Not Looking for Love: Episode 6 (A New Adult Contemporary Romance Novel) by Lena Bourne Page A

clicking across the wooden floor.  
    "This is a nice place you got here," she says, checking out the apartment while I pour the vodka.  
    "Yeah," I mutter handing her a glass and moving to the sofa. She follows, sits too close.
    "So I take it I can't pull off being Gail?" she asks, her eyes fixed on the view outside the window. "I was so nervous all the way here. I was sure I couldn't do it, and I guess I was right." She fixes her gaze on me, but it's unsteady, like she's waiting for an answer. Her eyes are too dark to be Gail's.
    "No, sorry," I say, not even sure why I'm apologizing. "I mean you’re attractive and everything, but you're not Gail."
    Though with the way she tears up after I say it, she could be.
    "Look I won't tell anyone this didn't work out," I say. "Just don't start crying."
    "I just…I…" and tears are actually flowing down her cheeks. Great. I'm even making escorts cry now. I turn away from her and lean back, staring at the muted TV. Cops are arresting someone on screen, red and blue lights flashing.
    "I'm acting like an idiot." She wipes the tears away with her fingers, and sobs softly. I just want someone to say something like that about me again someday, I guess."
    "Maybe you're in the wrong line of business for that." I don't know why I'm being moralistic. Not like I can talk. I fucked up any chance of a normal life, because I was too weak to get out while I still could.
    "Yeah, I know. But right now my options are pretty limited," she murmurs. "It's either this or the streets. And there I'd be in the same place, but with much less money and more disease."
    "Just don't ever go when Mike asks for you," I say without thinking.  
    Her eyes turn wide, probably at the venom in my voice. Or maybe because she's here at Mike's orders. Way to try and comfort her. I swear, everything that comes into contact with me turns to shit, there's no middle ground anymore.
    A charged silence is hanging between us now, but it's a distant thing, like it's happening to someone else.  
    She takes a long swallow of her drink, then sits there, rubbing the glass.  
    "So this Gail, she sounds like quite a girl," she finally ventures.  
    "Yeah," I mutter.  
    "What happened to her?"
    "Nothing," I say. "It just didn't work out."
    "Maybe you should try harder. Seeing as you're all cut up about it."
    It makes sense, and for some reason it's not hard to listen to her speak about Gail.  
    "We're just from two very different worlds," I mutter. "It was crazy to think it could work out."
    But I don't believe that. And I never will.  
    "That doesn't necessarily have to be a barrier," Amber says, glaring at me.  
    "No, but sometimes it is."  
    "My fiancé was killed in action in Afghanistan," she whispers. "That's a barrier."
    "I'm sorry—"
    "If you still want this Gail," she interrupts, "And all that's stopping you is some made up obstacle, maybe you deserve to be all cut up about it."
    She's breathing heavily now, her cheeks all red.
    And she's right. But it's not made up obstacles I'm facing here. They're very deadly and very real.
    "Look, I appreciate your assessment of my situation, but maybe you don't know enough," I blurt out, kinda sorry this is the turn the conversation took. But then again, talking about Gail is not likely to make it any easier to get over her. "I think you can leave now. It's been long enough, so no one will suspect."
    She doesn't argue, just gets up and holds her purse against her stomach. "I'm sorry, I spoke out of turn. We're still cool?"
    "Yeah, I won't tell anyone what really happened. I'll even say you were really good." I just want her gone now.  
    She finds her own way out the door, but it's like Gail stayed. And for the rest of the long night I can feel her in the room with me, standing somewhere behind my shoulder, just out of sight. It gets so creepy, I have to leave the apartment, end up walking around the nearly deserted streets for hours like some deranged psycho. But that's not me.