Chapter Three Amanda
Chapter Three
Amanda
I swear to God, his little teeth are going to rip my nipple clear off next time I stick it in his mouth,” Amanda’s best friend Rosie said as she picked up her glass of water with lemon and took a long gulp. “I’m so done breastfeeding. I cannot wait until he weans.”
Amanda cringed, finding her arms automatically covering her chest in some sort of pseudoprotective move at the very thought of a teething baby going to town on his mom.
“Kate was like that too,” Nola said from her side of the table at the restaurant that the three of them were dining at a few towns over from Heart Lake.
It could be hard to find great restaurants closer to home that they didn’t always go to, so they made it a point to venture out a little farther every once in a while. Last month they’d gone back to Wish You Were Beer over in Grand Haven, but today, they were dining at Pastabilities right on the water in Pentwater. Amanda couldn’t believe how hard it was to get the three of them together these days, so she really cherished their monthly dinners. But tonight had started with husband chats and now moved to motherhood—neither topic did Amanda have anything to contribute to.
“Kate was a biter?” Rosie replied as she twirled some spaghetti noodles around her fork and lifted it to her mouth. “How did you handle it?”
Amanda turned her attention to Nola, forcing a smile that she hoped would mask the growing emptiness inside her. As the conversation flowed around her, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being an outsider looking in. This conversation wasn’t exactly something she felt she could insert herself into, and most of the dinner had been going this way so far, and the void within her seemed to expand.
She understood how important her friends’ marriages and children were, and she didn’t blame them one bit for wanting to talk about them. However, she didn’t have either of those things, and there was only so much complaining she could do about Clayton or a disgruntled client before her stories became repetitive. She was beginning to realize that she really needed to get out there somehow and make new stories.
“Constantly icing them, then heat, and lots of nipple cream,” Nola continued. She lifted the bottle of red wine they’d bought to share from the center of the table and refilled her glass. “Breastfeeding is the actual worst. I can’t believe people tell you it’ll just come to you and it’s the most natural thing ever. It’s one step away from cannibalism once teething begins.”
“I’ll take some more,” Amanda directed toward Nola, lifting her wineglass as well. “All this talk about babies and nipples is making me think we should probably order a second bottle.”
Nola laughed but refilled Amanda’s glass. “Sorry. I know it’s boring when it’s all mom talk.”
“Yeah, that’s my bad,” Rosie agreed with a small chuckle. Not that Amanda blamed her one bit, since she was still deep in the throes of the postpartum era, and Amanda loved her newest godson James to pieces. “Being a wife and now having four children under one roof has completely consumed my brain. I really need to step out of that mode every once in a while, which is why I look forward to these dinners so much.”
“Me, too. We need to make each other more of a priority, starting this summer,” Nola added. “Amanda, tell us about what you’ve been up to. What’s happening in the sexy, uncomplicated world of singlehood and freedom from children?”
She swallowed the sip of red wine she’d just held to her lips. “Uh…”
Oh no. Amanda could feel the welling of emotion building in her chest faster than she could put it down. Suddenly her face was hot and the dam of tears behind her eyes threatened to burst.
“Are you okay?” Rosie reached a hand out and placed it on Amanda’s arm, and that was all she needed to lose complete control of the cascade flooding down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Amanda gasped in between stifled sobs as she shoved her cloth napkin into her eyeballs in an attempt to both hide her face and shove the tears right back in her eyes. What the hell was happening right now? She was not a crier—hell, she rarely showed emotion unless it was irrational or sarcastic. “I’m so ridiculous right now. I don’t even know why I’m crying. This is so embarrassing, sorry. I must have had too much wine.”
“Stop apologizing.” Rosie comforted her, squeezing her arm gently and then rubbing her hand up and down her forearm. “You never have to apologize for tears around us.”
“Yeah, seriously, Amanda,” Nola confirmed, handing her an additional cloth napkin from the fourth table setting that they weren’t using. “We’ve all seen each other cry more times than I can count.”
“You better not be counting,” Rosie teased Nola. “We have way too much dirt on each other at this point to start keeping score, and I’m pretty sure Amanda’s the least likely crier of the three of us. I can’t even remember the last time…”
Amanda hiccupped a small laugh as she tried to get her breathing under control and slow herself down. “I know. I’m not normally like this. I just… I don’t even know where that came from.”
Nola signaled to the waiter for another bottle of wine before turning back to Amanda. “My therapist says if we don’t release emotions ourselves at a controlled time, they will do it for us whenever they see fit. You need to be vulnerable more often to let the pressure off.”
“Nola, stop trying to convince everyone to go to therapy,” Rosie quipped back, though her tone was lighthearted. “Not everyone wants to pour out their feelings for two hundred dollars an hour.”
She put her hands up defensively. “I’m just saying it was very helpful for me after losing Gigi, and then again after having Kate. I swear grief and postpartum depression aren’t that dissimilar.”
“At least you have something to be upset about,” Amanda finally interjected, feeling like she’d been able to calm herself down enough to logically come up with what she wanted to say. “I just have been feeling so empty lately. Like… what do I have? Rosie, you have Evan and the kids, and the bookstore is thriving. Nola, you and Tanner are like a storybook romance, and you’re the best stay-at-home mom who has ever existed in the history of the world with Kate. And then there’s me. Just me.”
The words spilled out of her so fast that she was processing them at the same time that her friends were hearing them. Was she jealous? Her monologue sounded jealous, but the word didn’t seem to fit the feeling in her chest.
“Oh, Amanda.” Rosie put her hand over her heart. “I’m so sorry that we both just sat here and rambled on about our families. That was so insensitive of us. I honestly had no idea that you were thinking any of that at all. I mean, the last time I thought maybe you wanted some of that was when Lizzie was here for the summer, but after everything that happened with her mom, I thought you’d closed that door.”
Lizzie was Amanda’s goddaughter who’d spent a full summer with her once when her mother—Amanda and Nola’s cousin—had taken a job in Europe for the summer and couldn’t bring her. Amanda loved Lizzie, but her cousin had ended up permanently moving to Europe and Lizzie had gone out there to be with her. She hadn’t seen her in the years since, and at this point Lizzie was close to graduating high school and focused on college goals. It had been a nice experience to be a pseudomom for a summer, but it had only made it more clear to her that being an actual mom wasn’t part of her future.
That didn’t mean being a partner wasn’t, though.
“I thought the same,” Nola agreed with Rosie, but nodded emphatically toward Amanda. “I am really sorry, too. I guess I was under the impression that romance and family and all that wasn’t of interest to you. I mean, don’t get me wrong—you’re an incredible aunt. But I always just thought you weren’t interested in dating.”
“I literally can’t think of one time I’ve ever seen you on a date since high school,” Rosie added. “And every time we try to set you up with someone, you want nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe you should have tried to set her up with better people,” Nola teased Rosie.
Rosie shrugged. “If I knew better people, I wouldn’t have been single as long as I was.”
“Guys!” Amanda laughed and put her hands up to indicate they should stop talking. She definitely had been on dates since high school, but she wasn’t one to share that information easily. It wasn’t even something she’d told her friends about. “I’m in no way interested in romance. At least, not like that .”
Rosie wiggled her eyebrows. “ That meaning hanky-panky in the bedroom? Or that meaning men in general?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “For the millionth time, I’m not a lesbian.”
Rosie put on a pretend pout. “Are you sure? Nola and I would be so much cooler if we had a lesbian friend. We need the street credit. Becca literally told me the other day that I wasn’t cool, which I guess is par for the course when you have a high schooler. God, I have high school–aged children.”
Rosie’s twins—Becca and Zander—were going into ninth grade at Heart Lake High this coming fall but already acting like they were king and queen of the block since their recent middle school graduation. Their older stepsister, Tess, had already been in high school for a year now, and she was not looking forward to them attending with her.
“Well, you have an uninteresting, nonlesbian friend,” Amanda assured them. “But sometimes lately I’ve been thinking maybe it wouldn’t be that awful to have someone in… in a partner way. Someone to do life with, to come home to, to spend time together.”
The part she left out was that she was fine with leaving anything physical out of the arrangement. Her sex drive had been nonexistent her entire life, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want the companionship or to feel the warm butterflies of being in love. But from everything she knew about marriage and romance, sex was a pretty important part of the package deal. It seemed highly unlikely to her that anyone would be willing to compromise in that way, or that anyone would like her enough to make having a life together with minimal sex actually worth it.
She knew that was a shitty way to think, but the world was pretty shitty, and sex was a worldwide motivator. There was no denying that was the reality of the times. It just made her feel that much more isolated in her own experience.
“In a partner way? You mean like a husband?” Nola asked as she swiped another roll from the shared garlic bread basket. “Because I am so down for making you a dating profile right now and getting this whole show on the road.”
“Being your matchmakers would be the highlight of our year,” Rosie confirmed, then nodded her head toward the front of the restaurant. “Like, for starters, what about that hottie over at the host stand?”
Amanda turned way too quickly to look, only to find her gaze squarely slamming into Dominic Gage’s. The air in her lungs seemed to freeze into a block of ice that made her want to melt down into her seat and slide under the table. There was a slightly confused expression on his face—concern, maybe? He looked like he was worried, or that something was wrong.
She suddenly realized her eyes were probably puffy and her cheeks still tear streaked from crying.
Could things get any worse right now?
“Oh my God, kill me now,” Amanda muttered under her breath, but her friends caught it.
“Wait, isn’t that your new neighbor?” Nola asked, blatantly staring at him along with Rosie. “What’s he doing all the way out in Pentwater?”
“Look away from him right now,” Amanda hissed loud enough for only them to hear. “Don’t look at him!”
Rosie and Nola quickly snapped their gazes back to her as she crouched down as low as possible in an attempt to completely disappear.
“I know you said to look away, but he’s coming over,” Rosie informed her, her voice a strained whisper. “Should we keep ignoring him?”
Amanda could feel her insides literally spiraling. “Are you sure he’s coming over? Maybe he’s just going to the bathroom and we’re in his path.”
“I’m not going to the bathroom,” Dominic confirmed, now standing behind Nola across the table from where Amanda was sitting. “I had a doctor appointment near here and wanted to grab some food before making the trek back. Surprised to see you here, and wanted to check if everything was okay.”
Nola didn’t turn to look at him, but just stared at Amanda with wide eyes as she grabbed another piece of garlic bread to shove in her mouth. No doubt she wanted an excuse not to be involved in this.
Rosie very much wanted to be involved, however. “So, you’re the new neighbor? I hear you don’t like sunflowers.”
Dominic finally let his gaze leave Amanda and flickered over to Rosie. “I tend to be more partial to a navy blue, but I’m okay with some orange and white as well. Sunflowers… eh, not so much.”
“Aren’t those the Detroit Tigers colors?” Rosie’s face scrunched up for a moment, then her eyes lifted back to him, and she slapped her hand against the table. “Oh my God, you played for them! Evan watches them all the time, and I remember your face from—holy shit, are you okay?”
If Rosie and Dominic were at the pitcher’s mound, then Amanda was in the outfield because she had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.
“You played baseball?” Amanda asked, genuinely surprised by this new piece of intel about her neighbor. The realization that there was more to Dominic than she initially thought sparked a sense of curiosity within her, a welcome distraction from the isolation she had been feeling tonight.
“I did,” he responded, then looked back at Rosie. “And to answer your question, yes. I am okay. But are you okay?”
His last question was posed back at Amanda.
She wiped at her cheeks and cleared her throat. “Peachy keen. I’m great. Fantastic, actually.”
Dominic’s expression clearly showed he didn’t believe her, but she could tell he wasn’t going to push the issue.
She appreciated that he had at least some boundaries in that way. Not in a mailbox-trampling way, but she had to pick her battles.
“Okay. Well, I’ll see you around. I’m just picking up a to-go order.” With that, he stepped away from their table and made his way back to the host stand where they now had his order ready to go in a large paper bag.
“Whoa. He’s hot,” Rosie said once he was far enough away to no longer hear them. “And he is clearly interested in you, Amanda.”
She barked out a too-loud laugh. “Not even. He’s weird… like super aloof and unpleasant, but also sort of nice? It really doesn’t add up. Something is off about him.”
“What’s off about him is the ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball he took to the face in the last season,” Rosie continued. “Completely ended his career. I hope it didn’t knock a few screws loose up there.”
Amanda raised her brows in alarm. “Shit. That sounds rough. I seriously had no idea he used to play baseball, let alone professionally, until a minute ago.”
Rosie nodded. “You know Evan’s going to want to come over to your house now just to see if he can spot him through the window.”
“Tanner, too,” Nola added. “He’s a die-hard Tigers fan. It’s like it runs in the family or something.”
Rosie grinned, given that Tanner was Nola’s husband but also Rosie’s brother. “We can’t help ourselves. Either way, next meetup is at Amanda’s house.”
Nola grinned, then wiggled her brows conspiratorially. “Until then, let’s brainstorm some dating profile ideas—knock it out of the park, get you to hit a home run.”
“I don’t know if I’m dating-profile ready. And I’m really not ready for those metaphors.” Amanda grabbed her glass of wine again and took a long swig. “Could we start with baby steps?”
Nola shook her head. “No way. You’ve been baby stepping your whole life. And, as your friend, I cannot continue to stand by and watch you hide all the incredible parts of yourself from the world any longer.”
“Same,” Rosie agreed. “Because it’s not just dating. Clayton? Your job? You’ve been living on scraps long enough. You deserve to have the best summer of your life—a summer of romance!”
“And moving up at work,” Nola added. “A summer of you. Showcasing yourself, your talents, and the amazing person you are to the world.”
“Guys…” Amanda could feel the blush heating her cheeks. Their kind words were making her night, but, admittedly, it wasn’t as easy to digest and believe them as it was to hear them. “I don’t know. The summer just started…”
“Perfect timing. Let Nola and me take care of it. You just need to clear your next few Friday nights, and we’ll take care of the rest. We’ll make sure you have a new blind date to meet every week. It’ll be like The Bachelor , Heart Lake style.”
“All summer?” Amanda balked. “Absolutely not. That’s a lot of Fridays.”
“Okay, just four then,” Nola countered. “Four dates. Four men. That’s not a lot. Anyone could do that.”
Amanda hesitated, but that seemed a lot more doable than the first option. “Fine. Four. But that’s it. And they have to be actual blind dates—not anyone we went to school with or already know. No one I’d run into on Main Street regularly and make things awkward with.”
Nola and Rosie glanced at each other.
“Okay, deal,” Nola finally agreed.
Rosie grimaced. “Though we can’t promise you won’t know them. I mean, this is a small area. But no one from our high school. We can promise that.”
Amanda didn’t feel so sure. “And absolutely not Blake.”
“Definitely not Blake,” Nola agreed. “You made your feelings very clear after he bailed on the Boat Parade. Plus the whole toilet thing.”
“What toilet thing?” Rosie asked.
“Nothing,” Amanda quipped. “Let’s move on from that.”
“Doesn’t Marvel have a grandson around our age?” Rosie tapped her chin. “I feel like she talked about him once or twice.”
“I don’t think that was a literal grandson, but rather just some young guy she met when she was high and decided to adopt him metaphorically,” Amanda said with a laugh, referring to the older hippie woman who was a staple around town. Everyone loved her and her cookie recipes, but her brain was clearly forever changed by the substances she partook in during the ’70s. “So he’s off-limits, too.”
Rosie shrugged. “Well, we’re going to knock this one out of the park, Amanda. You have our word.”
“Ooh, ballpark!” Nola’s eyes lit up. “I wonder if the new neighbor is single?”
“He’s off-limits, too!” Amanda dropped her fork against the edge of her plate, and it made a loud clanging sound. “Completely off-limits. I am not blind-dating my neighbor. I didn’t go to Carl’s swinging parties, and I’m not dating the guy he sold his house to, either. Dominic Gage is absolutely off-limits when it comes to romance.”
And yet, even as she said that and her friends reluctantly agreed, she wasn’t sure she completely believed herself. There was something about the man that had wiggled its way under her skin, and she wasn’t sure she hated it… but she knew she didn’t like it.