My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

and lowers himself next to me until the flame is flickering near my face. “Look into the flame,” he says. “And tell me what you see.”

I look through the dancing fire connected to the wick, and what I see is his handsome, dark-skinned hand, beyond its glow, holding the plate. “I see your hand,” I answer, feeling stupid and literal. Shit, he likes poetry. I should have said something poetic.

“When you look into a flame you are looking into your future,” he explains. Then he smiles sexily and says, “And what you see is me.” He holds the candle in front of our faces, highlighting them with the swaggering flame, then suddenly blows it out, returning us to the middle gray light of the shade-darkened room. He puts the candle on the floor, rolls back to me, and wraps me in his muscular arms. Then he closes his eyes.

It’s nightfall. Nicolo and Thomas are gone. Amity is pooing up for real the whole two-hour show. I’m feeling almost dreamy, as if I’m still wrapped in Nicolo’s arms. I sit on the side of the tub and watch. I don’t know how she’s doing it, but she seems to have this incredible energy, she is fluffing her hair and painting her face and staying very focused and task oriented. “Thomas was unbelievable, Harry. He can go and go and go. You should hear his accent while he makes love. “I’m coming, Amity,” he said, but it sounded like he said, “I’m calming Amity.” European love makes me melt. From the moment he stamped my passport, I was wetter than a canal in Amsterdam!”

I smile. Quietly laugh.

“How was your Latin lover? Tell me about Nicolo, Harry. Did he scramble your huevos?”

I sigh, contented. “We didn’t have sex. We didn’t even take our clothes off. We just talked.”

“What? G’yaw, sounds like true love,” she says flippantly. “You just talked the whole time?”

“No, we talked a little while; then we fell asleep in each other’s arms. We were both kind of knocked over by the champagne.”

“And each other?” Amity asks. She does the Belushi eyebrow, but her smile is slightly tense.

“Kind of,” I say. I’m a little nervous about telling her my true feelings that I think this guy is the sexiest, sweetest, most real person I’ve ever met which is largely the way I felt about her when first we met. The fundamental difference is that Nicolo is a man. A man that I could instantly fall in love with and probably am. Even though my relationship with Amity is wide open, and honest as well, the whole situation seems loaded. How can I love two people at once?

“He doesn’t like me,” she says, putting her mascara on while she opens her mouth wide like a fish.

“How do you know?”

She pauses with the mascara wand. “Harry, don’t bullshit me. You see it too.”

“I think he likes you,” I lie. “He just didn’t like Hunt’ sfriends calling him a faggot, and since you dated Hunt, he finds you guilty.”

“I wish he wouldn’t judge me,” she says, going back to her mascara application.

“He’s a wonderful man. He’ll get over it.”

“Harry, are you in love?”

“Amity, I just met the guy. How could I be in love?” I don’t sound the least bit convincing.

She doesn’t answer, but smiles. It’s a smile I’ve not seen her wear; her lips aren’t raised or lowered, but spread to camouflage whatever her feelings may be. She quickly resumes her mission of readiness, and before I know it, she’s whipped herself back into a fresh and gorgeous woman in a black cocktail dress and pearls. “Libby’s sore,” she whines, slipping into her shoes. “Kim can have a blow job, but he’s not sticking it in.”

“You want me to tell him?” I ask, gallantly.

“You let me take care of that,” Amity says.

Kim comes to the door, and this time she answers it herself.

r,u!

She brings him in, and I’m surprised to see that he’s Chinese or Japanese or something like that. He’ sa short, wired-up guy of about fifty who shakes my hand as if we’ve made a thirty-million-dollar business deal that entitles him to the whole thirty million. His black hair is dirty and unkempt, his face has a five o’clock shadow, but with his sparse whiskers it looks as if he’s operating on daylight saving time. His clothes are jail cell fresh, and his breath smells like rotten sushi. I can’t believe she’s dating this guy. But Amity eagerly throws her Chanel purse over her shoulder, and whoosh, they’re out of the house.

With the house to myself, I revel in the quiet. Falling into the wingback chair, I raise my hand to my nose. I can still smell Nicolo’ s natural scent. It’s a powerful aphrodisiac, and I try to imagine him naked in my arms, kissing me. I’m feeling as if this is a day I’ll never forget, like the day Amity and I had in Mexico. A day when every smell, every piece of clothing, every word will be remembered.

Later in the evening, I run out to Butch’s Diner for dinner food. Recently, I’ve started eating all the fattening food I can and drinking protein shakes, because working out at the gym has made me hungrier. My body has been changing, and now that I’ve met Nicolo, I have more incentive to garner results. After I eat my takeout calories, I fall asleep in my room.

Later that night, I’m stirred slightly awake by sounds coming out of Amity’s bedroom. “Oh, Kim, you drive me wild!” she squeals. There’s something a little sick about it. She was just saying the same thing to Thomas this morning, and it makes me wonder which guy really drives her wild. And while the answer may be both, I have a feeling it could just as well be neither. I roll over and pull my feather pillow over my head and fall back into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

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