I told myself it was only temporary. It was just because things had been so shaken up by me being gone for several weeks unexpectedly. I would get comfortable there again. I had to get comfortable there again. There was no other choice. This was my reality, and I was back to it now. All I could do was force myself to settle back in and wait for things to feel normal again.
Going back into the living room, I got my bags and brought them into my bedroom. I spent the next several minutes unpacking. Leaving in so much of a hurry meant I didn’t get a chance to wash any of my clothes before coming back. I tossed what was dirty into my hamper and put away why it was clean. When that was done, I tucked away my luggage and dragged the hamper into the laundry room so I could get a load going.
Once I felt like I was washing away my time in Astoria and putting things back into order, I got my phone and called Emily.
“Are you busy?” I asked.
“Not if you need me,” she said. “I’m never too busy for you.”
“Drinks?” I asked.
“Absolutely. I’ll see you in an hour,” she said.
An hour gave me enough time to take a shower, get dressed, and wait for the load of laundry to finish washing.
Emily got to the bar a few minutes after me, and I was already sipping my way through a cocktail. She eyed it as she sat down across from me.
“Already getting started?” she asked.
“Yep,” I said. “And there’s another on deck.”
“Give me a second to catch up,” she said, holding up a hand to beckon the waitress. When she was done ordering, she looked at me. “Alright. Spill. What the hell happened? The last I talked to you, everything seemed to be going so well. You and Tom were happily heating up the sheets together.”
“Yep,” I said, putting my glass down from another sip, “and apparently that’s all we were doing. According to Tom when he was talking to his brothers and didn’t realize I was listening, I am nothing but his secretary and our relationship is completely professional.”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “Are you serious?”
“So much more than I would ever want to be.”
“He actually said that?” Emily asked.
“He did. We were at his mother’s house after dinner, and his brother asked what was going on between us. And that was his response,”
I was hurt and upset, but still not crying. The tears just wouldn’t come. Almost like this was too much to cry about, like the tears would be futile.
“What did he say when you talked about it?” she asked.
“We didn’t talk about it,” I said.
“What do you mean you didn’t talk about it?”
“I left. After he said that, I had his sister-in-law bring me back to the hotel. I got an early flight home, and here I am.”
“You didn’t even wait around long enough to confront him about it?” she asked.
“I didn’t feel the need to,” I said.
Emily shook her head. “That was not a good choice, Amanda. I can’t believe you would leave like that.”
“What do you mean? I was supposed to just sit around there and let him humiliate me like that?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” she said. “But you left in a really bad way. And far too soon. You really should have stayed and talked to him. You needed to tell him how you were feeling and what hearing him say that meant. Given him the chance to answer to it.”
I shook my head and downed the rest of my drink. “I’m tired of waiting. Once everyone pointed it out and I saw it for myself, I realized Tom had been flirting with me for years.”
“Just what I’ve been telling you,” she said. “He’s had these feelings for you for that long.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And didn’t do anything about it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He flirted with me for years without ever wanting to make a move. Obviously, his feelings weren’t that important to him, and he didn’t have any intention of doing anything about it. But then we were in the situation, and he ended up making a move, only to have that kind of reaction to it. I can’t help but feel like he was having regrets,” I said.
“Why would he be having regrets?” she asked. “He’s the one who started this.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And the only reason he did was because we were in a completely different place, under totally different circumstances. He let it get the best of him and made a decision in a time of vulnerability he later realized he shouldn’t have made. He was having regrets overcrossing that line. So, he decided he was just going to erase the whole thing and pretend it wasn’t going on.”
“And you know that for a fact?” she asked.
“Well, no, not for an absolute fact,” I said.
“Exactly,” she said, mirroring my response. “And that’s because you didn’t talk to him about it. You don’t actually know how he was feeling or what was going through his head when he said that to his brothers. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to talk about it with them. Or, he didn’t want to divulge any details to them, and that was the only way he could think of to divert the conversation. You said the two of you hadn’t had any sort of conversation about what was going on between you.”
“We hadn’t,” I said.
“So, put yourself in his shoes. Do you think you would have just opened up to them and started spilling out details about what was going on between the two of you without having had that conversation? Maybe he realized it would have been inappropriate, and he wanted to have some discretion and tell you both talked it through and knew you are on the same page,” she said.
“Was it inappropriate for me to tell you what was going on?” I asked.
“Well, no,” she said, shifting a little in her chair as she realized she’d been caught up in a logical fallacy. “Telling me is completely different.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because there’s only one of me,” she said quickly. “And there’s like thirty of them.”
“Not quite, but I think I might see your point.” I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t matter. Even if he was just trying to have some courtesy and not give out all the details, he didn’t have to respond like that. His brother asked him what was going on between us, not if we had been naked together. There are any number of ways he could have responded that would have not been embarrassing, but also would not have been that. No. He meant what he said.”
My phone rang, and I reached into my purse to get it. Glancing at the screen made me roll my eyes.
“What? Emily asked. “Who is it?”
I turned the phone toward her to display Tom’s name. “Who do you think?”
I tossed the phone back into my purse and set it down.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
The phone went silent, but that only lasted for a few moments before the ringing started up again. We ignored it through that cycle, but by the third, I rolled my eyes again. Emily gestured toward my bag, her eyebrows raising sharply.