3. Eric
CHAPTER THREE
ERIC
“Amanda?” The question is obvious and unhelpful. Still, I leave space for her to take the lead.
She rises to her full height, bracing a hand against the wall for support. Her knees crack, and my stomach churns at the realization of how long she must have waited.
“Hey.” She sniffles, wiping her tear-streaked face. “I’m sorry to intrude like this.”
There’s heat creeping up her cheeks. Amanda is not as sorry as she is embarrassed.
“I—” She swallows audibly. “I need a place to… crash for the night.”
“How long have you been waiting for me?” I grab one of the bags and sling it over my shoulder. When I turn back to her, I look down to meet her gaze, since the top of her head comes just above my shoulders. “Why didn’t you use your key?”
“That’s not something I do.” She’s pressed her lips into a thin line before I’ve even finished the sentence, and it adds to the barely hidden defiance of her tone.
You know exactly why sits at the tip of her tongue.
My regret and shame echo her resignation and anger. “I’ll just go somewhere else. I—”
“Come on, Amanda.” If she’s unsure if she belongs here—always belongs here—that’s on me, too.
As soon as I unlock my apartment, I press my hand against the small of her back. Amanda makes a move to grab the other bags. With a tad more pressure, she relents, stepping fully into my apartment. I grab everything she’s left behind and, wishing it were this easy to carry her burdens, follow her.
Amanda walks past the entryway, looking briefly at the small kitchen on her right, until she stands in front of the living space.
Seeing her in my apartment—which she avoids like the plague, no matter how many times I move—fills the space and my chest with a sense of homeliness I’m too aware is missing.
As I set her bags down to the side, my jacket sleeve brushes past my face. An obtrusive and foreign perfume assaults me, floral and damning. My stomach drops. Amanda will smell it. She’ll know. And this distance between us will solidify even more.
I step around the L-shaped kitchen counter and drop my keys and wallet onto a dish, pulling off my jacket like it’s burning me.
With her back to me, studying the open-concept room, she zigzags between the barstools by the counter, around the dining table, and finally stands between the low coffee table and the large couch.
She doesn’t turn to face me, but rather examines the indigo cushions and armrest. Can she tell that nothing came with me from the apartment I had when my place was a second home to her?
This fucked-up synergy we share gets her to switch on the side lamp just as I turn down the hallway lights.
The softer yellow glow casts her silhouette against the balcony doors.
Her arms and legs look long and distorted on the full glass doors to the balcony.
My breath catches at the intimacy of the sight.
Before she chose him, I used to imagine the life that could have been ours. Shaking my head, I let go of it. Daydreaming helps nobody, and she needs my help.
She’s facing me now. “Thank you for having me.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, with vulnerability that isn’t ever there. Anyone less attuned to her would have missed it.
Before I can second-guess myself, I’m next to Amanda, hands on her shoulders, tracing small circles over her clothing.
When she stares down, silent tears fall on my forearms.
“Hey, hey.” My voice coaxes her to meet my gaze, even when I’m the one struggling to hold it. “Always. You’re always wanted wherever I am.”
Amanda’s breath shudders, her body tenses for the longest second, and as she exhales so slowly, I think she’ll change her mind, she presses her face against my chest.
She’s lowering the drawbridge to this impenetrable moat she built around herself to keep me at bay. As her defenses crumble, the space between us shrinks. It’s been so long since she’s truly let me in.
And that makes it all the more devastating when it goes to shit.
She breathes me in, and within a second, pushes out of my grasp. Her hands flat against my chest to break my hold on her. “I’m crying all over your shirt. Go get comfortable.”
Her attempt at humor falls flat. Amanda’s posture could fool anybody, but her voice and joke won’t fool me.
I shoot my fingers out to her so she’ll face me and yell, so that maybe I can whisper the truths between us.
With the smell of someone else on me, she withdraws in mind and body. The drawbridge is up again.
“Seriously, go,” she says, like it doesn’t hurt both of us. “I’ll reheat some of this food. I brought takeout.”
I want to bare my soul to her in murmurs and darkness, but I don’t say anything. Not when she’s pulling away from everything I want to dig up. Instead, my arm falls between us in surrender, and I nod, grabbing my tainted jacket so I can lock myself in the bathroom.
With my nerves still on edge, I step out of the bathroom and pad back to Amanda to find an array of Thai food and plates on the kitchen counter.
I inhale and close my eyes, reminding myself to give her as much rope as she needs, to let her lead the conversation so she remembers I can be a safe place for her.
If only I could stop making the wrong choices at the worst times.
“Food.” She tips her chin to the plates on the counter, her voice flat, distant.
Her gaze focuses on my cheeks rather than my eyes—I hate it. I sit on one of the barstools and flick my eyes to the empty one in silent invitation. We’re both walking on a tightrope, dangerously close to falling.
She adds, “It’s shit Daray likes.” She doesn’t say that I’ll hate it. She knows I don’t like this cuisine, though.
When her elbow bumps into mine as she sits next to me, the heartbreaking domestic ease thumps behind my ears.
Moving together with an unspoken rhythm, closeness that comes only from being utterly known by the person next to you.
The stool creaks under her weight as she settles.
I peruse the dishes of noodles and rice, but I don’t serve myself or her.
“Are you going to tell me what he did?” I ask, with as much steadiness as I can muster, but she’ll hear the edge.
She curls her fingers in her lap, and I purse my lips together until I touch them with the tip of my tongue.
“Fucking Thai,” I mutter, trying a different approach.
She waves her hand at a container of pad thai. “Just eat some, or you’ll get a headache. You still smell like you bathed in a distillery.”
I tip my neck left and right until my spine cracks. “That’s a no? You won’t tell me?” Tension ripples in my jaw as I pile some pad see ew onto her plate and serve her some panang curry—her favorite—but she doesn’t touch it.
“Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
Driblets of water trail down my neck and back, the fabric of my white cotton shirt clinging to my skin where the water touches.
“You want to stay without an explanation?” I shift her stool so she’s sideways, staring at me, and wince at the sound it makes against the floor.
“You’re welcome to, for however long. But if I leave my house in the morning and haven’t heard what happened, I’ll walk into that marketing office, Amanda, and I’ll get it out of him. ”
“Eric, don’t pull that alpha bullshit with me,” she clips. “It doesn’t suit you.”
I scoff. It’d suit me just fine if I didn’t tiptoe around her.
“Fine.” She goes to cross her arms, then drops them.
“Amanda.” I turn until our knees touch, and softly add, “I will follow your lead. Always.”
She knows I mean it—years of history between us prove it.
She edges closer, as if toying with the idea of letting me in, and then she straightens right back up.
“Eat a little first.” I take the lead, stuffing food into my mouth while throwing glances her way. She’s moving food around her plating, not eating. “Not hungry?”
“Not really.” She bites her lips, and her forearms prickle with goose bumps. She’s lying.
Amanda leans in and stretches her arm to cup my cheek.
I tilt my head to face her without resistance.
As she reaches for me with her other hand, there’s a slight tremble to it.
She swipes her thumb against the corner of my mouth, gathering the sauce.
She sucks her thumb before cradling my face again with both hands.
These forbidden touches. In the back of my mind, memories buzz with logical reminders of why we never allow them.
But tonight… Maybe, tonight, she’s allowed to have something.
“Amanda, will you tell me?”
Her eyes narrow at the corners, and their naturally vibrant green is dimmed in the low lighting. I never push her like this. Ever. But tonight, I won’t sleep until I know what has put tears in her eyes.
“You can’t lose your shit.”
“That bad, huh?”
She doesn’t nod, just holding my gaze, waiting for something I’m failing to give her. “I mean it,” she adds.
“We can wait if you’re tired.”
“You want to hear. Don’t backtrack,” she says, her tone tight.
“Alright.” I go back to eating, forcing down a bite. She’s still pushing food around, and her chin wrinkles. Finally, she drops her utensils and exhales.
I shift sideways on the stool, angling toward her. I let my eyes linger on Amanda, the profile of the curve of her nose, proud and elegant, the auburn sweep of her hair, and the glint of burgundy woven through it. How bad is it if she’s in my apartment?
“It’s going to be okay,” I say, watching her carefully. “You have a plan. You made it this afternoon. I’m sure it was a shock, but he’ll turn around. He’s just an idiot.”
He’s more than an idiot. He’s an ass. All wrong for her. He kisses her when I look, but doesn’t otherwise. I don’t look away, but I’ve never challenged him on it. Come morning, if her phone isn’t buzzing with nonstop apologies, I fucking will.
Her laugh startles me—sharp, bitter, wounded. Not hers.
She turns to me, resignation swirling in her eyes. Our knees touch, her warmth pressing against these sharper angles of mine, soft, where I’m all edges.