Start Me Up

You left your watch here. She knows.

When Shea opened the waiting message from Tessa he had to read it three times just to be sure that he knew what she meant. Then he looked down at his wrist to find it watch free, he checked his pockets and its usual spot on the dresser and realized that Tessa wasn’t joking. Not that he thought she would joke about something like that, but he had to make sure.

He had to guess that Amelia was on her way home right now, and the minute that front door opened he would be standing right in the middle of the lion’s den. He figured it would take her about thirty minutes to get here from Tessa’s apartment, and the text message had been sent fifteen minutes ago. So he had less than fifteen minutes to figure out what the hell he was going to do.

There was no point in trying to lie, or play stupid or pretend he didn’t know what was going on. He had to just go with the truth. He had no idea what Tessa had told Amelia, but he supposed he would find out soon enough. He could go from there.

He was standing in the kitchen when he heard a car pull into the driveway, and he stared at the door as he heard heels on the little wooden porch outside of the house. When the door opened and Amelia walked inside with his watch in one hand their eyes met and Shea was surprised when she didn’t say a word to him, she just walked by him and down the hall. He didn’t even hear the bedroom door close.

With a gentle sigh he pushed off of the counter he was leaning against and made his way down the hallway, the bedroom door was open and Amelia was sitting on the end of the bed pulling her shoes off. Shea watched as they hit the floor one and a time with a clank, and then she looked over at him.

He was surprised when she told him, her voice raw as if she had cried the whole way home, “I put your watch on the dresser.”

He was surprised she didn’t break it.

Shea nodded his head slowly and he asked her, “Is it okay if I sit?”

He watched as she sucked in a breath of air, and then nodded and he sat down on the side of the bed, adjacent to where she was and he left her enough space for her to be comfortable. He didn’t want to crowd her right now.

He pressed his elbows against his knees and leaned forward as Amelia stared at the floor in front of her. They were quiet for a long time, longer than he ever expected truthfully. He listened to her try to regulate her breathing, a few sniffles here and there but other than that it was completely quite.

That was until Amelia spoke, her voice was so soft Shea wondered if he had misheard her, “Was it worth it?”

“What?” He asked, turning slightly so that he could face her but she kept her back to him.

She clarified what she meant and asked him slowly and firmly, “Was she worth it? Was my sister worth this?”

Shea sighed, pushed a hand through his hair and he told her, “It’s not like that Amelia.”

“Do me a favor?” Amelia asked him, she waited a beat and then continued without letting him respond, “Don’t lie to me. Have enough respect for me now to at least be honest.”

“Okay… you really want me to be honest with you?” Shea asked her, and when she nodded her head slowly he told her, “I don’t know how, or when it happened but yeah, I fell in love with Tessa.”

Amelia turned to look at him, and it was clear that Tessa hadn’t told Amelia a damn thing based on the look of shock she wore on her face when she asked him, “You fell in love with her?”

“How much did she tell you?” Shea asked her curiously. He needed to know what Tessa had told Amelia, so that he knew what to say and what not to say to her now.

Amelia rolled her eyes, “Just how sorry she was, and how she never meant for this to happen. I didn’t want to hear an explanation from her. I wanted to hear this from you.”

“Fair enough.” Shea stated, and Amelia rolled her eyes again. He asked her, “What do you want to know?”

“When did it start?” Amelia asked him softly.

“Honesty right? You’re gonna let me tell you everything you want to know with one hundred percent honesty?” Shea asked her, he wanted to make sure that they were on the same page. When Amelia didn’t answer him right away he went on, “I don’t want to hurt you with this, I don’t want to torture you with the details but if you ask I’m going to honest, completely. I need you to be aware of that.”

“Okay. When?” She asked him firmly, turning completely to face him.

He told her, “It was a kiss, one kiss while you were out of town. Maybe a month ago. We were cooking dinner, and I kissed her.”

She sucked in a breath of air and then asked him, “Is that why you got so pissy about Patrice?”

Shea looked down at his hands in his lap and nodded his head, “Yeah.”

“And why you’ve been such a dick lately?” Amelia asked him, and again he nodded his head. So she asked him, “So why treat me like that?”

“Because I was pissed off at everything. I was mad at you for always being gone, and I was mad at myself for doing what I did… and then… add those into all of a sudden me having these feelings that I never had before for Tessa… I didn’t know how to handle it.” Shea told her honestly.

Amelia looked down at her own hands in her lap and she asked, “When did it become more? When did you start sleeping with my sister?”

Shea sighed, Amelia looked up at him with narrowed eyes and he told her, “Not that long ago. The first time was… three weeks ago maybe.”

“When I went back to St. Louis the last time.” Amelia stated and Shea nodded his head. She added, “Right before I went dress shopping.”

Again he nodded his head, “And then Tessa decided to move out and I thought it was a good idea because I thought if she wasn’t around things would be okay. I thought I’d stop feeling the way I was feeling if she wasn’t living down the hall anymore.”

“How many times did it… did you two…” He didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t see the point in answering that. It didn’t change anything, but Amelia was adamant and she told him, “I need to know.”

He sighed, pushed his hands through his hair and told her, “Four…maybe five times.”

“Is that including last night?” Amelia asked him with an edge to her voice that while it shouldn’t have surprised Shea, because it was totally warranted, it still did surprise him. He wasn’t sure he had ever really heard Amelia talk like this.

“Last night. The night before, and then that first time.” Shea told her honestly, watching as she nodded her head and turned away from him, putting her head in her hands as she took in a deep breath of air. Shea went out on a limb and tried, “I’m sorry Amy, I really am. I know you think otherwise… but I am sorry. I never wanted any of this to happen and I never, not in a million years, thought that… I’m sorry.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” She asked him curiously, her voice was muffled by her hand as she rubbed her face.

Shea looked down at his feet and told her frankly, “Probably not.”

She turned to look at him, and she asked him in surprise, “Seriously?”

He shrugged, “I was going to… before you went to Tessa’s, before you found out… I was going to talk to you tonight and… I was gonna end things between us.”

“You mean you were going to leave me for my sister.” Amelia stated bitterly.

Shea shook his head, “No, believe it or not, this decision has nothing to do with Tessa.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” She muttered.

“It doesn’t. I just… realized that we want different things.” Shea told her.

She rolled her eyes and spat out, “Yeah, I wanted you and you wanted my sister.”

Shea sighed, and he tried again, “I didn’t want to end our relationship because of Tessa. I just… it wouldn’t be fair to either of us for me to go through with that wedding, to get married when I don’t love you the way that I used to. I already had one foot out of the door, going through with a wedding now would have been wrong.”

“So you were going to break up with me and what? Go over to Tessa’s and tell her how much you love her and think it would be like Happily Ever After?” Amelia asked him, raising her eyebrow at him while she waited for his answer.

“No.” He told her.

Her brow lifted even higher, “No?”

Shea nodded his head as a silent response and then he explained verbally, “I was going to break up with you and then spend the rest of the season, and maybe the summer by myself. I was going to give me and Tessa the chance to be on our own and figure things out for a few months before we even talked about our feelings for each other again.”

“You’re banking a lot on the fact that you think she loves you, you know.” Amelia noted in annoyance.

“That’s love.” Shea told her, and she got up from the bed and turned to face him, she looked like she might explode at any given moment.

Her voice was raised well above its normal level when she asked him, “And what was I? Just someone to pass the time with? A stepping stone to someone else?”

“No. I know that after everything, after all of this it’s gonna be hard to believe this but… I never in a million years ever thought we would be having this conversation. But I also never thought I’d ever feel this way about someone else, let alone Tessa. I am really sorry that it played out like this, I am, and if I could go back and change how it happened I would.”

Amelia crossed her arms over her chest and she asked him, “But not that it happened, right?”

Shea sighed, and he looked over at her and admitted to her, “No, honestly I’m not sorry that it happened, just that it happened the way that it did.”

Shea watched as Amelia walked into the closet and she came out with two suitcases that Shea knew she had been trying to decide between for her next trip back to St. Louis. She set them both on the bed and unzipped them, opening them both up as she asked him, “How could you do this?”

“I don’t know.” Was all he could tell her.

Amelia looked over at him, and she asked him in anger, “And of all the people it had to be Tessa? Of all the people in the world that you could have had an affair with it had to be my sister?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Did you even think about me? At all? Even once?” Amelia asked him, holding his gaze for a moment before she turned away and went back into the closet.

When she came out with an armful of clothing Shea told her, “Of course I did.”

“But I didn’t mean enough to you for you to stop screwing her.” Amelia stated, dropping the pile of clothing in her arms into one of the suitcases before she turned to look at him again. Her eyes welled up with tears and she asked, “Right? A few minutes with your dick inside of my sister was enough to make you forget that I’m a person, with feelings who loves you?”

Shea sighed gently, and he told her, “It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like then Shea? I think I’ve been calm enough for long enough. What was it like?” She asked him, reaching up to wipe at her cheeks in frustration when the tears wouldn’t stop falling.

“I know that now it doesn’t mean a damn thing, and I’m not trying to defend what we did because it’s not forgivable but… the way I feel about Tessa wasn’t something that came easy. I didn’t start feeling this way and just all of a sudden accept it. I struggled with it, it practically tore me apart Amelia. I didn’t just wake up one morning and have sex with Tessa and never felt anything bad about it.” He didn’t want her to think he was trying to get out of taking the blame because he wasn’t. He deserved 50% of the blame and he wasn’t about to throw Tessa under the bus, but he did want Amelia to know the truth. He wanted her to know that it wasn’t an easy thing, not because he thought he deserved any kind of sympathy, but he wanted her to know that he didn’t try to hurt her on purpose, that she didn’t mean so little to him that he didn’t care about what he did. He wasn’t sure he was articulating that well, but he hoped she knew that about him.

“Well, I’m glad you at least feel bad about destroying my life.” Amelia stated with an eye roll. When Shea didn’t say anything right away she added, “At least I can take some solace out of this. My life got flipped upside down and I don’t think I’ll trust another man ever but hey, at least poor Shea lost some sleep at night.”

He deserved that.

“You don’t have to leave, you know.” He told her, watching as she rolled her eyes again. He added, “You don’t. I’ll go, you can stay here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’d love that. Endless sleepovers with Tessa right?” Amelia muttered as she started folding her clothes into the suitcase in front of her.

Shea bit back his sigh and he asked her, “Where are you gonna go?”

“St. Louis probably. There’s nothing here for me anymore.” Amelia stated with annoyance in her voice.

“You don’t have to leave Nashville Amelia.” Shea told her, he knew how much she loved the city.

“Yeah, actually I do. This city is not near big enough for the three of us.” Amelia told him, and she stopped folding for a moment to look over at Shea with soft eyes. She spoke sadly, Shea was surprised by the softness in her voice when she told him, “And I don’t ever want to see either of you again.”