Gentleman Nine

by Penelope Ward

  I never had the heart to change the screensaver of Amber on my phone. It was my favorite picture of her. She’d been sitting in a pile of dried leaves and laughing. It literally made my heart hurt to look at it, but at the same time I just couldn’t get rid of it.

  Although I’d never pointed out the photo to Boris specifically, he’d apparently noticed it.

  I’d danced around opening up to the old man for a long time now. But tonight was different. Tonight was Amber’s and my anniversary. Well, what would have been our anniversary—the first one since the break-up. We always used to make a big deal about our anniversaries. This one was supposed to be epic, because I’d planned to propose to her tonight.

  I just didn’t feel like I could hold it in anymore. I needed to tell someone what had happened. Boris was safe. Who the fuck was he gonna tell my story to? The mailman? Boris didn’t leave the freaking house.

  Fuck it.

  “Her name is Amber.” I could hardly believe those words had exited my mouth. Just saying her name was painful.

  “Amber! Amber. I like it.” He lifted his glass. “Like the color of this here magic juice.”

  “Damn straight. Amber…just like the Cognac.”

  He sat down. “Tell me about her.”

  Where to begin.

  Where to begin.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve loved her for as long as I’ve known her. But we were together for over nine years.”

  “Nine years. Wow.”

  “Yeah. And she loved me with every ounce of her soul.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “She died?”

  “No. I broke up with her…broke her heart…shattered it.”

  “You…broke up with her? Why would you do that?”

  “Because I love her more than anything in the world.”

  “I may need more alcohol because this isn’t making any sense, son.”

  “Trust me, we definitely need more alcohol if I’m gonna tell you the rest of this.”

  Boris poured me more Cognac. “Okay, so tell me why a guy who’s hopelessly in love with a girl breaks her heart. How does that happen?”

  Drinking down the entire glass of liquor, I smacked it down on the table.

  Closing my eyes tightly, I spit it out. “I was driving home from work one night, and a truck hit me head on. I’m really lucky to be alive.”

  “You get amnesia or something?”

  “No. But to be honest, that would have been easier.” My heart clenched. “A lot easier.”

  “What happened?”

  “In the weeks after the accident, I learned that…” I hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be to get this part out. Only my brother knew, and that was only because he’d threatened to kick my ass for hurting Amber. She’d become like a sister to him. I had to tell him so that he could understand my decision. He hadn’t even been speaking to me for a while before he found out the truth.

  Boris encouraged me to continue on. “What is it, son?”

  “My injuries were such that…” I hesitated. “Basically, I can’t have children.”

  He stared off into space to process what I’d just told him. Then, he said, “What do you mean…like you have no balls?”

  I broke out into laughter. “No, I have everything. And it’s all working just fine otherwise. But there was damage, and that means I don’t make sperm anymore.”

  “You know that for sure?”

  “I had my semen tested.”

  “You never told her?”

  “No. Amber wants kids someday—more than anything. But regardless, I knew she’d never leave me if she knew. So, I had to make a really tough decision. I thought it would be best for her if I broke up with her. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

  Boris shook his head in disbelief. “You made a decision for her, that you assumed was the right one.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t want her to resent me later in life if she couldn’t have a child of her own.”

  “So, you pretended to what…not love her anymore?”

  This was always the part that got me the most emotional. I could almost stand the thought of being without Amber as long as she knew I loved her. But, of course, I made her think I’d fallen out of love with her, because that was the only way she’d let me leave.

  “I thought that time would somehow make it—not even easier—but tolerable. But it hasn’t. It took a while to get her to stop calling me. Do you know how hard it is to push someone away who you love more than life? I’ve created this façade to make her think I’ve moved on. And I think it’s finally worked. She stopped trying to change my mind.”

  “And now you regret it?”

  “I love her more than ever.” I didn’t wait for Boris to pour me more liquor this time. Grabbing the bottle, I helped myself and said, “Today would have been our anniversary, and it was also the day I was planning to ask her to marry me. I can’t help but think of her. I suspect she could have met someone by now. But I just don’t know because I can’t bear to try to find out. She unfriended me on Facebook, too, which was for the best.”

  “What’s Facebook?”

  Stopping mid-sip, I said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I definitely don’t have to worry about you spilling my business.”

  “Let me ask you something. If you found out today that Amber only had days to live, would you go to her?”

  “Of course, I would.”

  “Days are all we have, Rory. That’s all life is…a bunch of days threaded together. All we can be guaranteed is today. No one knows what’s going to happen beyond today. We should never make decisions based on an assumed future, but rather on how we feel at this very moment. That’s the first thing. The second is, how the hell can you be so sure that she’d rather have a baby over you? Did you even give her a choice? You were the love of her life for nine years. You didn’t give her a say in the matter.” He leaned in. “Let me tell you something you may not know.”

  “Alright…”

  “My Ellie was barren. Stephanie is adopted. We were in our forties when we got her after years of trying.”

  “No shit? I had no idea. She even looks like you.”

  Boris had been married for fifty-seven years when his wife Ellie passed away. Since they had a daughter, I never imagined that Ellie couldn’t have kids.

  He continued, “I knew about Ellie before I married her. Of course, I wanted to have our own kids, but if it were a matter of losing her or having a biological child, there was no contest. If she’d done to me what you did to Amber, in my mind, that would have been a tragedy. I have no regrets. I have a beautiful daughter.”

  Maybe it was the alcohol, but suddenly I was doubting everything. Had I made a colossal mistake?

  That night, I tossed and turned, obsessing over Boris’s advice. My life felt like it hadn’t progressed in the months since Amber and I had been apart. I wasn’t as strong as I thought I’d be.

  Opening the top drawer to my bureau, I took out the one-and-a-half carat Tiffany diamond ring I’d purchased a month before the accident. I’d planned to propose to Amber tonight at the restaurant at the top of the Prudential building. It was going to be perfect. Our lives were going to be perfect. Then the accident happened, and that perfect dream was shattered.

  When you love someone, you feel it in your soul, even when they’re not physically with you. Maybe it was also possible to feel the moment that you were losing them. If that were true, it was happening to me right now. I felt something strange inside of me tonight, a feeling of loss that I hadn’t really felt up until now. I mean, of course, I’d left her, but I hadn’t felt like I’d lost her until now. It was a feeling of looming finality that I needed to intercept now or never.

  It was too late to call her. Amber typically didn’t stay up past eleven. It was well past midnight. Still, I didn’t fe
el like this could wait until tomorrow. I had to get my thoughts out now. So, I decided to text her.

  What felt like a million words were at the tip of my tongue, but my finger wouldn’t move. It just hovered over the keypad.

  Ultimately, what I needed to say couldn’t fully be communicated in a text.

  I typed out a simple message.

  Rory: I really need to see you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  * * *

  CHANNING

  Amber’s and my mother’s laughter could be heard from down the hall. I was catching up on some work in the bedroom but would stop from time to time to listen to their sounds.

  Overall, Mom was not doing well. She even called Amber “Lainey” the other day. But as much as the dementia was showing its ugly face, my mother seemed happy here. Amber would do her hair, and they’d bake together. In fact, I must have put on at least a pound this week alone from all of the cookies and brownies. Every night, it was something different.

  In a short amount of time, it was starting to feel like we were a family. I hadn’t felt that in years.

  Closing my laptop, I decided to shut down for the evening and join them in the kitchen.

  A tray of some kind of delicious, coconut-covered dessert was cooling on the stove.

  Rubbing my stomach, I said, “You two and your sweets are gonna be the end of me.”

  “Your mother was reminding me about the stage you went through where you refused to wear anything but Ed Hardy clothes.” Amber cackled.

  That was a blast from the past.

  “That was hot,” I joked, looking over at my mother. “I can’t believe you brought that up.”

  For someone who was losing her memory, she had to go and remember that shit? But that was the thing…being here with Amber seemed to bring old memories out of my mother’s mind bank even when she couldn’t always remember what happened a half-hour ago.

  Amber slipped away to the bathroom.

  When she came back out, I could tell that something was up.

  She whispered in my ear, “I just peed on the stick. I have to wait five minutes.”

  I froze. “I didn’t know that was going to be tonight.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s time. It should be accurate now. At least, we’ll know…you know?”

  I knew the time was coming soon but wasn’t expecting it tonight. Deciding not to pressure her, I hadn’t been asking when she was going to do the test. So, apparently it was suddenly D-day.

  My heart started to pound furiously. It felt like the longest five minutes of my life. The sound of Amber and my mother talking became muffled as I thought about the life-changing impact a positive result would have. Visions of an auburn-haired little girl in pigtails flashed through my mind. The more the situation with my mother deteriorated, the more I was realizing the importance of family. Was I ready for a child now? No. But for the first time in my life, I felt absolutely certain that I wanted a family of my own. And each day it was becoming clearer that it was Amber I wanted that future with.

  The kitchen timer Amber had set dinged.

  Our eyes met. I took a good long look at her, knowing that things might never be the same again.

  Amber turned to my mother. “Christine, would you mind cutting the magic bars? I think they’re cool enough now.”

  “Of course.”

  Amber ventured down the hall, and I followed a few seconds after.

  She was leaning against the sink waiting for me. “Well, here goes nothing.”

  Just as she reached for the stick, I placed my hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait.”

  “You don’t want me to check?”

  “I have to tell you something first.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “No.”

  “Alright.”

  “If it turns out that this is positive, I just want you to know that I think it would be a gift from God. It’s not the right time for us, maybe, but it will be a gift nevertheless. And no matter what happens, we’re gonna be okay, alright?”

  She blew out a nervous breath. “Okay.”

  “Check it.”

  Amber looked down at the stick then immediately up at me. “It’s negative.”

  My true feelings became apparent to me in that very moment. Because instead of breathing out a sigh of relief and rejoicing over the fact that Amber wasn’t pregnant, I felt an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. It was the first time I realized that I might have been secretly hoping she was pregnant. That was pretty eye-opening.

  My dick immediately stirred with a primal need to rectify this situation as I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her head.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded against my chest. “I am. This is good news.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it is. It wasn’t the right time.”

  She pulled back and placed her hands over my cheeks. “We would’ve had a beautiful baby with you as the father, though.”

  “Only if she looked like you.”

  Amber brightened. “She?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled. “I might have imagined a little girl who looked like you once or twice over the past couple of weeks.”

  “That’s sweet.” Her eyes widened. “You know what I’m excited about?”

  “What?”

  “Getting to have a glass of wine tonight. I hadn’t been drinking just in case.”

  I placed a firm kiss on her lips then nudged my head. “Come on. I’ll open a new bottle for us.”

  We returned to the kitchen to find an unsettling discovery. My mother was sitting at the table with the entire tray of magic bars in front of her. She hadn’t cut them but rather had eaten three-quarters of the batch. Under any other circumstances, this might have even been funny. But given her situation, it wasn’t. It was sad. This was the kind of unpredictable behavior I’d become accustomed to.

  I felt ashamed. “I’m so sorry.”

  Amber rubbed my shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  “Really fucking need that wine right now,” I said, making my way over to the bottle of red on the counter.

  After dinner, Mom turned in early—probably crashed because of all the sugar she’d consumed.

  Amber and I stayed up late watching movies. I was incredibly horny, but it had been a long and emotional day, and I suspected she might not have been in the mood.

  Her phone, which was in the bedroom, chimed. It was unusual that she would get a text so late at night.

  She got up to check it and seemed to take a long time before finally returning to her spot next to me on the couch.

  “Everything okay?”

  A flush crept up her face. “Yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  She didn’t look fine, but I blew it off, chalking it up to a grueling day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  * * *

  AMBER

  I’d hung onto Rory’s text for two days before I finally responded. He wanted to meet me somewhere to talk, but I didn’t feel like I could handle it.

  After everything…what could he possibly have to say?

  I responded that I would think about a time and place, but that was only to delay what turned out to be inevitable. That lesson was learned the hard way as my doorbell rang one early evening after work.

  Channing wasn’t home yet, and Christine was in her room watching television when I went to the door.

  When I opened, Rory was standing there, and he’d brought our golden retriever, Bruiser. Before I acknowledged him, I bent down to let Bruiser lick my face. Tears started to fall from my eyes from the guilt I’d felt over having abandoned my dog. Seeing Bruiser hadn’t been an option without having to see Rory, too. So, it had been several months since I’d smelled his fur and experienced his unconditional love.

  “Bruisey...I missed you so much. So much.”

  Bruiser suddenly started to bark like crazy when he caught a glimpse of Kitty, who had planted herself high atop a shelf. Poor little thing was probably s
cared shitless at the sight of what may have been the first dog she’d ever seen.

  I finally looked up at Rory. My heart hurt from just the sight of his face. It had been a really long time since I’d seen him, yet the wounds of his abandonment still felt fresh.

  Rory looked good, like he’d been working out every day. Sporting a five o’clock shadow, he appeared more rugged than ever.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Well, you weren’t exactly responding to my request to see you, so…”

  “That was intentional.”

  “I know. I’m not blaming you.”

  “What is it that you needed to say to me?”

  “I have a lot to say. I just don’t know where to begin.” Moving past me without permission, he wiped his forehead. “Do you mind if I have a glass of water?”

  Without waiting for me to answer, Rory made his way over to the kitchen and the water filter on the counter then poured himself a tall glass. As he gulped it down in a matter of seconds, I could definitely see that he was nervous.

  Glancing down at his hand, I noticed a small tattoo of a little bean. “Bean” had always been his nickname for me. He started using it one day when we were in college and never stopped. He never had that tattoo when we were together; it must have been new.

  “Did you get a bean tattoo?”

  His eyes bore into mine. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to think of you every time I looked down at my hand.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know. But it will. That’s why I’m here. To better explain.”

  What’s going on?

  Bruiser hadn’t left my side. I sat down to grab my bearings, and he immediately followed me. Scratching between the dog’s ears, I gave Rory my attention, even though I wasn’t sure if he deserved it, but not before taking a dig at him.

  “How’s Jennifer Barney?”

  “Jennifer Barney is a co-worker and a friend. There’s nothing going on with us.”