Page 36 of The Spider & the Storm

CHAPTER NINE

CONNECTICUT, AGE EIGHTEEN

Our first date had been in the living room.

Luke and Melanie had made themselves scarce that night, using the excuse to go out to the movies. I ordered a pizza and sat on the couch, biting my nails and feeling oddly similar to the way I had the night my parents died. Anxiously waiting with a gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach. My intuition was rarely wrong, and at that moment, I wondered what it was trying to tell me and why—if it was, in fact, my intuition and not just the nerves talking.

Dr. Sibilia had told me to try and listen when it came calling, but I couldn’t seem to hear what it was trying to say then.

But after a little while, before I could allow myself to overthink and overanalyze too much, Amanda showed up, wearing a gauzy black dress and black boots, and I stopped thinking about anything but her and her lips and her boobs and her ability to make me stupid and single-minded.

And that was how it'd been for a total of six months. An entire half of a year.

She'd been with me through a Halloween, a birthday, a Christmas, and a New Year. I had given her a drawn bouquet of black roses for Valentine's Day, even though she'd said Valentine’s was for losers, and we celebrated over a dinner of homemade lasagna and garlic bread.

I had cooked, but Melanie had helped.

Amanda had given me my first girlfriend and my first kiss. She'd taken my virginity, and with it, she'd taken my heart, giving me my first—but not my last—taste of what it was like to fall hard and fast.

It might've been silly of me, but I started to believe that we'd be like Luke and Melanie—perfect. Together through the best of times and the worst of nightmares. And even though I was only eighteen, I felt so certain that I could imagine myself with her forever.

Watching terrible movies for the sake of ignoring them to have sex on the couch while Luke and Melanie were at work. Cooking dinners I knew sucked, but she ate them anyway. Sketching her perfect, porcelain-like face while she was reading a book in my dad’s old chair or focusing on the TV or looking up to the sky on a moonlit night.

I had never been in love before, but, dammit, this had to be it. The way I felt about her … I couldn't put any other word to the emotion that flooded my chest any other time I looked at her.

Love.

I had to tell her. I knew it as I looked at her instead of watchingThe Matrix. She needed to hear the words, even though I was terrified she wouldn't say them back. I wondered if that was something I should mention to Dr. Sibilia. I wondered if she'd be able to help, as she had with so many other things in the months since I’d started seeing her.

Amanda glanced up at me and caught my stare, then smirked as her cheeks splotched red. “What?”

“You're beautiful,” I said on a shaky breath, feeling my smile grow.

She rolled her eyes and rested her head back on my shoulder. “You're insane.”

“My doctor doesn’t think so, but maybe she’s wrong. Either way, you're still beautiful.”

She snorted. “You're just trying to get into my pants.”

I laughed as my face heated and my dick began to swell. “I mean, I guess that’d be a bonus …”

Amanda lifted her head again and shifted to kneel beside me. She laid her black-nailed hand over my engorged crotch and leaned in to bring her lips close to mine. “Then, maybe we—”

“All right, kiddies, that's enough,” Luke declared boisterously, entering the living room.

Amanda hopped backward a whole seat cushion and made no secret of her exaggerated eye roll. She crossed her arms and glared at my older brother as he walked past us and grabbed his leather jacket from off the back of Dad's recliner.

“Where are you going?” I asked as he put the jacket on.

“Gonna go down to Tony's and grab a beer with Tommy and Rob.”

My brows practically shot into my hairline. I was immediately shocked and suspicious. “Tommy and Rob? Since when do you hang out with them again?”

Luke hadn't seen either of them since the fight he'd gotten into with Ritchie at Mom and Dad's funeral.

Come to think of it, he hadn't spent time withanyfriends, apart from Melanie and me since that day. He only ever made time for us when he wasn't working, and considering it now, I wasn't sure it was a good thing. Not for him. I might have beenperfectly content, doing nothing but sitting in my room all day, but Luke? He thrived socially, and I thought it was time he made some new friends. But spending time with the old ones? That I wasn't so sure of.

Especially if the worst of them would be there too. And considering he was seeing Ritchie’s brother …

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