The Game Changer

CHAPTER 1

Melody Cartwright tapped her foot nervously on the uneven sidewalk outside Coelho’s Restaurant. She raised her arm to look at her watch for what felt like the millionth time, but stopped herself, twisting her wrist back and forth instead so her silver bracelets jangled together in a familiar, comforting sound.

Rick wasn’t technically late, but Melody had been waiting outside the restaurant for nearly ten minutes. Even
that
wasn’t the real reason for her nervousness; tonight was their three-year anniversary, and Rick’s hints that he had a surprise for her made Melody sure it was going to be a big night. The mixture of anticipation, excitement, and anxiety was making her slightly shaky.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out, surprised to see the small cloud of white air that followed her exhalation. It was a beautiful early spring evening, but as the sun dipped below the horizon and twilight made its slow descent, the air got cooler and made the night feel more like autumn.

Melody pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and smoothed down her dress, picking imaginary lint from the skirt. The dress was brand new, bought specifically for tonight, and wasn’t her usual style. She normally went for what her best friend Olivia would call ‘casual comfort’, but this dress, simple though it was, made her feel sexy and empowered. Sleeveless and black with a plunging neckline and a skirt that fell to mid-calf, the dress was not only out of her comfort zone, it was also out of her budget.

Melody was sure it would be worth the expense. In just a few hours, she’d be making plans to become Mrs. Richard White.

When Rick’s car finally pulled into a spot down the street, Melody’s heart leaped. Resisting the urge to run to greet him, she stayed where she was, tossing her chestnut hair over her shoulder and striking what she hoped was a sexy pose.

“Hey cutie,” Rick said as he approached, smiling distractedly as he turned back to click the automatic locks on his car.

Cutie. There goes the whole sexy empowerment thing
, Melody thought with a sigh. There were worse things than being cute, but Melody had always been cute; she wanted to be something more. When she first started dating Rick she’d loved the endearment, but it had grown stale over the years.

Shaking it off, she smiled brightly and accepted Rick’s outstretched hand. He brushed a light kiss on her cheek, and Melody noticed his eyes quickly scanning her cleavage before he stepped away to open the restaurant door. Maybe the dress wasn’t a loss after all.

When they were seated at a table in a quiet corner, Melody attempted unsuccessfully to calm her nerves. It irked her that Rick seemed perfectly composed as he requested a bottle of sparkling wine, then placed their dinner order with a quick glance at Melody to make sure she had no objections.

“Beautiful night,” Rick commented when the waitress left their table. Melody tried to ignore the fact that Rick’s gaze was all but glued to the young waitress’s behind as she walked away.

“Mmm,” she murmured in agreement, shifting so Rick’s eyes met hers. “You could really feel spring in the air today.”

She hated this idle, meaningless pre-dinner chatter. She knew Rick had come straight from work, and that it always took him awhile to get his brain out of work mode, but Melody wasn’t in the mood for aimless chit chat tonight.

It didn’t look like she’d have much of a choice, though. Rick launched into a story about a conversation he’d had that day with a co-worker, and Melody pasted a smile on her face, nodding along and asking questions when she knew Rick expected it. In truth, she barely heard a word he said; with each passing moment the butterflies in her stomach worsened to the point where it felt like they were waging a mutiny inside her.

Her heart quickened when Rick finally leaned in and took her hands across the table. “So, my big news,” he said, his over-whitened teeth practically glowing in the soft candlelight. Melody had never noticed before how creepy his large, white teeth were. In her near-giddy state as she waited for him to propose, she had to stop herself from laughing out loud as an image of the Big Bad Wolf popped into her mind.
My, what big teeth you have…

“You know that big promotion at work I was waiting to hear about? Well, I got it!” Rick squeezed Melody’s hands and his eyes danced with excitement.

“And?” The word burst out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
You got a promotion and…now we can get married?

“
And
?” Rick said, a look of hurt passing over his face. Now he looked more like a dejected puppy than a wolf. “I thought you’d be happy for me, Melly.” She hated it when he called her Melly. Almost as much as she was beginning to hate when he called her cutie. “I’ve been busting my ass for months trying to get the boss’s attention, you know that.”

“Of course I’m happy for you,” she assured him quickly, clutching his hands, which had gone limp in her own. “That’s not what I meant. I know you’ve been working really hard, and you totally deserve this promotion. I just thought…”

“You just thought what?” he asked petulantly.

Her cheeks flamed, and she reached for her glass of sparkling wine to ease the dryness of her throat. The wine was bitter; Rick never splurged for the good stuff, not even on a night when they were supposed to be celebrating. “I thought,” she said slowly, setting down her glass and playing with the stem to avoid looking him in the eye, “that you were going to…that you had brought me here to…”

“
What
?” Rick’s tone was almost as harsh as the wine.

Melody’s head snapped up and she met his eyes. “I thought you were going to propose to me, okay? I thought you brought me here to ask me to marry you!”

Rick blinked once, twice, looking like a confused fish.
God
, what was with her comparing him to animals tonight? Clearly she was losing it.

“Why would you think that?” Rick finally asked.

A disbelieving laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “Are you
kidding
me?” she cried. She clapped her hand over her mouth and glanced around surreptitiously to see if anyone was staring. She saw a few heads turn her way, but she couldn’t worry about that.

She straightened in her seat and cleared her throat before continuing in a calmer tone. “
Why
would I think you were going to propose? I don’t know, Rick, could it be that we’ve been together for
three whole years
? Or maybe that you’re thirty-three and I’m twenty-eight, and we’re not getting any younger?”

“Melly…” he said, his tone bordering on whiney, making Melody cringe.

“No, no, it’s okay, Rick. Just tell me this: are you ever planning to propose?”

He blinked at her again, and she just barely resisted the urge to reach across the table and throttle him. It wasn’t a difficult question. In fact, it was pretty much a yes or no question.

He opened and closed his mouth, cementing the image of him as a fish in Melody’s mind. At last, he said, “Well, to be honest, I hadn’t really given it much thought.”

It was her turn to blink at him. She was speechless. He hadn’t given it much thought? They had been together
three years
, and he hadn’t given it much thought? He couldn’t be serious.

“You’re joking, right?” she asked, her voice dangerously low as she glared across the table at him.

Rick blanched and began to sputter, unable to form coherent words. Melody cocked her head to the side and looked at him expectantly. Surely he would take his words back, or at the very least attempt to weasel his way out of it by assuring her he
had
thought about it.

“I-I’m sorry, Melly,” he stammered, his eyes wide. “I just…I honestly haven’t given it much thought. I’m happy with things the way they are.”

Happy with things the way they are,
Melody repeated in her head.
As in the same, as in unchanging, as in
his
way.

The mutinous butterflies in her stomach had quieted, leaving her feeling sick. Shaking her head sadly, she very calmly took her napkin from her lap and placed it on the table. With all the dignity she could muster, she stood, shooting Rick one final disbelieving glare before striding from the restaurant with her head held high.

The cool night air hit her in the face and knocked the breath from her lungs. As she gasped in a breath, she began to tremble. She waited a minute, then another, watching the door and expecting Rick to come bursting out, spewing apologies and begging her to forgive him. After several minutes she gathered the courage to peer through the window, and saw him still sitting at their table, staring blankly into his now-empty glass of wine.

Biting her lip to keep from crying, Melody pulled her shawl tightly around herself and turned away from the restaurant. On the short walk home she wished she’d been brave enough to leave Rick with some parting shot.
You haven’t given marriage much thought? Well I have, and I just decided you’re not the one I want to marry.

It was a long, lonely night, and by morning Melody had made a decision: it was time to break up with Rick. If they weren’t going to move forward, she refused to be stuck in neutral indefinitely.

She dialed his number before she could talk herself out of it, and ended their three-year relationship over the phone. She tried to ignore the little voice in her head that told her it was a cop-out and she was being a coward, but she just couldn’t face him. She knew she had made the right decision when Rick simply agreed with her and told her he’d see her around.

Three years together, and all she got was
see you around
.

Melody felt like she was back in high school. And just as she would have done in high school, the minute she hung up the phone with Rick, she called Olivia. They had been best friends since the third grade, and were inseparable until they finished high school, when Olivia left Bellevue to attend university in Toronto. With only a two-hour commute between the cities, they saw each other regularly, and talked on an almost-daily basis. Olivia was always Melody’s go-to person when she had news or needed advice.

Melody didn’t cry; she didn’t scream or whine or wallow in self-pity. Olivia offered to get in her car right then and come home, but Melody assured her she was fine. Or would be fine, anyway.

It took awhile to get to that point, but fine was exactly how she felt two weeks later as she wound her way through a sea of cubicles, her low-heeled shoes making soft clicking noises against the faux-hardwood floor. She smiled and waved at co-workers who were also returning from their lunch break, stopping occasionally to answer a question or admire a new framed photograph on someone’s desk.

When she returned to her own cubicle on the far side of the office, she swung into her chair and let it spin around twice before gripping the edge of her desk. It had been a rough two weeks, and she had to get her jollies somehow.

She grinned to herself as she thought of Olivia, who was due to arrive in town shortly. Her best friend was finally moving home—not just to Bellevue, but into Melody’s apartment.