Page 23 of Revived

“And?”

“I don’t want to rock any boats. There seems to be enough weirdness down there already. Going out on a dinner date with one of Gabe’s bandmates doesn’t seem like the right call to make.”

“Let me ask you this, if your situation was different – more secure – would I even stand a chance, or would you still be hung up on Gabe?”

I sighed. “I’m not hung up on anyone. If you want the truth though, I just moved to Georgia. I’m already once divorced. The last thing I need in my life is another fair-weather man who is here today and gone tomorrow when the next shiny thing comes along to take his attention. You live a life that has a lot of shiny in it, and Alex, you don’t live here. So, no, there would be no chance that I would go there.”

“You were married before?” He asked, genuinely interested now as we stood there in the hallway outside of my bedroom door. I saw Gabe standing at the top of the stairs in my peripheral and knew that I needed to cut this short.

“Yes, I was married before. I followed him from our home in West Virginia to his new career in New York. He decided he hated his job and the big city. We stayed anyway because I loved the job I had at the time and I was still finishing up more school so I could be recognized as a Nurse Practitioner. Darren ended up resenting me for the time we had to spend there. He was taking longer and longer trips back home.” I sighed, because the rest of my story was so painful.

“He was seeing someone back home?” Alex surmised.

I nodded. “He was seeing my little sister,” I admitted. “He got her pregnant the same year I graduated from the Master’s Program and earned my ANCC certification. I came home from work, ready to celebrate finally achieving that goal, and all of his stuff was gone. My mom called me that night to tell me the news.”

“They knew? Your family? They all knew that your husband and sister were having an affair behind your back and they didn’t tell you until the day he left? How long had it been going on?”

“They had been seeing each other for three years. My family knew for at least a year of that, if not longer.”

“Holy fuck. That’s why you had no problem dropping everything and moving here on a moment’s notice?”

“It is. My life in New York was a series of wins and losses. I got a clean slate by moving here, sort of.” I thought about the lawsuit that was still pending against me from the hospital. It was literally keeping me from getting another job lined up. Gabe just stood there, not heading to his room or coming up the last step at all. It was as if he was just waiting to see what would happen between Alex and myself. “Look, Alex, I honestly just want to go lie down and take a nap because I’m exhausted. If you could just pass along my apologies for not joining you guys, that would be great.”

“Things will get better for you, Mel. I believe that.”

“Thanks, Alex.” I didn’t want to keep drawing out the conversation, so I turned to go into my room then, and shut the door behind me without saying anything. Once the door was closed, I heard Alex speak again.

“You can come the rest of the way up now,” he called out. Apparently, he had known that Gabe was there the whole time. “She shot me down, so you don’t have anything to be concerned over,” Alex laughed as he spoke. “Honestly, I just wanted to see if I could pull her since you kept fucking up, but she doesn’t deserve to be a pawn in anyone’s game. If you don’t get your shit together and figure out what you want, I will get serious about that one though. She’s the forever type of girl we’ve all dreamed of all these years. You used to always talk about how you thought Kendra was, but that she broke you, and you didn’t think they existed. Now that you learned the truth about what went down between you and Kendra, how do you feel?”

“Alex, you need to stay away from Mel.”

“Why, Gabe? She’s single, unclaimed, and she has forever written all over her.”

“You know,” Gabe replied. He said something else as well, but I couldn’t make it out through the door because he lowered his voice as he spoke. Alex laughed and then I heard footsteps walking off. It made me curious about what else Gabe had said. Still, I didn’t have the heart to hold out hope that the man I’d started crushing on was interested in me too. There was no way that I could allow myself to continue building feelings. He clearly had unfinished business with his ex and there was no way I’d knowingly put myself in the middle of that.

9 – Tour Woes

“The album is cut. You have a number one single on the charts right now and another single popping right behind it,” the label rep was saying into the phone. “I know your kid got hurt, but let’s be honest, he’s an adult and he has other family to handle his issues if he’s not better yet. You know how this works, Gabe. Strike while the iron is hot and all that shit.”

As angry as I wanted to be, I already knew it was coming and had been expecting the call. The fact that they held off as long as they did was incredible. “Set it up,” I told him. “Check in and see if we can have our own medical staff for the tour too.”

“Medical staff?”

“Check with Deacon about getting my son’s nurse signed on for the tour.”

“Why? If your son isn’t well enough, he’ll be a liability to have along anyway.”

“He’ll be just fine. I want her along because we trust her with anything that might come up. Just get contracts from Deacon and get back to me as soon as we have dates and details set.”

“You bet.”

I turned to watch out the window as Mel did short sprints right alongside Chevy. He was walking now – with barely a noticeable limp. When they hit whatever mark they were aiming for, Mel started jumping up and down, hands in the air, clearly celebrating the small victory. As much as I enjoyed seeing the moment happen, it also meant that in all honesty, Chevy didn’t need a full-time nurse around anymore. He hadn’t for quite some time, and I think we all knew it even if I did try to remain in denial. Mel had squirmed her way into our hearts, and I don’t think either my son or myself wanted to see her go.

I couldn’t bring myself to end her employment for that reason, and more. She had become a part of our family, even if she had been avoiding me a lot more since that day, I caught her telling Alex about her horrible past and shitty family. I wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed that I knew or if she had heard me tell Alex that he needed to cut his shit and stay away from her.

~*~

Three days, and several arguments later, I finally had the contracts for Mel to be able to join the tour in a working capacity. When I found her, she was on the phone in what appeared to be a phone-in job interview.

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