Chapter Fourteen Amelia

FOURTEEN

Text exchange between Reginald Cleaves and Amelia Collins

REGINALD: hi Amelia

REGINALD: Oh wait

REGINALD: damnit

REGINALD: it’s the middle of the night again isn’t it

REGINALD: you’re probably sleeping

REGINALD: no need to wake up and reply to this

REGINALD: just wanted to thank you for a lovely evening

REGINALD: definitely the nicest time I’d had in a Chicago suburb in recent memory

REGINALD: one of the nicer evenings I’ve had anywhere at all in quite some time if I’m being honest

REGINALD: anyway

REGINALD: you are asleep

REGINALD: sleep well

AMELIA: hey

REGINALD: Amelia

REGINALD: I’m so sorry to wake you

AMELIA: it’s fine

AMELIA: i was awake

REGINALD: You were?

AMELIA: yeah

AMELIA: couldn’t sleep

REGINALD: sorry to hear that

AMELIA: it’s fine

AMELIA: i always have insomnia after spending time with my family

AMELIA: But I am glad you had a nice time

AMELIA: I did too

AMELIA: I didn’t expect to at all but I did

REGINALD: I’m so glad to hear it

AMELIA: I don’t think I will ever look at petunias the same way again after that joke you told me after the party

REGINALD: That really was one of my better jokes

REGINALD: If I do say so myself

AMELIA: I haven’t heard enough of your jokes yet in order to make an independent assessment of that statement’s truth

AMELIA: but it was a good one

REGINALD: Well it would be my pleasure to tell you more jokes

REGINALD: if you’re interested in making an independent assessment

AMELIA:

REGINALD:

Amelia

I didn’t sleep well that night. Probably because after Reggie texted me in the middle of the night, I’d felt so giddy it took me over an hour to fall back to sleep.

Yawning, I rolled over and grabbed my phone from my nightstand. I’d missed several texts from Mom shortly after I got home from Aunt Sue’s dinner. I’d been so carried away I hadn’t even thought to check my notifications.

MOM: So nice meeting Reginald last night.

MOM: He seems like a lovely young man.

MOM: And so individualistic! A rare thing these days.

MOM: Dad and I thought it would be nice to have the two of you over for dinner.

MOM: Just so we could get to know him better.

My heart gave a hard knock against my rib cage.

Dinner with my family was not going to happen.

It was only six-thirty in the morning and Mom probably wasn’t up yet. Which made this the perfect time to reply to her. When she woke up and saw my texts, I’d be at work and unable to have the long conversation about Reggie that she probably wanted to have and that I definitely did not.

I decided to reply to the first of Mom’s texts and ignore the part where she wanted to have him over for dinner. He couldn’t possibly want to come, anyway.

AMELIA: I’m glad you like Reggie, Mom

AMELIA: He enjoyed meeting you, too

That felt like the right thing to say, though I didn’t know if it was true. He hadn’t said he disliked my family; it was just that after that kiss, we didn’t talk about them very much.

We didn’t talk about them much before the kiss, either.

For most of the party, we sat in folding chairs at the very back of the living room apart from the others, with Reggie doing his utmost to make me laugh.

He was good at making me laugh.

Really good.

In fact, I laughed harder at Aunt Sue’s party than I had in god only knew how long. Ironic, given how much I’d been dreading going in the first place.

After texting Mom, I made my way into the bathroom. I peered at myself in the mirror, hands braced on either side of the sink.

I looked every bit as rumpled and distracted as I felt.

That kiss last night…

It had been years since I’d been kissed so thoroughly and well. And it hadn’t even been real. Just an act, for an audience.

What would kissing Reggie be like if we were all alone? Would he be more inhibited without people watching us—or less?

I closed my eyes, and before I could tell myself not to think about it, my mind started supplying images all on its own. His hands, capable and strong, cradling my face as he urged me up against a wall. His tongue, delving deep inside my mouth, leaving me no quarter as he crowded out everything that wasn’t him.

My eyes flew open.

I should not be thinking about this.

“No,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were flushed, my heart racing as hard as it had last night when he’d molded his lips to mine. “We are not doing this.”

It was just an act , I told myself as I turned on the water to the shower. It meant nothing .

Reggie had given me no sign that he viewed our arrangement as anything but transactional.

The last thing I needed was to forget that.

·······

The day dragged on.

It was already six in the evening, and I was woefully behind on everything I’d hoped to accomplish that day. After my third failed attempt at reading a single balance sheet, my eyes drifted of their own accord to my window. It was another dark and dreary March evening, with light rain striking the windowpane. There wasn’t much to see from way up on the thirty-second floor, so I found myself following each raindrop as it slowly made its way down the glass.

Was Reggie out in this nasty weather? What was his life like when he wasn’t with me?

God.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this distracted.

I needed to get more sleep.

“Amelia?”

I glanced up at my assistant Ellen’s voice. She was standing in the open doorway to my office. “What’s up?”

She looked behind her, over her shoulder. “Were you expecting anyone tonight?”

I frowned. “No. Why?”

“There’s a gentleman heading straight this way.” She turned to face me. “I don’t recognize him.”

“What?” We rarely got visitors after business hours. “Is he a client? A delivery person?”

“I don’t know,” Ellen said. And then, with a sly smile and sotto voce, she added, “He is very handsome.”

Before I could even form a response to that, Reggie appeared beside her.

I was struck mute by what I saw.

Gone was the slightly off-kilter look I’d come to associate with him. There was no sign of the too-large black fedora and trench coat from our first meeting, or of the Dungeons a snowdrift taller than I was towered behind us. “You even dust them.”

“I do,” I admitted.

The face he pulled was so mock-judgmental and silly I nearly burst out laughing.

“But why ?” he asked.

“I like things tidy,” I said, feeling defensive.

“I get that,” he said. “But there isn’t a single book out of place in this room. Or a single stray sheet of paper on your desk. There’s liking things tidy, and then there’s this.” He gestured expansively to the room we were standing in. “It feels like a mausoleum.”

I snorted. “Been in a lot of mausoleums?”

“More than you might think.”

“Listen,” I said, starting to get annoyed. “First you don’t really explain why you’re here, and then you start criticizing my office?” I shook my head. This was why I preferred being single. “Tell me why I shouldn’t ask you to leave.”

His expression softened. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He paused, then tapped his index finger against his lips. “The real reason I dropped by is I wondered if maybe we could get a drink.”

My eyes widened. What?

“I can’t,” I said, on reflex.

“Why not?”

“I have at least four more hours of work to do before I can leave tonight.”

“Exactly why you should get a drink with me,” he countered. “You need a break.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but taking breaks this week,” I protested. “And besides, you sound like you’re asking me out on a date. We don’t do that.” And then, for good measure, I added, “We aren’t dating . ”

A flicker of something I didn’t recognize flitted across his features. There and gone again. “I know,” he said. He put his hands on my arms, which I realized I’d been crossing so tightly across my chest my shoulders ached. Reggie’s palms were like ice, so cold I could feel them all the way through the thin fabric of my cardigan.

He gently uncrossed my arms for me and placed them down by my sides.

“This wouldn’t be a date,” he continued. “Just a chance for us to spend some time together while you unwind for an hour or two.”

“How is that not a date?”

He ignored the question. “You’re gonna die of overwork before fifty if you don’t at least occasionally have some fun.”

I stared at the stack of documents on my desk. The deadline for the Wyatt filing was getting closer every day, to say nothing of all the files I’d been neglecting because of it. And here I was, contemplating leaving the office before seven. Again.

I wanted to tell him all this. But then I realized he was right. I did need a break. Not one where I was rushing off to yet another family obligation, but one where I just took some time for myself and shut my brain off for a few hours. And maybe had a drink with a handsome someone who I was definitely, absolutely not dating for real.

“It probably would be smart for us to get to know each other better before we have to pretend to be dating at the wedding,” I mused.

“Would that help you?”

I stared at him, confused. “Would what help me?”

“Would it help you leave this office before midnight if you tell yourself there’s a purpose to it?”

His swift and entirely accurate read of me was unsettling. And yet somehow, it was unsurprising. “Yes,” I admitted, embarrassed.

“At some point you should learn how to take breaks just for the sake of relaxing,” he chided. “But I’ll take it.” He extended his hand towards me. “Shall we?”

I stared at his hand, remembering the way it had gently cupped my cheek when he’d kissed me. I willed myself to snap out of it. Getting a drink with him tonight was about unwinding, and about getting to know him a little bit more in advance of the wedding. Nothing more.

And the way we held hands all the way to the elevator, and then out the door of my building? Simply practice for the big event itself.

If only I could have convinced my racing heart, we’d have been in business.