Fuck, I’m nervous.
I don’t know why, but I guess that means I kind of care.
My foot taps against the carpeted floor as I wait for something to happen.
Something happens.
Her camera flickers on, pointing towards a rust-colored wall.
I frown, prickled with a sense of familiarity. It’s an ugly fucking color that I don’t see too often—and I’ve been in a lot of houses.
No. Impossible.
“Can you hear me?”
The sound of her voice sends more tingles of déjà vu down my spine, but there’s static, so I can’t be sure. I fiddle with the settings again, unsure if my microphone is on. It seems to be muted, so I use the chat feature to send my reply.
Me: I hear you.
My reply pops up on the screen, and Magnolia speaks again.
“Okay… great. Are you ready?”
Definitely not.
Me: I’m ready.
There’s a dramatic pause, and my pulse revs with anticipation as I wait for her to reveal her identity. I feel it in my ears, my temples, my throat. My hands are folded in my lap, fisted tightly, and my jaw aches as my teeth clench together.
Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
The camera jiggles, and a piece of white-blonde hair floats into the frame.
My stomach sinks. My heart snares on a jagged beat.
That wall.
That voice.
Widowed and wilting.
Another beat passes, and Melody situates herself in front of the camera, timid and demure, rosy-cheeked and practically shaking.
I blink. I blink again.
No, no, no.
Fuck. No.
“Hi.”
She says it in the sweetest, softest voice, her smile as bright as the sun, while everything else crumbles around me, an avalanche of wreckage and astoundment.
Magnolia is Melody.
Melody is Magnolia.
And I should have known.
I should have fucking known.
This is supposed to be the point where I send her a hello, tell her she’s fucking beautiful, let her know she’s everything I never knew I wanted.
But I don’t do that. I don’t do that at all.
Instead, I slam my laptop shut, pick it up, and hurl it across the room with a violent growl, watching as it breaks into a million fractured pieces against my living room wall. Even my dog jumps up and shuffles over to his dog bed, rattled by my wrath.
My chest heaves, my body tremors, my mind reels with impossibility.
What are the odds? What are the goddamn odds?
Another wave of raging disbelief ripples inside me, and I manifest it into a typhoon of self-destruction. I trash my whole house, pulling things off walls, smashing dishes, clearing countertops, shouting obscenities, and then I collapse into a heap on the floor, my back flush with the kitchen wall.
Magnolia is Melody.
It makes fucking sense. There’s no way I would develop a connection with two separate women at the same time, after living my entire life despising them all.
It could only be her.
Fuck.
Not allowing my anger to abate because it’s comforting somehow, I jump back to my feet and hunt down my shoes and the keys to my truck. I’m not sure what I’m doing, I’m not sure how I’m going to handle this, I’m not sure how I’m going to look Melody in the eyes anymore—but right now her eyes are the only thing I want to see.
She needs to know.
She needs to know the truth.
—TWENTY—
“Zephyr79 has left the meeting.”
A burning ball of shame funnels through me, a cruel, wicked windstorm, stealing the breath from my lungs. My fingers curl into tight fists as I stay rooted to the couch cushion, desperately trying to hold the tears back before they burst through like a broken dam.
Maybe he lost connection.
Maybe his phone died.
It could be the storm.
I suck in a breath so hard, my chest aches. Standing from the sofa, I pace over to my propped-up cell phone and close out the video call, then send him a message to see what happened before I jump to conclusions and join a nunnery.
Me: I’m going to choose to believe that your phone died, and that you didn’t voluntarily leave after seeing me.
He doesn’t appear to be online, so I try to stay hopeful that it was a fluke and had nothing to do with my face.
Shaking away the jitters and anxiety, I distract myself by scrubbing down my countertops twelve times like a psycho. I try not to think about Zephyr.
I try not to think about Parker.
I try really hard not to think about the way his hands felt on me, or the way his words sliced me down just as I was about to leap into something new and frighteningly intoxicating.
Pushing through the weighty pit of dread in my stomach, I snatch my phone back up fifteen minutes later and check for a response.
Nothing.
But… it does say that Zephyr was active two minutes ago.
Oh, my God.
He saw my message.
He saw my message, and he ignored it.
He did voluntarily leave that chat after seeing me for the first time.
Tears prickle my eyes like little rose thorns, and I feel sliced down all over again.
That’s twice. Twice in one night I’ve been rejected and stomped on by two men I’ve grown to care about. Two men I’ve developed feelings for. Two men I’ve opened up to and become vulnerable with, despite the coil of guilt I’ve felt at betraying Charlie in some twisted way.
I toss my phone onto the kitchen counter, then storm out my patio door in bare feet as the rain pours down, pelting the earth and masking the wretched meltdown that is brewing in the back of my throat. After spending an hour wilting in the shower when I returned home, washing away Parker and the stains he left behind, it seems I need another cleanse.
My feet carry me out to the center of my spongy lawn, naked toes sinking into the grass. My loungewear is instantly soaked, the white tank top and cotton shorts sticking to my skin as I shiver beneath the cathartic rainfall.
So much rain lately.
So much to disinfect.
The storm clouds release a mighty downpour as I tilt my chin up and face the sky, closing my eyes and whispering a desperate plea. “I’m lost, Charlie. Tell me what to do.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance, vibrating right through me, and that’s when I hear it.
The sound of a familiar engine rolls up to the front of my house as tires screech to a halt and a car door slams shut.
No way.
Frowning, I swiftly pace over to the side of the house, drawing to a stand when I see him stalking through my lawn towards the front door, his face masked with harsh intensity—like he’s on a mission.
Parker nearly stumbles to a halt when he spots me standing in the backyard, staring at him with a healthy mix of confusion and hostility.
Why is he here?
I don’t want him here. He told me to stay away from him.
I cross my arms over my chest with an air of defensiveness, and also to hide the fact that rain doesn’t mesh very well with thin, white cotton.
Parker’s expression darkens, his features tightening as he shifts direction and charges toward me. “You’re fuckin’ soaked and half naked,” he grits out through the heavy rain showers, slicking his hair back as he approaches.
My face twists with disdain, and I turn my back to him, stomping away like a petulant child.