AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah. Not for long. She’s in the book business too. Do you know Andee Monroe?” I ask.
It grates on me that the woman is still using my last name.
Amalia nods slowly. “I think I’ve met her. She works with people at the last place I worked. The one I got fired from.”
At least she’s not hiding it.
That’s one of the things I like about Amalia. What you see is pretty much what you get.
I watch the crowd filing by. “She’s not a nice person. I found that out too late, though. We were already married.”
Amalia doesn’t say anything. Instead, she just places a hand over mine.
And I suddenly want her to know everything.
“She cheated on me. With a mutual friend.”
Amalia sighs. “Oh God. That’s terrible.”
The pain from that time wells up in me and I have to take a deep breath to squelch the anger. Every now and then it threatens to bubble to the surface. Were it ever to fully erupt, like a dormant volcano, I’d be fucked. That was a bad time. I wanted to kill someone for taking away the person I loved.
But then I realized no one took her away from me. I never actually had her. I was just a stepping stone for her, a place to be safe in the big city. When she was done with me, she was done.
It had nothing to do with the other guy. But I still wanted to kill him.
“Yeah, it was bad. Sucked big time,” I say.
I want to yank my hand back from Amalia. I don’t want her touching my pain, or even getting near it. It’s the worst of me, the ugly underbelly of who I am, and I always do everything I can to hide it.
Probably why I haven’t had anything other than one-night stands the last couple years. Any more than that, and I might be exposed, unable to keep my feelings all bottled up inside like I’ve learned to.
No, the pain is mine. All mine.
I don’t pull my hand away. I look at her fingers on mine. I like them there.
I arch my neck and look up at the sky. “We’re supposed to be talking about work stuff,” I laugh.
“We’ll get to that. But is there… something else on your mind?” she asks.
Fuck. Where to begin?
Don’t puss out, Henry.
My skin is itching, telling me to run away, even though this woman is unlike any I’ve met in a long, long time. But I sit still. I can’t bolt again. Not this time.
“I… wanted to tell you I am interested.”
Her brows run together. “Interested? In what?”
Jesus, she’s going to make me say it.
“In you, Amalia. I am interested in you. We all are.”
There. I said it. Let the chips fall where they may. If she tells me to hit the road, fine. But if she doesn’t…
“Okay. What exactly does that mean?”
“The guys and me, Amalia. Levi, Wyatt, and me. Don’t tell me you don’t know that, that you haven’t noticed. You must have.” I look at her, searching her face for some kind of acknowledgement.
