Chapter 15

I woke when the bed shifted. It was early. The sky was still gray with predawn gloom. We’d left the lights on in the rest of the suite, so there was plenty of light to see her pad to the bathroom - still naked. I watched her butt sway deliciously and promised myself that I was going to spend a lot of time in close contact with that ass.

She hadn’t closed the door, so I could see her perched on the toilet, her head drooping as she drifted between consciousness and sleep. She peed, wiped, flushed and was washing her hands before I decided I should follow her example. I scooped her up in my arms, kissing her deeply as we passed. She smiled at me lazily and hugged me before going back to bed. I did my business and when I turned, she was watching from the bed curiously. I washed my hands and returned to bed. She was watching my member move back and forth as I walked, and I smirked.

“See anything you like?” I asked softly, sliding back into bed.

She nodded and kissed me again.

“Sleep now, sex later,” she promised and rolled over, so she could spoon with me, her back pressed against my chest.

I was starting to settle down when she wriggled and reached down to take my cock and reposition it, so it was between her legs, trapped against her pussy by her thighs. I made a soft sound that wasn’t quite a purr, but conveyed my approval, just the same before I drifted off to sleep again. I woke to the sound of the phone ringing. I reached over to grab the bedside phone and answered it.

“Hello?” I said thickly.

“Hello, Mr. Dunn?” said the party planner’s voice. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time. I was hoping that I could stop by your suite before you check out.”

I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 9:30.

“No, we were just waking up,” I lied. “If you’ll give us about a half-hour to shower and dress, you can stop by around 10, if that’s okay.”

“Certainly,” he said and promised to see us in a half-hour.

When I hung up, Mel was stretching and looking delicious, but I’d already promised, so I sighed and went to start the shower. She joined me a moment later and we rushed through our shower together. She had fresh clothes, but I was left to struggle back into my suit and try to look respectable. I chose not to wear the tie and leave the collar open since it was Saturday and I’d had enough of formal-wear for one day. I was just about to put the jacket on when there was a knock at the suite door.

When I answered the door, he was standing there with someone from room service. He led the man in with a cart and explained.

“I thought I’d take the liberty of bringing a light breakfast as a peace offering,” he said apologetically.

I chuckled and nodded to the dining table where he set service for three and then retreated, leaving coffee, tea, two carafes of juices and an array of pastries for us to serve ourselves. I poured coffee for myself and a second for him. Melody appeared from the bedroom, looking delicious in her own right. She was dressed casually in jeans and a UCLA sweat-shirt. She kissed me and stole my coffee, mixing it to her taste. I poured myself a fresh cup and added sugar.

“Still like it black and sweet?” she smirked. “Are you sure I don’t have to have a talk with Theresa?” she asked playfully, taking a couple of turnovers for her breakfast.

I gave her a dirty look but spoiled it with a smirk of my own. Instead of rising to the bait, I turned to talk to our guest.

“So, I got most of the explanation for yesterday when I got up here last night,” I assured him. “You did an excellent job of keeping me busy.”

“Me? You kept me running all night!” he groaned. “As a party planner, I know all the spots where a party can go from perfect to disaster. I figured I’d throw you a couple of curves early and it’d keep you reeling until the party started. Have you ever planned a large event like this?”

I shook my head and returned to the table with a cup and a plate to join them.

“No,” I admitted. “I’m an engineer, though, so there’s a lot of problem solving in my job.”

“Well, you were good enough to keep me scrambling to stay ahead of you,” he complimented me. “I do feel like I owe you an apology though. You looked like you were pretty fed up by the time I took you aside to look at the gift-bags. You actually looked like you were going to ‘Hulk-out’ right there in the ballroom if you didn’t get a few minutes of peace. I figured that a chat about the gifts would get you away from the crowds for a bit.”

I chuckled in spite of myself.

“I was getting a lot of questions that I didn’t want to answer,” I admitted. “I was trying to get to the bar when you caught me.”

“You nearly gave poor Larry a stroke when you called for your limo. He’s the front desk clerk you spoke to last night. He wasn’t in on the whole thing, so he raised hell when you told him about the party. I had to talk my boss down off the ledge when he heard.”

“Sorry about that,” I said sheepishly. “I didn’t intend to get you into any trouble.”

“It’s totally understandable and, was settled as soon as I explained the details,” he assured us both. “Larry had himself a little fit when he heard the news though, so his concern wasn’t part of the plan.”

“He fit in perfectly then. He was ... eager for me to give him a chance to make it right. I was starting to wonder if he’d be fired if I left the hotel last night.”

“No, but our whole staff is committed to the comfort and satisfaction of our guests, so his distress was genuine,” he told us.

We kept up a pleasant chat about last night’s event with him supplying details that I hadn’t known and mostly informing Mel that it had gone off perfectly, despite his best efforts.

“I have to say, I’ve never purposely sabotaged a party, but it was certainly a learning experience. You made it much harder than I would have thought.”

I was in much better spirits this morning, so that made me laugh a little.

“I hope I wasn’t too hard on you last night,” I told him, meaning it.

He scoffed and shook his head.

“You’re a pussycat compared to a headstrong bride with her last-minute changes,” he said lightly. “I wanted to meet with you before you left though, so that I could assure you that’s not normally how a party planned by the Ritz-Carlton goes. We’re far more professional than you saw last night.”

With that, he left us with handshakes and hopes that we’d consider having our next party here. We finished our coffee and looked around the suite. I collected my phone, she finished packing and then we were ready to check out. Mel signed all the paperwork and they had a car brought around to take us back to my place. We decided that I needed to change and then we’d take my car over to her place to see Eliza and George. I hung up the suit and she asked if I was ready to see the bedroom.

I thought about it and now seemed like a perfect time. I dressed quickly and then let her lead me to the bedroom door. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. After five days of work, I thought they might have changed the room in some dramatic way, but they hadn’t added windows or put in a skylight or anything like that. The room was repainted in a very light silver-gray and was minimally furnished. Everything had just been shapes when I brought it upstairs that Saturday and now I understood why.

It had been wrapped with thin layers of foam to protect it. There was a large bundle of the stuff in the corner where the girls had left it piled neatly. The bed was an interesting piece. It was a four-poster but had a very modern look to it. In fact, the posts looked almost like a steel frame, more than a traditional bed. The rest of the bedroom set had a similarly austere, modern look, but each piece looked elegant in its own way. Everything matched that silver hue of the walls, making that the theme of the room. Even the pillows and bedding were gray and silver.

“It’s perfect!” I told her, squeezing her hand.

“Really? You like it? You’re not just saying that?” She gushed, bouncing on her toes.

I nodded. “You set out to re-imagine this room in a way to banish Beth’s presence from here. She’d hate this room,” I grinned and started to laugh.

She joined me and threw her arms around me.

“I’m so glad you love it!” she enthused. “We’re not done yet though. You haven’t seen the bathroom.”

She dragged me to the bathroom door and turned on the light. If the bedroom was different, the bath was unrecognizable. The tub had been replaced with a very roomy shower stall, walled in with glass and a shower-head at each end of the stall. All the fixtures had been replaced and even the walls had been done over with a new tile. Where the bedroom’s palette was silver, everything here was golden.

The room was tiled in a color that looked very close to a yellow sandstone, the fixtures were all golden, including the brand-new toilet. Even the lights had a more yellow tone than the rest of the house. There were separate lights around the mirror that I suspect were closer to a pure white light, so she could apply make-up without the normal lighting biasing the look. If there was ever a bathroom that belonged in a luxury hotel, we were standing in it.

“Wow!” was the best my vocabulary could supply. “You got this all done in a week? This looks amazing!”

She grinned, basking in the thrill of having gotten it right. She showed me around the room, pointing out a switch for the infra-red heat lamp in the ceiling and the separate light switch for the mirror lights, which she confirmed were there so that her make-up would look correct.

“I love it!” I told her honestly, looking around.

It was amazing. The room had radiated warmth from the moment she’d turned on the light. I noticed that the door was painted to match the room on either side and the knob had matched, golden on this side and silver on the other. I had no illusion that there was a fleck of real gold in the room ... At least I hoped she hadn’t gone to that much expense. She caught me looking more closely at the shower and grinned at me.

“Yeah, I had them build it for two. I’m sure there’s room for three in there if you really do like it black and sweet,” she teased.

I gave her a speculative smile and chuckled. “Are you trying to tell me that you want Terri or are you worried that I’ve been closer to her than just friends?”

“Terri’s beautiful,” she said lightly as she shrugged. “She’s single, you’re single, I didn’t exactly leave under the best of circumstances, and I did put her in the perfect position to pick up the pieces and help you put them back together,” she admitted.

“That’s all true,” I told her, wrapping my arms around her. “None of it led to her and me being more than friends though. If I’d taken her to bed, it would have been after I’d seen this room on my own. There was just no room in my heart for anyone else while I was certain you were coming back.”

She nodded. “That’s been kind of worrying me a lot,” she confessed. “I did sort of set it up for her to run the table.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know that Terri even thinks of me that way,” I said, kissing her forehead. “I certainly wasn’t in the mindset to notice anyone but you.”

“So, you didn’t end up seducing Mary while I was away?” she asked, reminding me of that practical joke.

“No, I had her and Bella help out with the bedroom. At that point, it was pretty obvious that I was love-sick. Now then, I should probably call Sergio’s though, if we want to be sure to get the banquet room.”

I kissed her again and then took one last look at the bathroom, stunned at how good it looked. We went downstairs, and I made the reservations. We’d have the room from 6 until 9. After that, they needed to get the room ready for a post-game party for the local high school basketball crowd.

Then I made the calls to the rest of the group. I asked Belinda to bring Mary since she’d been around for a lot of the fallout after Mel had disappeared. I asked Jason if he was bringing a date, teasing him a little. He got flustered. He’d eventually admit it, but when he was ready. The rest of the calls were routine, and I texted the reservation time to Theresa, so she’d be there on time.

Melody brought her suitcase upstairs while I was talking to Claire and started unpacking some of it, clearly intending to mark her territory right away. She grinned at me when I got off the phone as she took her makeup into the bathroom to claim her portion of the sink. I suspected that it would be much larger and more prominent than the corner I would be relegated to, but that was okay. I was used to sharing a bathroom with a woman. I was looking forward to it again, truthfully.

I leaned against the door frame and watched her claim parts of the closet and bureau for herself, humming softly in between chatting with me.

“So, we need to go see Eliza and George, huh?” she said awkwardly. “They’re gonna kill me.”

“Well, we could put it off and invite them to Sergio’s,” I offered. “They might turn on each other over who has the right to get to you first. The bad news is that they might decide that taking turns sounds like a good idea.”

“Thanks! A lot of help you are!” she said, exasperated. “Seriously! Eliza’s gonna skin me alive.”

“Let’s go talk to them, then,” I suggested. “I’m with you, so it’s not like you have to face them alone. I think seeing the two of us together will cool whatever anger she might have developed this past month.”

She nodded and looked at the suitcase as if wondering if she could use it as an excuse to put it off, but then sighed.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

“Remember, I love you, no matter what,” I reminded her.

She immediately dug in her suitcase again, digging out a small picture frame and showed it to me. It was the note I’d written her before we’d gone into the room to talk to Stan. She’d kept it and had it framed. She set it on one of the nightstands, claiming her side of the bed just that easily.

“Alright,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s go before I lose my nerve,” she urged me.

She fidgeted on the drive over, her anxiety showing through.

“It’s okay. Eliza’s going to be glad you’re back and safe. She might be unhappy about the details, but she’ll listen.”

She nodded but didn’t look particularly convinced. I pulled up to the gate and punched in the code Eliza had given me for the system.

“You have a code for the gate, now?” she gaped at me.

“Yeah,” I told her with a rueful shrug. “I sort of sat out here for an hour one night because Eliza had to step out for something unexpectedly and George was out in the back corner of the lot. After that, she set up a code for me. She figured I was here often enough that it made sense. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Rand, Stan left everything to us jointly. The house is half yours. You have the right to sell your place and move in here.”

“I wouldn’t do that unless we talked about it first. Since we didn’t, I wouldn’t,” I said lightly and pulled up to the garage.

I drove into the upper garage and parked in the center row between the parked cars.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” she said as we got out. “I kind of figured that you’d be using the gym, either way.”

I shrugged. “I probably will, now that you’re back,” I admitted. “Until you were back, and we talked about what happened, I wasn’t going to intrude here.”

“God! I really am a fuck-up!” she sighed. “I didn’t want you to stay away, Rand. I should have been clearer on what I intended when I left. I’m sorry. This is your place now. Live in the house, swim in the pool, play the games, drive the cars, drink the booze. It’s all yours as much as mine.”

We crossed to the elevator and took it to the third floor. There were two apartments up here. The garage was massive. One apartment stood unused and the other one was Eliza and George’s. I knocked on their door and heard Eliza call out that she was coming.

“I saw you pull in,” she said as she opened the door. “Funny for you to stop by on a ... Saturday,” she said faintly, seeing Melody with me.

She looked at us both, settling her eyes on me.

“You found her!”

She swept Mel up in a hug, tearing up a little.

“Oh! Thank God you found her!”

She turned her attention to Mel and if we hadn’t been so frantic this past month, it would have been funny.

“Are you okay?” she started off and before Mel had time to answer, she took off on a run of questions.

“Where did you go? What have you been doing? Why didn’t you call me? Do you know how much we worried about you? Why would you do that?! Don’t you ever worry me like that again! I should paddle your backside from now ‘til Christmas! Oh! I’m just glad you’re safe, girl!”

She pulled us into the apartment and George looked up from his comfortable chair, turning off the game when he saw Mel. He came to hug her too, showing how deeply he’d worried about her. George wasn’t a very demonstrative guy most of the time. Then Mel was parked onto the couch and we spent the next hour explaining to them what had happened and how she’d found me and not the other way around. When it was over, Eliza wasn’t particularly thrilled that she’d run, but she was more understanding. I knew I needed to try to soften her displeasure.

“Eliza,” I said, drawing her attention. “Mel feels pretty awful about how things played out. She got advice from a friend who meant well, but ultimately has a different outlook on life than Melody does now, so she couldn’t have known how many loose ends she was leaving behind. Hell, she probably didn’t think to point out to Mel that she should have taken a little time to figure out how to tell everyone she needed some time to process everything. But it happened, and it sucked for a while, but we have her back and that’s what matters. I don’t want her to feel worse than she does already. I think we both understand that you’re upset with her and I think we can both appreciate why you’re upset but give her time to explain, and allow her the chance to talk it out. We have to see some of our friends for dinner to try to explain it to them. It’ll take some time, but she had good reasons to be upset that week. Let’s give her a break, huh?”

Eliza nodded and hugged Mel again, telling her how glad she was that she was safe. After that, things were pleasant, if a little awkward. Hopefully, they’d reconnect over time. For now, they were okay though. We left there in plenty of time to get to the restaurant to meet the rest of the group for our reservation. We were the first to arrive and I ordered two of their pizza-cakes, figuring that food and plenty of it would blunt the worst of the bloodlust when they laid eyes on Mel. Well, most of them would be okay, but Bella was sometimes ... a little enthusiastic about protecting people she was close to. I’d become one of those people over the past couple of months. That made me smile. I hoped Mary would help me keep her in check.

Mel was a nervous wreck, leading up to dinner. I held her hand and was grateful when Theresa was the first to arrive. She noticed our hands and smiled, coming to hug Mel and then me before taking a seat on Mel’s other side. The others arrived shortly after that and their reactions were everything we’d come to expect. Claire looked thoughtful, Stephanie was surprised and concerned, Jason looked surprised, but accepted that she was back without question and Belinda. Bella handled it in her typical style.

“Where the fuck have you been?!!?” Bella demanded to know loudly.

To her credit, she didn’t lunge over the table. Mel was shrinking in on herself when I stepped in.

“Melody has a lot of explaining to do,” I admitted calmly. “That’s why I arranged for dinner tonight. I ordered the cakes for us so they would be ready a little quicker. Please, let’s all just sit and talk it out.”

I greeted Mary warmly, like she was one of us. She’d been around a lot more this past month, so she knew all of us. Everyone took their seats and a waitress came around for our drink orders. She came back with a tray of drinks a few minutes later and promised she’d check for refills often. That left us alone for a while, so we got into it.

“Why don’t I start?” I suggested, and everyone nodded in agreement.

“About a week ago, I was contacted by Mr. Lawton, Melody’s lawyer. He informed me that she wanted me to host the staff Christmas party for the savings and loan, since she was still out of town.” They knew all that, but it set the background. “I’d made it clear that I wasn’t going, but he pushed, and I finally gave in and said I’d do it. There was an appointment with a tailor for a fitting and I was outfitted with a new wardrobe. Last night was the event. It was...” I paused to take a breath and shake my head, “the most horrible day of my life, I think. Besides the party falling apart every fifteen minutes, the guests took the opportunity to demand answers about Mel, Beth and Stan, since they all knew that I had history with that whole debacle.”

I paused and took a drink before I continued.

“In any case, I’d played host, gave out checks, passed out gifts, greeted everyone personally, mingled with the guests, talked to the spouses and resolved any problems that arose. I was an emotional wreck, I’d skipped dinner to keep the party running, was up well past the point I normally go to bed and I had a pounding headache. When the party was done, I just wanted to go home and get drunk enough to black the worst of the night out of my head. The hotel informed me though, that the car service was only supposed to deliver me to the hotel. Since I had a suite reserved, there wasn’t a car waiting for me. The hotel staff talked me into using the suite instead of taking a cab at that point, so I went upstairs and promptly broke down. After 10 hours of handling the party and listening to people ask grating questions about Beth and Mel and Stan, I ... I was burned out. I couldn’t handle it anymore and went to pieces. That was the moment she said my name and touched my head. She’d been hoping that our reunion would be filled with laughter and joy. She never dreamed that she’d come into the room and find me sobbing.”

Melody was staring at her lap, her head hung in shame at what I’d been through yesterday. I reached out and took her hand, holding it in both of mind and kissing her fingers.

“I’m telling you all what happened last night because it’s relevant to the reason Mel left in the first place and because there was only one thing that would have saved me from the bad thoughts that were going through my head. I’m very grateful she was on hand to rescue me.”

Claire took over when I fell silent.

“So, what was the reason you left, dear?” she asked.

Mel’s fingers clenched on mine for support and I squeezed back.

“I ... I’m a fuck-up,” she said. “Every decision I’ve ever made has been terrible. Rand’s bad day yesterday could have been avoided if I’d just brought him up to the suite right away and gone to the party with him instead of wanting to surprise him afterwards. But I made the worst decision possible, like always, and look how it ended up.

“When I left ... Rand was perfect. He’s got the body of a Greek God, he’s smart, funny, he’s got the most amazing eyes, he’s kind and romantic and gentle and understanding and considerate. He’s level-headed and responsible and dependable and ... He’s perfect! The more time I spent with him, the more I knew that I wasn’t good enough. I screw up all the time! My sister is with the first boyfriend I ever had, Stan cheated on me constantly and then I met Rand and I was scared. I was so fucking scared because he’s ... everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I was afraid that he was another bad decision or that if he wasn’t, I’d screw it all up and he’d hate me. So, I panicked and called my best friend from high school. She told me that it was a case of us getting too close, too fast and that we needed to cool off. She invited me out there to visit and get my head on straight.”

She took a moment to gather herself and went on from there, her voice thick with emotion. I knew she was upset, so I held onto her hand tightly, ready to hold on tight if she looked like she was going to bolt.

“So, cue Melody doing something stupid ... AGAIN!” she spat, angry at herself. “I do a shitty job of explaining things to Theresa, I do a terrible job writing out to Rand what was going on, I fail at correcting the mistake when I called his voicemail that night and I missed every opportunity to make things right by refusing to take any personal messages from my lawyer. I came back with no idea that Rand had taken this so badly and no idea how badly I’d fucked-up this time.”

She finally wound down and I put my arm around her comfortingly and looked around. Claire was looking thoughtful at this explanation and I thought she might be wishing she had her laptop to take notes. Jason was sympathetic, but I don’t think he really had much hostility toward her, to begin with. She’d never been anything but nice to him, so he had no reason to rock the boat. Stephanie looked skeptical, but generally accepting of what she’d said. It was Belinda and Theresa who surprised me.

“Yeah,” Belinda said. “I get what you’re saying. When shit went down with Jimmie, there was part of me that believed it was true, that I wasn’t good enough.”

Theresa wasn’t buying it though.

“Seriously? That’s why you took off? You were young and stupid? Shit! Everyone here has been young and stupid. We all trusted someone that fucked us over. You’ll have to do better than that! I’ve been hanging out with Rand on Saturdays because it’s the only time of the week that he’s not at work, the gym, group or in bed. You know what those four places have in common? He spends the entire time thinking of you. If he could have put an end to this, he’d have done it in heartbeat. You and I are friends, Mel, but you fucked him up, big time, when you left. You need to do a hell of a lot better than ‘cold feet’.”

“Terri,” I said sharply to get her attention.

She was rapidly crossing over into ranting and that was going to spiral out of control in a hurry.

“I’ve talked to Mel a little about this. Let me try to explain.”

She fell silent, but she was obviously sullen about it, and indignant at the explanation. She nodded, and I took a deep breath.

“Mel’s experience with love and dating comes from four places,” I started. “The first boy she ever fell for was snatched away from her by her sister. You all know what that’s like. Then along comes Stan. He’s older, well-dressed, rich, charming and paying attention to her. Her sister starts making noises about taking him away from her too, so she rushes into bed with him. She gets pregnant, she gets married, loses the baby and is stuck with a philandering husband in another city, isolated, hundreds of miles from her friends.”

“Her best friend, in particular, is someone she always trusted and cared about. She told me that they fooled around a little, so that girl was the one person she trusted. Then she gets involved with me, and a week later, she’s prepared to throw caution to the wind. We’ve both said we loved each other by that point and she’s half out of her mind with lust, love and panic. The one person who she’s given herself to and not been hurt by, told her to get out of town and cool off to see if it’s real. Her husband is on his death-bed and she’s confused by his last gesture to both of us, angry for what he did and for him leaving her alone, grieving because he was still her husband, no matter what he did.”

“To top it off, she’s deeply in love with me and feeling guilty as sin for how she’d talked about wanting us to be together as soon as Stan breathed his last. She needed time, space and perspective. The only thing she did wrong was mishandle how she told us she was leaving. Now that I’ve talked to her, I understand a little better. She’s truly convinced herself that she’s stupid because of the decisions she’s made that have gone poorly for her.”

Terri looked a little chastised by that. She nodded.

“Okay. That’s a little better than just scared,” she admitted. “I’m sorry. It’s just been so frustrating this past month, not knowing where you were and seeing him get more depressed all the time. You know he goes to the gym when he’s hurting, right? So that Greek-God body? That’s pain and it’s not the kind that you can slap an ice-pack on. I’ll shut up about it now. I just wanted you to know that we all wanted to help. If you’d called any of us, we’d have done everything possible to make things right.”

Mel nodded, her head hung low, tears now flowing freely as she was getting a first-class lesson in facing angry friends.

“I’m sorry!” she whispered solemnly between sobs. “I know I fucked up. I don’t know why I keep fucking everything up! I swear, I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“Hey,” I said, giving her a squeeze. “No one here thinks you did this on purpose,” I assured her. “You’re among friends. Some of those friends are a little frustrated that you didn’t turn to them, but they still love you. Look around. No one has hate in their eyes.”