Fragile Bonds (25 page)

I reach to wipe away the stray tear tumbling down Melanie’s cheek.
With downcast eyes, she offers me a weak smile at the gesture. I wish there was a way to get past this part so I could take away her pain, but I’m becoming an expert at dealing with the pain.

“Yes, I loved Alyssa. But she had to work hard to get me to see that she was a special woman. I may be a bastard for saying that, but it’s the truth.” I tip her chin up with the tip of my finger, needing to see her eyes as I lay my trump card out. “But you, I knew there was something about you from the
moment we met. You were dangerous to me because I didn’t want to fall in love. And when I did, I knew I couldn’t fight it. I think that’s why I worked so hard to put the emphasis of what we shared on the kinkier aspects, because it made it so I didn’t have to admit how scared I was that you would leave me someday.”

I curl my fingers around the back of her neck, noting her sharp inhale at my touch. The first brush of my lips against hers is tentative. She jerks slightly before relaxing into the embrace, allowing me to capture her lips with a ravenous hunger. My tongue plunges between Melanie’s lips, devouring her as my hands work to remove the elastic from her hair.

Just as I’m about to shift my body so I can lay her out on the grass and worship her body, I feel two delicate hands pressing into my chest. “Xavier, we can’t do this,” she sighs, her voice trembling with emotion. “We need to finish talking.”

“I thought we had,” I protest. As far as I’m concerned, the only way to prove my feelings for her is to show her what I’m feeling, so there’s really no point in continuing this cyclical conversation. I can already say with certainty how it’s going to go; she’s going to ask why I didn’t try harder, I’m going to explain myself, she’s going to loop back to being second best, I’ll reassure her, and so on. There’s no need for any of that when there’s a growing bulge behind my zipper begging for me to finally make love to Melanie the way she deserves. Slow and tender, refusing to rush no matter how much both of us want to reach that pinnacle.

I stroke the bare skin of Melanie’s thighs, slowly working my way higher, beneath the hem of her dress. For a split second, I’m nearly certain she’s on board, until I feel her body jolt away from mine. She’s standing before I can reach for her, pacing back and forth along the waterfront.

“I can’t let you do this to me again, Xavier,” she pleads. Her arms wrap tightly around her middle protectively. “I can’t allow you to make me buy into the fairy tale, only to have you walk away again. There’s too much on the line this time. You want me to be a mother to Jacob? Fine, this is me doing exactly that. I need to figure out how in the hell I can protect not only myself, but also Jacob. If we screw this up again, he’s going to be the biggest loser in the deal. How can I be sure none of us comes out the other side worse than we are now?”

She starts to walk down the path toward the parking garage, leaving me no choice but to follow her. How in the hell did tonight go from being this amazing date with the woman I love to such a clusterfuck?

“Melanie, you can’t run away from me again,” I scold, my booming voice slicing through the night air.

She whips around to face me and the icy glare I see, even in the darkness, warns me that I’ve gone too far. “You know what, Xavier, fuck you!” she screams, closing the distance between us. When her body is only inches from mine, she pokes her finger sharply into my chest, causing me to wince. “I didn’t run away from you the last time. You sent me away. You left me sitting in our living room, stripped bare both physically and emotionally, after telling me that you couldn’t trust me. And now, you expect me to ride off into the sunset with you like none of that happened.”

I open my mouth to speak but she presses her fingers to my mouth, keeping me silent.

“You want me to forget about the past seven years I’ve spent making excuses as to why I won’t go on dates with men who were probably absolutely amazing,” she cries, her stance still defiant. “I couldn’t make myself vulnerable again that way because of you. But now that it’s you pursuing me, I should forget the past, right?”

I reach for her, needing to pull her body to mine, to allow her to feel the way my heart is racing as she screams at me for everything that I did to her. I don’t try to dispute her because these are her feelings and, while skewed from my memories of what happened, there is nothing she’s saying that doesn’t contain morsels of truth coated in hurt. She feints to the left, causing me to come back with an armful of air.

“Melanie, can we please talk about this?” I beg, tempted to drop to my knees if that will help my cause. “I know I fucked up. It’s something I do incredibly well the moment I drop my guard, which is why I try to never do that. But when it comes to you, I can’t help it. What you make me feel is too much for me to resist.”

“Xavier, I need some time to think. I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” she says sadly before turning away from me. I watch her, stunned, as she jogs across the park to where row of taxis lines the curb. It kills me to let her leave me standing in the park but this is how it has to be if we’re going to fix us. I’ve already pushed her too far for one night.

Tears stream down my face as I
run to the road. With every step, my brain tells me to speed up while my heart tells me to turn around and run into Xavier’s arms. I can’t look back or I know I’ll cave, I only hope that he’s not following me.

When Xavier showed up at my apartment earlier, I was hoping for a much different outcome to the evening; one involving the two of us naked, tangled in the sheets. But when he decided he wanted to talk about what Jacob said this morning and started telling me all about his hopes and dreams for our future, something inside of me snapped.
At that point, my emotions got the better of me and I acted without thinking rationally.

Only after I’m safely inside the silver taxi do I allow myself to look back to the water. Off in the distance, I can see Xavier standing, staring, his shoulders slumped forward in defeat. Once I have a bit of time to calm down, I will text him to make sure he understands I’m not running away from him. I just need some time to think about everything we said to each other tonight. I give the driver Tyler’s address and send him a quick text, warning him that I’m coming over for a slumber party.

“Hey, girly! Why are you here instead of with Xavier? I thought you were going to dress up and melt the pants right off his tight buns tonight.” As soon as his lips stop moving, he sees the mascara streaks running down my face and pulls me in tight to his chest. “Do I need to go kick that man’s ass? I warned him that I would if he hurt you again.”

Tyler drags me inside his apartment and I curl into the end of the couch, pulling an afghan over my exposed legs. Being the amazing friend that he is, Tyler pours a generous glass of wine and hands it to me as he mirrors my position on the other end of the couch.

“So, tell me what happened,” he presses, concern etching his face.

“Everything was great,” I sigh, because it was. The beginning of the night was beyond any expectations I had for a night out with Xavier. “He took me
to Coop’s on the Square and we sat outside to eat. I don’t know what it is about being up there, but it was damn-near magical. Seriously, best date ever. I pointed out to him that we’d never gone on a date before and I think he felt bad about that.”

“Good! You deserve a man who’s willing to wine and dine you, treat you like a princess.
That, along with a couple other things, is the reason I didn’t like you with him before. It always seemed like the two of you were living in your own little bubble, never getting out to live.” His hazel eyes pierce deep into my soul as he watches me carefully for any sign of emotion. I hate to disappoint him, but now that I’ve had a little while to calm down, I feel numb. I’m not anticipating anymore explosive outbursts because I’m working diligently to turn off the part of me that feels anything. Now is the time to be rational, not emotional.

“I know, Ty, but you also know that what we had worked for us,” I remind him, leaning away from him. I narrow my eyes, sizing him up to gage whether or not this is going to turn into another fight. I can deal with the confrontation with Xavier because it was a necessary evil
for both of us to make sure we’re making smart decisions. But Tyler, I can’t handle arguing with him because he’s one of the few true friends I have in my life. And because I know that, although he’s a bit hasty to judge at times, he does have my best interests at heart.

“I’m not going to go into all that with you right now,” he says dismissively, pressing his lips into a tight line. “Tell me what happened to take you from fairy tale princess to this ragged mess.” He hands me a tissue and I try to clean up the streaks drying on my face.

“We went to the park.” I truly hope Xavier and I come out the other side of this spat stronger than ever because that park has been my sanctuary for most of my life. I don’t want such a beautiful place tarnished with memories of the night my heart was ripped from my chest a second time.

“And? You used to love going down there,” Tyler pushes when I’m not forthcoming.

“And he told me that the love he feels for me is the once-in-a-lifetime kind.”
And I couldn’t leave well enough alone
, I add silently. God, I’m such a fool. I could have kept my mouth shut, taken what he said at face value and been at home in bed with him by now. But no, I had to let my head take the lead, straight to me with a bad case of puffy, red eyes and Xavier more than likely feeling as if I’ve abandoned him.

I understand what Xavier means about the depth of our love because I feel it too. And that scares the crap out of me because I’ve had to try to get over him once, I can’t go through that again. My heart physically will not be able to recover from being ripped out of my chest a second time, by the same man. As it is, I feel as if I’ve reached into my own chest and thrown my still-beating heart on the ground as I ran away. There’s a piece of me that I’m fairly certain will always live with Xavier.

“Sweetie, you need to start talking because everything you’ve told me so far makes me wish that sexy man was hitting for my team,” Tyler teases. He reaches for the bottle of wine, topping off my glass while leaving his own nearly empty. “I know I had my doubts about him, but what you’re telling me sounds like a
very
good thing. So again, why did you show up on my doorstep looking like some demented clown?”

“Because he mentioned something about hoping that someday I’ll be a mother to Jacob. How do I know he’s not going to pull something like he did before?
If it was just me and him, I might be stupid enough to take the chance, but I have to think about how that would affect Jacob, too.” I reach for another tissue, feeling an ugly cry coming on.

As I continue pouring my heart out to Tyler, I realize that I’m already in too deep. I might be able to walk away from Xavier, but Jacob has filled the hole in my heart as much as I’m helping to heal the one in his. I resist the urge to run out the door and right into Xavier’s arms. We’ve been reckless up until this point, going with whatever feels good for the two of us, without considering Jacob the way we need to. We haven’t held back from one another for his sake, it’s all been because of Alyssa. We’ve been putting more consideration into what a dead woman would think and what the people in our lives will think when they know we’re back together than we have into what all of this means for Jacob.

“Sounds to me like you know what you’re going to do and that scares the shit out of you,” Tyler observes. “Honestly, the more I see the two of you around one another, the more I think you’re good together. I think there’s some sort of cosmic reason it wasn’t right before, maybe so you would appreciate what you have now. Don’t throw that away.”

“But what if--”

“Stop it! I sat by letting you play that game for too long last time. I’m not going to do it again. Instead of wondering what will happen if he hurts you again, why not take a few minutes to wonder what will happen if he doesn’t pull some bullshit stunt again. What will your life be like if you two are able to get over the past? What would it be like to be the mother that you already are to Jacob and not think about what happens when the end comes?”

I’ve seen many facets of Tyler’s personality, but I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve seen him this worked up about anything that didn’t directly impact his life. I tighten my grip around my legs, pulling them tighter to my chest.

“Seriously, Mel, what would all of that be like?” He narrows his eyes until they’re two tiny slivers searing into me. “I want you to tell me that isn’t the life you would love to have.”

“I can’t.” I shrug, biting back the urge to start crying again. Tyler’s outburst shocked me enough that I forgot about the breakdown I was in the midst of.
“I love them both so much. I want things to work out, I really do. But I can’t stop wondering what it will be like when it ends.”

“Girl, I love ya, but you’re an idiot sometimes. You really think he’s going to let you go a second time? I think you two have had enough time living apart that now you’ll be able to have a solid, healthy relationship.” Tyler stands, starting to turn off lights throughout the small apartment. “And he’s right. The shit you two have, that’s a love that doesn’t come around twice. You were lucky enough that he came back into your life. Think about that tonight because tomorrow, you
are
going to deal with this shit.”

Tyler gives me a quick kiss on the forehead, straightening the blankets over my body as I stretch out on the couch. “Thanks, Ty. I’m sorry I was a bitch to you for so long.”

“Takes one to know one,” he says with a wink. “Good to have you back. Now, go to sleep.”

I slept on the balcony with the phone in my hand, praying Melanie would call me.
Staring at every vehicle that pulled in the drive, I felt like a stalker, hoping she would come back so I knew she was safe. Unless she arrived after I succumbed to the need to sleep, she never came home.

I pour myself a cup of coffee after sending Braydon a quick message to make sure he got Jacob to school. “Hey, why are you texting me instead of making up for lost time with Melanie?” Braydon says when he walks in my door a few minutes later. I didn’t go into details in my message, but I did let him know that I was here alone if he wanted to stop by.

“Let’s say last night didn’t go as planned and leave it at that. I haven’t had enough caffeine to try to think about it again.” I slump back on the couch, reaching for the remote. I should have known that he would race over here as soon as I told him she wasn’t here. The man is seriously one of the biggest gossips I know.

“Um, we’re going to talk about this. What the fuck did you
do? When you left yesterday, it seemed like you were finally thinking clearly and that she’s who you want to be with.” He towers over me with his hands on his hips. “Seriously, I know this isn’t easy for you, but if you keep waffling, you’re going to chase her off. Melanie is too fucking good to live in Alyssa’s shadow. I know that might sound weird seeing as I tried chasing Mel away, but that was before. Now, Alyssa isn’t coming back, whether you like it or not, and you’re about to fuck up the best thing that happened in your life, other than Jacob, for a second time.”

I want to tell him it wasn’t me this time. Every angry word spilling from his mouth is the truth and I know that. But this time, it’s not my fault.

“Bray, it’s not that simple. You’re right, I want to be with Mel. When I’m not thinking about hurting Alyssa’s feelings, Melanie is the only woman I want in my life. But she’s scared that I’m going to freak out and push her away again.” I take a long drink of my coffee, wishing there was a way to get it coursing through my veins faster. Braydon isn’t going to let this drop.

“Maybe that’s because there’s a hell of a lot more on the line now. Your head is still in a fucked up place and she knows it. You have to do something to prove to her that you love her the way you say you do.” Braydon finally calms down enough that he sits next to me, throwing one arm over the back of the couch.

“I’m not asking her to marry me, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” The time will come for that, but it’s too soon.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m certain it’s only a matter of time before you do that, but no, nothing like that. It has to be something meaningful. What could you do that would bridge the time you were apart? Is there anything she loved doing back then that you could do for her now?”

Braydon keeps listing off ways I can show her that I love her rather than telling her and a plan begins to form in my mind. Now, I’m torn because I don’t want him to have Jacob again tonight but I don’t want to wait to make things right with Melanie.