Spill Over (27 page)

I still don’t know about love, but it’s definitely a new kind of thing for me.
I’m not sure how to say that to
Hélèna
.

“Damn.” She breathes out. “I hoped maybe you’d see how great we’d be together. You could come next year
,
and we’d live it up in the streets of Paris or something.”

It takes me a minute to find words.
“I’d
never guess you felt like that. Y
ou’ve always kept me…”

“Distant.”

“Yeah.”
That’s exactly it. And it meant that I kept her distant, too.

“I do with everyone. L
ife is easier when you’re not messing it up. And here I am, admitting to you that I might be in love with you, only to find you’re in love with somebody else. And it looks like you’ll have some fixing to do when I go.”

“Now I feel like shit over you, too.”

“Don’t.” She takes another drink. “So, she has a nice American-girl fit body, yes?”

“Yes.” The picture most easily brought to the surface is her floating on her back in the water.

“She’s good to you?” She cocks a brow and leans forward.
Hélèna
’s mind is in the gutter, that much is clear.

“No one’s as good as your first
, c
h
é
rie.” I wink
.

She smiles. It was the perfect thing to say to her. “Arnaud.
” S
he lets out another puff of air
.
“
What will I do?”

“Wha
tever the hell you want. L
ike usual.”

She laughs. “This is why I love you so much, Antony.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes. I’m still being stretched because I want to run into Amber’s boat and talk with her and hold her and tell her how
Hélèna
may marry Arnaud, and just needed away.
And I never thought a day would come when
Hélèna
would come at me like this and I’d tell her no.

The way I feel about Amber is starting to scare the crap out of me, but is also keeping me sane. I’m not sure how to reconcile the conflicting feelings there, so I push them away and know that moving forward with Amber is better for me. The real me, not the guy I try to be or wish I was. The real guy.

“You need to get out of here.” She looks around. “This place is changing you.”

“Going to college in New York next year.”

Her thin dark brows arch highe
r.
“And what about your little American girl then?”

Another problem I hadn’t given much consideration to.
“I don’t know
yet
.”

She smirks. “Well, if I haven’t given in to Arnaud, you know where to find me. Right now, I just need a ride to the airport.”

“You’re leaving?” I ask.

“Don’t sound so relieved.” Her eyes narrow.

“I’m sorry. W
e just hadn’t talked about how long you’d stay or…”

“Look at you.” She squeezes my cheek across the table. “Cute as ever.”

Great.

“I need some time. I’ll meet you on your boat in a little while.” She re-crosses her legs.

“I do like you,
Hélèna
. It’s not that I do
n’t want to spend time with you.
”

“It’s that we have very different ideas on what we want to do with our time together.”

She’s right.

“Thank you.” I stand and start back to the boat.
Blissfully alone.

Dad climbs out of his car and gives me a wave.
Okay, well I
was
alone. And right now Dad’s probably safer than any other company I might have.

“How are things?”
he asks.

“How the hell should I know?” I step in next to him.

“That
Hélèna
.” He shakes his head. “She’s more self-aware than most thirty-year-olds I know, and she has the body of a …”

“Underwear model. I know.”

Dad gives me a sideways glance over that one.

“She was my first,” I admit.

“Wow. Okay.” Dad swallows a few times.

“Amber has the right to be pissed, and we kind of argued the other day. It was just bad timing all the way around.”
I run my hand over my hair.

“What are you going to do?”

“
Hélèna
leaves tonight.”

“Already?”

“She’s not getting what she wants here, and she’s kind of running away from someone, and…”

“Looking for an escape then?” Dad asks.

“I guess.”

“It says a lot that she came to you.”

I hadn’t really thought of it that way.
But it wasn’t just for
an escape, part of it was a wish
for something more. I really hope that I don’t wonder someday if I did the right thin
g here, even though I know the way I feel about Amber is a lot more real than whatever Hélèna and I have.

“No guess. It does. I’m glad you’re that kind of guy.”

“
Maybe. Most likely I’m just in the process.”
I stuff my hands in my pockets, needing to do something.

“We’re all in the process, Antony.”

We take a few steps in silence.

“How you doing with M
om?”

“Don’t kick me when I’m down, Dad.” I feel his words like a punch. I shove it back, down, with all the rest of the Mom stuff that I can’t deal with yet.

He puts his arms on my shoulder and gives my back a few quick rubs. “Sorry.”

So now
Hélèna
needs some time alone. I have no idea what to say to Amber yet aside from what I’ve already said. I lie on the back deck of Dad’s boat on the bench seat and close my eyes.

Two sets of footsteps on the ramp wake me up.

“Come with us,”
Hélèna
says in her soft accent.

What?
Hélèna
? My heart starts thumping.

“I don’t think so.”
Amber’s voice.

Holy shit.
Hélèna
and Amber are talking. This is either going to be awesome, or the worst day of my life. I lie still, fe
eling very out of control, but also too chicken to sit up
.

“He loves you.”

“Well, he has a funny way of showing it.” I’m picturing Amber right now
, scowling with her perfect lips.

“H
e didn’
t kiss me back.”
Hélèna
sighs. “
And it’s a shame too. He’s a good kisser.
”

Now I want to wring her neck.

“H
e said he did.”

Hélèna
laughs. “Well, if he did, he’s really lost his touch, because it felt like he was pulling away the whole time.”

“I don’t get him, and you, or…”

“Relax, Amber. Antony was fun for me, that’s all. That’s what I wanted from him. Probably it messed with his head to be with someone like you.”

Silence.

“I messed with him?” Amber asks.

Hélèna
really needs to work on her English.

“No. Me, silly
.
I messed him up for someone like you.
”

“Oh.” Amber’s voice still sounds sort of lost.

“Come with us. It will give you two some time together in the car, okay?”

Hélèna
’s powers of p
ersuasion on men are remarkable.
I’m curious to see if she’ll be able to pull this off as well.

“Okay.” I know Amber well enough to know exactly what her face will look like right now. Her shoulders will be slumped down, almost in defeat, and if I’m lucky, she’ll be holding in a smile.

- - -

So, having
Hélèna
in the back seat, while Amber’s in the front seat and I’m driving
,
is about the most horribly
awkward thing I can imagine. Amber’s quiet and looking out the window.
Hélèna
’s using her manners and speaking English, but t
here’s no way for her to sound…
normal. This is definitely going in the stack against me. And the thing is,
Hélèna
’s trying to help. I know she is. But she’s bringing things up that I used to think made me one of the good guys, but will make Amber think I’m not.

Like how I pulled her from some backstage party at a theater in downtown Paris. About how I set up some big party at Jace’s house when she and a few other French college students came into t
own. How mature I am for my age. T
hat I hang with people older than me. How I fit in anywhere. And part of me loves to hear these things, but it’s the part of me that I’m slowly realizing was the part that felt so much pressure to keep it up, the façade, the pretenses. I always felt like a fraud at those things. With Ambe
r I feel like the real guy
.
It’s easy, but also really, really, hard because she’s fighting against all the things I used to be.

It’s the longest drive to the airport ever.
             

Hélèna
pulls me into a long hug
on the curb
, and Dad’s right.
She
’s the part of my life that I’ve sort of left behind. I’m not as sad about it as I should be, which probably means something.

“I hope to see you soon.” She frowns with her full lips and huge doe eyes.

“We’ll see.” I shrug.

“As mysterious as ever.” Very softly she kisses me on each ch
eek, and then back for one more
. Just so I know she’s still undecided
, and might still give me a chance
.

“Bye, Antony.” She waves as she steps
back
.

Amber’s sitting in the car, probably completely unsure of what she should be doing.

Hélèna
knocks on her window.

Crap. I run around to my side to get in.

Hélèna
stands. “Don’t you dare e
a
vesdrop on a girl’s conversation.”

Shit.

I watch Amber through the windshield. Her eyes meet mine as
Hélèna
talks and a faint smile pulls on the edges of her mouth.
Then her cheeks turn flaming red and she stares at her lap.

I suck in a huge breath and rest my hands on my head for a moment, like maybe I’ll feel better if I’m all stretched up or something.

“I hope you have a nice flight home!” Amber calls.

My head snaps back just in time to see
Hélèna
step into the doors of the airport. She doesn’t look back. She wouldn’t. Just enough so that I’ll wonder if she
’s still thinking about me. Or
so that
I’ll know she doesn’t need me, or like me too mu
ch. I used to think that was
hot. Not anymore.

I slide to sitting in Dad’s car. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Her smile is big and her cheeks are still fading from whatever horribly embarrassing thing
Hélèna
let slip.

“I’m sorry if she…”

“It’s fine.” Amber rests her hand on my thigh. “I’m fine. It’s okay.”

“Okay.” And as much as I wish I could read her well, I’m not sure if I do. “So, what did she say?”

“Yeah, right.” Amber shakes her head and leans just slightly toward me.

I start to move toward her, but stop.

She closes the distance and puts our lips together. And I want to pull her to me, and kiss her deeply and fully, but I don’t. I
let her move away, and it sucks, but it’s a million times further than I thought I’d get with her for a while.

Something should be said. “I was kind of afraid I’d lost you after the other night, and then…”

“
Your French girl
showed
up.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s do something before heading back. Is that okay?”

She wants to spend time with me. It brings more relief than I thought possible.
“Anything.”

Amber and I spend the wh
ole day in Seattle. No planning. N
o thought. We go to Pike Place, and we go
to
t
he museum. T
here’s a Monet exhibit,
and we spend hours. We hold hands, and I’m trying to make myself okay with that being what we have right now. The problem was that I wanted the sweetness of Amber and the forwardness of
Hélèna
,
and they don’t come in the same package.