Three is a Crowd

The car ride to her place was awkward. There was no other word that could describe it as well as that particular one. The silence was deafening as Amanda refused to speak to Gerard, furious with Gerard for manipulating her into dropping her panties yet again, and angry at herself for letting him control her so easily. She had always prided herself on never giving into pressure but, when it came to Gerard, she always seemed to give in. She refused to acknowledge Gerard’s presence, looking out the window to watch random strangers on the street as the car sped towards their destination. She had tried to refuse Gerard’s offer of a ride home to avoid the stifling tension she knew would taint the air but, he had ignored her refusal and dragged her to the car park with a Cheshire cat grin on his face. He had gotten what he wanted yet again, at the expense of Amanda’s pride.

The anger she felt made the tears well up in her eyes. She rarely cried but now for the second time in a matter of days she wanted to cry, this time out of pure frustration and anger. She hated the feeling of shame and humiliation that came as a result of her actions. She had tried not to give in but, Gerard seemed to win at every turn. He knew how to push her buttons like nobody else could and the fact that she was the one who was giving him this power was even more infuriating.

The car pulled up outside her apartment block. Amanda clutched the door handle before Gerard had even fully stopped the car. He stopped her with a firm grip on her wrist holding it more tightly than was necessary out of annoyance.

‘Stop fucking running Amanda. It’s getting annoying and it’s not endearing.’

‘Good thing I’m not trying to endear myself to you then’ she lashed out, trying to pull her wrist free. She needed to get away from him before she started crying in front of him, or worse, physically lashed out at him in her anger.

‘For fuck sake Amanda, if you stopped being a drama queen for two fucking seconds we could have a proper conversation about this.’

‘No, we can’t Gerard. Any conversation we’ll have will involve you telling me why I should go along with everything you say. If I disagree I’m the one with the problem. Can’t you just get it into your head that I don’t [i]want[/i] what you want? Or is the concept of other people’s feelings completely foreign to you?’

‘But you [i]do[/i] want what I want Amanda, I proved it twenty minutes ago when you were screaming my name. Why are you being so irrational about this?’

‘Because I’m in love with you, you self obsessed asshole!’ she yelled. It took a moment for her to realise what she had said. Silence descended upon them as the weight of her words fell, and Amanda immediately wished that she could invent a time machine and turn back time. Whatever small hope there was of saving her pride or salvaging the situation was completely gone.

‘Amanda, I-‘

She didn’t let him finish as she pulled her arm free and ran out of the car, legging it into her apartment building before Gerard could see the tears fall down her cheeks.

****

The tears didn’t stop flowing until she fell into a fitful sleep that was far from restful. She woke up numerous times during the night, and when she finally got up out of bed in the morning she felt so tired she wondered if she really did sleep at all. She thought about ringing in sick. She knew she couldn’t face him, not after that bombshell of a goodbye. She picked up the phone and started dialling in the number when she realised that avoidance wasn’t going to solve this issue. Gerard had been right when he called her out on her running. It was annoying, cowardly and childish. She had to learn to grow up and face her problems. She just wondered why today was the day she had to figure that out.

She got dressed reluctantly, hoping that fate would intercede and throw her a measly bone by giving her a legitimate reason to not have to go in. Maybe a car would hit her on the way in. Not enough to kill or seriously hurt her but, enough to warrant a day off work. A broken leg would do. She stepped out of the building and stopped abruptly when she saw Gerard’s car.

‘You’ve got to be shitting me?’ she muttered to no one, trying to figure out if Gerard had seen her yet so she could get away unseen. With a thumping heart she realised he had already seen her when his car door opened and he stepped out, leaning against his car waiting for her to approach. She stared him down with weary eyes, suspicious of his motives with every hesitant step towards him.

‘I was wondering if I would see you. I thought you weren’t going to come in for a few minutes there.’ Even this early in the morning he sounded so casually sexy it wasn’t fair.

‘I thought about it. Realised it wouldn’t do any good.’ She admitted, looking down at the grimy pavement, feeling too self conscious to make eye contact with him. She could see him nod in her peripheral vision.

‘I figured you still hadn’t gotten around to fixing your car, I thought I’d give you a ride.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘I wasn’t asking’ he said, before getting back into the car. Amanda sighed before walking around to the other side of the car and getting into the front passenger seat. Even though her body was still half asleep she was still oh so aware of how close they were. All she had to do was reach out a little and she could touch him. She could smell his cologne as its scent infected his car. He started up his car without saying a word and Amanda assumed it would be another silent journey like last time. As long as they weren’t talking about what had happened yesterday she was happy with silence.

‘About what you said yesterday…did you mean that?’ he asked without warning, catching Amanda off guard after she had begun to relax a little.

‘That I think you’re a self obsessed asshole? Pretty much.’

‘Amanda’ he warned, the tone sending a delightful tremor up her spine. She loved it when he spoke her name with a threat. It made him seem dangerous and untameable, and she enjoyed the thrill it gave her.

‘I…I don’t know,’ she lied, not willing to admit the truth, ‘I have strong feelings but I don’t think it’s love. I was angry and it just slipped out.’

He took his eyes off the road for a split second, giving her that piercing look again before his features showed clear disbelief.

‘Okay.’ he said coolly ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you, you know. I just think I can make you happy. I know you said that you don’t want to share but I think the pros far outweigh the cons. I don’t see a reason to at least not give it a try.’

Amanda let put a sigh, exhaustion and fatigue getting to her as she felt her will crumbling down.

‘Moving in is a bit crazy though, Gerard. If things don’t work out where will I go?’

He thought for a moment, taking in what she said and she could see he was repressing a smile as he realised that she was beginning to cave in.

‘Okay, that’s a valid point I hadn’t thought of. How about we have a sort of trial run? We’ll see how it goes for a month, you keep your apartment but you stay with Frank and me. It’ll give us all a chance to see if we can make it work to everyone’s satisfaction without anyone losing anything. I think that’s a fair compromise.’

‘I don’t want it to affect my job Gerard. Apart from your bouts of assholeness, I actually quite like my job.’

‘It won’t’ he responded quickly with a firm voice.

‘Bullshit Gerard. You get pissed off with me and you make my day in work hell. What if I do something really bad? Don’t tell me you won’t let it get in the way because we both know it will.’

‘It won’t. The difference will be that we can deal with it at home. I’ll find other ways of venting my frustration out of you outside of work hours’ he added with a sly smirk that let Amanda know exactly how he would vent his frustration.

‘Frank will be miserable Gerard’ Amanda tried another tactic, hoping it would work.

‘We’ve talked about it, extensively. Once he realised exactly where I was coming from he was more willing to give it a try. He’s the one who suggested you moving in actually.’

Amanda didn’t respond to this, as she questioned what Frank’s motive was, to suddenly go from saying he didn’t want her to get involved with Gerard, to suggesting her moving in.

‘So, what do you say?’ Gerard asked after a moment of silence.

‘I… fine. I give up, I’ll agree to the month trial and see how it goes.’

Gerard’s face lit up with his smile, and Amanda thought it was worth the sacrifice to see him look so happy. It made her heart beat a little faster knowing she was the reason for it.

‘You won’t regret it, I promise.’ He promised with the smile still firmly in place. It made her own lips form a small smile of their own.

‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep.’

Notes

Hi All,

I apologise profusely for the long delay in updating this. Once I was approaching the end of My Way Home I couldn't really focus on this story until I had it finished. I'll update this with another couple of chapters before I start the sequel next week. I feel bad for neglecting it. Forgive me.

Also, I know its a short chapter but things will start moving a bit faster now I think. Please comment and let me know what you think. Oh, and please vote. Rating went down to 9.9 my heart is broken, please help bring it back up to 10!

I hope you enjoyed, until next time my dears :)