22. Melanie
melanie
“Here you go, Mel,” Jamie chirps as she appears at my table, setting down an iced coffee and cream cheese bagel. “You look like you need caffeine today.”
I rub a finger under one eye, already knowing it won’t do anything to make the dark marks marring my skin disappear. “You’re not wrong. You’re busy today.” I glance around the interior of Frothy Cakes. Almost every single table is occupied.
Jamie follows my stare, her smile small. “Mondays are always a little busier,” she muses. “People struggling to get back into the swing of things after the weekend, I guess.”
“That makes sense.”
She turns back, watching me for a moment. “You okay, Melanie?”
I blow out a breath, leaning my elbows on top of the table.
“Yeah. I’ve got this project which has been frying my brain, and then there’s everything with…
” I trail off, not sure about how much I want to say.
Jamie and I are friendly, but we’re not the girl-talk kind of friends yet.
And yet, even as I think that, she’s sliding into the seat across from me.
“You know I’m married,” she says suddenly.
“That’s the rumor, but considering I’ve never seen him…” I shrug, and Jamie laughs.
“You’re not wrong. Knox is very focused on his work.
” There’s the slightest edge to her voice, even though she doesn’t lose her smile.
“Some would say too focused, but we’re working on it.
Anyway, that’s not the point. I heard a little bit about what happened between you and—” She cuts herself off, looking around to check whether anyone is listening.
“A certain neighbor,” she says carefully, before rushing to add, “And not because I was listening to gossip or anything. Jaz and I got chatting about what a moron her brother is.”
“Fair enough,” I say dryly.
Jamie tips her head to the side. “When Knox and I first got together, I overheard him saying something about me to another woman.” Her expression pinches with distaste, but I’m not sure if it’s about what she overheard or the people involved.
“What did he say?”
She wets her lips, her eyes dropping to the table. “He was telling her that I wasn’t his type, so she didn’t have anything to worry about.” Her mouth twists into a macabre smile, and I get the feeling Jamie is barely touching the surface of what she heard.
“We’d only been dating for a couple of months, but it stung like a bitch, especially because the woman in question was…
Well, you know the saying that beauty is only skin-deep?
Hers barely covered the nastiness underneath, and she knew exactly how to hit where it hurt.
” She falls quiet, her hand reaching for her wedding band, the huge rock on her engagement ring catching the light when she twists it around her finger.
“The point is…It took me a long time to trust Knox after that, and even longer to trust myself. My insecurities flared, especially when she came around, and it took”—Jamie closes her eyes, a loud breath leaving her—“months before I stopped hearing those words in my head. It was so loud that it drowned out everything else he was telling me.”
I swallow, because that’s exactly how I felt, hearing Cale say, “Obviously Davis knew something I didn’t when he left you.”
The words were on constant replay, a reminder of what I must be lacking for my husband to cheat on me.
Logically, I knew that Davis’s choices weren’t a reflection of me, but having someone I’d started to truly trust throw it in my face, while calling me a terrible mother in the same breath?
I don’t think even pouring bleach into my brain and scrubbing it with a wire brush could remove the memory of that moment.
“I wish I could unhear it,” I tell Jamie. “How do you trust them again after that? Knowing they’re capable of that kind of cruelty? How do you ever look at them and not wonder if that’s how they really feel, and they’re just hiding behind a mask?”
“I think,” Jamie says slowly, “that eventually, your feelings overpower their words. You rebuild that foundation, but you make it less rocky. You build something on transparency and love until there’s no doubting anything that either of you says.
” Her eyes meet mine with utter sincerity. “You also have to trust yourself.”
My brows dip. “What do you mean?”
A playful light flashes behind Jamie’s green eyes.
“Men are stupid,” she announces, just a touch too loudly.
My cheeks heat as I feel eyes swing toward us, but she is completely unrepentant.
“They’re stupid, and they say stupid things, especially when they have feelings, and they don’t know how to handle them.
It’s unfair, but we have to trust what we know about them at the core and use that to look past the sheer, utter stupidity that pours from their mouths. ”
My mouth drops open as I stare at her before a laugh escapes me. It’s a genuine one that comes straight from my belly, shaking my shoulders, and Jamie gives me a grin before she joins me.
“Oh my god,” I gasp out. “I had no idea how much I needed that. Thank you, Jamie.” Something settles within me, easing the tight ache that’s been coiled in my chest for weeks, and when I smile at her, the emotions behind it are genuine.
“Always happy to help.” Jamie reaches across the table, nudging my bagel closer to me. “Now, eat up. And come see me before you leave. I have some lemon bars for Oakley.”
“And this is why he’s starting to love you more than me,” I say dryly. “The kid is gonna turn into a lemon soon.”
Jamie stands up. “Well, he’d be just the cutest little lemon around.” I shake my head as she saunters back behind the counter, disappearing into the kitchen through the swinging doors.
I finish my food and coffee before standing up and gathering my things. I’m about to step toward the counter to grab Oakley’s lemon bars—because if he gets wind that I was here and didn’t, I’ll never hear the end of it—when a saccharine voice says my name, setting my teeth on edge.
“Mellie. How fun running into you.”
I turn around to face Marcy, her smile cutting and not warming the ice spilling from her eyes. Several people around us go still, sensing the drama, but I don’t look away from her, my expression flat.
“Marcy. Interesting that you’d keep using your boyfriend’s pet name for me.” I wrinkle my nose. “Well, less interesting, I guess, and more weird.”
The corners of her mouth tighten, but there’s no other outward sign that I got to her. “You can drop the act. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you to be thrown aside and have to watch your husband make a life with a new woman. Throwing barbs at me because you’re hurt is beneath you.”
“Hm. You might be right. But beats being beneath Davis.”
Marcy blinks, taken aback, but I’m not sure why. I don’t know where she got this impression that I’m in competition with her for Davis. The minute he started making eyes at her, I was done. I would never want him back, even if I hadn’t—
A light flashes across my mind, the epiphany settling over me with the force of a bomb.
Even if I hadn’t caught feelings for Cale.
Well, fuck.
“You don’t need to lie to me. You know, I’m sorry for the way things unfolded, but people can’t choose who they fall in love with.
And now”—Marcy clucks her tongue, blonde hair swinging when she cocks her head—“I think you need to consider the people you’re hurting by carrying on this path you’re forcing us all on. ”
I gape at her. “Sorry, Marcy”—pleasure infuses her face, like she thinks I’m actually apologizing to her—“but what the fuck are you talking about?”
Her expression sours. “There’s no need for that language.”
I’m aware of where we are and everyone listening in, but if this homewrecking bitch wants to come at me in the middle of Frothy Cakes, then she’s going to have to deal with the consequences.
“Really?” I smile unpleasantly. “Marcy, I’ve gotta tell you…
You’ve got some balls, coming up to me here”—I gesture around us—“to tell me I need to play nice with the person who broke up my marriage? And don’t get me wrong.
” I hold a hand up in her face when she is about to interrupt.
“I know the blame lies more on Davis’s shoulders than yours.
But I don’t have any respect for a woman who would cheat on her husband with a married man, breaking up two families and hurting the children involved. ”
Her face goes stark white and then slowly fills with an unbecoming red. “You are the one making this a problem,” she hisses, finally lowering her voice to a more discreet level.
Too late for that.
“You are making the situation harder on everyone by not letting go,” she continues.
“What? You think people feel sorry for you because you’re still in the house you shared with Davis?
Holding onto a relationship that was dead long before I came along?
” She chuckles darkly. “You’re pathetic, and everyone knows it.
” She takes a step closer, her heels giving her a couple of inches of height on me.
I don’t step back, because Marcy is well and truly showing her true colors now, but she doesn’t intimidate me.
“Sell the goddamn house, Mellie. Let us move on with our lives.”
My lips tug up as I lean even closer, our eyes locking. “No.”
“You bitch—”
“Marcy Gordon! What on earth is wrong with you?” a shrill voice calls out as an older woman walks around her, coming to stop at my side—a physical show of support. “Shame on you for causing such a public scene, especially when you know you’re in the wrong.”
Marcy looks like a fish out of water, her eyes bulging and shame flushing her features. “Bettie—”