Gentleman Nine(3)

Her mouth was agape. “Holy crap. You look at this guy like your brother? How is that even possible? Jesus Hector Christ…he’s super hot.”

“Hector?”

“Well, they say Jesus H. Christ. I figured the H stands for something. Anyway…yeah…this guy is really good-looking.”

“Oh, I know. Believe me.”

“If I wasn’t married, I’d probably be hanging out at your place all of the damn time. Still might be. Tell me again why you look at him like a brother?”

“We have a long history.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Channing is my best friend, Lainey’s, older brother. I first met him through her. She…” I hesitated. It was always hard to say it out loud. It didn’t matter how many years had passed. “She died…in an accident…when she and I were fourteen. Channing was about sixteen at the time.”

Annabelle looked like she regretted asking. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. That’s devastating. I didn’t know.”

“It was a very hard time for all of us. He was never able to talk about her death. But even so, her passing sort of bonded us pretty fast. He and I really only became friends after that. That was how I met Rory, who was Channing’s good friend at the time.”

“You probably remind Channing of his sister, or at least what life was like before she passed away. He must have taken comfort in having you around.”

“That might have been part of our connection, yes. He, Rory, and I hung out a lot after Lainey’s accident. Being in Lainey’s house with all of her things comforted me. They don’t have a big family. It was just their mom and them. Now, it’s just Mrs. Lord and Channing. Their dad was never in the picture.”

“So, Channing was the man of the house.”

“Yes, and he took Lainey’s death very hard. So did I. She was like a sister to me. But no one took it harder than Channing.”

“So, you said you met Rory through Channing…”

“Yes. We were like the Three Musketeers for a while.”

“You and two guys? That sounds kind of interesting.”

“I knew you were thinking along those lines, but no, it was platonic, even with Rory up until a certain point. When Channing went out of state to college for a year, that’s when things changed. Rory and I got closer and eventually became a couple. I’d never really viewed Rory in that way—romantically. He’d always seemed kind of nerdy to me, actually. I’d always been much more physically attracted to Channing. But Rory grew on me. With Channing gone, we got closer. I eventually fell in love with Rory. I trusted him. And basically, that ended up biting me in the ass years later, as you know.”

“How did Channing feel about you and Rory getting together?”

“I don’t think it bothered him, although he did seem to distance himself from us after he came back from college to find that we were together. Channing had only been gone a year, then transferred back home to go to state school. We all ended up at the same college, at one point. I was a freshman when Rory and Channing were sophomores. Naturally, Channing quickly became a hot commodity on campus. He was with a different girl every week.

“So, he’s a playboy, then…”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame him with looks like that, but eventually that’s got to get tiring. How old is he?”

“Well, I’m twenty-five…” I closed my eyes for a moment to calculate. “So, that makes him twenty-seven, but I don’t see Channing ever settling down, at least no time soon.”

After I decided on a set of dark gray, 1000-thread count Ralph Lauren sheets, we passed the wedding gift registry area on our way to check out. My heart sank. It was in this very store at that very kiosk that my relationship with Rory started to crumble. We’d been shopping for a new coffee maker when I brought up the subject of starting to think about getting engaged. He’d gotten into a car accident a couple of months before but was on his way to making a full recovery. In the weeks that followed the accident, though, I began to notice changes in him, which all culminated in “the talk” at Bed Bath & Beyond. The accident apparently caused him to ponder his life and determine that he didn’t see a future with me.

Annabelle disrupted my daydream. “Are you okay, Amber?”

Shaking my head to fend off thoughts of Rory, I lied. “Yeah.”





CHAPTER TWO




* * *



AMBER




I’d sent Channing the key to my place so that he could get situated while I was at work. His flight got in to Logan Airport at 10AM, which meant I wouldn’t be home to greet him.

I’d made sure the new bedding was washed and placed on his bed and cracked open a window to air out the room. I also left him a welcome note with two mints, the same gesture I afforded my Airbnb tenants.

Since the school where I worked was only a short walk from home, I decided to head over to my condo during the lunch break to at least say hello.

It was a cool, crisp day in Boston, the quintessential autumn afternoon with falling leaves and blue skies. The historic neighborhood where I lived—Beacon Hill—was known for its brick sidewalks and Federal-style rowhouses. It was definitely one of the more sought-after neighborhoods in the city.