Page 27 of Actually Yours

Steven is the only person who knows about the spark of attraction I’d had with Amelia for those brief five minutes when she was just the gorgeous stranger at a bar. I’d accidentally told him all about it after a few too many drinks, a few weeks after she and my brother started dating, and apparently, he’s going to hold it against me.

“My idiot brother left her a note, telling her he wants her back.” My hand clenches around the beer bottle I’m holding, so tight I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter.

He frowns. “Doesn’t Robby have a new girlfriend?”

“Yes.” My response is clipped as my blood boils with anger. It’s not enough that he treated Amelia so poorly when they were a couple, but now he’s going out of his way to mess with her after they’ve broken up.

“I’ll never understand how the two of you are related.” Steven shakes his head.

I nod in agreement. Robby and I are as different as night and day. Or eternal darkness and eternal light, if you want to be extreme about it. Robby was a surprise addition to our family, born almost seven years after me, well after my parents had given up hope of having another child. And as a result, he’s been pampered and spoilt every day since. A fact that turned him into a complete and total narcissistic selfish prick (my official diagnosis).

“He’s just so selfish, you know?” I grind out through my teeth. “He’s got a girlfriend. What would possess him to contact Amelia after all this time?”

After six months, three days and a handful of hours. To be exact.

“Well, he’d be an idiot to not try to win her back. Amelia is an absolute catch.” My very married, happily committed best friend’s face flushes as he says this.

And who can blame him? Amelia has that effect on men. On everyone, really. She’s the only one who doesn’t see she has this power.

“He had his chance. He needs to leave her alone.”

Steve watches me closely, for so long I feel like a fly trapped under a microscope.

“What?” I finally break down and ask. “Spit it out.”

“You just seem pretty worked up about something that has very little to do with you.” He says the words gently, like he’s coaxing me towards some sort of realisation.

“It has a lot to do with me when that stupid note causes her to come knocking on my door at two o’clock in the morning. Wearingthatdress.”

He laughs, a big booming sound that has heads turning in our direction.

“Stop. It.” I grit this out, annoyed at his amusement. There’s not one single thing funny here that I can see.

“Tell me about the dress.” His sly smile has the tips of my ears pinking up and I realise too late my slip up.

“It was yellow,” I sigh, unable to stop the image of Amelia’s curves looking like they’d been poured into that dress from flashing through my mind.

“Sounds delightful,” he replies, his eyes twinkling.I need to get new friends.

This torturous conversation is interrupted—thank God—by a server finally coming to take our order. Just in time for me to have lost my appetite.

“So, she turns up in the yellow dress. Robby isn’t home. Then what happens?” Steven is leaning in, his attention locked on me. This may be the most entertainment he’s had all week. All month, perhaps? I’m assuming married life contains very little of this sort of excitement.

“Then, nothing,” I lie, repressing the memory of Amelia on my couch, Amelia wearing my sweatshirt, Amelia in my arms. “We talked for a bit and then I drove her home. She was spitting mad at Robby, though.” This brings a smile to my face. At least I know she hasn’t stayed under his spell this whole time.

“And that’s it?”

He’s disappointed.

“Well…”

He perks up.

“Well?”

“I saw her again. At that café, the one I told you about?”

“The one you saw when you ‘accidentally’ happened upon her Instagram page?” He makes a big show of putting quotation marks around the word accidentally and I only just refrain from throwing a corn chip from our piping hot bowl that had just been delivered.

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