Page 19 of Meeting Melody
“Here.” Jacob returns with a sweatshirt in his hand.
When I just stare at it, he sighs.
“You’re shivering. Please, just put it on.” He drapes it over the back of one of the chairs and goes back into the kitchen.
The hiss of a coffee maker heating up is barely audible, as is the opening and closing of cabinets. I set my bag on the pine tabletop, running my fingers over the light wood, then pick up his sweatshirt. Like the t-shirt, it has the Hawks logo on the front of it. His name isn’t on the back, though.
Ugh, fine. I pull the heavy fabric over my head and slide my arms through the sleeves. It’s giant on me, which… doesn’t usually happen. I feel small in it.
I shake my head and chuckle.
When’s the last time I felt tiny? Ever?
“What’s funny?” Jacob returns, his eyes seeming to look everywhere all at once.
I tug the sweatshirt away from my body. “Nothing.”
“Come on, Melody.”
“I’m…” I shrug, my face heating. “Not usually the fit-into-a-guy’s-sweatshirt type, you know?”
He narrows his eyes. “Whose sweatshirts have you been trying on?”
“Um,” I rub the back of my neck. “I don’t know. Anyone’s.”
Jacob steps toward me. “An ex?”
“Sure.”Something like that. My throat tightens, and for once, I hope he doesn’t keep prying. I don’t want this secret to come out. I don’t want this shame to boil me alive.
He narrows his eyes, but… something stops him. I don’t know what.
Instead, he tilts his head toward the kitchen. “I made hot chocolate. Do you want whipped cream?”
My lips part. “You did?”
“Yeah. Why?”
How do I tell him that the last time I had hot chocolate, I was sitting in my social worker’s office with a bloody face? And my dad was sitting in a jail cell. And my mom was screaming in the other room, blamingme. The only reason I got hot chocolate was because the stranger who was “taking over my case” wanted me to stop crying.
Yeah, probably don’t mention that.
I clear my throat. “I just haven’t had it in a while.”
He smiles. It’s brilliant, and it shows off his perfect, white teeth. “Well, Ms. Cameron, I’d love to give you all the things you haven’t had in a while.”
I roll my eyes.
He motions for me to go past him. I stride into the kitchen, to the two mugs sitting on either side of a can of whipped cream.
“Wait,” he says, going to the pantry. He reemerges with a bag of chocolate chips and a jar of rainbow sprinkles. “You need the full effect.”
“I’m going to go into a sugar coma.”
But I’m smiling, and I can’t stop it as he squirts whipped cream in a perfect swirl on both of the mugs, then carefully tops it with chocolate chips and sprinkles. He turns to me and touches my chin. My lips part automatically, and he brings the whipped cream can in close. He squirts it into my mouth.
The sugary cream lands on my tongue, and I close my lips around it as soon as he pulls away. A little bit escapes, and he swoops down and licks it from the seam of my lips.
I stare at him when he withdraws with a wicked grin, his tongue disappearing into his mouth. I swallow thickly.
