Page 58 of Only in Your Dreams

I need to get some fucking sleep. I haven’t managed a second of it since that euphoric nap in my office yesterday, with Melody in my lap.

I took a gamble and sent her my address hours ago. Still nothing.

I’m about to head inside when I hear the distant sounds of a car out on the road. Living on the outskirts of town, it’s rare to hear a sound past seven o’clock, let alone this late into the night. And then the car seems to turn onto my driveway, and holy shit. The second I hear light footsteps climb up the front porch, I dive inside.

There’s a knock at the door and I wrench it open so fast Melody’s fist is still hanging in the air.

Fuck, yeah.

She sours the second she sees me, like she hoped I wasn’t home, and it takes everything I have not to break into a smile at the sight of her scowl. She’s sweet when she’s grumpy. And especially grumpy when sleep-deprived.

“Hello to you too, sunshine,” I say, injecting just the right amount of enthusiasm into my voice to elicit an impatient eye roll. Fucking adorable. “I’m glad you caved. I’m dying for some sleep.”

“I still think it’s a ridiculous theory. That nap was a total coincidence,” she says, peering around me into the house. “Can I come in?”

I pry the backpack out of her hand and lead her to the kitchen at the back of the house. Mel takes in the soft grey cabinets, the butcher-block countertops. Turns and scans the living room from the doorway off the kitchen. I follow her gaze, suddenly self-conscious as I examine my own furniture. The blank, white walls around us.

“What did your grams think about this place? I can’t believe she let you move her into a house without floral wallpaper everywhere,” she says after a moment.

“I wallpapered her bedroom while she was still around. It’s still up.” My stomach squeezes uncomfortably, the way it always does whenever I think too hard about Grams. Four years gone and I still hear her voice in my head, outraged at the house’s blank walls. “I wasn’t sure if you knew she was gone.”

Mel’s eyes go pink around the rims. “My mom mentioned it. I thought about coming home, but… I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do.”

“I get it.”

I was barely hanging on when Grams died—she’d been my parent, my person since I was fourteen. Having to see Melody on top of that might have driven me right over the edge.

“You know, the longer I’m here, the more I regret letting what happened between us keep me away,” she says. “All that turmoil over something as silly as high school puppy love.”

Jesus Christ, is that what we’re calling it?

Maybe that’s what it had been for her. But I don’t think puppy love sticks for fourteen years.

“What are you saying?” I ask slowly.

“I’m saying that I really appreciated you listening to me vent yesterday. I thought it made sense to go our separate ways after camp, but there’s really no reason we can’t be friends.”

Oh, fuck no.

I wanted to tell her so badly yesterday. Explain to her how seismic my love for her has been since the moment I met her. In hindsight, I’m relieved she stopped me. Her ex showered her with his feelings right at the start of their relationship. And given he turned out to be a love-bombing, gaslighting piece of shit, I realized a love confession a week into a ten-year reunion probably isn’t the right move here.

I wouldn’t trust it, either.

But I didn’t spend the last fourteen years of my life pining over this woman, wishing for even a morsel of a shot with her, only to get friend-zoned the second she’s back in my life.

“Point of clarification—”

She raises her eyebrows. “Unfortunately, I’m not accepting addendums at this time.”

“Point of clarification,” I say again. Her eyes narrow, but I catch a definite twitch to the corner of her mouth. “Whether you want to admit it or not, things between us have shifted in a no-turning-back direction.” I push the hair off her shoulder, and there it is—the evidence that I’m right. That not-so-subtle catch in her breath when my fingertips drag along her skin.“So, unless you’re telling me you go around dry humping all your friends, let me be very clear: you and me? We aren’t friends. Not even close.”

She breaks into a grin specifically designed to annoy me. “Not with that attitude, we’re not.”

That bratty smile dies right off her face the second I pick her up and drop her ass onto the counter, stepping between her open thighs. She’s wearing the same pair of leggings she had on at camp, the ones that hug her toned calves and bite-worthy thighs. If I didn’t have a point to make, I’d be trying to figure out how to convince her to let me reach into them again, just to see if her pussy’s as wet as it had been the last time I touched her.

The way her chest heaves tells me maybe she wouldn’t let me stop at a touch. She’s staring at the way I’m gripping the counter next to her thighs, desperately working to keep them off her.

Focus, you horny jackass.

---