The Time Capsule

Greg

Most of dinner was spent with my mothers ‘exciting’ plans of Ambers future with me. Sometimes I wonder if that woman thinks before she speaks. Because it honestly isn’t appropriate to be naming our future children no matter how long we’ve known each other.

My phone suddenly buzzes, indicating a new text. I knew how my mom was about phones at the table, so her taking it from my hands wasn’t new to me. And her reading the text out loud…well all I could hope for is that James didn’t write anything inappropriate.

“how do you get a girl to stop crying?” she reads aloud. I glance at Amber who was glaring at me. I guess I forgot to mention why we got the night off.

I take the phone back and start to type, not wanting to call and totally interrupt their evening. “What did you tell him?” Amber asks, peeking over my shoulder.

“I told him that you don’t ever try to stop a girl from crying. The best the he can do, and should do, is hold her. That is if she’ll let him?”

Amber turns to my mother and smiles, “you raised him well Bridget.”

“indeed I did.” And then she returns to talking about our ‘happily ever after.’

After dinner Amber and I moved into the living room. I knew that the question about James was going to come up sooner or later so when she asked I wasn’t surprised at all.

“well, after the whole incident at the park, James looked really hurt. I mean you would be too if the girl, well guy, you loved just randomly ran off. And he even admitted everything! Anyways, I had an idea of what his plan was this afternoon because we’d talked about it.” I explain trying not to leave out a detail since I knew she’d catch me on it. “You see, James has been getting birthday presents for Selena every year since they broke up. They’re charms for the bracelet he got her that last summer. He was going to give them to her this afternoon but she ran off before he got the chance. So together we sort of planned this scavenger hunt and dinner for them where they could just talk everything out. I don’t know why she’d be crying though.”

Amber slaps her forehead, as if James and I did something wrong. To me, that plan seemed pretty bullet proof and romantic. “I’m not calling only because they need to work this out on their own. But for future reference, never surprise a girl about a date. Selena should have been given a heads up about this.”

“that’s why you’re mad? Because no one informed her about the surprise?”

“mostly, yes. But also, what kind of idiot puts them in the same room together?!”

I smirk at her, “the genius kind?” she just playfully glares and I kiss her forhead. “nothing too terrible will happen to them Amber. They’re grown-ups, it’s not like they can’t be left alone ever again. I mean, just the other night when you and-” Suddenly my beeper was going off, signaling that one of my alarms back home had been triggered.

“what’s wrong Greg?”

“nothing. Probably just a cat jumped the fence. It’s sadly a common occurrence. Why don’t you go up to bed and I’ll go fix this quickly. I’ll meet you in there.” I’m sure she saw through my lie. It wasn’t a very good one since I don’t have trees around my fence for a cat to climb. But Amber didn’t ask any questions. Instead she kissed me and headed upstairs like I asked.

As for me, I ran to the nearest computer I had here and logged on to my alarm system, firstly turning off the alarm so I wouldn’t annoy the neighbors. I glanced through all my video cameras but can’t find any motion at all. Even I started to believe that a cat triggered it until I saw some guy straddling the fence. What caught my attention even more is that he jumped away from the house and into a car that was waiting. The only thing that I could think of was that that was supposed to be a distraction for me.

I sprint upstairs to the bedroom expecting to find it empty. Instead Simon was holding one guy down who was now handcuffed, two other guys were unconscious around Simon and then Carrie had two down too along with standing in front of terrified looking Amber.

I look to Simon for answers. “We caught two outside scoping the place, they are also unconscious. Carrie had decided to run ahead to check on Amber and came in just as they were grabbing at her. I must say though, you’re girl has quite the left-hooker. One guy was already down by the time Carrie showed up.” I glance toward Amber, amazed that she’d be able to do that. She gave me a weak smile and shrugged as if it were nothing. “Once I dealt with the guys outside I came here, and, well, helped Carrie finish the job so that she could protect Amber. Which leaves this guy, who really doesn’t get affected by punches. Figured I’d let him suffer the pain and wait for the police.” The guy held down by Simon only grunted, but didn’t say anything. Figures. These guys are usually paid a lot to stay silent.

“Amber, come on.” I motion for her to follow and she does, though shaking with fear. Once we reach one of the guest bedrooms we sit down. “hey, everything’s going to be okay Am.” I tell her, pulling her in for a hug.

“Where’s my ‘I told you so’ speech.” She asks, tears running down her face and staining my shirt. “I’m pretty damn sure your point was proven tonight.”

I pull back a little to look her straight into the eyes, “and I’m pretty sure I don’t care about any of that. We already had this talk and you knew the risks of dating me or really even caring for me. You still wanted to do this and you don’t get to back out now. The only safe place for you is right next to me and that’s where you’ll be staying for awhile.”

She smiles a real smile and rests her head on my shoulder. “How often does stuff like that happen?”

I kiss her mouth, smiling against her lips. “Like hell I’m going to tell you” I whisper. We fell asleep in our clothes and on top of the covers that night. Well, Amber did. I just sat there and held her, glad that she felt safe in my arms. Because in all honesty, I was scared to death on the inside.