9. Amy
CHAPTER 9
AMY
A my had never been one for naps. She’d never even really slept late in the mornings all that much, perpetually an early bird, rising as the sun did. That had always suited her just fine. She’d pull on her sneakers and go for a run before the rest of the world was properly awake, not caring about the fitness aspect of it so much as she just liked seeing the day get started when the light was still bleary, and everything that was usually full and busy looked strangely calm and empty.
The last thing she had expected was to have to take a nap on vacation . She’d been under the impression that vacations were supposed to be relaxing, rejuvenating, maybe even a little boring. But Amy was exhausted. She was swimming all day, then talking to everyone and mentally keeping tabs on keeping up the appearance of being engaged to Kai. Then there was food served at some point, then more swimming, then more talking. She’d just planned to sit down on the bed for five minutes, just to be on her own for a second and take a few deep breaths. But then, suddenly, someone was shaking her shoulder and calling her name.
“Amy?”
She pried her eyes open, which took a good while as she pulled herself out of sleep, to find Kai standing over her with a concerned expression on his face.
“They’re about to serve dinner,” Kai said. “Are you okay? Do you feel sick?”
He knew how rare it was for her to fall asleep like that, and he put the back of his hand to her forehead to check her temperature. Amy swatted it away gently.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just fell asleep because I didn’t realize how exhausting hanging out with rich people would be.”
Kai smiled, relieved, as she sat up on the bed and tried to smooth her hair down into place behind her ears. She ran her hands over her face, hoping that she hadn’t drooled all over her chin. With how hard that spontaneous nap had slammed into her, she wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d all heard her snoring up on deck.
Kai sat down on the bed next to her with a sigh. “I might take five minutes here, myself. You’re right. All us rich people really are exhausting.”
“I thought you said they were serving dinner?”
“In a little bit. Besides, I figured you might want to rub the pillow marks out of your face before we go up.”
“Oh man, are they bad?”
“They’re pretty impressive, not going to lie.”
Amy rubbed at her face, massaging her fingertips into her cheek.
“You might be able to check your messages,” Kai said, sitting back on the pillows with his arms folded behind his head, like he was king of the world.
“Do we finally have service?” Amy asked, grabbing her phone from the dresser where it had sat mostly useless.
“For now, we do. I didn’t really think about how being in the ocean means no reception. Funny that.”
“Maybe that’s why Jason likes his boat so much? Because he can just turn it all off and get away for a bit.”
Kai opened his eyes at that. “Yeah… I think you’re right.”
Amy turned on her phone and the screen buzzed with multiple email notifications piling in on top of each other.
“Oh jeez,” she said, swiping through so that she could see what could possibly be going on, wondering if she’d been involved in a spam campaign again. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been hacked.
“Congrats,” Kai said dryly. “You’re popular for once in your life.”
Amy slapped his leg without bothering to look at him and he chuckled, just happy to get a rise out of her.
She forgot that Kai was there at all when she started actually reading the emails. All of them had something to do with hiring her; whether they wanted a quote or to ask for available dates. Dozens of messages all wanting Amy to cater.
She sat silently on the edge of the bed, her fingertips pressed to her lips in disbelief.
“Amy?”
Thrown back to reality, she looked over her shoulder at Kai who was, once again, looking at her with a concerned expression on his face. Still lost for words, she shoved her phone at him, and it took a couple seconds for him to comprehend what the big deal was. But when he saw what the messages were about and how many there were, his smile split into a big grin.
“They’re all job inquiries?” he asked, looking just as giddy and stunned as she felt.
“Yeah, it looks like it. Oh my God…”
“Is this from the school job? From the weird engagement story that got published?” Kai asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head, but then as she skimmed through the next email in her inbox, a familiar name caught her eye.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “I’m going to have to tell her thank you.”
“Who?” Kai asked, still trying to catch up.
“Lily Espinoza. Apparently, she’s been singing my praises since the reunion, telling everyone she works with how amazing I was for accommodating her super bad allergies. I didn’t think anything of it because, of course I’ll make sure you’re able to eat what you want without worrying about needing an EpiPen. It seemed just like the normal thing to do.”
“I guess it mustn’t be that normal, then,” Kai said. “To be that accommodating. I can see how a lot of caterers would have just told her it was too hard to cater for someone with anaphylaxis.”
“Right? Well, I’m glad I did because it seems like everyone she works with wants to hire me now. And apparently, she works with a lot of important people.”
Amy couldn’t keep the smile off her face. This was insane. This was life-changing, and on this sort of boat, surely they had champagne somewhere. She felt like popping a cork would be the only way to express how she was actually feeling right now.
But when she looked up at Kai, he was… serious. Maybe serious wasn’t even the right word, but he certainly wasn’t as excited as she thought he might be.
“Everything good?” she asked.
“You know I could recommend you to people I know, right?” he said. “Like right now, and you wouldn’t have to worry about booking jobs.”
Amy blanched. She should have known he would take the first opportunity he could to offer again to shout her name from the rooftops.
“No, Kai, please don’t,” she said sternly.
“Why not?”
“Because you have an insane amount of influence.”
“Yes?” he said, still not getting the point. Amy sighed through her nose.
“I want to know that even if I get lucky breaks here and there, it’s because of me . Because of my work and what I did. If Lily Espinoza wants to recommend me to people, it’s because she actually enjoyed the food and I did a good job making sure she was safe with her allergies. And that’s something I did that I would do for any client. I had no idea she knew these sorts of people, so…”
She sighed when Kai just kept looking at her blankly.
“It just…” he started, so obviously picking his words carefully that Amy had to smother a laugh.
She failed, though, because he grinned at her, looking relieved that he wasn’t actually in trouble.
“It just doesn’t really make sense,” he said with a shrug. “That’s all. I don’t get it.”
“I know,” Amy said. “But you know how my parents were. Any sort of favor they would hold over my head. Money for gas, making me dinner, raising me, it was all just a big favor, and favors need to be returned…”
Suddenly Kai was by her side, sitting on the edge of the bed with an arm slung around her shoulder.
“If I introduced you to some contacts, I wouldn’t hold that over your head,” he said gently.
“That’s not the point. I just don’t want you to. That’s it. Just, please don’t.”
He nodded and pulled her into a hug.
“I’m happy for you anyway,” he said into her shoulder. “You know that right?”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks for bringing me on this big boat.”
He laughed, warm breath tickling her shoulder before letting her go.
“Come on,” he said, standing and heading for the door. “I’ll meet you upstairs. Dinner’s probably ready to be served now.”
“Okay.”
She let him go before her, waiting on the edge of the bed just a little bit longer to set her phone aside and clear her head.
Remember that whole promise you made to yourself? To keep just that little bit of distance, to not give into this annoying crush that will only spoil everything? Yeah, maybe focus on that.
It was hard, though, when he’d pulled her in for that hug and it felt so comfortable, so right. When they’d been talking so intimately and the rest of the world had disappeared, so it was just the two of them sitting on the bed.
This was all pretend, she reminded herself. All of it was just a fun little story so that Kai’s career didn’t end up in the toilet because, in the world of the mega rich, business opportunities really did happen over cocktails on a yacht. Pretend. That’s all it was, and that’s all it was ever going to be.
Eating dinner on the deck of a yacht, overlooking the ocean when it was just an inky mass shimmering beneath a night sky… it was otherworldly. And now with all of them sitting on the cushy chairs on deck, a glass of wine in hand with soft music playing in the background somewhere, Amy tried to sear this moment into her memory. When agreeing to go on this trip, she hadn’t been prepared to have a borderline spiritual experience, but here she was, gazing up at all of the stars and feeling a bit of vertigo with how small she felt underneath them.
“Are you all right, Amy?” Jess asked, and Amy looked down from the infinite heavens above to find Jason, Jess and Kai all looking at her with amused smiles on their faces.
“Sorry?” she asked, slowly drifting back down to earth.
“What’re you doing?” Jason asked.
“Looking at the stars?”
“Be careful you don’t put a crick in your neck,” Kai said. Amy’s hand instinctively went to rub at the muscles in her neck, which were a little stiff. How long had she even been staring up at the sky like an idiot?
“I think this will be my last glass of wine,” she said, swirling the contents around.
“I think that’s maybe a good idea,” Kai said. “You don’t usually drink this much. I think it’s hitting you hard.”
He wasn’t wrong, and it did explain why the stars had seemed particularly fascinating just before.
“ Amy ,” Jess said, suddenly sounding very concerned. “You know that you don’t have to drink, right? Like, there’s no pressure, babe.”
God, Jess really was just too sweet for this earth.
“No. It’s not that. I like to go running in the mornings, and alcohol always makes me sleep in. I usually just stick to a beer or something at most.”
“Do you guys go to the gym together?” Jess asked. “Me and Jason tried that once and we nearly killed each other.”
Jason shook his head like he was having flashbacks to that fateful day, but Kai laughed.
“No,” he said. “Amy’s way more athletic than I am. Always has been. She was on the track team, and I was the nerd in the computer lab, hiding out and studying economics.”
Amy laughed because it was entirely true. “I remember when I told you that I’d joined the track team. You looked at me in horror and asked why ? And I said for fun, and your look of horror turned into absolute disgust.”
Jason shook his head. “And to think, Kai, that all I ever see you in is sportswear.”
“It’s all a lie,” Amy said, taking a sip of her wine, and Kai rolled his eyes at her.
“So tell me, then,” said Jason, taking a sip from his own glass. “How did the girl on the track team and the geek in the computer lab end up engaged all these years later?”
Aw, man… Amy had momentarily forgotten about the con they were pulling. Not a con , just a white lie to smooth things over. Remembering it now, she refused to succumb to the guilt spiral that had been threatening to swallow her whole ever since she realized that she actually liked Jess and Jason. But here they were now, right across from her, Jason with a teasing smirk on his face and Jess bright eyed and interested.
“It’s not that interesting of a story,” Amy hedged, and if they’d been sitting at the table, it would have been a perfect opportunity to nudge Kai in the knee, to at least get some sort of reassurance. But here they were spread out on the lounge chairs, all in view of each other, and she couldn’t read Kai’s thoughts at all. He had a carefully blank expression on his face, looking serene and maybe a tad drunk, nothing else.
“Come on now,” Jason said, like a dog with a bone. “For years , Kai, you’ve been in the public eye with a model or an actress on your arm. You were literally on a ‘most eligible bachelors’ list last year, and now you’re shacked up with your best friend from high school.”
“So?” Kai said genially.
“ So … what happened, huh? What flipped the switch. Come on, man, we want to hear the story.”
“Like Amy said, it’s not that interesting a story, so you must be bored or drunker than you look if you want to hear it.”
“Oh, please!” Jess said, looking like a child wanting to hear secrets at a sleepover. “I bet it’s not boring at all and you’re just embarrassed because it will make you look all lovey-dovey. But I know you’re secretly a sap, so come on, tell us.”
Jason nodded emphatically at his wife’s statement, and both their gazes were locked onto Kai with laser-like focus. Amy was just thankful that she wasn’t the one under scrutiny because she was drawing an absolute blank of what to say that might, in any way, sound halfway convincing.
“Fine, if you insist,” Kai began, setting his wine glass aside.
This should be interesting , Amy thought while trying to not look desperately curious about what Kai was about to say. He’d always been good at thinking on his feet; it’s what made him a good business strategist. If he wanted to take the lead on this one, he was more than welcome.
Kai sighed and sat back in his chair and looked at Amy with a thoughtful, glassy-eyed stare, as though thinking through whatever he was about to say next. Either Kai was a much better actor than Amy had ever given him credit for, or he really was a tad drunk, which didn’t bode super well for how this was about to turn out. Amy sipped her drink and tried not to look nervous.
“My dad walked out on us when I was eight,” Kai said, and Amy nearly choked. Not in a million years did she think that was going to be what he said next, and she looked at Kai with wide eyes. Jason and Jess were also looking at him, not blinking, Jess’s mouth hanging slightly open in shock. Kai didn’t seem to notice, though. He was staring at nothing in particular while the rest of them sat in stunned silence.
“He walked out on my mom,” said Kai, lost in thought. “And even at eight I could see how, practically speaking, it was probably a good thing. No more fights, no more yelling, and he was always mostly at work anyway, so all of that seemed like a bonus. There’s probably some psychological stuff in there about ‘distancing yourself from abandonment,’ but that’s for a different discussion.”
Jason and Jess looked on in rapt attention with a slight edge of guilt at having prompted this particular story, while Amy watched on in absolute horror. Kai never mentioned his dad. Ever. Maybe three times in the entire time Amy had known him had Kai ever even come close to the topic, and never had it been as forthright as this. So as he continued, Amy’s whole body was frozen solid. She couldn’t have moved away even if she’d wanted to.
“My mom, understandably, wasn’t as cold-hearted about it as her eight-year-old son, but maybe that’s a good thing. Either way, it was just a different way of dealing with it. And she tried to hide it from me, how upset she was, but she wasn’t very good at it. And I was sneaky, so I saw… I saw how hard it hit her. Because she did love him.
“And I remember thinking, even then, if that’s marriage, I don’t want it. I mean one of the people involved is just going to end up walking away in the end anyway. Why waste my time, you know? So to answer part of your question about dating models and whoever I met at parties, that’s all that was. Dating. It was never meant to go anywhere. I didn’t want it to. I didn’t plan to. It was just a fact that I was never going to get married, end of story.”
Jess nodded along, chin in her hand and eyes wide, her natural empathy going into overdrive. Meanwhile Amy’s whole perception of her friend was under scrutiny. Did he really feel that way? That he’d completely sworn off marriage all because of his dad?
Then Kai looked at her and all thinking stopped. It wasn’t the glassy, half-drunk gaze he’d had focused at the floor. This was sharp, and it was bright, and it was all directed at Amy, leaving her nowhere to hide. And then he smiled, just a little, and Amy was more lost than ever.
“We’ve known each other since elementary school,” Kai said, his voice softer now. “But it wasn’t until high school that we got close. Two kids from the poorest part of town, both kids who didn’t quite fit in anywhere. We were inseparable the whole time. All we had was each other.”
“So you never dated before now?” Jess asked. “Not even once?”
“No, never,” Kai said, turning to Jess and allowing Amy to breathe again. “Just friends. For years afterwards, we were always just friends. Until…”
And his eyes flicked down with the slightest flash of a frown on his face. Amy knew in her gut that this was him thinking up a quick lie, a story of something happening, which meant that up until now every word had been the gospel truth.
“We used to have this tradition, in the latter half of high school when we could drive and then into college. We would stay up all night because that’s what teenagers do and then go through whatever drive-through we could find, get burgers that were never that great, and eat them in empty parking lots.”
A smile stretched his mouth as he thought about it, and Amy thought she might cry, not entirely sure why though.
“Anyway,” he continued. “Fairly recently we did that again, except this time it was in a sports car, not a vehicle strung together with duct tape and dental floss. This time we weren’t looking through the cupholders and the glovebox for an extra penny. Life was good, and here was my best friend and I, eating burgers under a parking lot light and I was… happy.
“And I don’t know why I did it, but we were getting out of the car to throw the trash away and stretch our legs and I grabbed Amy’s hand and started dancing with her there, this big ridiculous waltz type thing, going round in circles like from a period drama. It was just a spontaneous thing, you know, I just took her hand, and we started dancing under the street light, just the two of us. And I realized that all these years I’d been waiting for the sky to fall in, but that had never happened. Everything was fine, it was great . And here I was dancing with Amy, after all these years, and I realized that you can’t predict the future. Even if you could, that didn’t mean it would be bad, and I realized I was in love, and that even if there was still a risk of heartbreak, that if you found the right person, then the risk was worth it. And the right person had been under my nose the entire time. I was just too stubborn to realize it.”
He looked at Amy for the span of a single blink and then smiled, shrugged, and downed the last of his drink. “So there’s your story. That’s how we ended up here.”
Jess looked like she was about to burst with the romance of it all and launched into the story of how Jason had proposed to her, continuing the theme of the conversation. Jason just sat patiently beside her, not interrupting, smitten with his wife as always, and Amy was given the opportunity to think about what she’d just heard.
The thing was that, well, that whole spiel hadn’t sounded all that made up. The magical night dancing under a street lamp, sure, that had never happened. But the rest of it… the facts were all true — his dad walking out, his sporadic dating history, even their recent evening eating burgers in his car. The facts were true, so did that mean that the feelings he’d been talking about were real as well? Was that how he really felt?
Sometimes when you know someone for so long, you don’t talk about the deeper stuff, the painful stuff, because you think you know it all already. And then suddenly ten years go by and you’re living completely different lives, and it turns out you don’t know each other that well anymore, after all.