21. Eric
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ERIC
Iwatch Amanda retreat with Cece, her eyes on mine until she can’t keep me in her line of sight.
The lack of her touch threatens to make me spiral with the thought that I just fucked up with her.
So long trying to cinch myself out of this fucking best friend label, and I go and say no.
I don’t want a spotlight, rushed kiss, though.
I lean back in my chair. Breathe. The heat of her palm in mine lingers, and I’m savoring it…
until I feel him. Daray steps into my periphery, a dash of nauseating yellow, like a blade being drawn.
He’s going for sharp lines and practiced confidence, but that ridiculous striped, gray suit and shirt make him look sick with some form of liver disease.
With a fire under his ass and without pretense of civility, he meets with gaze with defiance—already mid-argument.
I straighten up, and look around in search of Diego, Val, Matteo, or anybody. Not for backup, but a crowd will keep fists away. And with that fucking face, I’m not sure a punch or two are off the table this second.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he says before he even stops moving. His hand is on my chair, trying to cage me in. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Let’s not do this here.”
“No, let’s.” He steps in closer, the scent of cologne sharp and overdone. He’s vibrating under his skin, shaking with the effort of not cracking. It’s not grief or regret. It’s an ego injury. He thinks Amanda was his toy, and I played with it while it was his turn.
And it hits the part of me that’s tired of playing cool and collected. The part that wants to swing. That wants to take all the months of just letting him get ahead and shove it at him. Just once. Right in the center of his smug fucking face.
I don’t.
“I thought you were just sniffing around my girlfriend like a kicked fucking dog. But you fucked her. Knocked her up.”
I fist my hands inside my pocket, grabbing at the fabric. “Dude, you realize you were fucking someone else, right?”
Daray leans in so close his breath fogs on my cheek as his words land. “Play house all you want. Have her shoot out a kid or two.” He grins. “We both know how this ends.”
Something inside me tilts. I breathe through my nose, then answer. “Yeah. We do.”
I move, wrapping an arm around him, tight, sudden, pulling him in like we’re old friends. Let everyone in the room think this is a hug. Let him know it’s not.
“You set this up, Daray,” I murmur near his ear.
“You toasted to it. Said, in far too many words, that you were grateful Amanda and I fucked around.” I keep my voice low, just for him.
“That it led you to Cassie. Remember that?” He stiffens.
Good. “We’re grateful too.” I lean down on his ear.
“One thing led to another.” I let the implication sit, let him cling to the story he already wrote.
That the baby could be mine. “That baby means nothing to you. A game, maybe. But to me?” My voice becomes hoarse. “It’s everything.”
He jerks free, nearly stumbling before pride catches him.
Then he smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, nor hides intent. Those are wide and searching, already aiming for the softest part of me.
“You think you’re better than me?” He steps closer, shoulders tight.
If he swings, I’m swinging back. His face is flushed, his mouth twisted with spite.
“It fucking sucked,” he says, low and vicious.
“Being with her, while you were always there. You think I didn’t see how much she worried about you?
” He lets out a short, ugly chuckle, cruelty lighting his eyes.
“I couldn’t figure it out. Why you two weren’t together.
Then I did.” He smirks. “She has a thing for flaky men, doesn’t she?
” The air goes cold. My lungs lock. “She got with you. Then she came back to me. And showed me how it was always about me. First with her mouth.” He trails off, a sneer taking over.
“That thing she does with her tongue.” He grins, darts his tongue out, and makes a circle with its tip.
“I used to come so hard down her throat.”
I freeze. There’s no way he knows, no way Amanda would tell him.
“But after,” he continues, savoring it. “When she curled up against me, she talked about you.” My chest tightens.
“She told me why she wouldn’t be with you.
” His smile spreads, sharp and satisfied.
“Ever. Maybe she’ll play house, sure.” He lets the silence seep in the tension.
Then he shrugs, a small tilt of his head followed by an uneven smile—wide, sharp, sadistic.
“I know what you did, motherfucker,” he says quietly. “You and me? We’re not so different.”
Something tears in my gut, quiet and deep, because I know exactly what he’s talking about.
Amanda told him. She gave him a piece of us. Of me. Something private and painful. She’s refused to hash it out with me. But she told him, and now he’s wearing my hurt both as armor and weapon. With a fucking smirk.
I brace a hand on the back of the nearest chair to keep from swaying. I can’t even think of a comeback. Especially since he’s already left. His mission’s done; I’m unraveling.
The air feels thick, the way it does before lightning breaks.
I don’t even care that he knows. That’s a lie.
I actually really fucking hate that he knows.
But that’s not what guts me. It’s that she gave it to him—my worst moment, my shame—and she handed it over as a soothing balm for his ego.
It leaves me here, peeled open in the middle of a fucking wedding, with him grinning in victory.
And she did this. I’m going to be sick. Amanda can talk to him about that night? Turn it into a blade aimed at me? Then, she can damn well talk to me about it.
The bride is holding a piece of cake between her and Amanda when I find her in the ballroom.
Cece’s pointing at the white frosting until Amanda finally dips her finger in the cake, swirls it around the corner to catch one of the roses onto her finger pads, and brings it to her lips.
Her lip gloss has brushed off by now, so her mouth is a warm pink shade, lighter than her cheeks, but slightly darker when she presses her lips tightly around her index finger.
When Amanda opens her eyes, it’s me she sees, cheeks still hollowed out as she sucks the sweetness from her skin.
Normally, the sight would have made me forget my own name.
Now, I imagine her lips around Daray, as she brings him over an edge I’m unable to reach over and over again.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, in my mind, they laugh at me.
At how stupid and weak I was to sabotage the only relationship I ever cared about keeping.
For once, the thrumming in my veins isn’t shame, but anger.
Unedulcorated, raw, and corrosive anger.
Because I now know what it feels like for your person to betray you.
I may have felt abandoned by Amanda when she left, but I’ve never felt exposed or mocked by her.
I thread between tables, focused on her gaze, taking in the way her eyes glisten with heat, then confusion, the closer I get to her with my unhurried gait.
Amanda’s tracking my every move with that intense gaze of hers that’s made me feel like the center of her world.
Once I’m by her side, towering over her seated form, I look down to keep her gaze on mine.
Most people think she’s easy to read because she favors smiling.
She’s even smiling at me now, but her spine is straight in a tense line, and she’s digging half-moons on the fabric of her dress.
She buries every hurtful thing behind a neutral smile.
I’m one of those things, and I can read her trepidation, the same way she reads my clenched fists and jutted out jaw. Her gaze trails down my body, studying my set shoulders and rigid posture, and I wonder if she senses I’m holding myself together with rope and chalk.
When I say her name, it isn’t a greeting but an accusation. “I need us to talk, right now.”
Amanda picks the right time not to argue with me.
She shoots out to hold my hand, and I let go of her as soon as she’s on my heels.
Winding around the ballroom, once we’re almost clear, we get intercepted.
By the two worst possible people at the worst possible moment.
Because I’m spiraling so fucking hard right now.
Before I can turn around, Amanda molds her body to my side, clasping my hand tightly in hers. I stiffen for a second before I relax into her.
It’s been a long time since it was us against Keith and Robert.
If you take in the three of us like this, side by side, the similarities are hard to miss.
We have that same wavy, dark brown hair, mine longer, curling around my ears.
We share the same amber eyes, too. Except Amanda says mine turn gold in the right light.
My father’s are more like coal, hard and unforgiving.
“Hey, Eric.” Keith opens his mouth. “Can’t believe you’d crash my wedding and not say hello.”
Amanda rolls her eyes, and I squeeze her hand when she opens her mouth.
“I’m here for Amanda. I’m not here to ruin or stalk your day.”
“Eric.” Robert focuses on me, his estranged son, eyelids dropping to half-mast with every ounce of calculated dejection he can impose. “You weren’t meant to be here.”
I lick my lips, open my mouth—
“I brought him here.” Amanda steps forward, slightly in front of me. An edge to her words that tempers my anger at her.
Keith chuckles, and Robert’s gaze on Amanda gives me the chills.
“I thought I made it clear the Donato girl is out of your league.”
I press my lips together and take a step closer to my father, so no part of Amanda’s body is in front of me.
“You made it clear,” I hiss. “I should never let your words get to me again.”
“Child,” Robert dismisses. “Don’t tell lies. I barely said a thing. Whatever happened, it was your own weakness.” He turns to Amanda. “Let’s check on your manners, girl. Will you thank me for keeping this fool from following you to Italy a couple of years ago?”
Amanda’s head whips up to mine, eyes wide.
It’s what I never told her. I clench my jaw and her breath catches—because I’ve given away that there’s truth in what he’s saying.
And now, I wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be better if she thought I was an asshole than so weak I let my father’s words get the best of me.
“I felt obliged to step in, Amanda.” Keith nods in agreement with his father’s words. “I tried to, you know? So you wouldn’t get pulled back into his nonsense. It’s why I introduced you to Daray.” He hitches a shoulder and smirks.
Robert squints at Keith, and the latter’s smile vanishes, shoulders caving in and gaze flicking to his shoes. I won’t be able to think of Keith as a victim. Maybe I was always better off far away from my flesh and blood.
“Amanda, you have to remember that he”—he pulls out a pocket square and waves it at me—“is his mother’s son.
” He takes off his glasses and cleans them.
It feels as if he’s trying to wipe his role in giving me life.
“And people like them crumble.” His cold, judging eyes leave Amanda’s and zero in on me.
“He’s already proven to you he’ll fall apart at the slightest challenge, hasn’t he? ”
Robert takes a step forward, stretching his hand outward as if about to touch Amanda’s cheek. Before I can shift between them, Amanda slaps his hand away.
“You got it fucking wrong,” I snarl. “You’re proud you tore me apart? All that does is prove that you’re a shit father. And an even worse person.”
Robert keeps his eyebrows and mouth neutral, but a red tinge creeps up his collar. “Just remember, Amanda,” he says. “His mother never got it together for me. He won’t ever get it together for you.”
I can’t fucking argue with that, can I? A twisting knot wraps around my ribs until my lungs can’t expand with the air I’m breathing.
Heat rushes up the back of my neck, prickling along my scalp.
Until I become more than my failures, I’m the person Robert’s describing.
I try to untangle my hand from hers, but she holds me in place.
She wraps her other arm around my back so tight holding everything I’m feeling becomes easier.
She lifts her chin and locks eyes with my dad. “I don’t need him to get it together for me. I can do that just fine on my own.” Her heart hammers against my biceps. She turns to me then, because this is her declaration. “I just need him with me. Figuring shit out with me.”
I sag into her, just a bit, just so she feels the weight of what she’s just done.
Because in her words, something long-held gives way.
And even though I’m still angry at her, it’s not a loud, uncontrolled fire anymore but a low simmer.
Because there’s acceptance in Amanda’s gaze.
And without looking back at either of them, he threads our fingers together.
“We gotta go, Dad,” I infuse the last word with mockery. I’m already guiding Amanda away when I turn my head to say over my shoulder, “Amanda and I gotta talk about important shit.”
My hand shakes in hers, but neither of us lets go.