25. That’s Why We Call Him VD
That’s Why We Call Him VD
Vedder
“Why do you think we call him VD?” Griff asked, his eyes on me.
His revenge. Another jab. Another reminder of what I used to be.
“Kai!” Taz hissed her husband’s name. A snake in the grass, ready to strike.
“What?” He played dumb. “She should know what she’s getting into.”
I swallowed.
“He used to get piss drunk and hump his way through every chick in a hundred-mile radius, including my wife.” Griff glared at me, and my blood boiled, my skin heating. I wanted to deck him, right then and there. “That the kind of man you want?”
He was daring Melody to either disavow me or claim to be that kind of woman.
“I already knew.” Melody gave him a polite smile. “He’s told me who he used to be.”
She squeezed my hand under the table, but it did nothing to stop the adrenaline coursing through me; the anger building in my body needed an outlet in the form of Griff’s face turned into papier-maché.
“And no, that’s not the kind of man I want.”
Her words made me shiver in both fear and anger. Two very big feelings making my skin tight and itchy.
“But the man he is now is different.” She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek.
And that was enough.
It deflated everything. Blood-red anger turned to peaceful-blue relief, and I melted for her even more than I already had.
“That’s the man I’m with right now.” She put her head on my shoulder as if to emphasize her point.
Despite her confession, and despite her masterful handling of Kai Griffith, my stomach was still in knots. A ringing started in my ears, and even as I held Melody against me—even as she squeezed my hand and thigh—I was still fading out.
The conversation continued without me, and the ringing wouldn’t quit. A high-pitched noise that kept growing louder and louder.
Griff was right.
Griff.
Was.
Right.
I wasn’t a man she’d want. No matter how much I changed, I couldn’t undo the past. History like that didn’t go away. It stayed there, dormant and ready to bite me in the ass. How long until I destroyed her life the way I’d destroyed my own?
How long before she realized that she did, in fact, hate me?
She’d talk to my friends, and then she’d get a clearer picture of who I was, and why they hated me, and then it would be over.
I’d lose her. I wouldn’t get to build her a white picket fence, or repairing her house, or helping Marcus with his college applications, or…
God willing…kids. Both the goat kind and the human kind.
Melody looked like the type of girl who’d like a few little mischievous goats.
I knew how to take care of goats. Cows, too. Chickens are good for eggs, but she’d probably prefer ducks.
But what was the point of thinking about any of that if she was just going to dump me, anyway?
“Greg’s been perfect. I’ve never…I’ve never had anyone take care of me and help me as much as him. I feel quite spoiled by him.” Melody was still talking to Taz and Daria, and the two of them let out a collective “Aww.”
And I was going crazy.
“Sweetheart, I’m gonna step outside.” I kissed the top of her head and started to scoot out.
“Are you okay?” she whispered back.
“I’m fine. Just gotta calm myself a bit. I’ll be back quick.”
She cupped my face in her hand and gave me a reassuring smile, her eyes telling me to come back soon. Was…was she worried about being alone with my friends?
“You okay here?” I glanced at the two women leaning in, ready to pounce for details about our love affair as soon as I stepped out.
“I’m good,” she said with a laugh. “Everything’s fine.”
And she didn’t just mean the dinner or the table.
I kissed her temple again; I wanted to believe her, but the uncertainty twisting in my gut was too much to ignore.
I walked out of the back porch of The Bar and into the rain, standing under the small overhang to breathe as I watched the downpour and the light show from the rolling thunder in the distance.
It was fine.
I’d been honest. I told her everything. She wouldn’t be surprised, and she was a smart, capable woman who meant what she said. She wouldn’t change her mind on a dime.
It was fine. We were fine. Everything was fine.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to clear my mind. Trying to just listen to the sound of water.
“What the hell are you doing?”
And the moment was over.
Mr. Punchable-Face Turner Gray slid out from the door beside me, his finger pointing and jabbing into my chest.
I was damn surprised Braun ever took him as a client.
“I paid you to investigate her, not fuck her!”
I bristled at his accusation.
“I didn’t fuck her.” Because there was no fucking about it.
I’d made love to her. Felt her. Worshipped her. The word fuck didn’t encompass any part of what we had done. What we’d shared.
“You’re playing house, though? Taking her out on dates on my dime?”
He wasn’t paying for the meal. What the fuck was he on about?
“Mr. Gray,” I said, trying to stay calm. “We will turn in the findings of our investigation—”
“I fucking paid you to figure out how she did it.” Turner had his finger in my face, spittle flying out of his wretched, too-wide mouth. “Get your shit together and stop being blinded and pussy-whipped! Or I swear to God I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” I asked, leaning down.
Fear and uncertainty flashed in his eyes.
“You’ll fabricate a crime and frame me for it?” I pushed forward, because cowards like Turner knew nothing. They needed people to do their dirty work, and I refused to be his fucking stooge. I refused to be a puppet.
He stepped back, incensed that I’d stood up to him. That I’d defied the Gray name. Fucker.
“Try it,” I said with as much venom as I could muster. If I were a predator, I would have bared my fangs. Not in warning, or to posture. But to toy with him. To play with my food.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with!” His voice wavered even as he invoked his family ties. An act that would have meant something to anyone else in this town, but not to a squatter like me. “I’m a Gray! I know people!”
“So do I.” I felt my eyes flare as I stepped forward again. “You can’t touch me. And you sure as hell can’t touch her, either.”
He tripped over a table, falling on his ass with a clatter as wooden furniture broke under his weight.
“This is your one and only warning,” I said, leaning over Turner.
I didn’t lay a single finger on him. It wasn’t necessary, but I would have been glad to. I just needed him to give me an excuse.
“Stay away from Melody Gray.” I spat right in his face. “Stay away from my woman.”
He was frozen stiff. Fight, flight, or freeze. He wasn’t a fighter. With wide eyes, he went as stiff as a corpse.
I smiled. “Boo.”
Turner scrambled to his feet, running more clumsily than a three-legged dog in a horse race.
I chuckled as he scrambled to the door, halfway ready to piss himself.
Rubbing my hands together like I was washing myself of this whole mess, I was feeling pretty damn pleased.
Until I walked into the bar and saw her with my jacket bunched in her arms. She pushed it towards Taz like it was on fucking fire. “Just give this back to him, okay?”
“Mel, what’s wrong?” God bless Taz for trying to get an answer, but I recognized a damn flight risk when I saw it.
“Sweetheart!” I called.
Melody turned to me.
Then she bolted for the door.
I grabbed my jacket from Taz and chased after her, Taz’s “What the hell?” following me out the door and into the quiet parking lot.
“Melody, you’ll freeze out here.” I held the jacket, focusing on it like it was a lifeline and she was drowning in an angry sea. If I could get her to put on my jacket, then everything would be fine.
“I’m fine.” She halted, looking around when she realized she’d gone to the wrong side of the parking lot. She turned and blasted right past me.
“Melody.” I reached out, grabbing her forearm. “You’re gonna catch your death—”
“God damn it! I didn’t even drive here!” She whirled and stared at me. “Were you working with him the whole time?”
“What?” Her words hit me like a bucket of ice water in the Sahara.
“How long?” Her voice wobbled as tears and snot flooded her sinuses. “How long have you been working for the Grays?”
“Melody…Let me explain.”
“No!” She had tears streaming down her eyes, and that stabbed me in the heart. “I trusted you!”
The hurt, the betrayal, the anger. It all slapped me in the face.
“You can trust me!” I pleaded, feeling her slip through my fingers.
“You’ve been working for them all along!” She was shaking with rage. “I let you around my brother. My sister. I let you into my house. I let you in! I’m such a fucking idiot!”
My shoulders slumped, my hands fell to my sides. Helpless.
She wasn’t mad at me.
She was mad at herself, and that was so much worse.
“I haven’t betrayed you.” I wanted to touch her, but that was the last thing she would accept right now. So, I held back. It killed me to not touch her, but I kept my distance from the one thing in the world that I wanted. “Please, whatever it is, we can talk about it.”
“How much were they paying you?” The anguish in her eyes, the tears collecting on her lower lashes. It was worse than a bullet to the chest. “How much was Turner paying you?”