The Darkness - Jason Pinter [14]
how much of her life she'd missed. It was as if she'd taken
her expected life and turned it around. Her parents had
died when she was young, and after being shuttled back
and forth for years, she was adopted by a kind couple
named Lawrence and Harriet Stein. The Steins were everything foster parents could be. Except for real parents.
Amanda went through the first twenty years of her life
without knowing a real relationship of any kind, and she
didn't figure that would get any better.
Then she met Henry in extraordinary circumstances,
literally picking him up on the side of the road, later to
find out he was wanted for murder. Thankfully he was
innocent. That would have been a deal breaker.
They'd leaped into a relationship faster than either of
them knew what they were doing, and for a while it was
good. Really good. Then just as they met under extraordinary circumstances, so were they torn apart. Henry
broke up with her for reasons that he believed were noble,
but devastated them both. And after some tentative patchwork, they'd decided to give it another go. Slowly this
time. They were starting like they should have from the
beginning. Movies. Dinner. Holding hands while walking
through Central Park, picnic lunches on the Great Lawn.
She'd moved in with Henry too quickly last time. For
now, Darcy would do, but every night spent in that cold
guest room, with the hard mattress that was meant more
for show than for use, with the artificial orchids everywhere and paint so white that it seemed to have been
bleached of all personality, she couldn't wait for the day
when she could feel his warmth next to her every night,
where she could lean her head on his chest whenever she
felt like it and listen to the beating of his heart. She craved
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Jason Pinter
that intimacy, that security. He needed it, too, she knew
it. But if it took a few extra months to build protection
for the rest of their lives, she supposed she could wait.
The alternative would have been unbearable.
When she used her spare key to open the apartment
door, she had to fumble around in the hallway for the light
switch. It wasn't by the door like it would be in a normal
apartment. The hallway light was part of some intricate
module by the entrance of the atrium that controlled all
the lights in the house. That was one of the things she
loved about Henry's previous apartments. There were no
modules, and definitely no atrium.
Once she found the panel and turned on every light in
the house before finding the one to her bedroom, she
went inside, stripped out of her work clothes and threw
on a pair of shorts and a tank top. Darcy and her husband,
Devin, were out at their summer home in Oyster Bay.
Every weekend they begged Amanda to come with them,
and every weekend she declined. She hated being the
third wheel, and having to do it four and a half days of
every week (they usually left for Long Island early on
Friday) was enough. And while sitting at the edge of a
beach, dipping her toes into the luscious water of the
Long Island Sound seemed like the perfect antidote to the
stressful Manhattan life, it didn't mean a thing without
Henry. And he wasn't the "dip your feet in the water and
laugh like a fool" kind of guy.
He had two modes: work and play. When the switch
was on Work, Henry was as driven and ambitious as
anyone she'd known. When it was on Play, there was
nobody else in the world but the two of them. Everything
faded away when he held her in his arms.
And she loved both sides of him unconditionally.
The Darkness
45
Amanda called Henry's cell. It went right to voice mail.
"Hey, babe, hope you're having a good day and Jack
hasn't led you off a cliff or something. Give me a call
when you get a chance."
When she hung up, Amanda turned on her laptop and
put Aimee Mann on high. She was a massive fan, but
found she couldn't listen to her favorite song, "Wise Up,"
as often as she used to. The lyrics were about finding what
you thought you wanted most, only to realize that once
you had