My Best Man, Andy Schell [latest ebook reader TXT] 📗

Thomas,” I answer, helping to create legends of our waiters’ names.

“I can tell Thomas is a gentleman. I wonder where he’s from?” Amity says, referring to her waiter. “He had some kind of European accent.”

“That guy’s pretty tall. Amsterdam?”

“Yes,” Amity says breathlessly, “and Emily Post says the manners of Europeans and South Americans are more elegant than those of Americans.”

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“Does that mean he’ll bow and say, “May I eat your pussy please?” “

“Ja, ja,” Amity sings. “And I will say bedankt!”

“Well, it’s all perfect. Because Nicolo is Latin American. And I know enough Spanish to say gracias.” Ah, the Spanish language. I think about my ex-boyfriend in Kansas. We met one day in Spanish class, went to my apartment to practice rolling our Rs, and finally rolled each other. Matthew was on the college swim team when we were undergrads; his body is killer still. He has sky blue eyes, big pecs with perfect nipples, and curly dark hair that falls almost to his wide, wide shoulders. An absolute wolf (our college term for a babe), and my ego is still shot that he dumped me. Amity picks up on my silence, my mood change.

“What is it, Harry?” she asks, reaching over and holding my hand in the dark.

“I was just thinking about Matthew.”

“Do you still miss him?”

“Sometimes. I don’t know why. He was such a jerk.” “Harry, this world has bigger things in store for you than Kansas. Matthew couldn’t handle that. He knew when you took this flight attendant job that your life was going to change in wonderful ways, and he just wasn’t ready to let that change happen to him. So he loved you enough to set you free. You’re lucky. Do you understand?”

Where the heck did she come up with that simple analysis? Poor thing, for all her acumen in dealing with people, sometimes she really is naive. Matthew was a rotten snake who dumped me only because I would never see my inheritance. It amazes me that, for all the subterfuge and intrigue she casts upon the innocent King of Jordan, she’s blind to the machinations of the guilty commoner known as Matthew.

“It’s the same thing that happened with my boyfriend Richard,” she continues. “I told Richard I’d marry him but I just wanted to get out of the house. See, my parents were so cruel to me. They

had money, but they never cared for me the way they cared for my brother and sister. I was restless. I was at school in Fort Worth, and I didn’t really have any desire to finish. The only thing I ever got an A in was art. My final project was a self-portrait entitled “Rug Burns On My Thighs.” “

“Was it hard earned, that A?” I ask, smiling.

She sits up, looks at me. “Why do you ask me that way?”

I chuckle. “Well, I heard you had a little trouble with a professor.”

“How dare you?” Amity says, her brow wrinkled, her eyes burning a hole in me. “If you know something, don’t act like you don’t.”

“OK,” I say defensively. “I heard from a friend of mine that you slept with a professor and ended up suing him.”

Tears fill her eyes. “Are you enjoying making me feel like trash, Harry Ford? You think you can just say anything you want because of who you are and I’m supposed to take it?”

“God, no. I’ve never acted like that with you. With anybody. What’s the big deal? I thought it was funny.”

“Real funny,” she says, more caustic than I’ve ever seen her. “I work hard to make you feel worthy, Mr. Ford. I don’t need to be shot out of the sky by your knowledge of my past,” she finishes, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to her chest.

“You work to make me feel? What kind of a sentence is that?” “I do work at it,” she huffs.

“That makes me feel like you’re not being real that I’m some kind of project.”

“Now wait,” she says, backpedaling. “You’re not a project. What I meant was… Oh never mind. You’ll never understand me. How can you?”

“Why not? Besides, that’s crazy. I do understand you,” I argue.

“No,” she answers, exasperated, “you don’t. I thought I was so lucky to find you, Harry. I’ve never been able to find a man like

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AHUy lfli i i you. This girl has so much love to give, but most men want to own me, and I just don’t want a man like that. And here I thought I finally found the right man in you, Harry Ford.”

“You have,” I say, wanting to be wanted, wanting this thing to ultimately work out. “I love you, Amity. I really do. I’m going to share my inheritance with you, surely you know that. Anything you need.”

“You give me all I need,” she says, lying back on the bed. The tears are falling sideways down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to get so squirrely.” She wipes at the tears with her ring finger. “Listen, Bubba. If we do get married, if we decide to go through with it, I just want a thin gold band on my finger. Nothing fancy. No diamonds, babe. Just a thin gold band. I don’t want your money, and I don’t care if you don’t make love to me with your dick, as long as you save just a little piece of your heart for me.”

Her words assure me. “I always will,” I tell her, reaching out for her hand.

After a small repose in silence, we begin speaking again and spend the rest of the night talking about lost loves, postcards never written, life’s curves, dreams of the future, travel to exotic countries, and anything else our imaginations dredge. And though we seem to be closer than ever before, there’s still something that isn’t right, something we’ve yet to get unearthed between us.

Eventually, something amazing starts to happen outside the window of her bedroom. “Amity, look,” I say. “The sun is rising. It’s morning.”