Chapter 7

Amelia's POV

It's been almost three weeks and he still hasn't called or sent me a text. He must be mad at me yet. I talked to my mother last night and waited for her to say something, anything, about the Chapmans and their children. The only thing she said was that they were very busy in Hawaii and wouldn't have the chance to come back to Colorado to visit for a while. She made no direct mention of Leland. My heart sank a little when I realized that he hadn't left his wife and called my parents in a frantic middle of the night call expressing his undying love for me.

Not that he would have ever done that anyways. No one, except Katie and Duane Lee, knew about what Leland and I had been up to over the years.

The past three weeks have been interesting, I guess. Katie is renting a house in a city called Cameron and she pretty much comes and goes and does what she wants. I've tried nailing down several times what kind of work she actually does, or how she spends her time when she isn't home, but I haven't gotten a straight answer from her.

Her current boyfriend's name is Jeff. He's a lot like Katie—a free spirited individual. They seem to have a lot of fun together. Of course their 'fun' usually happens at three in the morning when I'm trying to sleep. I forgot how difficult it is to live with her. I think I've gotten her routine down though. Jeff will come by the house around nine o'clock to pick her up. He'll yell up the stairs to her to hurry the hell up, he's ready to go. She'll yell back down to shut up and sit down and wait for her. I've offered to go upstairs and relay the message to her, or vice versa, but he always gives me a wink and says not worry about it; he's got my sister under control. Yeah right. I have never seen a man have Katie 'under control'.

After about half an hour of waiting, she finally comes downstairs and is ready to go. I don't know where they go or what they're doing. She knows that I am still moping around thinking about Leland, so she doesn't ask me to go anywhere with them. She knows me well enough to know that I won't relax in this new city until I hear from Leland. Are we still together? I don't know. Were we ever really together? Again, I don't know. I haven't heard from him in three weeks. He asked me if I was sure that I wanted to move so far away from him. I already told him that I had moved and that I missed him. I haven't heard a peep out of him since then. Throughout our entire relationship, I have never initiated the first contact. It was always him. After the night that he took my virginity in the woods, he declared himself to be the dominant one in our 'relationship'. I waited for his calls. I waited for his texts. I waited for his soft knocks on my front door after midnight. I waited for him to decide when he was ready to leave his wife.

I had a funny feeling that if stayed here, so far away from him, that I would never hear from him again. I knew how he could hold a grudge. And at this point in my life, after being with him for so long, I don't know if I want him to hold a grudge against me. After everything we had been through together, I still loved him. Leland Chapman was still my whole world. I didn't know how to move on from something like that.

I have a feeling that Katie had told her boyfriend Jeff everything about me. Not that I minded, but my relationship with Leland, whatever it was, was private. I didn't want anyone to meddle in it. I wanted Leland back. I wanted him all to myself. My sister, and her boyfriend apparently, thought that I should be able to move on from Leland and date other people.

It was Friday night about 8:30. I was sitting on the couch, laptop on my lap, tapping out my latest freelance project when the doorbell rang. Before I was able to get up and answer the door, it opened and in walked Jeff with another guy. Trying to hold back my sigh of frustration, I put my computer aside and stood up to greet them. "Katie's upstairs. I didn't know you were going out tonight. She didn't say anything," I said as I stood in front of them awkwardly.

"Oh, we're not going out tonight. We're staying in," Jeff said with a big grin on his face. He poked his friend in the side. It wasn't until Jeff cleared his throat that I noticed that his friend had been looking in my direction. Long dark hair, dark sunglasses covered his eyes and he had a built physique. All he needed was dark eyes and he would look just like Leland. My chest tightened a little when I said his name in my head.

I was going to introduce myself to Jeff's friend when Katie came bounding down the stairs. "Jeff!" she squealed as she ran across the room into her boyfriend's arms. You would think that they hadn't seen each other in weeks the way they were holding on to each other right now. His friend stood awkwardly by them, leaning against the door. Every once in a while he would look my way. He had finally taken his sunglasses off. He had dark, dark brown eyes. Just like my Leland…..

.

.

"Girl, I think you had enough," my new friend chuckled in my ear as he put an arm around my waist in an attempt to hold me upright. I just giggled in response and laid my head on his chest. I closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat.

Katie had introduced me to Jeff's friend after a few awkward minutes of standing around in the living room. His name was Matt and he was Jeff's brother. He also lived in Cameron in a house that he owned. Apparently Jeff was as free spirited as Katie was and had moved in with his brother a few months ago. It sounded like he had no intentions of leaving either. Hearing more and more about Jeff's personal life made me realize how much he and my sister were alike. No wonder they liked spending so much time together.

Instead of moping around and pining for Leland all night, I ended up joining Katie, Jeff and his brother Matt in the garage for a night of Rummy 500 and having drinks. It was well past one in the morning now and I was starting to see double. I haven't drank like this in a long time; I usually just have a glass of wine or two and call it a night. Once in a great while, when Leland was over, I would take a few sips of his whiskey.

Oh, my God….Leland…I had been having such a good time tonight that I had almost forgot about him. Almost. He was always lurking somewhere in my mind. "You want another drink or you want to go inside?" Matt was talking to me. I should pay attention to him. What I really wanted to do, in my drunken state, was call Leland and demand to know why he's acting the way he is right now.

Moving slightly away from Matt, I swayed heavily in the process and he caught me in his big arms. He chuckled. "I think you've had enough….Let me help you to bed…"