Chapter 10
Amelia
Henry showed up at my door in time to take me to the funeral home.
I had to arrive early, and he arranged to get me there in time.
He was huge, and he had a warm and welcoming presence when I opened the door, so I hugged him.
I breathed in his clean smell. I stayed in his grasp longer than usual because I needed a hug.
Everyone at the funeral home was closer to Donna than I was. I had spent my time there serving and being in the background while they talked to each other. I hadn't let myself be as sad as they were. I honestly hadn't let myself be sad at all.
It felt so good to hug someone that I held onto Henry longer than I should have. I held onto him for so long that I began to feel his muscles and notice his body under the layers of his fabric. As soon as that happened, I snapped out of it and let him go.
We had a brief verbal exchange, but I tried not to take in his physical presence, and within a minute, we were in his truck, heading to the funeral home. We talked about my life on the way there. He asked me about my last semester of school and what I was planning to do after graduation.
I had the series going, and I was helping my sister with some of her promotions.
Plus, I wasn’t actually graduating. I still had one class to take.
The series was set to start in May, and I wasn't sure of the date.
One of my professors had been inflexible regarding my attendance at the end of the term, so I didn't even take his class.
I would have to take one more class to officially graduate.
But it was worth it to make the series, and I considered myself finished with school since it was only one class.
Henry had been busy during the last year.
He and his dad had built a new building for the set on their farm, and it was gorgeous and period-appropriate for the series.
I had seen pictures via Alex, and I knew they had done a lot of work on it.
I had thought about Henry more than I should have during the last year, and some of it was because I had regular updates on the building he made.
We had just started talking about that when he parked at the funeral home. I was already a minute late, so I opened the truck door the instant he put it in park.
"I'm going to run in," I said. "I'll be in the kitchen. Thanks for the ride."
"Yeah, no problem."
"I want to hear more about that building," I said. "Come talk to me inside… or maybe we'll ride back together, if you can give me a ride back. If not, no biggie."
"No, yeah, I thought I would," he said.
I nodded at him and closed his truck door, heading inside without him. Henry Sutter was an absolute heartthrob, and I hadn't thought that would be a problem until now.
Before now, I had no thoughts of Henry.
Now I was having thoughts.
I blamed the hug.
I had let it linger too long.
It had awakened unexpected feelings.
I kept my head down and went to the kitchen of the funeral home.
I had already connected with some of Donna's grandkids who were in from out of town.
Some of them had come with their parents, and there was a group of five or six guys from late teens to mid-twenties who had carpooled together from Missoula.
There were girls too, a few of them, but they gathered in the viewing area while the boys stayed in the kitchen, where I was.
I had met most of them earlier that morning.
They were friendly and asked me a lot of questions.
I told them I was in the area for a series that I would be filming, and they were all really impressed and said they wanted to watch it.
An hour or so had passed when I saw Henry come into the kitchen with his sister, Bailey.
They greeted a few people, and she talked to him, and within a minute, she was gone.
Henry stayed in the kitchen after his sister walked out, but he was talking to a couple, so I didn't go over to him.
He glanced my way a few times, but he never walked over.
Finally, after about twenty minutes, he came over to me and said, "Are you ready? "
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Are you leaving, Amelia? If so, I'll message you about tonight," Connor said, overhearing us from nearby.
He was the grandson I had been talking to the most tonight.
He lived in Missoula but was staying in Butte for the night.
He wanted me to meet him and his cousins a little later to play some pool.
I didn't want to deny them at their grandmother's funeral, so I left it vague, saying I may see them later.
I said goodbye to the others in the kitchen and snuck out, knowing I'd be back in the morning.
Henry barely let the door close behind us when he looked at me and said, "What was that?"
"What was what?"
"That guy. Was he asking you out at a funeral?"
"Yeah, but it was with a group—five or six of them are going to play pool. That guy, Connor, he lives in Missoula, but he comes here enough to know the good places."
"But still, the audacity. Not only is it a funeral, but we came here together, and I'm sitting in the same room."
"Oh, no, he asked me if we were together, and I told him we weren't."
He blinked at me. "Still. You were there with me."
As if to make his point, he had followed me to my side of the truck. He opened the door for me before I had the chance to do it on my own. "Thank you," I said, climbing up and sitting inside.
I watched him jog around the front of the truck, and the whole thing felt like I was in a dream.
Henry Sutter was a leading man character.
He was the biggest, baddest one in that room just now, and there was no denying it.
And now he was saying jealous things and opening the door for me.
My heart was beating fast when he sat down in the driver's seat and started his truck.
"How's that guy supposed to get in touch with you?" he said, annoyed. "Did you give him your number?"
"No, but I gave him my Instagram. He knows about the series, and he followed me. Some of his cousins did, too. They're interested in the series. They were talking about getting work as extras."
"He said he would talk to you tonight."
"He was talking about messaging me. I told him I might meet them out later if he tells me where they're going."
"It's none of my business. I'm sorry for asking. I guess you can do whatever you want."
"No, it's okay," I said, wanting him to be jealous.
"I heard one of those ladies talking about you giving her Donna's Bible."
"Oh, yeah. Gretchen. That's Gary's wife. I met her this morning, and she was mentioning it."
"Why would you offer it? She probably didn’t even know you had it."
"She didn’t. I heard her mention it, and I offered. It felt good. I had it with me on this trip with the intention of giving it back if someone wanted it. She literally mentioned it in front of me and had no idea I had it."
Henry was quiet, and he shook his head. "Donna gave that to you. She wanted you to have it."
"I’m not worried about it," I said. "I took pictures of some of it. And I had already gotten a lot of use from it. I'm glad for her family to have it. It's Connor's mom, and he's my friend, so, I'm happy it's back to Donna's family."
"That guy's your friend now? You mean the one you met today?"
"Connor? Yes. We're friends. I don't know about you, but I can make friends with someone on the first day I meet them. I mean, I would consider you a friend, and we—"
"We've known each other for way more than a day."
"Yeah, you're right," I said, smiling inwardly at his frustration.
"And I live here, too, so I know the most fun places to go. You don't need to go out with Donna's grandkids. I mean, I'll be the one to take you out if you want to go somewhere."
A whole swarm of butterflies started flapping their tiny little wings, and suddenly my insides were alight with new and wonderful sensations. He was jealous and he was asking me out.
"Where would you take me?" I asked innocently.
"Where do you want to go?" He glanced at me from over the center console.
"Are you jealous of Connor?"
I instantly regretted saying it. I had never in my life said something so forward and flirty to a man.
I felt mortified, so I said, "I'm joking," right after I said it.
He glanced at me. "Yeah, I would rather you spend time with me than go out with him.
If that's what you mean by jealous, then, yeah…
" He trailed off and shrugged. He wasn't openly admitting he was jealous, but he also wasn't denying it.
Henry Sutter was taking my breath away. He was a perfect male specimen.
I felt a warm wave of happiness thought of him being jealous of me.
He wasn't fully admitting it either. Was I suddenly wishing and hoping that he would be jealous?
Henry was an alpha male type, and I loved that about him.
He had some indie rock playing on the radio, and he turned it up while we were driving. We were quiet for a minute, and then I turned to him and said, "Where are we going?"
"My house. I'm changing. I'll take you wherever you want to go after that." He looked at me to make sure that was okay, and I nodded.
Again, we were quiet, listening to the music.
I was nervous and excited about going to Henry's house.
I started daydreaming about hanging out at his place for an extended period of time.
I wanted to sit on his couch and watch a movie.
I pictured doing that with him next to me.
I wanted to fall asleep on his couch and stay there instead of the house I had rented.
Of course, I would never tell him what I was thinking.
In no time, we were pulling into his driveway. I recognized his place from the last time I was here, but I hadn't been by here on this trip.
"Are you coming inside?" he asked before he turned off his truck.
"Yeah, I thought so," I said, probably a little too quickly.
Henry turned off his truck, and I got out by myself before he had the chance to come around.
There were a few cars at Donna's since some of her family was staying at her house.
I didn't pay them any attention. I was focused on Henry's place, looking at how he kept everything.
It was neat and tidy—an off white wooden house with some evergreen shrubs in the front.
"I like your house," I said.
"Thank you. It's a work in progress."
"I remember you saying you were working on flipping it, eventually. How's that going?"
He opened the door and stood back, holding it while I walked inside. "See for yourself," he said.
"Thank you," I said, smiling and looking around when Henry turned on the lights. "Oh, this is so nice," I said, feeling like I was on a movie set. The décor in the kitchen and living room matched. There were a lot of grays and whites, and it was modern and updated for the age of the house.
"My mom and sister picked everything," he said. "I have a workshop in the backyard where I spend a lot of time when I'm here. I really didn't care how the rest of the house was decorated, so I got help from them, and I like it. They did great."
He tossed his keys onto the bar as he took off, heading toward the hallway.
I followed him as far as the living room, where I stopped and looked at some of his family pictures that were on a shelf in frames.
I leaned in and studied one of Henry when he was younger, smiling at how he had been standing next to a horse.
I felt a yearning sensation when I looked at Henry's picture—like my heart was full of nostalgia and comfort at the sight of him.
I could hear Henry coming back down the hall, so I spoke to him. "I'm looking at your pictures from when you were a—"
I stopped talking when I turned and was confronted with another view of his stunning bare chest. Henry was no more than five feet from me, and he was half-naked again.
It could have been closer than five feet.
However far it was, it was the perfect distance for my eyes to focus on every curve of every muscle.
It was stunning. He was stunning. I could not peel my eyes from him.
"You can, uh, could you, uh, just put on that shirt that's in your hand?" I said, since it was too much to behold.
Henry knew what he was doing. He started opening the shirt that was in his hands, but he was going way too slow, and his perfect torso flexed as he stretched it over his head and shrugged into it. It was comical how much of a male model he was.
"You did this on purpose," I said slowly, dazedly.
"Did what?" he asked, faking innocence as he pulled the t-shirt over his head.
I thought it had been a lot to behold before, but watching him adjust the fitted t-shirt—it was just too much. I felt overheated, flushed. I had to turn away, glancing at the wall, glancing anywhere but at the perfect body in front of me.
"What do you want to do?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Do you mean go somewhere?" he asked. "Because we could just watch TV or something here."
"That would be amazing," I said. "It's a busy time of the term for me, and I did homework on the flight. I'm tired from that and from traveling, and I'd love to relax. I was going to ask if we could hang out here, but I didn't want to come across as too forward."
"What would be forward about that?" he asked, coming to stand next to me with his larger-than-life presence.
I felt weak in the knees. Stiffly, I stared at him.
"I thought it would be forward of me to invite myself over to your house," I said, trying not to sound as breathless as I felt.
"No, it's not forward," he said. "I'm the one who came out here without a shirt."
I smiled and shrugged confidently. "I know, thank goodness you put that back on. You were making me feel like all bets were off."