Page 65 of Revived

“It’s pretty warm out.”

“Yeah, but you never know with restaurants. Some of them are uncomfortably cold.”

“I suppose so,” I told her as I moved close enough that I could run a finger from her shoulder down her bicep to where the bend of her elbow began. “Shame to cover all this up but do what you must to stay comfortable.” I didn’t miss the shiver that ran up her body, or the way the hair on her arm stood at attention. “Shall we?” I asked as I offered her my arm.

“Yes,” she began to say and then she noticed. “Where’s your cane?”

“Didn’t want it to cramp my style tonight. Besides, I’ve been doing the exercises a good friend of mine showed me,” I explained as I winked at her.

“That’s good. Your friend is probably way smarter than you.”

That made me laugh. “She’s definitely smarter than me.”

We ended up at a quaint little Mexican restaurant where I ordered chicken tacos, and Mel laughed at me for it. “What, I’ve had a craving ever since the grocery store.”

“You are too much, Gabriel Northman.”

“I like that,” I told her.

“What? The chicken tacos?”

“No. The fact that you know me as the man, Gabriel Northman, and not just the other part of me.”

Melanie smiled before taking another sip of her drink. “I always knew you as the man first.”

“That’s part of what made me fall so hard for you,” I informed her. The resulting blush that stole across her cheeks was a white-hot reminder of our one night we managed to spend together and the time that I watched that blush sweep up her body to settle prominently in her face.

“How has life been treating you lately?” She finally asked, as if slightly uncomfortable at the reminder of me falling for her and fucking it up enough that we were starting over here. Then again, that might have been my own insecurities talking. Where Mel was concerned, I worried that I’d screw it all up again without even trying to.

“It’s been quiet. Everyone left shortly after you did.”

“What do you mean everyone left? Where has Chevy been? Why did he leave?”

“It’s okay. He didn’t leave permanently. At least, not yet. He’s been spending more time with his brothers lately. I’m guessing they’ll be coming around more here soon, since they asked for some time in my studio.”

She beamed with pride then. “Are you going to help them record?”

“I am. John’s going to be back to help out with it too.”

“Did he go back to LA?”

“Yeah, there was an emergency there with his wife, and I think he’s trying to convince her to move to Georgia now.”

“How is it that I still haven’t met this elusive wife of his?”

“Jade is John’s best friend from childhood. They lost touch for a while, some bad shit went down, he won the girl, and then after a few years, he screwed it up again. It wasn’t even a bad decision on his part. It was more so not acting quick enough when a conniving bitch was around. They’ve been on rocky terrain since, but I have faith in them.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“They love one another.” I told her, as if that one emotion could fix anything that was wrong in a relationship.

“You don’t sound so sure though.”

I shrugged. “I think that she was always in love with him and he never saw her that way until it was too late, and he lost his chance. She ended up marrying someone else before John got off his ass to do anything about it.”

“Um, is she still married to someone else? I thought you called her his wife?”

I shook my head and laughed. “John would be having a field day with this if he knew you were really this clueless about all of us. Some of this played out in the headlines a few years ago, when they finally got back together.” She just smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders. “Her new husband put his foot down about John. Didn’t like him coming around, trying to win her back. Can’t say I blame the guy. To be honest, I’m sure John was making a difficult situation worse for Jade at the time. Eventually, things broke between them. I’m not sure what the straw was, but when it broke, it took a long time to get my best friend back. He was lost to a pretty dark place for a while.”

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