Page 51 of Melt With You

‘I was hoping to get you while you were still in bed. You’d wake up in the 80s, and I would be right there, knocking on your door, presenting you with the situation. I had Violet book you in that B&B because it was there in 1988. But I needed to make sure you were by yourself, and that you were in a place that existed back then. It’s not like checking your luggage, you know. What you’re holding onto when the phone rings travels with you.’

‘You mean …’ Her mind started to take her away.

‘Yeah. If you’d been astride Luke when I called, and you happened to reach for the phone, you’d have ended up fucking in the field behind the railroad station.’

‘So, instead, you sent me back the next day, and you lost me.’

‘Look, I knew when you were. I just didn’t know where you were. And then when I finally did find you … well, you were busy.’

She interrupted. ‘So you just left me. Let me fend on my own?’

‘You seemed to be fending just fine.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

No doubt about it, he had been the one at The Majestic.

‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘I saw you with Van in the city. I followed the car with Bette and Gael. And I was going to tell you then, but you were flying high. Weren’t you? You wouldn’t have understood. Or believed. A little ecstasy would have made you blurt out to the world what was going on. And then I tried to get you the next day, and you had your hands full then, too.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Up in the stockroom, wink, wink, says Bette. Unloading a delivery. Or whatever the fuck she called it. Unloading Van, more like.’

‘What did you expect?’ Dori glared at him. ‘That I’d be faithful to you in the past?’

He glared right back at her, but he didn’t say a word. How odd that they’d just fucked the daylights out of one another and now Dori could hardly find the words to express how angry she was.

‘Why didn’t you just come back two hours earlier?’ she asked next.

‘Trust me, Dori. I did what I thought was best.’

‘Best,’ she repeated, saying the’ word bitterly.

‘I wanted to meet you at the reunion, to explain the situation. To go with you. I didn’t want to send you back to prehistoric times. Didn’t want to be off by any more than a day or two. And then my own phone fucked up, batteries low, and I missed you. By minutes. And you were already off with Luke.’

‘So, to punish me, you sent me back by myself?’

His eyes glowed. ‘Not to punish you. Just …’

‘Just what?’

‘I wanted to play with you.’

Dori stared at him fiercely.

‘That first day, after I found out you were with Luke, I decided to scrap the whole thing. I decided that I ought to just leave you alone and go back myself. Forget the big plan.’

‘And then?’

‘And then Chelsea sent me that picture on the Y-Phone, and … Look, I’ll admit it. I got angry.’

Dori leaned forward, listening, and she could tell from the expression on his face that Rowan was having a difficult time explaining. His expression told her that he wished she wasn’t following this line of questioning.

‘Dori, I’m sorry. Okay? I had spent the whole day pacing around town, stomping around. Trying to figure out what to do. I’d put so much effort into this. You can see that, can’t you? I didn’t want to just give up. And then I saw that picture, and I kind of lost it for a moment. I knew I was going to come back, too. But rather than give you a heads up, I wanted to see what you’d do. I thought I’d catch you at the B&B, but you checked out early. I was only a few minutes late, once more, but I couldn’t find you. I had no idea you’d be able to put a life together so quickly. That you would meet and talk to so many people … affecting them and their memories.’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Well, you know the Prime Directive, right?’

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