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Amber blushed and said that it was no problem. I liked when she blushed like that, looked away like she couldn’t hold my gaze.
“I wanted to talk to you really quick about yesterday.”
“No, no, we don’t have to. I apologize for what happened and how I acted. I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re cute and all, but you’re my boss and I don’t want to ruin this. This is one of the better jobs I’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. It will never happen again, I promise.”
“You don’t have to say any of that.”
“Really, I do. I have been so nervous about saying something because I embarrassed myself. I will make sure that it never happens again.”
She just kept saying it and I hoped that it wasn’t true. That wasn’t the talk that I wanted to have about it, but it’s not like I could push it now. She’d made herself clear, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“Don’t worry about it, Amber. Let’s pretend like it never happened.”
She thanked me and said that she would be grateful for that. I wouldn’t though. How could I forget one of the worst mistakes of my life? I shouldn’t have stopped. I should have kept on kissing her, then it would have been a completely different conversation.
15
Amber
Tommy was becoming a problem. He wanted to see me all of the time, and I was sneaking out more nights than I wasn’t. We always met out on the street, he never came onto the property or into the pool house where I was staying. I didn’t want him to meet Frank or for Frank to even see him. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to keep all of that out of the conversation.
It was weird between me and Frank more times than not. I didn’t see him that much, he still worked like crazy, but when we did see each other, I think neither one of us knew how to act. I knew that I didn’t. It was easy to say that we were going to forget about the kiss, but I couldn’t. I was humiliated and the fact that he was so nice about it, made it worse. He wasn’t attracted to me, so I was just going to have to enjoy the job that I had. I did. It was one of the best, and every time I tried to get upset about the fact that Frank didn’t want anything more, I reminded myself that a few months ago, before the accident, I’d had nowhere to go. Tommy had just kicked me out and I was planning to couch surf until I found something permanent. This was far better than that and I had to focus on that part of it, not the rest. Not the refusal.
Alice was a gem, helping out with cooking and cleaning. She basically wanted to do everything that I was doing, and she picked up on everything quick. I couldn’t believe how close I felt to her. I loved her, it was that simple, and it had only been a few months. She was the best job I could have asked for. Everything was really going well, besides Tommy’s insistence that we get back together and spend all of our free time together.
He’d texted while I was serving Alice dinner, wanting me to come and see him. I told him that I was busy and that I would be around later, but he wasn’t going to take that for an answer. He wanted to see me right now, and when I told him again that I was busy, he didn’t say anything else.
The next thing I knew, Tommy was at the door, and I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I asked him what he was doing there, and he just smiled, letting himself in. He was looking around, cataloguing everything in his head. I could see his brain’s gears churning, tallying up how much he could get for what at a pawn shop, or an even less savory buyer.
“Seriously, Tommy, I am working. What are you doing here?”
I was blocking his view to the rest of the house. I had told him that Frank didn’t have that much stuff. He now knew that I was lying and was probably wondering what else I was lying about. I saw the way that his eyes slanted.
“How are you working right now?”
“I am feeding his daughter. I take care of her.”
“Oh, right, I remember you said something about that. Well, look, I just wanted to come by and see how you were, see where you have been living and working. I was hoping to check out the pool house…”
“Amber, is Daddy home?”
Alice came around the corner and I wished that I could have made Tommy disappear. He wasn’t supposed to be there, and I knew that Frank wouldn’t like coming home to see another man there, one that was dating me would be worse. I was supposed to forget about the kiss, and I tried hard to pretend that I had, but I didn’t think I would be able to then. I would compare them, and then Frank would know what I’d been doing. He hadn’t asked directly, but he had waited for me to answer a few times when he’d asked why.
“No, honey, it’s just one of my friends. He was just leaving.”
I turned back toward Tommy and whispered that he had to leave. “I don’t want to lose my job because you got caught here, okay?”
He shrugged and said that he would see me later on that night after I was done for the day. It would be late, but I agreed. I would have agreed to anything, if only he would leave. I knew that it was going to be brought up and I hated that it was going to get to Frank. I didn’t want him to know about Tommy, for my own reasons, and now he would know.
“Let me use the bathroom really quick.”
“Seriously?”
He shrugged and said he really did have to go. “I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom inside.”
I showed him where the one closest to the door was and waited. He took several minutes, but finally poked his head out and kissed me on the cheek as he said goodbye. I didn’t know why, but it felt like a show. He said he would see me later, and I wondered what his game was. Tommy was acting weird, and I wanted to know why.
I went back to Alice, and she was still in the hallway. She had a lot of questions, but I didn’t have any answers. Tommy was just a friend and that was all that she needed to know.
