Then, yesterday, Brandon told me that he’d gotten a call from
Amanda confirming that she would be back at work today. He’d said it quickly and dismissively, having no idea what that might mean to me. Apparently Amanda would be arriving at Energy Plus Co. this afternoon at some point.
Of course, Amanda has no need to tell me that she’ll be here, because she doesn’t know that I’m here. But if she’s well enough to go back to work, then why hasn’t she at least sent me a quick message to let me know she’s fine?
“Did you piss her off?” Alicia asks when I voice this question out loud.
“No!” I say, offended. Then I pause. “I don’t think I did. I mean, I was probably a little overbearing when I forced her to go to the doctor by phoning her mother, and then I made the appointment for her…”
“Then maybe she’s just trying to show you that she doesn’t need you to hover,” Alicia says with a shrug. “From what you’ve told me, Amanda sounds fiercely independent, and probably didn’t take kindly to having you do everything for her.”
I grimace. I would love to agree with her. But Amanda isn’t the type to keep her thoughts to herself. If she was upset with me, she would tell me. The fact that she’s keeping her silence means that something is really wrong.
I just don’t know what it is.
“Should I message her again?” I muse.
“If she’s keeping quiet, just leave her alone,” Alicia advises me. “If she thinks you’re smothering her, she’ll just back off. She hasn’t known you long enough to appreciate you being a mother hen.”
I glare at her, not appreciating the moniker. Alicia simply grins back unrepentantly and turns back to her work. Grudgingly, I go back to my office.
But I know Alicia is wrong on this one. Something isn’t right here, and I think leaving it alone is probably the worst thing I could do.
With this belief in mind, I glance at the address that Amanda had texted me a week after we started seeing each other when she invited me around with a movie, dinner and sex and gave it to my driver. I’m going to go see Amanda and get to the bottom of what’s happening here.
Amanda lives in a large apartment on the sixth floor of her building. She’s set it up nicely, but it’s clear that she only really spends time in it to sleep. When I went there last, work was strewn across the dining table, and files had been dashed over the coffee table in the living room. The only sign of any hobbies was a crime fiction novel laying on the couch.
Would she be there today? She specifically told Brandon she would be back today, so she’s probably already been in and out of my company. I never saw her, of course, but Brandon already emailed me to say that they’d made some progress after the short break because of Amanda’s illness, and that he’ll write a full report up for me tomorrow.
There is, of course, the chance that she might have returned to her own workplace to present her own report to her father. But Amanda has already joked, more than once, that she thinks having to wait does her father good, so she never gives reports until the next day. So, it’s likely she would have gone straight home.
I hope, anyway.
I’m a ball of nerves as I travel up to the sixth floor. I just know that something is wrong, and that it’s been wrong since the day she went to the doctor. Did she find something out there? Was she lying when she said she was fine?
By the time I reach her door, I’ve managed to compose myself. All I need to do is talk to her and see what’s going on. After that, we can hopefully figure out what’s going to happen between the two of us.
Before I can knock, however, it opens.
For a moment, the woman in the doorway and I stare at each other, equally stunned to come face to face. I’ve never met the woman, but the striking green eyes in her face, so like her daughter’s, tells me immediately that this is Amanda’s mother, Marie Sanders.
“Hello?” Marie asks, confused. “Who are you?”
“I’m, uh, Lyle, ma’am,” I say respectfully. “I was wondering if Amanda was here?”
Abruptly her expression changes. When we spoke on the phone the other day, when I told her how sick Amanda was and enlisted her help to get the stubborn woman to the doctor, she had been pleasant and kind. We’d joked around a little, and I hung up, feeling like I’d managed to make my girlfriend’s mother like me.
Now, however, the look in her eyes is hard. It throws me for a loop, because I have no idea why she looks so unimpressed with me.
“Lyle, huh?” she asks, looking me up and down. “I see. What are you doing here?”
I’m taken aback. Now, more than ever, I know something has happened. I just don’t know what it is and how I’ve become the bad guy all of a sudden.
“Um… I haven’t heard from Amanda, and I was worried,” I say, fidgeting slightly. I’m the owner of my own damn company, but Marie’s stare makes me feel like a little kid again. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
Marie’s eyes narrow and she scans me, looking for something. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but I unconsciously straighten my back anyway, swallowing.
Then, abruptly, her expression softens. Whatever test that was, I appear to have passed it.