CHAPTER 2 Amelia
Amelia
“ROBBY!” I scream, banging my fist on the hard wooden door loud enough to wake the dead. But not Robby, apparently. After my Uber driver—turned would-be therapist who listened to me rant for the entirety of our fifteen-minute journey together—dropped me at the front door of the note-writing-douche-bag, I’ve been standing here for what feels like hours (probably less than two minutes) waiting for my ex-boyfriend, Robby the Ridiculous, to open the door. With absolutely zero luck. It’s like he’s not even home.
“I know you’re in there!” I continue to scream at the un-answering timber door in front of me. “I’m not leaving, so you’ll just have to open up and face me.”
My heart races and a trail of sweat trickles down my back even though the middle-of-the-night air around me is verging on icy cold. I’m in such a state that my anger is keeping me warm, even as my toes are getting frostbite. I really should have stopped to put on sneakers before charging out into the dead of night, I think as I ponder my sore, sorry bare feet.
“Robby!” I give the door one more, most likely futile, thump, before stepping back to assess the situation. My loser-ex-boyfriend had left an impassioned note on my door after six months of silence and then doesn’t even have the courtesy to be home when I want—no need—to respond!
“Amelia?”
The deep baritone of a man’s—his—voice startles me and I stumble backwards, away from the house I’d just been desperate to get into.
“Is that you?”
I scan the man standing in front of me, taking in his dishevelled appearance (pyjama pants only, and a large expanse of bare, bronzed chest), messy jet-black hair, square jawline covered in what looks like designer stubble but is unlikely to be anything but natural, and tired emerald green eyes. Oh boy, those eyes.
“Where is he?” I go on the offence, demanding answers while willing myself to not take off running. “I know he’s in there!”
The half-naked man in front of me gives me what can only be described as a look of pure bewilderment, before reaching up and putting on his glasses. God save me from this man in glasses.
“Robby? You’re here for Robby?”
I push past him, my shoulder bumping his biceps as I flounce into the house, determined to complete my mission. My mission to find Robby and then kick him in the butt for being a gigantic jerk.
“Who else would I be here for?”
I turn to see him staring at me, pale like he’d seen a ghost.
“But, he’s not here.”
The air deflates from my lungs and I only just hold myself back from slumping to the ground. He’s not here.
I rally. “Don’t you cover for him, Jake Johnson. I know he lives here.”
My breathing speeds up and the anger that only a moment ago had been downgraded to simmering is now back to boiling again. If I don’t get to unleash it on somebody soon, I’m going to explode.
“He does live here,” Jake, Robby’s older brother and roommate, tells me, his voice slow and deliberate. Like he’s explaining the laws of physics to a six-year-old. “But he isn’t here now.”
For reasons I will examine later, I decide not to believe him. “Robby?” I take off down the hallway away from the open plan living room and kitchen area, towards where I know his bedroom is. “Get your sorry butt out here!”
“Seriously, Amelia.” Jake’s voice is right behind me, following so close I can feel the heat from his body on my back. And for some strange reason, I want to stop and sink into it. “He just left. He’s taken his new girlfriend and gone on tour with the band.”
I screech to a halt for a variety of reasons. The words girlfriend and band being the most obvious.
“What?” I spin on the heels of my feet and come face to face with Jake’s chest. Or face to chest, as the case may be.
“Are you OK?” The concern in his voice has me looking up and then up some more into his worried expression.
“Robby—what?” I can’t find the words to continue and instead allow myself to be led by Jake’s gentle hand on my upper arm, guiding me back to their beige overstuffed couch.
“Was he supposed to be here?”
I sink down into the couch cushions, the narrow skirt of this bridesmaid’s dress (how am I still wearing this thing?) crinkling as I do.
“Hmmmph.” I’ve run out of words. This day, all the good and the bad of it, has officially left me speechless. How is Robby not here when I desperately need him to be so I can tell him to get lost?
“Want to tell me what happened?” Jake is crouched in front of me, so his eyes, worried behind the lenses of his trendy black glasses frames, are level with mine.
“He’s really not here?” My voice sounds as defeated as I feel and I startle when Jake takes my hands in his much larger hands, squeezing them like he’s offering comfort. And also trying to get me to concentrate.
“No, he’s really not.”
We sit in silence. Me trying to gather my thoughts. Jake trying to read them.
“So, again, what’s this all about?”
He asks this at the same time as letting go of my hand (shame), rising and walking to the kitchen where I watch through a haze of tiredness, as he puts the kettle on.
“Melbourne breakfast tea? One sugar and a splash of milk?”
How does he remember the way I take my tea?
“Sounds perfect,” I sigh. “Absolutely perfect.”
Melbourne Breakfast tea is the cousin, the superior cousin in my opinion, to the more popular English Breakfast tea. The two are very similar, except as with all things made in Melbourne, our version is better.
“Here.” I open my eyes, which I don’t remember closing, to a steaming cup of tea in front of me. And Jake, with a long-sleeve navy blue Henley shirt on. Did I fall asleep? “Drink this.”
My hands are shaking slightly as I take the cup from Jake and absorb the heat radiating from the ceramic cup. Now that the initial surge of energy that had driven me here, urging me on, has diminished, I just feel cold. And oh-so-tired.
“Amelia?”
I blow on the steaming teacup in my hands and avoid his gaze. My thoughts are muddled enough without having to look at that face.
“What happened?”
Well, I think, it started when I met your brother and was stupid enough to actually date him for six months. And then he ghosted me, only to leave this stupid note on my door out of nowhere.
The note!
I pull the crumpled piece of paper from my tiny golden purse and throw it at Jake, wishing I was throwing it at Robby’s head instead.
“What’s this?”
“The reason I’m here.” My voice sounds as exhausted as I feel and I lean back against the couch cushion, taking a much-needed sip from my cup.
“I miss you and I want you back,” he reads out loud, his voice confused with a tinge of something else. Anger? Disgust? “This is from Robby?”
Huh. I’d never stopped to question if it could be from anyone else. There’s been no one in my life for so long; that it had to be from Robby was clear as day in my mind.
“Look at the handwriting,” I say, my eyelids drooping shut. “That childlike scrawl is unmistakable.”
We sit in silence as I absorb the darkness of my closed eyelids and Jake presumably absorbs the idiocy of his younger brother.
“But…why would he leave this? He has a new girlfriend.”
I shrug. “Who knows why Robby does anything?”
“I’m sorry, Amelia. He shouldn’t have done this.” The sincerity in his voice has me prying open my eyelids to look at him. And then wishing I hadn’t.
“Don’t you feel sorry for me, Jake. I didn’t come here to take him back.”
Jake’s cheeks flush, and he gets up to pace the room. Back and forth, I watch him prowl, like an animal in a cage. It’s quite a sight to behold. The buttoned-up and normally restrained Jake, all angry and growly.
“Of course you wouldn’t take him back.”
Good, we agree.
“But the whole thing makes no sense. You haven’t seen each other in six months.”
So Jake has been paying attention.
“I know this. Don’t ask me. Ask the man you share DNA with.”
“Humph.”
More silence. This time I’m more alert, fascinated by this display in front of me. During my time with Robby, I’d only seen Jake on a handful of occasions and our interactions had never been more than polite small talk, so seeing him all huffy and annoyed is quite delightful indeed.
“When did he leave the note?”
I shrug again. “I haven’t been home since Friday. Bella got married today.” I sweep my hand along the side of my body, hoping this will explain my appearance in this oh-so-fancy lemon-yellow dress. “So I’ve been staying with her the last two nights.”
He gives me a soft look, his eyes unfocussed as he takes in my dress and what remains of my elegant up-do, before shaking himself slightly. “That means my idiot brother put this note on your door and then promptly took off with his girlfriend.”
I snort at the absolute absurdity of it all. And then I chuckle, and when I can’t hold that in, I just let it all out. I laugh until tears run down my face and a stitch forms in my side. Who does that? And why do I attract only the type of men who would do something like that?
“Millie?”
My laughter stops abruptly at the use of this nickname.
“Yes?” My voice quivers and I hate myself for it.
“Are you really OK?”
Jake sits back down. This time he’s right next to me, so close that I’m absorbing the heat from his thigh pressed against mine.
“Nope.”
I let my one-word answer sit between us as I examine the painting on the wall. It’s a Melbourne city landscape, and it looks familiar.
“How can I help?”
I turn my head, alarmed to find his face close to mine. So close I can see the flecks of gold around the irises of his startling green eyes, and the smattering of grey hair at his temple. Jake is seven years older than me and Robby and is very much a grown-up in every sense of the word. Grey hairs and all.
“I don’t need help.” The lie falls easily from my lips, having repeated it so often over the years that it comes naturally to me. Maybe one day when I say it, I’ll actually mean it. “Tell me a bit about this tour Robby is going on,” I say when it looks like Jake is gearing up to call me on my bullshit.
He grimaces and lets out a dismissive-sounding snort. “I use the word tour loosely. He got a call from that band he sometimes gigs with, ‘Raging Inferno’. Apparently, they have a few venues booked for over the summer and they asked him to come along.”
I recall Robby had sometimes played with these guys when we were together, and that they weren’t very good at all.
“People are going to pay to see them?” Scepticism drips from my voice.
Jake laughs, his deep chuckle warming my belly. “No, don’t be ridiculous. You’ve heard them. They’re awful!”
A memory of exactly how awful surfaces and I wince. Like a fool in love, I’d attended several of their ‘jamming’ sessions and, after the first time, had smartly taken to wearing earplugs.
“So, they’re just playing for free?”
Jake runs his hand over his stubbled jaw, a rueful gesture. “I tried to talk him out of it, but you know Robby. He thinks it will be his big break.”
“But…what?” The whole thing makes no sense. Maybe my tired brain is just not processing it all properly? “You’re telling me the band is going to play gigs for free and Robby thinks this will lead to something…more?”
Jake’s lips tip up at one side, giving me that lopsided grin that I’d tried to avoid looking at when I was dating his brother. “And get this…” He pauses to build the anticipation.
“What?!” I demand.
“Robby is the back-up drummer! He’s only going to play if something happens to the actual drummer.”
A gleeful laugh bursts out of me and I’m filled with the kind of joy that comes only when bad things happen to bad people.
“He’s not even the real drummer?” I gasp out between chuckles. “And he’s gone with them, anyway?”
He sighs and runs his hand through that thick mop of black hair. “You know Robby…always chasing a dream.”
My laughter abruptly stops. Again. This impulsive behaviour, the ‘always chasing the impossible dream’ mentality is what had drawn me to Robby in the first place. To all my boyfriends, now that I think about it. They all seem to have a boyish enthusiasm for life, but it’s really just masking an inability to actually grow up and get a proper job. It’s a pattern that I’ve identified and am determined to break. If I ever decide to give dating another go. Which, let’s face it, seems pretty doubtful.
“How are the two of you even related? You’re so different.” When I’d first met Robby, I’d thought that maybe this was an insult to Jake, that he was merely stuffy and boring, but once again, my terrible judgement had led me down the wrong path. Straight to the guy who’d ultimately be careless with my heart.
“I’m the older brother,” he shrugs. “My parents expected more from me. And they spoilt Robby. We all did.”
That had been very clear since the early days of our relationship. Robby was always a child in the body of a man. And treated as such by his family, who adored him.
“Well, good luck to him.” I run my hands over my satin-covered thighs, summoning the energy to get up off this marshmallow-soft couch and find my way home.
“What are you going to do about this?” He holds up the crumpled note, his eyebrows drawn down into a frown.
“Nothing. Robby’s had six months to contact me. That note is just part of some twisted game to him.”
He squashes the paper in his hand, flattening it like a pancake. “You just came here to tell him to get lost?”
There’s a hint of something in this question that I can’t quite place. It sounds like hope, but that makes no sense. Why would he want me to reject his brother?
“I actually came to kick his butt.” This earns me another lopsided smile and I look away. “But essentially, yes, I came to reject him. And I’m bummed to have missed the chance.”
“I’m more than happy to pass on the message,” he says, his voice serious and gravelly. Like he’d relish the chance to tell his brother that I was rejecting him. “He shouldn’t have done this to you. Any of it.”
I agree and am grateful he’s taking my side on this. Come to think of it, although our paths barely crossed during the months I was with Robby, he always managed to have my back. “I just feel sorry for his new girlfriend.”
Jake rolls his eyes. “Don’t. She knows exactly who he is, and she’s with him, anyway.”
My hackles rise, and I huff out a breath. “Do you think I should have seen Robby and known he’d hurt me? That I deserved what I got?”
The blood drains from his face. “Amelia, of course I don’t.” He sounds so sincere, so tortured I believe him. “I could have killed Robby for the way he treated you.”
These words echo between us, and the air fills with tension. Time to go, Amelia. You do not want to get caught up in any of the warm and fuzzy feelings this man evokes in you.
“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page. Your brother is the jerk in this story.” My words are snarky, but my tone is not. Jake doesn’t deserve my anger. He’s not the bad guy here. He never could be. He’s just not built that way.
“He is.”
Again, the complete sincerity in his voice has me longing to lay my head on his broad shoulder and have him tell me that everything is going to be OK. And this has me jumping to my feet.
Time to go, Amelia.
“I’d better go.” I smooth down the front of my dress and try to hike up the top at the same time. It’s been almost sixteen hours since I put it on this morning (or was that yesterday now?), and I’m dying to take it off.
“You have no shoes.”
We both look down at my bloodied toes.
“Excellent powers of observation.”
“You came here with no shoes on?”
I point to where I’d dropped my stunning, but torturous strappy heels by the door. “They hurt.”
He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes and I feel bad. The poor guy has to work tomorrow, and I’ve kept him up with my childish ranting and raving.
“I’m sorry to have woken you.” I say these words now, feeling terrible for not saying them sooner. “You’ve got work tomorrow, right?”
His lips twist into a smile. “It’s Monday tomorrow, Millie. Everyone has work.”
“Not me!” I point out. The hair salon where I work is closed on Sundays and Mondays and I can’t wait to spend the entirety of my day off tomorrow in bed, binge-watching Gilmore Girls to soothe my battered soul.
“That’s right, Mondays are a day off for you,” he says like a person who knows my schedule.
Strange.
“Yes,” I mutter, flustered, but unsure exactly why. “But I’d better let you get some sleep. You probably have a big court case or something tomorrow? A closing argument to the jury, perhaps?” When I’d learnt that Jake was a lawyer, I’d imagined his daily life to be like that of Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill or Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, filled with courtroom drama.
“I’m not a trial lawyer, Millie,” he reminds me, effectively crushing my fantasy. “I spend my days filing motions and negotiating across a boardroom table.”
Ooof. Maybe I was right? That sounds boring.
My thoughts must have flashed across my face because he gives me an amused look and ruffles my hair, like I’m a six-year-old child. “Too boring for you?” he teases. “Not as glamorous as, say, a drummer in a band?”
I laugh. “An under-study for a drummer in a band! You can’t get more glamorous than that.”
“You know how to pick the good ones.” This douses my merriment and has the pesky tears threatening to re-emerge. It’s definitely time to leave.
“I’ve got to go.” I half stumble away from him, seeing a flash of regret on his face before I turn away.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice urgent. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You’re fine,” I lie. “I just need to get home.”
“Let me drive you,” he offers, trying and failing to catch my gaze. “It’s too late to be calling an Uber.”
I limp to where my shoes are waiting for me. “It’s how I got here.”
“Well, I’m here now.” His words hit a spot in me, stopping my forward march to the front door. “Let me drive you home. It’s the least I can do…you know, to apologise for my brother.”
I look at him. He seems upset and genuinely remorseful—for what? The actions of his brother? Or his own words, which were like a knife to the gut?
I decide to accept his offer. It’s just one ride home after all, and then we won’t have a reason to see each other again.
Huh, a strangely sad thought.
“OK.”
“OK?” he repeats, like I’ve given him a gift instead of just accepting a ride home. “Wait here.”
I watch his long legs take him towards his bedroom and chastise myself silently. Get a grip, Amelia. This is Robby’s much older, more mature, out-of-your-league brOTHER. You can’t be having any feelings for him.
“Here.”
A soft-looking grey sweater is waved in front of my face and I take it before it drops on the floor.
“Put that on. It’s freezing outside.”
He doesn’t need to ask me twice. In addition to my frost-bitten toes, my arms are also covered in goosebumps and the cold is making my bones ache. I long for a hot bath and my softest, most comfortable pyjamas.
“Thanks.” I pull the sweatshirt over my head, laughing when it reaches the tops of my knees. At five-foot-four inches, I’m not miniature like my tiny friends Bella and Lilly; I never need to have the hem of my pants taken up. But wearing the clothes of the six-foot, three-inch giant next to me makes me feel like a kid wearing her mum’s clothes as dress-up.
“Better?” The throaty quality in Jake’s voice forces me to look up and then I immediately look down again. The heat in the way he’s watching me wearing his clothes must be something I’m conjuring up in my sleep-deprived, alcohol-ridden, desperately lonely state of mind.
“Much.”
We stand in silence; me looking at my feet, Jake looking at the top of my head, if the burning sensation in my skull is anything to go by.
“Then let’s get you home.”
I follow him to the front door, picking up my shoes as I go.
“You’re not putting them on?” He’s frowning at my shoes and then my bare feet, where they’re peeking out from under the hem of my dress.
“You could offer me a million dollars to put them on, and I’d still say no.”
He frowns some more. “You can’t walk outside without shoes.”
I stomp my foot. “I can and I will.”
We stare at each other. Another stand-off. Which is broken when Jake bends down and swings me up into his arms.
“Problem solved.” He cradles me against him and, without even a hitch in his breath to show that he’s carrying a whole other human being in his arms, he walks us out the front door.
What is happening? And why is there not one single thing in me that wants to make it stop?
“Um, Jake?” I tug on his sleeve to bring his attention down to me, regretting it immediately when I see his green eyes closer than they’ve ever been. “Whatcha doing?” My voice is breathless and I’m not the one exerting any energy. This is not good.
He stops and smiles down at me. “I’m taking you home, Millie. So just hang on and enjoy the ride.”
I do as he asks, guilt-ridden by the knowledge that I’m enjoying the ride just a little too much.
He’s your ex-boyfriend’s brother, I repeat in my mind in time with each footstep Jake takes. He’s off-limits.
He’s your ex-boyfriend’s brother.