Gentleman Nine(15)

Best,

Amber W.





CHAPTER FIVE




* * *



CHANNING




The Chicago trip was way more stressful than I thought it would be. I needed to check in on my mother and handle some other business, but the entire time, I couldn’t wait to get back to Amber’s place in Boston, back to Kitty and the calm.

I still couldn’t believe Amber had insisted on keeping the cat around. But the sneezing had stopped, so that was good. I didn’t think I could really keep Kitty if she was continuing to make Amber sick.

The sound of running water could be heard when I let myself in. Amber was taking a shower as she normally did in the evenings. I hadn’t told her exactly when I’d be returning, so I hoped I didn’t scare her when she came out of the bathroom.

Kitty started meowing right away as she purred along my legs.

Lifting her up, I kissed her softly on the head. “How’s my girl? You take good care of Amber?”

A throw blanket was strewn messily atop the couch, and Amber’s laptop was open on the coffee table. I was looking forward to catching up with my roomie, hearing about what she’d been up to this weekend. Even though we both worked a lot, it was always nice to chat with her at night before retreating to my room.

We would sometimes watch TV together or just talk about our days. Before this, it had been years since I’d had a roommate—not since college. I’d forgotten that living with someone could actually be enjoyable. Not to mention, Amber’s condo was a pretty damn sweet place to live. It was spacious with high ceilings and white crown moldings, details that only an older, historic property would have. It was the nicest place I’d ever lived and nothing like I’d expected.

I couldn’t wait to take a shower myself tonight. Since I had to wait for the bathroom, I decided to relax for a bit and surf the net. Plopping my ass down on the couch, I let out a deep sigh. Breathing in, I could smell the pumpkin-scented Yankee Candle that Amber had burning on the mantle. Damn, it was good to be back here.

Since Amber had left her laptop open, I figured I would use it instead of grabbing mine. Readying to log into my Facebook account, I noticed a website that was minimized. I probably shouldn’t have clicked on it to see what it was, but we won’t remind Kitty that curiosity killed the cat.

The website that met my eyes was definitely not something I was prepared to see. She’d left a chat window open. It was a message to someone.

With my heart pounding, I read it at least three times.

What. The. Fuck.

***

My mind was racing. In what world does Amber need to go to a male escort? Does she have any clue how dangerous that could be? She didn’t. Amber had always been a little too na?ve and trusting.

Frozen, I couldn’t get past the shock of this enough to figure out how to deal with it.

Was I supposed to just forget I saw this? Pretend like nothing happened when she came out of the bathroom?

The sound of the shower turning off started an internal timer in my head. There wasn’t much time to think about how to react. There was no way I could allow her to do something so reckless as to sleep with some guy who’d probably been with thousands of women. Coming from me, I know that thought was like the pot calling the kettle black, but I couldn’t guarantee that this person took the necessary precautions to avoid disease, not to mention her safety in a situation like this. She couldn’t trust what he said no matter what bullshit he was going to feed her.

Needing to buy myself more time, I made an impulsive decision. Deep down, I knew it was out of line, but that didn’t matter at the moment. Fuck that. All that mattered was looking out for her.

I hit the contact button. It required you to enter your email address to start a new message. Referring to my phone, I looked up Amber’s email, hoping it was the same one she’d just used. I entered it, pretending to be her and typed:



Sorry. I had too much to drink tonight. Disregard that last email, please. I’m no longer interested.



I saw that you could delete sent messages from within the chat box.

Good. This is good. I can work with this.

I deleted my message from the “Sent” tab so that she wouldn’t see it. I really hoped that tactic worked, preventing this guy from responding to her initial message. Then again, if she didn’t hear back, she might contact him again or contact another “gentleman.”

Shit. Think.

I had an idea of how to handle that but knew that I needed to get out of here to implement it. There was no way I could face her right now anyway. Making sure I left her computer open in the same spot in which I’d found it, I got up.

Taking my travel bag with me, I exited the condo and headed to the café down the street. She would never know I’d even come home in the first place.

Once at the café and seated at a table with my laptop, I decided to create a new email address under the guise of Gentleman Nine. Without overthinking it, I sent her a message.



Dear Amber,



Thank you for reaching out to me. I felt that your message warranted emailing you from this address so that you don’t have to log into the site to contact me moving forward. It’s easier to correspond back and forth this way. I can completely understand your wanting to get to know me first, and I think that’s wise. I’m here for you if you want to talk or anything else. Just let me know what questions you have.