9. Melanie
Chapter 9
Melanie
T he tense drive to Cheyenne was a house party compared to the atmosphere in the truck on the way to Salt Lake. When Nick picked me up at seven this morning, he immediately tried to apologize for last night’s kiss. I cut him off, refusing to hear it. The only reason I didn’t burst into tears at the mere mention of the kiss is because I drained every last ounce of water out of my body via my tear ducts last night while I packed.
“Look, I know I fucked up yesterday,” Nick tries again, an hour into this nightmare drive. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
He’s not the only one who wishes the kiss never happened—but for very different reasons. I wish it hadn’t happened, because then I wouldn’t know how unbelievably right it felt to kiss him. If he’d never kissed me, I wouldn’t know what I’m missing. I wouldn’t have to sit in the passenger seat, staring at a stray geranium petal stuck to the floor, remembering how fully that kiss stopped my world.
Kissing’s never felt like that before—all my senses overwhelmed, every nerve ending in my body sparkling with energy and anticipation. I was seconds away from pulling him into my house and turning all of my naked Nick fantasies into reality when he brought everything to a screeching halt.
“You really shouldn’t have,” I say to the flower petal. Then I grind it into the carpet with the heel of my sneaker.
“I got carried away—”
“Stop talking,” I snap. “I can’t discuss this anymore. I need to focus on the competition.”
He makes a frustrated, growly noise, but doesn’t say anything else. I risk a peek at his face, and the gallon of coffee I guzzled this morning swirls in my stomach. Nick looks like hell. He’s got pale purple circles under his eyes, and his frown lines seem deeper than usual. He’s got a massive thermos in one hand—of either motor oil or black coffee based on the way he winces when he gulps it—and a death grip on the steering wheel with the other. I wish it were gratifying that he’s in bad shape, too, but it just leaves me perplexed.
What’s he miserable for? He started the kiss, and ended it. Presumably he got what he wanted from me. Well, he probably didn’t want a frazzled, upset athlete who couldn’t give less of a hoot about horses at the moment, but he should have considered that before he kissed me.
I turn on a hype-up playlist that usually forces me to smile, but it falls flat. Every song feels more saccharine and stupid than the last, so I bump the volume down with every track change, hoping it will help. Eventually the volume is so low it’s barely audible over the hum of the truck’s engine.
Nick clears his throat. “Melanie, I’m—”
“Stop. Apologizing.”
“It’s not that I didn’t enjoy kissing you,” he says. “I did. But…”
He drums his fingers nervously against the steering wheel. His eyes dart to mine then back to the road a few times. I don’t help him out. He made this bed, so he gets to lie in it. Hearing that he enjoyed himself doesn’t take back the sting of his rejection, or dull the edge of my anger.
“But, you realize it’s a bad idea, don’t you?” he manages, finally. “We’ve both got a lot going on, and you just started competing again. I shouldn’t be distracting you.”
I roll my eyes, even though everything he’s saying is true. Obviously it’s a bad idea—it was one kiss, and we’re both behaving like spoiled children. But throwing attitude at him is the only thing keeping me from screaming, Why did you do this to me? in his face.
Why did he have to stand up to my parents for me, and get dressed up to impress them, even though he hated every second of it, and couldn’t keep his hands off his tie? Why did he buy my mom beautiful flowers, and give me his jacket, and hold me like he didn’t want to let go? Why did he kiss me like that and then stop cold?
“I’ve already moved on,” I lie. “How close is the hotel to the arena? I want to make a plan for getting ready tomorrow morning.”
His shoulders sag a little, but he lets the kissing fiasco drop. “It’s walking distance. There’s not a whole lot in the area, frankly. It’s a little west of the city itself, but it’s a nice hotel. We should have everything we need for the weekend onsite.”
Logistics takes us through twenty more minutes of stilted conversation. Afterward, I turn the playlist back up. I’m not smiling, but the agony’s suppressed enough that I can breathe properly, and catching sight of him in my peripheral vision doesn’t send me spinning. We even manage a lunch stop where we discuss GT and GT only.
It’s all wrong. We’re scrupulously polite. He barely curses and doesn’t call me Miss Manners once. I don’t whine or throw insults at him—nothing that could even approach biting back. The whole meal is a pathetic pantomime of two people who get along with each other.
But it’s not until after lunch that things really start to fall apart. Wrung out from the past twenty-four hours, I fall asleep in the front seat. I don’t know how long I’m out, but when I wake up, Nick is talking. My neck is at a weird angle and my mouth feels crusty, but I stay still, eyes shut, so I can shamelessly eavesdrop.
“Really? Still in Carmel Canyon?” he says, sounding surprised. “I’m impressed he hung onto a place that long.”
“Well he didn’t, exactly. He was evicted, but then the apartment complex changed hands, and I suppose the new owner was willing to give him a second chance, because he moved in again after a year away. But he’s definitely there now. I spoke to him this morning,” another voice says.
It’s tinny, because it’s coming through speaker phone, highway noise and the rattle of the horse trailer hitch muffling it. But I’d know Paul Walters’ voice anywhere. I knew there was a chance Nick and Paul were in contact; I’m the one who suggested it, after all. But hearing them talk to each other on the heels of Nick’s rejection feels worse than I expected. Their conversation is clearly about Nick’s dad, not me, but the fact that they’re talking at all—and that Nick didn’t tell me about it—hurts. It’s an unofficial meeting of the We Don’t Want Melanie club.
“You spoke to him?” Nick asks.
I hate the way the distress in his voice makes my heart twinge.
“Nothing substantial,” Paul reassures him. “I called to confirm the mailing address, and his identity, but didn’t reveal the exact nature of the reason I needed his address. I told him I was part of the maintenance crew, scheduling time to service his water heater, and he bought it. The process server will be there tomorrow. In my experience, the threat of legal action is usually enough to open up negotiations.”
“Oh, okay,” Nick says, audibly relieved. “I’m out of town for a couple of days, but will you keep me posted?”
“Of course. I can email updates if that’s more convenient,” Paul says.
“Thanks. I…I don’t know what else to say but thanks. ”
“It really is my pleasure,” Paul says, so earnestly I feel tears prick at my still-closed eyes.
Paul’s investment in helping Nick should make me feel good. It’s what I wanted—to get Nick out of the sticky situation with his dad and the bank. But the reminder that Paul can be invested, that he has so much capacity for caring about other people and I stopped making the cut, is one I could do without.
“I’ve got to go, but I appreciate the update,” Nick says.
“Of course. Talk soon.”
The truck goes quiet, but I keep pretending to sleep. I need a moment to collect myself. It’s not that I want Paul back anymore. When Olivia asked if I wanted to hear gossip about him and I realized I legitimately didn’t, it was freeing. But that doesn’t mean I relish being irrelevant to him. For four years, I knew I mattered to someone . I had someone in my corner, ready to support every hope and dream that fluttered through my mind. It was easier to stand up to my parents when I knew Paul was right behind me.
I’m still going to do it—still going to ride, even though they disapprove. There’s no way I’m giving up my dreams again, just because my parents are embarrassed by the proximity to a scandal from fourteen years ago. Nick was right—it wasn’t my fault Diana got hurt. It’s annoying, actually, how frequently he’s right. Which brings me right back to the issue of his rejection. Do I need Nick to achieve my dreams? Technically, yes, because there’s no way I can win without his horse. But I don’t need him to want to kiss me. I can win races whether he’s into me or not.
We bump over a pothole in the road that jostles me badly enough that I fling my hands out to brace myself. My eyes fly open, and any hope of pretending to sleep for the rest of the journey is gone. Nick grimaces, eyes on road ahead.
“Sorry about that. It was either go over the pothole or swerve into a semi-truck,” he says.
“Good call, then,” I say stiffly. “I should probably stay awake anyway so I can sleep tonight.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything else. I sit up and take stock of our surroundings. A giant green sign hanging over the highway tells me we’re closing in on Salt Lake. Thank God. I’m beyond ready to put some distance between us. Tonight’s hotel room could be a shack in an abandoned mining shaft and I’d run to it as enthusiastically as if it were a five-star luxury resort suite. I need time away from Nick to shake off last night’s lingering disappointment .
“I miss anything while I was out?” I ask, unable to resist poking at the Paul-shaped elephant in the truck.
He shakes his head. “Just a couple hours of mountains and highway.”
And a phone call from my ex-boyfriend, but I guess that’s nothing I need to worry about.
We lapse into silence, the road disappearing under the tires and carrying me closer to relief. The final hour of the drive lasts an eternity. The late afternoon sky dims quickly this time of year, the mountains blocking more of the sun than the clouds do. I’m itching to get GT settled in the stables so I can bury my head under a pillow and sleep like the dead.
The parking lot is buzzing with activity when we finally pull in. The info packet wasn’t lying—everything’s right here. The hotel is on one side of the lot, and the arena and stables are on the other. Nick finds a spot closer to the arena, and we make short work of unloading GT into his designated stall. I handle the competition paperwork while Nick feeds and grooms GT, giving us a welcome break from each other.
My shoulders are lighter and my stomach is finally unclenched when we walk into the hotel lobby to check in. Then I see the line snaking through the room, and my body locks up again. There are easily sixty people in line, and there’s not a single smile among them. Three people are working frantically behind the reception desk, and a refrain of “I’m so sorry for the wait,” echoes from them again and again. Judging by the smell of hay and horses permeating the air, the cause of the logjam is the flood of competitors and their teams.
“This can’t mean good news,” Nick grumbles beside me.
“We’ve got nowhere to be but here,” I say wearily, even though I’m just as frustrated with the circumstances.
The line crawls. As we inch closer to the desk, I hear snippets of complaints from the people crossing the lobby toward the elevators. We all seem to be victims of the lethal combination of an outdated computer system and a confused employee. My mood ticks lower and lower as the minutes drag by, and Nick doesn’t seem to be doing any better if the set of his jaw is any indication.
When we finally get to the front of the line, Nick is so tense I’m surprised the muscles in his throat can move enough for sound to come out. But he manages a gruff, “There should be two rooms—Nick Korbel and Melanie Archer.”
The receptionist, an exhausted woman in her early twenties, nods, and starts typing. “Got it. I’ve got a single room for Nick Korbel. And…”
She keeps typing, her brow pinching tighter and tighter.
“And one for Melanie Archer,” Nick repeats sharply.
The woman nods, glances at me, and winces. “Right. Melanie Archer. Archer is a last name. Okay. I am so, so sorry. We’ve been training a new kid on the system and he’s been making mistakes left and right. This one slipped by me, and I am so, so sorry.”
“Yeah, you’re sorry, we get it. What exactly is the problem?” Nick asks with a glare that could wilt emerald-green grass.
I shoot him a look that I hope conveys, “Berating the hotel staff isn’t helpful.” He keeps glaring, so I don’t think he got the message.
The woman looks at me, rather than him, and swallows. “I’m sorry ma’am. The competition gives us these big spreadsheets with information, and it can be confusing, especially since the horses all have such random names. It’s the Archer part, he got confused…I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’ll just say it…the new employee listed you as a horse, not an athlete—as in, Nick Korbel and his horse, Melanie, a mounted archery team—so we cancelled the reservation. We don’t have a room booked for you.”
I suck in air through my nose in a vain attempt to avoid crying. It’s not this woman’s fault that the guy I like kissed me, then immediately changed his mind, or that I’ve just spent hours in his truck trying to think about literally anything else and failing miserably. She’s certainly not responsible for my parents’ failings. This woman is not the biggest issue in my life, but hearing that I’ve been mistaken for a horse is the final straw. No matter how much I blink, the burn of new tears in my eyes doesn’t dissipate, and I know Nick and the receptionist can both see, which is utterly humiliating.
“Then book a room for her now,” Nick says. “She needs a room. You are a hotel. Don’t punish her because your colleague is too stupid to know the difference between horses and human beings.”
She wilts a little further. “We’re booked solid. No rooms left. It’s a big event, sir, and there are—”
“Fix. It. Now.”
The receptionist freezes, fingers curled over the keyboard while Nick stares her down.
“The hotel made a mistake, so the hotel will fix the mistake. It’s that simple,” he says.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “It’s fine. This isn’t some damsel in distress—”
“It’s not fine, at all,” he says, loudly, his eyes snapping to me. “The next closest hotel is forty minutes away. You’re sleeping in this hotel tonight. End of story.” He turns back to the receptionist and continues, “I don’t care how it happens—kick someone out, build a new room. Not my problem. We booked the room, she’s getting a room.”
The receptionist chews her lip, then tentatively taps at the keyboard. “Um, well. I can’t kick someone else out of their room…but…if I swap him, then comp something from the minibar….”
The commentary seems more for herself than us, so I don’t interrupt. I can tell Nick wants to, but he manages to keep his jaw clamped shut. Then she looks up sheepishly. Before she opens her mouth, I know it’s not going to be a happy resolution.
“I can upgrade your single room to a double—two beds, I promise—and get you a privacy screen, that way you both have somewhere to sleep. I’ll discount the room, too. I’m so sorry.”
On the one hand, no. No, no, no, no, no. That will absolutely not work. But on the other, sharing a room with Nick gives me more incentive to win. A privacy screen isn’t going to muffle the sound of me sobbing into my pillow if I don’t place. The only other choice I see is getting back in the truck and going home, which is infinitely worse. I can’t possibly do another nine-hour drive with Nick until I’ve had at least ten more hours of sleep, and ideally an opportunity to cry in the shower for thirty to forty minutes.
Nick meets my gaze, a pained look on his face. Strangely, that helps. If he’s suffering, it’ll be easier for me to focus on competing and not on how kissing him made my whole body feel like the molten center of a chocolate lava cake, but he doesn’t ever want to do it again.
"Works for me,” I say. “We’ll take it.”
The receptionist exhales in relief, taps her computer a few more times, then slides a paper envelope with two keys in it across the desk. Nick snatches the envelope and marches toward the elevators with both of our bags.
“Someone will be right up with the privacy screen,” the receptionist says meekly. “Again, I’m so sorry.”
“I could not be having a worse day,” I say.
While true, I have no idea why I told this particular person, other than because she happens to be near me, and I need to say it before I’m trapped in yet another small space with Nick Korbel. Then I hurry across the lobby to catch up with him, because Nick’s got both keys and all our stuff. Tonight’s going to be awkward enough as it is; I don’t need to kick things off by getting locked out of my hotel room.
I gulp, my skin prickling.
Not my hotel room. Our hotel room.