Almost in Love (13 page)

She set down her chopsticks and blew out a breath. “Fine. Dad is a physicist at Princeton, my stepmother same deal, you’ve met Kate. That’s it.”

“And your mother?”

She forced her jaw to unclench. “She’s an artist living in Paris.”

She left out the worst part. The part where her mother had planned a solo trip to Paris and never looked back. The part where her mother had left a surly teenage Amber, pissed to be missing out on a trip to Paris and stuck at her father’s house away from her friends for what she thought was a whole two weeks. The part where her mother had hugged her and whispered, “I love you, Amber. Goodbye.”

Amber hadn’t hugged her back. Worse, she’d said only one word in reply: “Whatever.”

“We don’t have to talk about her,” he said, gently squeezing her hand.

She relaxed a little. She appreciated his understanding about a topic that still jabbed painfully in her heart. She met his eyes. He was studying her.

“So how long until you give me the third C?” she asked.

She watched as his gaze heated. Knew instinctively she had him now. Knew where he was going with this.

“When do you want it?” he asked, his voice a near growl.

Her heart kicked up. “Now.”

His grip on her hand tightened. “Not now.”

She smiled. She’d guessed correctly. He was off that horrible topic, and she’d get her third C soon. They finished dinner and headed back to the apartment building. They still had an hour and a half before they had to get to rehearsal. That was plenty of time.

They rushed up the stairs, hand in hand. “My place or yours?” she asked.

“Ian’s at my place. Yours.”

“Kate’s at mine.”

“She’s easier to move. Tell her I have the latest issue of
Information Technology & You
at my place.”

“That’s a real thing?” she asked as she unlocked her door.

“Yes. She’ll love it.” His hand cupped her bottom, giving her a jolt. She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.

“My mother’s here,” Kate said miserably from the sofa. Amber’s hopes for her date did a spectacular crash and burn.

“Hello, Amber,” Maxine said, her voice tight and clipped. Her stepmother was petite, her gray hair in a severe short cut that emphasized her sharp, elf-like features. She wore a tailored pant suit like she’d just left work, though more likely she’d absentmindedly put it on this weekend because it was hanging in her closet.

Amber let go of Bare’s hand. “Hi, Maxine. What are you doing here?”

She’d driven up from Princeton, New Jersey. More than a two-hour drive. With no advance warning.

“I’m here to collect Kate. She only has eight weeks to prepare for graduate school. There are no slackers at M.I.T.”

Bare snorted.

Maxine turned. “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry.” Bare crossed to her, holding out his hand. “Barry. Nice to meet you. My brother’s at M.I.T. He’s sort of a slacker. But a very smart one.”

“Your brother’s at M.I.T.?” Kate asked.

“Yup.”

“Katherine,” Maxine said sharply, “pack your things.”

Kate turned pleading eyes to Amber. “Amber said I could stay. Right?”

Amber couldn’t make her little sister study physics all summer. But wait. Wasn’t that what Kate was doing all on her own?

“Kate’s been studying physics on her laptop,” Amber offered.

“See, Mom?” Kate said. “I can study remotely. I have access to the university’s library online. I can keep up with all the latest journals. Please.”

“Amber, may I speak with you privately,” Maxine said.

“Sure.” She gestured for her to follow her to the kitchen. She could hear Kate happily talking Bare’s ear off.

Maxine stared at Amber stone-faced across the table. “Kate has expressed interest in changing her virginal status before graduate school.”

Amber grimaced.

“I suspect that’s why she’s come to you,” Maxine went on. “She’s hoping you’ll guide her in meeting an appropriate man.”

“I-I didn’t know. I would never—”

Maxine held up a hand. “She looks up to you. Always has. Can I count on you to keep her from getting into trouble?”

“You mean birth control?”

“No, we’ve had that talk with her every year since she first got her period. And we don’t have a problem with sex per se.”

We, Amber supposed, meant her father and Maxine. Geez. All she’d gotten was a book tossed in her room. Of course, she hadn’t been all smiles and sunshine as a teenager. Her dad probably didn’t have a clue where to begin that talk.

Maxine went on. “We just don’t want Kate throwing herself at some guy who’s going to…”

A few moments passed in silence. Amber waited, used to Maxine’s halting conversations. Her stepmother’s brain was whirring a mile a minute though nothing was coming out of her mouth.

Finally Maxine stood. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

Amber’s head spun. What exactly had they decided? She followed Maxine into the living room.

Kate stood. “Can I stay?”

Maxine nodded. “You may stay if you send me weekly progress reports on your studies. Amber will take care of the other thing.”

“You will?” Kate asked, her eyes lighting up.

Amber had no idea what she was supposed to do. Was she supposed to pimp her sister out to some guy? Buy her birth control? Have heart-to-heart talks with her?

“Sure,” Amber said.

“I will stay for dinner,” Maxine announced.

Both Kate and Maxine turned to Amber.

“I’ll call for takeout,” Amber said. She went for the Chinese take-out menu, knowing that’s what her family always ordered on Saturday night.

“Excellent,” Maxine said. “Barry, what do you do?”

Bare grinned. “I’m a pirate.”

Kate laughed. “Isn’t he funny? That’s just a part in a play. Mom, this is Barry Furnukle. The guy behind Giggle Snap.”

Maxine raised a brow. “Have you heard the latest with the sparse Fourier transform and its impact on audio recordings?”

“Yes, actually,” Bare replied.

The three of them settled into a deep discussion. Amber called for takeout, on the outside of the science nerds once again. Her heart sank. She’d never wanted to be in that brainy circle as badly as she did now.

And, dammit, she still hadn’t gotten her third C.

~ ~ ~

“So did you have a good time talking to Kate and Maxine?” Amber asked as Bare drove them to rehearsal later that night.

“Sure, they’re good people.”

She went quiet. She felt stupid around her family, and now Bare was right there with them. Not that they excluded her. At least not on purpose. She just didn’t have any idea what they were talking about half the time.

“That was a good date this time, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“Did you ever think you should be dating someone more like Kate?” she asked, hating herself for even mentioning it.

“Now why would you say that?” He stopped at a stop sign and looked at her with his kind eyes.

She felt all kinds of petty for even bringing it up. “Nothing.”

He hit the accelerator. “You think I want a physics-obsessed girlfriend?”

“Well, she is more like you. And you seem to have lots to talk about.”

“And what about you? Should you only date other artists with pink hair?”

She snorted. She’d never seen any guys with pink hair. She got quiet.

“You want a list of reasons why I want to be with you?” he asked.

That was ridiculous. Insane. She was
not
that needy.

“Sure,” she said.

“Do you have a list of reasons why you want to be with me?” he asked.

“No, not right now, but I could make one.”

“Okay, I’ll make a list and you make a list, and then we’ll compare.”

“That sounds like the rational, brainy thing to do,” she said, biting back a smile.

“Mine will have a few equations.”

“Mine will be illustrated.”

“I look forward to it.”

“As do I.”

They took one look at each other and cracked up.

Amber changed the subject, embarrassed she’d ever brought up such a ridiculous topic. She wasn’t in competition with her sister. She didn’t need Bare to tell her why she was special. She asked him about working with Delilah, the older actress who played Ruth. Lately Delilah had spent a lot of time bitching and moaning to Amber backstage about some of the younger actresses.

Bare, being Bare, had no complaints. He seemed to always see the good in people. Seeing her stepmother again, hearing the three of them talk, had put her back in that awful place where she was the outsider. That stuff shouldn’t matter now. She lived on her own, supported herself. She was living the life she was meant to be living.

Bare parked the car at the high school and turned to her. “Look, I could write down equations for you. Compose a few equivalencies to prove the sum of us together is greater than the sum of our parts, but you and I both know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

She did. But what did that mean exactly?

He cradled her face with one hand, and she waited for the kiss, the physical expression of why he wanted to be with her. It was why all men wanted her—her looks, her body. She closed her eyes.

His voice came out in a husky growl. “The short answer is I’m falling for you, not Kate.”

Her eyes flew open. She met his warm brown eyes and saw love shining back at her. She blinked away stinging hot tears, couldn’t even speak past the lump in her throat. She nodded.

“Now you know,” he said softly. His thumb brushed her cheek where a tear had leaked out. “I’d ask what you’d put in an illustration, but I’m afraid to know.”

She found her voice again. “Your big heart.”

He smiled. “My mother always says I’m a gem.”

“You are.”

His thumb stroked down her cheek. “I can’t wait to make you mine.”

“You already have,” she choked out.

He kissed her then, a tender kiss that she fell into slowly, inevitably, where she belonged. All of her insecurities faded because this was not just physical between them. There were feelings here. Real emotion.

He pulled back. They could hear voices nearby as more of the cast arrived for rehearsal.

“We should go,” he said.

She walked to the auditorium with him, hand in hand, their fingers entwined. There was something about Bare. He was so solid, so steady, so unlike any of her ex-boyfriends, who she always hoped would stick around, but never did. She knew she had abandonment issues because of her mother. Two years of forced therapy as a teen had taught her that it wasn’t her fault her mother left, and that she had every right to be angry and sad, all of which did nothing to soothe her pain. She didn’t fall in love quickly or easily, had only been in love once before with a guy that ultimately didn’t love her back, but somehow, Bare, with his easygoing, smiling way, had worked his way into her heart. It scared her. Some part of her kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

~ ~ ~

After a long rehearsal, where Delilah threatened to walk out twice because as she said in a shrill, dramatic voice, “I cannot work this way,” Amber joined the cast and crew at Garner’s bar for a drink.

“Here’s our girl,” Zac said, appearing at Amber’s side and giving her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I know you’re in love with me, but I’m in love with the fair Mabel.”

She giggled. Zoe called over from a few stools away. “Is that my fair Frederic?”

The two did an exaggerated slow-motion run toward each other, holding hands, and turning in a slow, happy circle.

Amber laughed.

“Come here,” Bare said, pulling her close and giving her a kiss on the lips.

She smiled against his lips. He responded by pulling her onto his lap. His arm wrapped around her waist, holding her securely in place.

Steph stopped by for a refill on her mojito. “Didn’t I tell you theater was fun?” She elbowed Amber. “Admit it.”

“It is fun,” Amber said.

“Ha!” Steph said triumphantly.

“As long as I’m back stage,” Amber finished.

“We’re doing
Grease
next year,” Toby said. “Think about it.”

“I played Danny in
Grease
back in high school,” Bare offered.

“Of course you did,” Kevin muttered, tossing back a shot.

“I’ll be Sandy,” Lauren said, blowing him a kiss.

Amber wiggled on Bare’s lap to distract him. His hands clamped on her hips, stilling her.

“Wench,” he growled in her ear.

She giggled.

“You’re going to be a Pink Lady with me next summer,” Steph told Amber.

“I’ll be one of the T-birds,” Bare said.

“You’ll be Danny,” Steph said. “Don’t kid yourself. As long as you want to be in Eastman Community Theater, you’ll be the lead. Right, Toby?”

Toby turned and droned in the tone of someone who repeated the line often, “Everyone has to audition each season and wait for the cast list.” He did a slow nod at the same time.

“He’ll have to fight me for the role!” Zac said, raising his finger in mock swordplay, clashing it against Bare’s hand. Bare crooked his finger around Zac’s.

“May the best greaser win!” Bare said.

“Fuck you all,” Kevin said before slamming his drink on the bar and marching out the door.

“Drama queen,” Zac muttered.

“I’m surrounded by divas,” Toby moaned.

Temperamental artists, one and all
, Amber thought. She understood these people. She poured all of her artistic, creative energy onto the canvas, drawing from deep inside. They poured all of their artistic, creative energy outwards, drawing from each other.

She turned and looked up at Bare over her shoulder. “I want to paint you tomorrow.”

“Me?”

She smiled. “Yes, you.”

“Careful,” Zac warned. “She might want to show you her etchings. You know what that means.”

They both stared at him in confusion.

Zac did an exaggerated eye roll. “Etchings? Come up for a cup of coffee? It’s all the same deal.”

“I don’t have any etchings,” Amber said.

“Forget it,” Zac said. “If I have to spell it out for you”—his voice dropped to an exaggerated stage whisper—“S-E-X, then you’re too ignorant to be allowed to go there.”