Chapter 32 #2
Glad. That was how he felt. Glad and more settled, like she was supposed to be here, and now that she was back, at least one piece of the puzzle had been slotted back into its space.
She belonged here, as much as he and Zach did, even if it had taken everything falling apart for him to realize that.
“Come on in,” he said, opening the door wider and stepping back. “I’m glad you came back.”
She walked in but came to a halt when she saw Mitch getting up from the couch. “Oh… I thought…”
“You thought…” Kincaid put his hand on her back to keep her from turning and running out the door, subtly pressuring her to keep moving inside.
“I thought Mitch was Zach for a moment.” She sighed. “I’d hoped he’d come back, too.”
“Not yet.” Kincaid still had no idea where Zach was. Not much he could do about that, though. Would he be back? Would things change? He didn’t know.
“I’m going to get out of here,” Mitch said grinning, moving quickly enough that Amy couldn’t protest.
Kincaid wasn’t going to try to. As glad as he was that Mitch had been there to help him through the day, what he needed to talk to Amy about was better done alone.
“Take care of him, Amy. He needs it, even though he won’t admit it.”
Kincaid scowled at his friend’s back as he practically ran out the door.
“Ignore him, I’m fine.”
“Are you? Because I’m not. And I wouldn’t be fine if I was in your shoes.” Amy sagged a little, avoiding his gaze.
“Fine might be the wrong word, but I’ll live.
Your coming back helps. I’m sorry Zach and I basically chased you away.
” He sighed as he escorted her into the living room so she could take Mitch’s seat on the couch, and he sat down beside her.
They weren’t cuddling exactly, just sitting very close together.
Amy’s hands came together in her lap, her fingers fiddling with each other.
“You didn’t chase me away. I left because I figured I’d already done enough damage, and I wanted to give you guys the privacy to talk to each other. I didn’t realize Zach was going to leave, too, or I might have tried to stay.”
“Hey.” Kincaid reached over, putting his hand over her fidgeting ones. “Amy, look at me. You did not do any damage. Zach shouldn’t have put you in the position of pretending to be his girlfriend to his parents.”
“No, but I also didn’t have to scream at him in the street afterward. You shouldn’t have found out about it the way you did.”
“I don’t think there was a good way to find out about it,” Kincaid said ruefully, giving her hands a squeeze.
With another sigh, she leaned to the side, resting her head against his shoulder like she needed something to lean on.
Being the thing she was leaning on helped him feel a little better.
A little more like himself. “Even if he’d told me calmly, I would have been righteously pissed.
But I know I’m being hard on him. He’s caught in the middle, and while I have a right to my feelings, it’s been a struggle to understand his, and that doesn’t make things easier for any of us. ”
“I think he does want to tell his parents; he’s just scared.”
“I know.” He didn’t really understand why Zach was willing to go to the lengths that he was to avoid telling them for so long; it seemed like it just made everything harder.
But, as Mitch had said, he and Zach were different people.
They were going to act differently. Feel things differently.
He either needed to accept that or get out of the situation.
And he wasn’t ready to lose Zach.
As much as he needed to talk to Zach about that, he needed to talk to Amy, too. He needed her to know that it wasn’t her fault. It didn’t surprise him that she’d blamed herself. That was who she was.
“I think one of the hardest parts for me was realizing that I wanted to talk to you and Zach about us bringing our relationship out of the club and seeing if it would work at home, too, but then becoming scared that he would use that as a reason not to tell his parents about me.” He couldn’t tell what Amy’s reaction was to all of this since she was still leaning against his shoulder, but he kept going.
“That he would only tell them about you, and I would just always be… there. The housemate. An unacknowledged third wheel.”
Amy sat up and looked at him, their hands still clasped on her lap. She looked utterly bewildered.
“You want me? With you and Zach?” Not just incredulous; there was hopefulness there, too. Some of the incredibility seemed as though it was coming from the idea that her hope was being realized.
He’d been pretty sure that both she and Zach would be interested in moving their relationship to the next level unless he’d been reading them both completely wrong, but it was still nice to get the confirmation that he was right.
“Yes.” He’d meant to have this conversation with Zach here, too, but he might as well be honest. “You feel like you belong. Like you fit with us. I think I’ve been falling for you from the moment you moved in with us, even though I didn’t know it at the time.”
Amy stared at him for a long, long moment.
Then she suddenly leaned forward, reaching for him, and he reached for her, pulling her onto his lap as their lips came together in a heated kiss.