4. Melanie
CHAPTER 4
Melanie
Of all the people who could have almost hit me—fine, I’d almost hit him—it had to have been Luke Haven.
Seriously, universe? There were like eight hundred Havens in Tilikum. Why did I have to pull out in front of that one?
A fiery mix of emotions swirled through me as I drove away. Why did he have to be so aggravating? I hadn’t seen him in years. You’d think we could have handled a chance encounter like adults instead of immediately launching into an argument. But he made me so mad.
Flipping him off had been satisfying, though.
I shook out my hands and rolled my shoulders, hoping to release some of the tension. Seeing Luke Haven—even almost crashing into Luke Haven—should not have made me feel anything, let alone the overwhelming combination of frustrated, flustered, and, dare I say it, aroused.
But could anyone blame me? He’d always been a masterpiece of masculinity. Thick hair, strong stubbly jaw, broad shoulders, and those hands. They were probably still rough and calloused. He’d always been full of contradictions— easygoing but opinionated, calm but stubborn, rough around the edges with a soft heart.
“What have you done to me, Luke Haven?” I said, slipping into my Queen Ione voice. I fully admit that one of my weirdest habits was talking to myself as characters I’ve voice acted. “Your presence is a thorn in my foot. One that I will pluck out and cast aside.”
A thorn in my foot. The made-up line made me laugh a little. It sounded like something Queen Ione would say. The writers had created her to be a quintessential evil queen—powerful and haughty, jealous and angry. She was fun to portray.
Luckily for me—and everyone else involved— Enchanted Hollow had been renewed. At first, it had flopped. Ratings and reviews were great, but that didn’t matter if no one was watching. Somewhere along the way, about two years after the show originally aired, it took off. Kids started watching, and so did parents.
I’d since been contracted to reprise my role as Queen Ione in seasons two, three, and four. It was amazing news and almost in the nick of time. But not quite. Things were moving slowly, and I wasn’t set to start recording for another couple of months. Which meant I wasn’t getting paid for another couple of months. And that was if there weren’t any delays.
There were always delays.
The bank account situation was a much bigger issue than almost crashing into Luke Haven, no matter how jittery or frustrated or whatever it was he’d made me feel. Granted, the encounter had been inevitable. Tilikum was too small for me to avoid him forever.
Besides, he was just my high school ex-boyfriend. That wasn’t a big deal. It had been so long, I hardly remembered anything about our relationship.
Okay, fine, that was a lie. There was plenty I still remembered .
But I wasn’t going there.
What I really needed had nothing to do with Luke. I needed a temporary job. I’d signed the contract for Enchanted Hollow , and it included a noncompete. That meant I couldn’t take on any other voice acting jobs until I’d finished recording for them. Studios didn’t always do that, but in this case, it would be worth it—once I finally started getting paid. After all the lawyer fees and moving expenses, things were looking bleak.
I slowed and took a right, heading to my parents’ restaurant. Eight or nine years ago, they’d become the proud owners of Home Slice Pizza. They’d bought it from Freddie Haven, one of Luke’s uncles, and called it their preretirement project.
Yes, the part-Italian family owned a small-town pizza place. It was so cliché, it was adorable.
A squirrel ran out in front of me, and I slammed on the brakes to avoid squishing it. It darted across the road, oblivious to its brush with death.
“Vile creature,” I said, using my Queen Ione voice again. “You’re lucky I didn’t crush you into oblivion.”
The squirrel disappeared into the brush on the other side of the street, so I kept going. At least I hadn’t hit it. No Luke necessary to prevent that little incident, thank you very much. My reflexes were just fine.
That thought made me roll my eyes. “Get out of my head, Luke.”
Home Slice Pizza was downtown, in a quaint building with a pitched green roof and a big sign above the front door with the Home Slice logo. It was a little faded, but they’d kept the original, well-loved logo when they bought it. I parked outside and went in.
The aromas of oregano, tomato sauce, and browned cheese greeted me. A small lobby area at the front had a few chairs and a counter for customers to place and pick up to-go orders. A swinging door behind the counter led to the kitchen, and tables with white paper tablecloths that kids could color on took up the rest of the space. A short hallway at the back was lined with old arcade games and led to a banquet room that could be reserved for parties.
“I’ll be right out,” my mom called from the kitchen.
“Just me,” I called back.
A man came in, dressed in a bright orange shirt and jeans. I stepped aside and gestured for him to go ahead. He was probably there to pick up an order, and I hated having people stand behind me.
My mom came out dressed in a black blouse and slacks. I loved that she dressed like her restaurant was a fine dining establishment and not a small-town pizza joint. It was so her. If her shoulder-length brown hair had even a single strand of gray, it was a secret known only to her hairdresser, and her magenta lipstick was as bold as her personality.
“Can I help you?” she asked the man. Her eyes flicked to me, and she winked.
I waited while she retrieved his to-go order, a stack of four pizzas plus breadsticks and dipping sauce. As he was leaving, I held the door for him. He said a muffled thank you from behind his stack of pizza.
Letting the door shut behind him, I went back to the counter.
“How’s everything?” Mom asked. “Getting settled?”
“Yes and no. I have a place to sleep and a semi-functional kitchen. It’s a start.”
“A good start. Have I told you lately that I’m proud of you?” She reached across the counter and booped my nose.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Where’s your father?” She turned toward the kitchen and raised her voice. “Anton! What are you doing back there? Melanie is here! ”
Dad’s muffled reply came a second later. “In a minute.”
“It’s fine. He can take his time.”
Tristan, one of their teenage employees, came out from the kitchen carrying several large pizza boxes. He slid them into the warmer.
“Anton!” she called again in a robust but semi-singsong voice.
Tristan didn’t seem fazed. He just clipped the order receipt into the top of the warmer and went back to the kitchen.
“Mom, I’m early. Let him finish what he’s doing.”
“An—”
He interrupted her by stepping through the swinging door. “Krista.”
“There you are. What have you been doing back there?”
“Pizza.” His voice was soft, without a hint of irritation at my mom’s impatience. “We have orders to fill.”
“I know, I know.” She waved her hand. “Although it’s shaping up to be a slow night. Maybe that’s a good thing. Melanie’s here. Nathan and Sharla and the kids should be here any minute.”
Italians had a reputation for being loud, but it was my Polish-German mother who talked with her hands and didn’t have an inside voice. She was a force of nature. My Italian father, on the other hand, was calm and reserved—probably why they were so good together.
“Hi, Dad.”
He smiled, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. Although he was average height, he towered over my less-than-average-height mom, and his dark hair was peppered with gray.
“Are you going to have time to eat with us?” she asked him. “I was hoping we could all sit down together. Tristan can help, can’t he? I keep saying we need to hire another pizza maker. You work too hard. ”
“It’s pizza, not brain surgery,” Dad said. “Of course he can help. I’ve been showing him everything.”
“Good.” Mom clapped her hands together with a bright smile. She seemed to be about to say something else, but another customer came in to pick up their order.
Dad took the opportunity to slip back into the kitchen while Mom wasn’t looking. I pressed my lips together in a smile. Mom talked a lot, but Dad always did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted.
“Do you need any help back there?” I asked once the customer had gone. “Not that I know where anything is.”
She waved her hand again as if batting my offer out of the air. “No, no, we’re fine. Like I said, it's shaping up to be a slow night. Some days are like that. If it was a Friday, we’d have a line out the door.”
“But business is going well?”
“It is.” Her voice was emphatic. “This is a pizza-loving town, and thank goodness for that. How about you go push some tables together before your brother gets here.”
“That, I can do.”
I chose two tables near the front counter in case either of my parents needed to jump up and take care of customers while we ate. After moving the chairs, I went behind the counter to grab cups of crayons for my nieces and nephew. They loved to draw on the paper tablecloths while they waited for their dinner.
Despite my need for a job, working for my parents at Home Slice was so not an option. Mom had offered when I’d first told her I was moving back to Tilikum, but I’d politely refused. And even she seemed to realize that wouldn’t have been good for our relationship. We got along just fine, but we both had strong personalities, so working together would probably push us both past our breaking point.
I’d just set the crayon cups on the table when the feeling of someone coming up behind me made me jump, and I knocked one over, spilling crayons all over the floor.
“What’s the matter?” Mom asked.
“You startled me.” I crouched to pick up the crayons.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I thought you heard me coming. What’s wrong? Why are you so jumpy?”
“Have you met me?” I put the crayons back on the table. “I’m always jumpy. It’s nothing.”
“Ah!” She pointed at me. “It’s nothing means it’s something. Come on, talk to your mama. Is it, you know?”
“No, it’s not that. That’s over. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“All right, all right. Then what is it?”
I rolled my eyes. “It really is nothing. I just ran into Luke Haven. Almost. I didn’t hit him. Just came close.”
“Didn’t hit him with a fist?” She clenched her hand, as if to demonstrate. “Or are you talking about with your car?”
“Both, I guess, although I wasn’t close enough to punch him.”
“Well, that’s something. Luke’s a nice man. You shouldn’t punch him.”
That made me roll my eyes again, although I didn’t try to argue with her. “Anyway, I made a left turn, and he was right there.”
“How fast was he driving?”
“Exactly!” I threw my arms up. “See, everyone knows he drives too fast. And then he blamed it on me. I mean, sure, I did pull out right in front of him, but if he hadn’t been going so fast, I wouldn’t have almost hit him.”
“How is Luke, anyway? I haven’t seen him in a while.”
I blinked at her. “I don’t know. He was yelling at me on the side of the road, not telling me his life story.”
“Did you yell back?”
“Yeah. And I flipped him off when I drove away.”
She laughed softly. “Oh, honey. ”
“What? He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did.”
I couldn’t tell if she meant that or was just humoring me. She’d always liked Luke, even after we’d broken up, and she and my dad were still friendly with his parents. I didn’t mind—it was all ancient history anyway.
The door opened again, and a whirlwind of children tumbled inside, followed by Nathan and Sharla.
My nieces and nephew were a fascinating study in genetics. Ten-year-old Lucia had dark hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin from a summer spent outside. Eight-year-old Zola was platinum blond with ice-blue eyes and skin that burned in about five minutes of sun exposure. Nico, the baby of the family at six, was a carbon copy of his dad, with brown eyes, dark hair, and an olive skin tone.
Same two parents, three different looks. Although their features—eye shape, noses, and facial structure—made it obvious they were siblings.
“My sweet darlings!” Mom scooped them each in a hug and kissed the tops of their heads. “How are you? Ready for pizza?”
“Yeah!” they answered in unison.
As the kids took their seats at the table and started coloring, I helped my mom bring drinks, plates, and napkins. Dad brought out the pizza to applause from everyone, and it suddenly hit me that I was home.
So much of what I’d been missing all the years I was married wasn’t just a good relationship—although that was a big part of it. Jared hadn’t liked Tilikum and hadn’t particularly liked my family, so we’d rarely visited. I’d missed years of pizza nights because I’d married the wrong man.
I wasn’t going to blame him. Okay, yes, I was. It was totally his fault, the jerk. But it wasn’t like he’d held me captive. I’d been too wrapped up in my own life—my own stuff—to make time for my family .
That was over. I was home.
And Luke Haven? He and I would just have to get used to living in the same town. We were both adults, and our breakup had been ages ago.
How hard could it be?