Page 54 of New Girl in Town
“Don’t lie to yourself about what you’re feeling for him.” She leveled an imploring look at me that had me lowering my eyes. “This is real and true. Don’t act like it’s not.”
I bit my lip. “That’s what makes it so scary.”
“He isn’t going to hurt you.”
“I know that.” I raised my eyes to meet hers. “But what if I hurt him?”
Melinda’s forehead scrunched in confusion. “What are you talking about? You wouldn’t hurt him.”
“How do you know that?” I said, leaning forward, and meeting her gaze. “Love and relationships make people do things they never thought possible.”
Melinda blew out a sigh, but she continued to stare back at me. “You are someone who loves deeply. You’re loyal to a fault. When you care about someone, it’s to your core, and if you care about Grant I know the only thing on your mind is protecting him. You aren’t going to hurt him. Trust yourself a little more.”
“You have a lot more confidence in me than I do.”
“That’s because you’re my best friend and I know you can do anything you put your mind to. Loving Grant is scary, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to fail at it.”
I chewed on my bottom lip and considered her words. She didn’t think I’d mess this up, even if I was terrified of it. I hadn’t thought I would mess things up with Dylan, but here I was, divorced and starting over at 37.
“And get that pensive look off your face. You didn’t mess anything up with Dylan.Hewas messed up, and that’s a fact. You cannot fix a person, and there was no amount of love able to patch the holes up in that man.”
Melinda’s words hit me like a bucket of cold water, and I froze. “How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
“You mean beating yourself up about?” she asked, earning a dry laugh from me.
“Yeah, that.”
“Because it’s what anyone would be thinking.”
I leaned back in my chair and fiddled with my coffee cup. “I’m not beating myself up over it,” I said with a frown.
“Sure you aren’t.”
“Okay, maybe I have been, but just a little bit.”
“It happens, but don’t let it hold you back from anything with Grant. He makes you happy.”
I smiled at that. “He does. I forget when I’m with him. He makes me feel like I can do anything.”
Melinda hummed in approval. “Which is what you should be getting from a partner.” She paused and grinned at me. “But how is the sex?”
I flushed, my mind skipping from our first encounter in the coat closet to the subsequent nights we’d spent wrapped up together. “It’s...good,” I said after a measured pause.
Melinda sipped from her coffee cup. “Just good?”
My face got hotter at the knowing tone in her voice. “Okay, it’s better than just good. It’s amazing.”
“Now that’s more like it. You’re in your prime. You should be having sex and enjoying the sex you’re having, you hear me?” She speared me with a look I knew better than to argue with.
“I know, mom.”
“You had enoughmehwhen you were with Dylan. I don’t want you overthinking this.”
She was right. I had had more than my fair share of lukewarm and lackluster sexual experiences during my marriage. Our initial passion had slowed to nothing, and those final years together were painful to remember.
Even if I had chosen to leave, pushed for my divorce, it didn’t mean that the memory of it didn’t still sting. I’d been so lonely then. Though I’d learned that Dylan’s time was anything but lonely. That stung too, knowing that he’d broken his marriage vows to me. The realization had shaken me to my core, and I had lost my confidence.
Until I hadn’t. Until I’d chosen myself first. And now? Now...anything seemed possible. It had put all the color back into my life, because I remembered how to look at myself like I mattered. It didn’t hurt to have Grant’s soft-eyed looks coming my way either.
