No Amends by Angela Lam

Author:Angela Lam [Lam, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gross Productions
Published: 2023-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

After dinner, Layla, Nolan, Jade, and Tang opened their gifts beside the Christmas tree in the sunroom. They huddled together, bundled up in sweaters, with the heat turned up. Mugs of eggnog and apple cider were clustered around discarded wrapping paper and ribbon on the coffee table. Christmas carols floated from the stereo speakers. Nolan sang along with every tune. Jade sometimes accompanied him. Layla only smiled, and Tang observed.

Outside, the bay roiled with high tide. A few miles north, the predicted Pacific Ocean storm crushed waves along the jagged coast. Rainfall splattered against the windows, and Tang glanced up, feeling like a statue in the middle of a snow globe, protected from the elements, safely contained within the glitter and glow of the glass-domed room.

A ring from down the hallway pierced the music.

Tang stiffened her shoulders and stood, placing her mug of cider on the coffee table. “I’ll get it.” The jolt of the sound had jump-started her lulling heartbeat into a faster rhythm, and she strode down the hallway toward the master bedroom, anxious to stop the insistent noise from the landline. She didn’t bother flicking on the light since she figured it must be an automated spam caller.

After yanking the receiver from the phone, she placed the mouthpiece near her chin and said, “Hello?”

“Tang. Merry Christmas.” Dee’s voice, light and lilting, floated into the room.

“How did you get this number?” The anxiety shifted into fear, and she gripped the receiver tight against her ear and padded toward the doorway. She glimpsed the light spilling into the hallway from the sunroom, where laughter and music and rainfall echoed.

“I needed to hear your voice,” Dee said. “I needed to know what you would do to me if I were with you right now, wearing nothing.”

“It must be after midnight in Florida,” Tang said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of you in the last house we saw.” She sighed, her breath deepening. “You’re pushed up against the counter, your skirt is bunched up against your waist, and your legs are parted.” She lowered her voice. “Tell me what you would have done if it had been me standing there.”

Tang tugged the sweater against her heated skin and stepped away from the doorway. She loosened her grip on the phone and pressed her back against the wall. The rainfall pattered against the roof, and the shadow of tree branches whipped across the bed. A fierce wind howled. She swallowed, blinked. No longer in the bedroom she shared with Layla, but kneeling in the fifth house, her fingers damp with moisture, the secret scent of Dee filling her senses like a heady perfume.

“I would …” she began, telling in exquisite detail every movement of her lips, her tongue, her fingers.

She listened to Dee’s reactions, the hitch of her breath, the sudden burst of words—oh, yes, and I’m coming.

“Tang, who is it?” Layla’s voice barreled down the hallway.

“I have to go.” With trembling fingers, Tang dropped the phone into the cradle.

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