21. Chapter 21
“Mom! You can’t be serious!” Melanie huffed and threw herself back in her bed. She’d been on the phone for ten minutes listening to her mom lecture her about proper etiquette. “At least I knew I should bring something. Isn’t that enough?”
“Fine. What does Andrea like to drink?”
“Whiskey and can you quit saying her name like that?” Only silence met her ears though. “Valerie doesn’t drink and Andrea has never drank when we’ve all had dinner before.” She wasn’t taking alcohol.
“What about flowers?”
“No. That’s too cliché.”
“Then dessert.” Her mom sounded irritated now too. “In a pan you don’t want back.”
“What if they’ve already made dessert?” Maybe she should just text Valerie and find out.
“Then something to pamper Valerie. She just had a baby six months ago, she’ll appreciate something for herself. Trust me. It was always about you kids or your dad when we had people over. Like the fact that I was the one who did it all didn’t matter sometimes.”
Melanie rolled her eyes. But maybe she had a point. Valerie was pretty amazing. “Ok like what?”
“You know her, Mel, I don’t.” In the background she heard her mom uncork a bottle of wine. She was guessing her dad was still at work. “Something she’ll use.”
“Mom, I called you for help!” She whined.
“If this is, as you put it, family dinner, then maybe you don’t need a gift.” She swallowed loud enough to be heard. “How long until you and Levi settle down? You’re not getting any younger, honey.”
And there it was. “I’ve got to go. Thanks mom. Love you.” Then she ended the call. That was not a conversation she wanted to have tonight.
She rolled over on her stomach and looked at her closet. There were too many choices. What the hell did people even wear to dinner with the most powerful family in the city? Instead of freaking out, she texted Val.
Hey, we were invited to dinner tomorrow night. Anything we can bring?
It took a good five minutes of staring at the phone before she got the nerve to send it. Everything about this felt ridiculous. On a daily basis, she dealt with one or the other for work. Asking something on a personal level was the issue. When work and personal were combined was when things got messy. It’s why she had been hesitant about Levi. If it wouldn’t have been for Kenneth Grand, they would probably still just be dating casually, if at all. She didn’t regret getting together with Levi, but without all the drama she might not have ever allowed it to begin with.
Twenty minutes later while she was unloading the dishwasher just to have something to do, her phone went off.
Just bring yourself. Jeans. Nothing fancy. It’ll be ready around seven but you can come early if you want.
That was why she loved Valerie. She understood what it was like to feel out of place and always did her best to make sure others didn’t have to feel that way.
Sounds good thanks!
But then about thirty seconds later her phone started ringing. It was Valerie. She closed the cabinet and answered.
“Hello?”
The voices were muffled. “You didn’t tell him?”
“No. That’s why I invited him to dinner. There was a lot going on at the office. Melanie was there, the investigation, I had Addy…”
Obviously she’d been pocket dialed. This was bad. She should hang up. But she couldn’t make herself just yet.
“Andrea! You said you would!”
“What’s one more day going to hurt?” Something was said that she couldn’t make out and then Andrea said, “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Val. I know you’re trying to help, but it’s too much right now. Please, love.”
She hung up. Whatever that desperate tone in Andrea’s voice was, it made her nervous. Who knew she was even capable of such a tone?
More importantly, Levi had been right. Something was definitely wrong.
Levi barely made it home in time to shower, change and swing by to pick up Melanie for dinner. He spent all day yesterday running down people from the camera footage. They were no closer to figuring out who killed Vincent than they had been. It seemed like a mugging gone wrong, but Victor didn’t want to hear it. He was convinced his brother was targeted. For now, they were still looking, but Levi had pulled back on the amount of manpower working the case. He would work it himself because that’s what Andrea wanted him to do. Everyone else needed to do their jobs.
He pulled up in front of Melanie’s building and she came out the front doors before he could even put it in park. She was wearing tight jeans and a dark green shirt that had some lace on it. This morning he had to talk her off the ledge of going shopping. Even Valerie had told her casual, but she just couldn’t seem to let it go.
When she slid in the car, she looked at him with a frown. “You’re late.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He drove out of the parking lot. “We have time. It’s only 6:30.” Her hand felt clammy when he grabbed it. “Relax, cupcake.”
But she wouldn’t meet his eyes, choosing to stare out the window instead. “Did you only want to marry me because you thought I was pregnant?”
That wasn’t a conversation he was expecting or that they should have when they were only ten minutes away. “No, I wanted to marry you that first night that I came to your house for dinner.” He squeezed her hand and pulled so she would look at him. It was hard to keep eye contact and drive safely, so all he could do was keep glancing at her. “You’re the total package, Melanie. Funny, smart, beautiful, kind, caring, dedicated. I saw and still see all of those things in you. What’s going on?”
She sighed and looked back out the window. “I had to change shoes three times because my feet still hurt sometimes, you know?”
“I know.” The run through the woods away from Kenneth had done some real damage to them. There were still scars and sensitive places. It made her uncomfortable not only physically but also insecure for anyone to see them.
“I was in the bathroom fixing my hair and he was there in the mirror behind me just like that night he took me.” She pulled her hand back and gripped her other one tight. “He’s not. I know that he’s dead, but sometimes when there’s pain in my feet or legs, it brings that up too.”
Turning on Andrea’s street, he slowed down and parked a few houses away. “You’ve never told me that.”
The way her eyes looked glassy said that she probably hadn’t wanted to say it now either. “Why would I? It’s my shit to deal with.”
Because he couldn’t take it, he got out of the car and walked around to her side. With the door open and her still buckled up, he knelt down beside her and put his hands on her still clenched ones. “Melanie, I want to be here for you with this and anything else in your life. You’ve told me you sometimes get nightmares and you’ve told me about the pain. I went to see your therapist with you and I’ve been trying to be supportive any way I can be. But I can’t read your mind, babe. I don’t know if you’re hurting unless you tell me.”
“It’s stupid. He didn’t even do anything to me except throw me in a room. A room that I escaped.” That was the problem, she always tried to minimize what had happened to her. They’d had this conversation a million times. Other people with worse trauma or injuries were the ones she called victims, never herself.
He tilted her chin up with the hand not on hers. “He stalked you for months. Invaded your privacy. Tormented you with pictures and gifts. Broke into your house. Kidnapped you. And chased you through the woods. Being thrown in a room to escape was only a tiny portion of that.” Before she could argue he shook his head to stop her. They didn’t need to hash out how none of the things he listed were better or worse than each other. She always tried to rationalize them into meaning nothing when they actually meant a great deal. “I have a question though?”
“What?”
“Why did you ask about me wanting to marry you?”
She pulled a hand away to stop a tear from messing up her makeup. “I don’t know. Because we haven’t talked about it and I’ve been alone with my thoughts pretty much all weekend.” Her shrug was telling. Melanie didn’t shrug. She wasn’t the kind to play it off. In fact, sometimes she was a little too direct. It was another thing he loved about her.
It wasn’t the time. They were on the side of the road, in the middle of trying to keep her from crying and spiraling, but he couldn’t think of a more perfect time. She was the one for him, there was no denying it. “You will get through this, I want to be with you every step of the way. To share your secrets, your pain and your happiness. Will you marry me, Melanie Davis? Someday when you’re ready, will you walk down the aisle and let me promise to love you and care for you until the day I die?”
Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth and closed it a few times before finally covering it with her free hand. “Levi…”
“Baby or no baby, all I really need is—”
She didn’t let him finish because she lunged forward and smashed their lips together. It took a second for him to react and slide his hand in her hair while moving their lips together. When she pulled back, he searched her eyes, praying that wasn’t a good bye kiss.
“Yes, Levi. I don’t want to get married tomorrow or anything, but I want the promise from you that well figure everything out together.”
He nodded and smiled. “I promise.”
Her phone started going off with an alarm, and she pulled away to dig through her purse. “Dinner is in five minutes,” she said with a shake of her head.
“If this dinner is too much pressure, I’ll call Andrea and tell her we can’t make it.” The pavement was digging into his knees now, but he wasn’t ready to pull away from her.
“No. We’re practically there already. I feel better now.” She undid her seat belt and flipped down the visor to look in the mirror. “We need to be there. You said yourself something is going on.”
He’d been trying not to think about that though. Instead, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick text.
We’re gonna be ten minutes. Sorry. It was important.
Melanie was trying to fix her eyeliner and lipstick but he thought she should just leave it. He liked her looking less than ‘perfect’. It made him feel like she wasn’t hiding her true self. But he knew better than to say that. Before the time could pass, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out the red satin ring box. She looked down at him when he popped it open.
“Levi, thats antique.” Her amazement and shock made him happy. The style seemed more like her than a fancy new ring. She appreciated when something had meaning behind it.
“It was my adopted mom’s, but it was my dad’s grandmother’s.”
She pulled it out of the box and looked at it. There was an inscription on the inside of the band. “Forever yours,” she read and looked into his eyes. “How did you…you said you didn’t keep anything of theirs.”
“I didn’t. Andrea did.” He slid the ring on her finger and kissed it. “She gave it to me when I said I was going to ask you to marry me.”
“It’s beautiful, Levi. Thank you.” She pressed their lips together softly. “You can mess my lipstick up later,” she promised. “We’re already late. There will be time to talk about everything tonight.”
“I’m going to mess up more than your lipstick,” he said and winked when he stood up.