Chapter Nine Amanda
Chapter Nine
Amanda
M y parents are geologists,” Stone said from across the table at Crazy Cool Cow, the local ice cream shop where Amanda had decided to meet her next date. “So, that’s my end goal, too. I’m working on my graduate degree now.”
She’d planned the date for lunchtime because she had Tanner’s birthday party after, and that was the perfect excuse to have a built-in end time. Out of the dates she’d agreed to, Stone had been Rosie’s pick and not even close to top of the list for Amanda. But Rosie had insisted that she just give someone a bit younger a try—and the fact that he looked like he stepped out of GQ magazine probably helped, too.
“Oh, so that’s why you’re named Stone?” Amanda asked, scooping a spoonful of cookie-dough ice cream from her bowl into her mouth.
“What?” He looked puzzled by her question. “What do you mean?”
Amanda swallowed the icy-cold bite. “Oh, uh, never mind.”
“What about you? What do you do?” he asked, filling his spoon with the rocky road that was in his bowl. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Wait, let me guess. I’m really good at this. I bet you’re in healthcare. Nurse?”
She frowned. “Uh… good guess, but no.”
It was not a good guess, and she had no idea why he’d even ask her that question when her dating profile clearly said she was an interior designer.
“Shit.” He sat back and returned to eating his ice cream. “Okay, so what do you do?”
“I work in interior design. I’m actually working on a project right now—a hall bathroom and living room remodel.” Amanda cleared her throat and smiled a little. Talking about work was exciting, and she couldn’t help but feel really proud of the project she’d just taken on—even though she was still absolutely terrified of what Clayton would say when he found out. “I just delivered the design to the homeowner this morning, and she basically said yes without even looking it over.”
“Wow,” Stone commented. “She must trust your vision.”
Amanda nodded. “It would seem so. I love what I do. Taking a space that is either damaged or struggling for some identity and bringing it to life feels really meaningful to me.”
Stone smirked like she’d just said something funny. “You talk about it like it’s some sort of spiritual experience, but we’re talking about just adding, like, new furniture and paint, right?”
Okay, Stone was not getting a second date. “That’s part of it—new furniture, sometimes a paint job, or a mural, or wallpaper. But it’s not that simple. It’s about creating an atmosphere, an environment that the homeowner feels themselves in. It is putting your stamp on something and creating a home for yourself or the client.”
He just shrugged and scooped up the remaining bite of his ice cream. “I’ve lived in my town house for three years now and still haven’t even bothered hanging up anything on the walls. It feels homey just fine to me. I never really understood paying for someone to do that kind of thing for you. Seems like a waste of money, you know? But I guess that’s the whole point of the racket, right? Just rake in other people’s cash for things they could easily do themselves.”
“No, I don’t know any of that.” Amanda felt herself bristling. “Because design is literally my career. It said it on my dating profile, and you couldn’t even be bothered to remember, and now you’re insulting me about it. It’s not a cash grab, and I am not some hustler out there just taking advantage of people. It’s art, and some people actually really care about that in their lives and in their spaces.”
Stone’s eyes widened and he put his hands up defensively. “Jesus, calm down, lady. You’re really overreacting. It’s just my opinion. I’m allowed to have opinions.”
“You’re not allowed to just voice those opinions however you want without any regard to the people around you, asshole,” Amanda replied, now standing and picking up her purse from where it was hung over the back of her chair. “And do not ever tell a woman to calm down.”
With that, she turned on her heels away from him and walked over to the trash can to deposit her empty ice cream container. She could hear him sputtering and huffing from the table behind her but didn’t bother to give him a second glance as she walked out the front door of Crazy Cool Cow.
“Hey, watch out!” a man said as she stormed out of the shop and directly into his chest. He reached out and grabbed her arms to steady her as she nearly fell over, and Amanda looked up to realize that it was Dominic.
She was near tears at this point, and for some reason, seeing him was bringing them right to the surface faster than she could stuff them down. “Dominic? What are you doing here?”
His expression was full of alarm. “I had to grab a few things from the hardware store. Jack’s been helping me on the dock and is holding some extra wood for me.”
“Oh.” Amanda just nodded her head and looked away as she tried to still her racing thoughts. “Right. Of course. Thanks for still working on that.”
“Amanda, you look really upset. Are you okay?” His voice was a little softer now, and he stepped in closer to her, leaning down to catch her gaze. “What happened?”
“I, uh, I just had my date.” She pointed behind her to the ice cream parlor. “I really want to leave right now, though. I don’t want to be here when he comes out.”
“Come on.” Dominic circled his arm around Amanda’s waist and led her down the sidewalk quickly, and she felt a level of protectiveness that she hadn’t known she’d like this much.
But there was something about this moment that felt like she was being held—not just physically, though she was, but emotionally. She spent so much of her life living like an island, and it wasn’t often that she let people see her vulnerability unless it was Nola and Rosie. Letting Dominic see it, however, felt different.
And she found herself leaning into his side even more.
When they reached the hardware store, he motioned for her to sit on the bench out front and then took the seat next to her. She leaned against his shoulder, her head resting on him quietly for a few minutes, and neither of them spoke.
Finally, he broke the silence. “Amanda, did he hurt you?”
She heard an undertone of fear and horror in his voice, and her heart squeezed as she realized that he genuinely did care about her. She wasn’t sure what that meant or how, but it still filled her with a rush of warm, cozy feelings. This was not how she expected things to go with her new neighbor, but something was definitely happening between them that she didn’t want to push away from. And she was usually the queen of pushing away from emotions.
“No,” she assured him, lifting her head up. “He was just… he was mean.”
“He was mean?” Dominic lifted his brows. “What did he say? Want me to go talk to him? I’ll set him straight right now.”
Amanda let out a mostly deflated laugh. “No. Don’t. I just want to pretend that he doesn’t exist.”
He shrugged. “Okay, but if you change your mind…”
“He made fun of my job,” she replied, then felt the heat beginning to rush to her cheeks. “I know that sounds stupid. Petty, really. Like, okay, it’s just a job. I don’t know why it really triggered me. He just acted like design work is pointless and a waste of money.”
“That’s fucking rude,” Dominic replied. “What an absolute asshole.”
His validation made her feel an iota better. “It is rude, right? Like, who tells someone that about their job?”
“Someone who is clearly insecure about their own lack of direction. I bet he didn’t even have a job.” Dominic leaned back and let his hands rest on his knees. “You don’t need his opinion about your life. Your design work is important, whether he understands it or not.”
“If I told this story to Nola, she’d tell me to talk to a therapist about why he triggered me so much,” she commented with a sigh. “She’s always trying to push me into talking about my feelings more. This whole dating process is so much work. It seems like ninety percent of it is just opening yourself up to getting hurt.”
If she were being honest, she was pretty sure the trigger that Stone had hit was around the concept of her feeling a lack of worth, not necessarily in what she did, but in who she was. It was a concept she struggled with a lot—the things she wanted out of life didn’t follow the normal path of society or womanhood. Because of that, it often made her feel superfluous or… pointless. Like she wasn’t as important to the world as the mothers and wives and people who were following the standard life path expected of them.
“I’ve been in therapy for a year now,” Dominic said like it was no big deal.
“You have?” she asked, then laughed. “Well, damn. Nola would love you, then.”
He shrugged. “It’s hard work, and I see the guy virtually now once a week. But it helped a lot with all the changes I’ve been going through. It definitely has opened me up more—for better or worse. Hell, my theory is that either you go to therapy, or you’re the reason someone else goes, and I was tired of being the reason other people went.”
“That’s actually pretty admirable,” Amanda admitted. “I don’t think I know another man who goes to therapy.”
“I did couples therapy with Melinda for about a year before the injury,” he admitted, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “But I definitely wasn’t ready for it back then. I just kind of sat there, numb to everything. You have to go when you’re ready.”
“How did you know you’re ready now?” She was genuinely curious because hearing he was in therapy only made him feel like a safer person in her eyes. Plus, she appreciated that he had tried to put in the work in his marriage before they’d split. “Aside from the injury, I mean.”
“It was mandated at first by the coach,” he replied. “Then when I was let go, I kept going. I don’t know why it was the right time, but I was just suddenly more open to it than I had been before. Maybe because I had to be, you know?”
She nodded because that part, she definitely understood. Some of the times she recognized that she’d changed the most were moments where she’d had no other choice but to.
“My mother is actually going to school now to become a counselor,” he continued. “But when I was growing up, therapy wasn’t really spoken about. Mental health in general wasn’t. She’s really changed her tune since then, but I guess some of that is still hardwired in me. The stigma piece, you know?”
She nodded because the stigma around mental health was absolutely real, even in a world that claimed to be more progressive and supportive about it. “I get that. I think I feel some of that, too. Maybe why I haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet.”
He didn’t respond, but his silence felt overwhelmingly nonjudgmental. They sat there for a few minutes longer as she regained her bearings emotionally.
“Since we’re already together, do you want to just head to Tanner and Nola’s now?” she asked him finally. “For the barbecue? I got Tanner a bottle of whiskey and put both our names on it for his birthday.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “Let me stop in the hardware store for a second and then I can drive us there.”
She waited on the bench a few more minutes as he went inside and picked up his purchases, which Jack then came out and helped him load into the trunk of his car. She had walked from her cottage to Main Street for the date earlier, so it worked out that Dominic had his car and could drive them. Nola lived out a little farther on the lake in an old, beautifully restored house called the Castle that her paternal grandmother had once owned. She’d hired Amanda off the books for the design work—a fact she was never going to admit to Clayton—and Tanner had done most of the construction work himself.
When Dominic pulled his car into the driveway of the Castle twenty minutes later, he let out a low whistle. “Wow. This place is incredible.”
“Right?” she agreed. “I could never live in a place this big, but it works for them. It was her grandmother’s house on the other side of her family—Nola and I are cousins, but on our moms’ side. I helped do some of the design for the restoration.”
“I can’t wait to see the inside, then,” Dominic said as he stepped out of the driver’s side of the car.
She swallowed hard, touched by the fact that he cared. “Thanks.”
When she opened the front door to the Castle—because family never needs to knock—the boisterous noise of children and guests hit her immediately like a sound cloud. She ushered Dominic in farther until they got to the back room, which was an open living, dining, and kitchen space that had glass French doors leading to the back porch overlooking the lake. Tanner and Evan were out on the porch standing around the grill with several other men, putting spareribs on the fire, while Rosie and Nola were sitting at the kitchen island having a glass of wine together. Children were running around playing a game of tag or something equally raucous, and Amanda had to step around at least three tantrums before she got to her friends, who were clearly hiding out in the kitchen from the rest of the partygoers.
“Nola, Rosie, you remember my neighbor, Dominic?” Amanda introduced him to the two women. “Dominic, these are the girls.”
They both shot Amanda a grin that clearly had some sort of undertone to it.
“Welcome, Dominic! The men are outside trying to figure the grill out if you want to join them. There’s a cooler out there with beers in it, too. Help yourself,” Nola said, reaching a hand out to him.
He shook her hand, then Rosie’s. “Nice to see you ladies again. This house is absolutely gorgeous, Nola. The design work in this kitchen is impeccable, and I’m so impressed by this view.”
“It’s my favorite thing in the world,” Nola agreed. “Amanda did amazing work in here, too. Come on. Let me take you out to meet Tanner and Evan. Thomas and Marvel will be here soon, and we’re expecting a few other locals aside from the people already here. Most of the crowd in the living room are people from Tanner’s job and their wives and kids, so I don’t know all of their names but can try to introduce you.”
Nola walked off with Dominic, and Amanda took her spot at the island next to Rosie.
“Soooooo,” Rosie began in a singsong lilt and wiggled her brows at Amanda as she poured her a glass of wine. “Is this a date? You’re really knocking these out of the park for your summer of romance, aren’t you?”
Amanda took the glass but shook her head. “No, this is actually the after-party from a date.”
“What?” Rosie seemed confused.
“I went out with one of the guys on the app—the guy you picked, actually—and he was such an asshole. I swear to God, I might never date again after that experience.”
Rosie cringed. “I’m sorry. I should have read the profile a bit closer. I think I got distracted by the abs.”
Amanda laughed and then took a sip of her wine. “Well, I didn’t see the abs. But he did show his ass.”
“Screw him, then.” Rosie waved her hand. “We knew going into this that there might be a few turds in the bucket. Stone was a turd. Who’s the next date with?”
Amanda pulled her phone out of her bag and clicked on the app, scrolling until she found the person she’d planned her next first date with for next Friday. “A guy named Maxwell. My hopes aren’t very high with him either, though.”
“There is always another option, you know,” Rosie said, tipping her chin toward where Dominic was standing outside with Nola, shaking Tanner’s hand as she introduced them to one another. “You could just date your neighbor.”
“Absolutely not,” she replied instantly, even though the words felt like sawdust on her tongue. She cleared her throat. “I mean, that would be a terrible idea. We are neighbors . If things go badly, I still have to live next to him. And I’d have to look at him.”
“What do you mean look at him ?” Rosie eyed her over the rim of her wineglass before taking a large gulp. “You make it sound like a chore. He’s hot as hell.”
“Exactly,” Amanda confirmed. “It would never work.”
Rosie put her glass down on the countertop. “Amanda, you are gorgeous. Don’t sit here and tell me that you don’t know that because I will not stand for my best friend thinking that she is anything less than absolute perfection. He would be lucky to even be considered remotely in or near your league.”
Amanda laughed, and she could feel the heat in her cheeks again. It wasn’t that she didn’t think she was attractive. She knew she had good physical qualities to her. She was the girl-next-door, low-key type of vibe, and the feedback she’d gotten was that it was definitely physically appealing to men, even if she wasn’t being picked for prom queen like Nola had been or dating rock stars like Rosie had.
“I’m not saying that,” she tried to clarify, though her words were getting a bit jumbled, even inside her own head. “I’m just saying, it’s probably not a match. A guy like that? He probably just wants to have sex all day every day.”
Rosie laughed. “And that’s a problem because…”
“Someone like that wouldn’t be happy with someone like me,” she finally said, her voice a little quieter now. She took a larger gulp of her wine now and looked away, unable to make eye contact right then and there. This wasn’t a part of herself that she’d been very open with her friends about, and they had never really pried into why she wasn’t a very sexual being.
One conversation about therapy with Dominic and she was somehow already being more vulnerable than she’d ever been with her best friend.
“What are you talking about?” Rosie leaned forward and put a hand on Amanda’s knee. “Amanda, any guy would be damn lucky to be with you exactly as you are. No strings attached.”
She sighed heavily, feeling the weight of her shame on her shoulders again. “What if that string is a complete lack of interest in the bedroom?”
“What if it is?” Rosie shrugged her shoulders. “After giving birth to James, I wanted nothing to do with sex for what felt like forever. Poor Evan, but he never complained once. He just took care of himself, and I’d send him the occasional sexy picture every once in a while, when I felt guilty about it. With breastfeeding and hormones and all that shit, my sex drive was nonexistent.”
“Okay, but you had a baby,” Amanda countered. “That’s normal and understandable. Nothing you should feel guilty about. What excuse do I have?”
“You don’t need an excuse, Amanda,” Rosie replied and then huffed. “Man, I’m so fucking tired of society telling women that we have to be these specific sexual beings. Sometimes we’re just not. Sometimes we’re just tired. Or not interested. Or don’t feel sexy. And that doesn’t mean you can’t have a healthy, normal relationship.”
Amanda wanted to believe Rosie, but everything she’d ever seen among her friends or in the media was that sex sells. Sex was a strong motivator, and a relationship without sex, or with minimal sex, meant it was a dead relationship.
“I can tell by your expression that you are discounting what I’m saying right now,” Rosie continued. “But really think about it for a second. If sex was the end-all-be-all for relationships, then anyone with a disability, or an injury, or lack of time or opportunity, or little kids running around, or a million other reasons would be doomed to a life without love. And that’s just not the case. People find love in all kinds of ways, and as long as those two people are on board with things being the way they are, that’s all that matters.”
“But that’s the problem—finding someone who would be on board with who I am.” Amanda finished the last gulp of her wine and placed it down on the counter. “Jesus, this is such a depressing topic for a birthday party.”
“Seriously. We need to break out the sheet cake now,” Rosie agreed. “But I refuse to believe that there isn’t someone out there who is capable of loving you for you, Amanda. There’s no one more deserving of that than you. Maybe it’s not Dominic or Stone or whoever the next guy is, but he’s out there somewhere. Or her. I’m still rooting to have a lesbian friend.”
Amanda laughed and shook her head, but she did feel the smallest bit of hope bubbling up in her chest at the possibility of someone being out there for her. She looked out to where Dominic was now standing over the grill, helping the other men.
Nola made her way back in toward them as Rosie opened up the next bottle of wine.
“They hit it off like wildfire,” Nola said as she pulled up a chair and joined them at the counter. “Evan already asked for Dominic’s signature and wants you to bring him a marker, Rosie. He says Dominic can sign his arm.”
Rosie rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.
Nola frowned, glancing between the two women. “Why do you guys look so weird? What did I miss?”
“Amanda’s having an existential crisis,” Rosie replied, topping off Amanda’s glass with a second pour of wine from the bottle she’d just opened. “And I’m telling her she’s crazy and deserves the world.”
“Amen,” Nola agreed, lifting her glass to them both. “Cheers to that.”
The three women laughed and clinked glasses, and Amanda did her best to try not to just spend the rest of the party watching Dominic interact with her friends and imagine what it would be like if he was a part of their group more often.