Momentary Marriage(3)

Kelsey looked at her, unable to think of anything to say. She couldn’t remember ever letting herself get so caught up in a man. It was, in fact, a goal of hers to avoid this sort of misery. Hadn’t Amy learned anything from their mother’s mistakes?

Falling in love could be a light, fun romantic adventure or you could let it eat your heart up. She’d always been determined to stay on the safer side of the emotion, but Amy was a romantic. A woman who persisted in believing in ever-after despite all the evidence of its falsity.

The urge to protect her little sister was strong. They’d always faced their ever-changing world together.

For a moment, Kelsey considered recommending Amy to play it safe. Forget Doug. Don’t let any man that close to your heart. She didn’t say it, though. For one thing, she really loved her sister, and there was enough truth in Amy’s observations about her own behavior to sting. It would be too easy an out for her, just to blow the situation off as more validation of her own dating strategy.

“I may be making some big changes,” Amy said, wiping her nose with a tissue. “I have a…friend with business connections in London. He asked me not to say anything to anyone yet, but he’s been talking to some people about getting me a job over there.”

“London?” Kelsey sat down with a thud. “You can’t be serious!”

Taking another sip of her coffee, her sister said nothing.

Kelsey stared at Amy in dismay. The thought of her only sibling living halfway across the world hit her like a blow in the solar plexus. What would she do without Amy close by? No more all day shopping trips together, no more chats over coffee.

“Amy,” she said with difficulty, “moving to London…that’s a huge step to take because of a guy. Even Doug.”

“I know,” her sister admitted, “but I can’t go on like this and I can’t stay here much longer and watch him following you around like a puppy. Before I have any future with Doug, he’s going to have to let go of you and that doesn't seem likely anytime soon.”

“You’d be so far away,” Kelsey protested, her stomach knotting further. They’d always clung together, anchoring each other in the storms of their mother’s tumultuous love life. “I’d never get to see you. You really have to think about it before you make a big move like that.”

“I am,” her sister said wearily, getting up. “But right now, I’ve got to get back to work.”

“We’ll find a way to sort this out,” Kelsey assured her as Amy left. “See you later.”

She sat staring into space for a long time when she was alone. This was terrible. She’d known, of course, that Amy liked Doug when they were kids. Her sister had confessed to it when she was sixteen and Kelsey was heading off to college. But with their hectic lives and trying to make a living in the City, somehow Amy’s feelings about Doug had never come up again.

She and her sister didn’t live together, but they saw each other every day. How could she have been so dense? So unaware of how her own sister felt about a man they both knew so well?

Now that she’d been slapped in the face with the truth, she wondered at how blind and selfish she’d been. She did call Doug when she was between men. She let him help her out and took him for granted. He was her friend. She had other friends, of course. Being in the advertising business required the ability to meet and greet, but Doug had always been reliable and concerned. She loved him like a brother.

Unlike Amy, Kelsey knew better than to believe in till-death-do-we-part love. It was kind of like the lottery. There were people who lucked out that way, but very few.

She’d seen too much falling in and out of love to let her heart be knocked around that way. The way she saw it, love was a rush of excitement, a period of discovery, sex and then, after a while, over-familiarity and boredom. People drifted apart.

On the other hand, Doug might not be Amy’s lottery love, but how could Kelsey deny her a chance at finding some happiness?

All these years of “friendship” and coming to love Doug like a brother, all along she'd been using him to fill up the empty gaps in her life without thought of how her sister felt about him.

It just wasn’t acceptable, Kelsey realized, sitting back in her chair. Somehow, she had to make Doug see that she would never care about him as a lover. And she had to do it before Amy’s heart broke. Certainly before her sister moved an ocean away.

***

Kelsey Layton slid a sideways glance to where Jared Barrett stood next to her, filling the elevator with his presence and the subtle seduction of his after shave. He smelled good, the kind of warm, male essence that made her want to lean into a man and inhale.