Chapter 68 #2
“Shhh,” he said, leaning forward, waving his hands up and down as if they might somehow magically lower the already spoken voice. “No, two times, same woman.” Beneath his skin, embers of a blush glowed.
Jodie sat back with a plonk and a twist to her face. “Oh my God, we need to get you laid.”
“And you, Georgie?” BJ turned to her, keen to remove the focus from his own dismal sex life.
“Oh, ah . . .” She looked upwards, recalling the numbers, smiled at one point as if one memory was a good one for her, and started counting softly. “Eight,” she announced, slurping loudly on the last of her drink.
And then all eyes turned to me. I blushed pink under their expectant gaze and I paused, I didn’t want to tell them. Not here, not with ears listening in.
“Well, spit it out, Aims,” Jodie said. I thought if I held my fingers up low perhaps Karson and Ethan wouldn’t know. I popped them out against my thigh.
“Two. That’s it?” Jodie said, eyes wide. “You’ve only slept with two men!”
I rushed to explain why. Why I needed to, I didn’t know, I guess, under the hot gaze of their mortification it was one of those many ‘speak first, think later’ moments.
“I need to be in—” in the nick of time I realised what was about to fly from my mouth, I stopped the words from forming, but if I thought I’d gotten away with it, I hadn’t.
“Oh no,” Jodie said with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “You’re in love with him and, like a dick, he ignores you. Right, Amy, I’m definitely getting you laid tonight whether you like it or not. Just shag Ethan, you live with him, he’s hot, he likes you. Easy, no strings, sex.”
“For Goodness sakes, if you go anywhere near that, wear protection. God knows what could crawl into your pearly gates from his dick,” Georgie said as another tray of drinks hit our table.
“Georgie.” I gave a short, horrified laugh, covering my face with my hands. “Please stop.”
“I saw a girl the other day, it looked like she had large patch of cauliflowers growing from her forest, it was not pretty.”
“I like cauliflowers,” Darcy said, oblivious to her metaphor. He said it just as I was taking a sip from my drink, liquid sprayed in an uncouth manner from my mouth and all over the table.
We all laughed so hard we cried.
“Not those kinds of cauliflowers,” BJ explained, with a big kind grin.
“Oh, you’re talking about Human Papillomavirus, aren’t you? Yes, that’s nasty, why didn’t you just say that. I guess I can see how you’d think, when left without treatment, they look like cauliflowers. It can cause cervical cancer. In fact, cervical cancers are not found in the absence o—”
“That’s okay Darcy, we get it,” BJ interrupted him.
I glanced at Darcy. As much as he was socially mildly inappropriate at times he was endearing, inadvertently funny, and I held a genuine affection for him.
Ethan slid in beside me. I shuffled over.
Everyone fell into an awkward silence, the kind of silence that only happens when the person you were talking about suddenly appears.
“What are we talking about?” He smiled across at the group. I shot a sharp foot into his calf.
Jodie was the first to recover, she smiled. “Oh, nothing much, thanks for the drinks.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He gave her a dazzling smile. I rolled my eyes.
“Hot doctor alert,” Georgie spoke in excited hushed tones, “and your one-night stand has just arrived, Aims.”
I followed her gaze. My heart plummeted, as it did I felt the blood pull from my face as if someone was below me suctioning it away. My heart recovered and began to race sporadically in my chest.
This can’t be happening.
Standing inside the door, chatting, was the one person I thought I might never see again—Tom.
I hadn’t even realized I’d stood. As if a spirit had called his name his eyes caught mine. He excused himself and headed straight toward me.
Two questions raced through my head simultaneously, what the hell was he doing in Church Heights?
And how fast could I run? But, like a deer caught in headlights waiting for the car to hit, knowing its inevitable impact would cause catastrophic damage, I stood immobile as he strode confidently toward me.
Georgie didn't notice my dismay. “Tom, come meet Amy,” she called out across the room.
Her words drove like a stake into my already panicked heart. Ethan was more astute than Georgie. His eyes narrowed, skating from me, to Tom, and back again.
“Amy, it's good to see you.” Tom's tone was smooth—too smooth, as if he wasn’t at all surprised to see me. No, he’d expected to see me, he’d come prepared.
“Tom.” My voice, when it came out, was much weaker than my abrupt response intended.
“Wait . . . you two know each other?” Georgie asked, looking back and forth between us, confusion spread neatly on her pretty features. Then the light bulb went on. She closed her eyes for a second. “Oh.”
At that point I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole, anything to remove myself from the intensity of his hazel eyes. Despite everything he’d done he still had the ability to unravel my senses. My brain whirled in a mixture of mayhem, dismay, and pain.
“Can we talk, somewhere private?” Tom asked, his eyes finally revealing the first signs of distress as they reached into mine.
“I have nothing to say.” I had intended a sharp response, but the sound was hollow in my own ears. Perhaps the blood swirling in my head had dulled my hearing, at least I hoped it had.
“Amy, please.”
“I think she said no,” Ethan said. He stood up beside me, his look was as cold as ice.
“I didn't ask you,” Tom replied, not taking his eyes from me. Beautiful, hazel eyes, desperate eyes, pleading with me.
I felt tears building. I was too hot. Too weak, my legs shook.
Ethan's lips thinned. “And yet, asshole, it appears I answered.”
Tom wasn’t a fighter. He was far to calm and practical for physical violence, but he wasn’t a push over either.
I didn’t want to talk. I couldn’t face this.
I couldn’t do this, not now. I wasn’t strong enough.
Tom had broken my heart to pieces, and I’d stitched myself back together again.
Now I felt like I was about to unravel, pool on the floor like a strip of torn fabric.
“Please,” Tom whispered.
All eyes were on us. Sympathy and awkward, concern on their faces.
I drew in a hot breath. “Fine,” I snapped. I moved through the crowd, dazed, my stomach churning.
I walked into the bitter mountain air. I didn’t need to turn back to know Tom trailed behind, I could hear his footsteps, which, somehow, seemed extra loud compared to the light steps of Ethan and Karson.
I continued down the street under the moody glow of the street-lamps.
When we were suitably away from prying ears.
I whirled back. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
Any trace of his prior cool composure was gone, replaced instead by guilt.
“I’ve been searching everywhere for you. Your father slammed the door in my face, your friends didn't know where you went. I couldn't find you anywhere. I checked the hospital database every night and finally your name came up.”
“The fire,” I said, more to myself than him.
“Amy.” His voice wavered and his eyes burned with desperation. “I made the biggest mistake of my life, but you have to know I love you with all my heart. Can you ever—will you forgive me?” He grabbed my hand with a gentle, soft grip.
I yanked away. Pent up hurt bubbled into rage and spilt out in a loud, angry pitch.
“A mistake is forgetting to take out the garbage, or not remembering I don’t like seafood and ordering oysters for dinner.
You slept with my best friend! That's not a mistake, Tom, it's a decision. A really, really fucking crappy one.” I drew in a shuddering breath, I was dismayed by the sob that choked my words as I whispered, “And you broke me.”
A couple walking down the street hand in hand turned to stare.
“I know, Amy, I know,” he said faintly. The shine of the moon caught tears in his eyes.
My heart tightened. A lump rose in my throat, I gulped hard to keep it down. After everything he’d done, somehow, stupidly, I felt empathy for him. Not just empathy. Love. I still loved him.
“My best friend, Tom!”
Pain shadowed his face and he rasped, “I know.”
I shifted my gaze to focus on faraway, mountains. The clouds broiled above. The tops of the trees waved around under the force of a northern breeze like an ocean wave. Pins pricked my eyes. My vision blurred.
“Why? Didn’t you love me?” I whispered.
A muscle of his jaw tightened. “Of course I loved you. I still love you. It was a stupid, stupid mistake.”
Everyone left me, one way or the other. But Tom, I’d thought he was my rock.
I allowed him in, like I’d never let anyone in before.
I gave him all of me, loved every part of him.
Grumpy Tom, tired Tom, workaholic Tom. I would have done anything for him.
I never saw his betrayal coming, and that night I caught him with Kelly, something inside me shifted, shattered like an earthquake had ruptured the last solid part of me remaining, and I know I will never be the same again.
“I never thought you,” I rasped, a single tear sliding down my cheek. “You of all people, would hurt me.”
He winced as if I’d physically slapped him. He stared at me, wordless, pained. His face looked as broken as I felt. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. If you give me one more chance I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Emotions swirled through me like a storm. Hurt, betrayal, confusion, love.
After a long beat he stepped forward. “I came to get you back. I thought if I signed up for a stint here you could see how much you mean to me and how sorry I am.”
If I meant that much, he never would’ve cheated in the first place, but I didn’t say it, instead I asked a question I didn’t want to hear the answer to, but I needed to know. “How long was the affair going on?”