Gentleman Nine(44)

Kitty ran into the room and jumped onto Channing’s lap. He gently rubbed her head as he sipped his cabernet. Chills ran through me as I thought about those hands on me—in me—a couple of days ago. It was impossible to be around Channing anymore without having the phantom feelings of him touching me, of him inside of me. I felt him all over my body even when he wasn’t around, but the feelings were even stronger when he was present. True to his word, ever since Saturday, he hadn’t so much as brushed up against me. Being without his touch after an entire day of drowning in him was harder than I’d ever anticipated.

Annabelle couldn’t take her eyes off him. She had the goofiest grin on her face. I wished I could’ve smacked it away.

He shocked the life out of me when he turned to her. “So, I’m assuming Amber told you we’re fucking?”

The wine practically sprayed out of my nose. I grabbed a napkin.

Did he just say what I thought he said?

The room went silent. Annabelle looked like a deer in headlights. Then the goofy grin on her face returned in full force. The guilt was written all over her. She was making it very clear without saying anything that, of course, I’d told her.

She looked over at me. “Umm…”

He addressed her, “I mean, we can sit here and pretend like you don’t know, but we all know that’s not the case.” He glanced over at me and said, “Look, I know Amber tells you everything. She’s mentioned that to me before. So, I’m not stupid. When I first walked in, the two of you looked like scared mice. I’m certain you were talking about me, and that’s perfectly fine. Amber needs a good girlfriend to confide in. I’m happy she has that in you.”

Annabelle seemed to be blushing now. “Well, thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.”

“You’re welcome.” He kicked his feet up. “Amber tells me you have two kids?”

She looked over at me, seeming really impressed that Channing remembered that. “Yes. Jenna and Alex, eleven and seven.”

“They must keep you busy.”

“They do. But I love it. Between work and them, I don’t have much time to unwind. Needless to say, I live vicariously through Amber’s single life quite a bit. Tonight is a rare night out. My husband is manning the house.”

He looked between us. “Have you ladies eaten?”

“No, actually. We were going to order takeout,” I said.

“I was gonna cook something up for myself. How about I make it for all of us?”

Annabelle looked like he’d just offered her a new car. “That would be gr—”

“That’s okay,” I interrupted. “We can just do our own thing.”

The two of them sitting down together made me nervous for some reason, and I was doing my best to avoid that scenario.

Channing looked a little disappointed. “I get it. I didn’t mean to interrupt ladies’ night.”

“Nonsense,” Annabelle said. “We would love to have dinner with you, Channing, and thank you for the offer. It’s not every day I have a handsome man cooking dinner for me.”

“Well, I don’t know about handsome, but I can definitely cook my ass off.”

She mouthed over to me, “Freaking adorable.”

He is.

And there was no way I was getting out of this dinner now.

Channing ended up cooking us a meal of tapas that included smoked salmon, deep fried bacon-wrapped dates with goat cheese, and Sriracha meatballs.

After we ate, we lingered around the table.

“So, Amber tells me, you two have quite the history,” Annabelle said.

“Yeah, Walnut and I go way back.” He looked over at me and smiled. Chills ran through me because his every expression, every smile now had an underlying “fuck me” look to it.

“Tell me about young Amber.”

Channing’s smile widened as he thought about the answer. “Young Amber was awesome. She was like one of the boys, always down for anything, not preoccupied with girly shit, not obsessed with how she looked or anything like that. She was the voice of reason, but she could always somehow be swayed to the dark side. Not much has changed, really. Well, except she’s a little more girly now.” He winked at me. “But that’s perfectly fine with me.”

Annabelle’s eyeballs were moving and back and forth as she observed us. She seemed to be getting off on his flirting with me.

I turned the topic of conversation back to our childhood. “We never did anything that bad in those days. We might have broken into a couple of abandoned houses, stuff like that. In the couple of years that we were inseparable, you can bet if I did do something bad, that Channing was probably behind it.”

“That’s true.” He grinned. “Anyway, it was just my mother, sister, and me growing up. Amber was always at the house. She was like another family member.”

Annabelle played with the last of her food and asked, “You didn’t have a father around?”

Channing’s expression darkened. “My father left us when we were small. He moved to Nevada and remarried. I’m not in touch with him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

The only time I’d ever seen Channing’s dad was at Lainey’s funeral. He showed up with his new wife and didn’t really talk to anyone. I knew right away who he was, because he looked just like an older version of his son. The situation with their father walking out on them always made me so sad for Channing and Lainey. But it made me downright angry to see him at her service when he hadn’t been there for her otherwise.