“Ride or die? Or the doormat thing?”
Melanie made a confused face. “Both?”
Tennyson realized she didn’t have many friends, either. Oh sure, she’d had friends who invited her for cocktails and even took a few trips to her place in Colorado or the place husband number three had in Cabo, but she didn’t have ones who knew who she truly was. She had faux friends, people who looked the part, but never held her hand when she cried, never showed up with Oreos or ice cream when she had a crap day, never cared about the real Tennyson. None of them saw through her crap and held her accountable. No one told her no. That she was acting stupid. Or ridiculous. She hadn’t had a friend like that since . . . Melanie.
And Tennyson had thrown that friendship away over a damned man. Because she couldn’t accept Kit choosing Melanie over her, even when she didn’t truly want him anymore. She had always been jealous of what Melanie had—the big house, the fancy cars, the damned country club membership. She hadn’t wanted her to have Kit, too.
So she’d done what she thought she had to in order to steal Melanie’s “perfect” world. She was a shitty person.
“I know what you mean, but you don’t have to be everything to everybody, Melly. You know? You get to choose yourself sometimes,” she said, mostly because she couldn’t seem to admit that to herself, much less Melanie. Or maybe this was a new revelation—that she truly missed Melanie. How could she say she made the biggest mistakes of her life when she was twenty-three years old? And that she’d spent too many years regretting those mistakes, atoning for one with money, pretending the other one didn’t matter to her anymore? She’d spent too many years chasing happiness that she would never catch. Because she thought who she’d been couldn’t be good enough. She’d hated being powerless, so she’d ensured she never felt that way by buying a lifestyle.
Melanie nodded. “You’re right. I know I should stand up to my family, but I can’t seem to do it.”
Tennyson pulled a few tissues from the box beside her. “Here.”
Melanie took them, blew her nose with one, and wiped her eyes with the other. “Thank you. You always seem to be doing that.”
“There’s been a lot of emotion going on, and you’re welcome.”
“I mean it. Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to, but you did.”
“What is she doing here?”
The accusation rang out across the room, and Tennyson felt her stomach sink when she saw Anne Brevard standing in the opening to the waiting room next to a horse-faced woman who did indeed have big teeth. Anne’s face reflected absolute outrage.
“Mother, Tennyson came to check on us,” Melanie said, rising and holding her hands up in a motion that suggested the older woman calm down.
“And now she can leave,” Anne said, her voice the temperature of an arctic storm.
Joseph came in right behind the two women, holding a cardboard carrier of domed cups. “I have coffee. Figured everyone could use a cup about now.”
He slid by the frigid Asian woman, giving her a soft smile before heading toward Tennyson and Melanie. Anne stalked into the room behind him, her eyes now flashing anger. “I don’t know who this man is or why he’s here, but you need to leave. You are not welcome here.”
Anne had been pointing her finger at Tennyson, and now she stopped in front of her, wearing the black dress she’d worn to the bridal shower, looking pristine and marbled, unlike her rumpled daughter. She waited one second, two, even a third, before arching her perfectly drawn eyebrows in a supercilious manner.
“I’m not here for you, Mrs. Brevard. I’m here for Melanie,” Tennyson said, suddenly very grateful that Joseph had stayed with her. He stood next to her, and she could feel his wariness as he read the situation.
“Melanie doesn’t need you, either. Leave. Now,” Anne said.
“Ma’am”—Joseph held up a hand—“Tennyson doesn’t have to go anywhere. This is a public space.”
Anne turned toward Joseph, looking like a weapon repositioning and focusing its red target light onto his forehead. “That may be, but this woman is not welcome to converse with any of us. Come with me, Melanie.”
Melanie stopped moving toward her mother. “What? No.”
Anne turned to her daughter and gave her a look. It was one that said excuse me, missy? It was a look Tennyson had seen many times, and it always caused Melanie to fall in line. “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean it. I’ve had enough of all this . . .” Melanie waved her hand around. “It’s time to stop.”
“There will never be a time for this to stop,” Anne said, turning on her heel. “Never.”
“It has to be, Mother. I’m done with the hate and discord. Tennyson came when others didn’t. I’m not asking her to leave.”
Her mother tossed Tennyson a frosty glare over her shoulder. “Fine. You do whatever you wish, daughter. You always have.” And then her mother walked away.
Melanie looked at Tennyson and shrugged. Then Melanie sat down. To wait. On the word if her sister was alive or dead. That her mother was leaving, her regard for her own ego more important than the feelings of her daughter, made it all the more tragic. It also made Tennyson feel something she hadn’t felt for Melanie in a while—a sense of loyalty she had forgotten.
The horse-faced woman shot Melanie an apologetic look and followed Anne from the waiting room.
Joseph extended the cardboard carrier toward Tennyson. She shook her head. The last thing she could do was drink coffee. Melanie reached over and grabbed one, taking a swig. Then her former BFF looked up at the hot cop. “I’m Melanie, by the way.”
He picked up a creamer container and held it up, waggling it. Melanie took it. “I’m Joseph. Tennyson’s friend.” Then he gave Melanie one of his pretty smiles.
“Good. She probably needs someone like you. We all probably need someone like you,” Melanie said.
Tennyson looked at Joseph. His eyes met hers, and he conveyed a look that said I’m in over my head here. She could only mouth thank you to the man who had not only walked her in but had fetched coffee. This was the kind of man she’d never had in her life, outside of her father. Melanie hadn’t been wrong. Tennyson had needed someone like Joseph for a while.
“Melanie and I have a complicated history,” Tennyson finally said.
“I gathered as much,” Joseph said.
Melanie poured the cream into her coffee, then took a stirrer from the cardboard carrier. “So it started with college. Tennyson went to NYC to be famous, and Kit and I went to LSU.”
Tennyson figured it was going to be a long wait, so she grabbed the other coffee. “And Kit and Melanie fell in love.”
Joseph nodded. “So who is Kit?”
Tennyson glanced over at Melanie before looking at her hot cop. “He’s Melanie’s husband. But before he was hers, he was mine. And that’s where it all started . . . and ended.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kit and Melanie’s Wedding Day, 1996
Melanie rubbed her lips together, adjusted her veil, and gave a final glance into the mirror of the church’s bridal suite. She looked about as perfect as she could get, mostly thanks to her sister, who had curled her hair, worked to make her both “glamorous and natural,” and tried not to cry while she was doing it. Hillary was nothing if not sentimental.