs was to run into Luis. It wasn't that it was weird to run into him; he owned the building. He was around, checking on things, overseeing improvements, showing empty apartments to possible tenants. He was around a lot. That being said, I wasn't particularly in the mood to see him. Every time I saw him, he wanted to ask me out again. And when I turned him down, he didn't hear "no", he heard "try harder" and most of the time, I gave in just to save myself further argument. I felt absolutely nothing for him. Sure, he was attractive. He had a certain amount of appeal. Many of the women in the town had crushes on him. He just... didn't do it for me. But he was relentless and I was not in the mood to have another of his "Come on, Amelia, you work too hard. You need a night out" arguments.
"Darling," he said, his head tilting to the side, watching me walk down the steps. His eyes did a slow study of me from the feet up, resting too long at my breasts and I fought the urge to cover them. His gaze came to my face and he gave me a smile that wasn't quite a smile. "You should have called me," he said, tisk tisking as he ran a hand down my splotchy tear-stained cheek.
"Why?"
"Because I could have comforted you, darling." I hated that he called me darling, the way he enunciated it with a strong 'g' at the end. I hated it even more because it reminded me of when Johnnie called me that, dropping the 'g' entirely. I hated to admit that it sounded a lot better on Johnnie's lips. Damn it.
"I didn't need comforting. I just needed some time."
"I know you cared for Ben. I'm sorry for your loss, Amelia."
"Thank you," I said, trying to move to the side, but he blocked me in.
"It's too early for work. Why don't I come up for a bit? We can have a visit." He was always trying to get into my apartment. Whenever I caught him around the building, he'd ask me if there was anything that needed work in there. When I said no, he asked if he could check for himself. Which got him an even firmer no. When I finally gave in and went on dates with him, he always tried to invite himself up for coffee or wine. More firm no's. I guessed maybe he thought that if he could just get inside my apartment, he could get into my panties. That couldn't have been further from the truth.
"No." I didn't clarify. I didn't make excuses. I heard once that women should learn to use 'no' as a complete sentence, that we didn't need to explain our reasons for saying no. Apparently, Luis didn't understand that concept.
"Amelia..."
"No, Luis. Not today." Oh, shoot. I shouldn't have added the 'not today'. That sounded like it was a possibility another day. I blamed the lack of sleep. My brain wasn't working right.
He paused, a tightness forming around his eyes that made me uncomfortable before it softened. "Alright, Amelia, darling. Maybe tomorrow," he said, kissing my cheek. I watched him walk away for a second, feeling like I wanted to scrub my cheek with a sheet of sandpaper, before I turned to go back upstairs. Maybe I didn't need to go to work early. Maybe what I really needed was a day off. I needed to get some sleep, put my thoughts back in order. I didn't even have to call out to anyone. I had no one to answer to.
And then I ran into Johnnie and he dropped that line about knowing Luis before walking away from me too.
Watching him move to the parking lot and climb into the car, I got to say, it hurt. It hurt in a way that it totally shouldn't have. I was willing to blame it on the lack of sleep, on the grief, on the fact that I had let him do stuff to me that I hadn't let anyone else do. That was all it was. Everything was crazy. The sooner he was gone and things got back to normal, the better.
I let myself back into my apartment and threw myself in bed, fully knowing that sleep would not be coming. Especially with that little piece of information Johnnie dropped on his way out. Was he being honest? Did he really know Luis from somewhere? It seemed like an impossibility, but I didn't know that much about Luis' past either. He showed up in town, bought the land, built the apartments. That was the extent of my knowledge. I had no idea where he was originally from. Maybe they had crossed paths before. Besides, Johnnie seemed to be one of the more honest guys I had met. I really couldn't imagine him making up some silly story just for the hell of it. That didn't seem like him. But, really, I didn't even know Johnnie that well either. Someone who worked as a contract killer was surely good at lying. How else could he avoid trouble? So maybe it wasn't that he was so honest, maybe it was that he was just that good of a liar.
