The Game Changer (27 page)

“Yeah, I guess I am, actually,” Melody admitted after a minute. “As hard as it was to end the relationship, it would have been worse to drag it out. If we’d lived together, I would have had to watch him pack up his things, or find excuses not to be there. Then there would be the memories of all the things we did in the apartment, and probably finding things he’d left behind.” She shook her head and leaned against the railing close enough to Julian that their shoulders touched.

She’d wanted to share her life with Rick, share a home with him. She’d imagined coming home to him, cooking meals together, spending evenings in front of the television, and, of course, sharing a bed. She’d always resented him for not being willing to take that leap, but now she realized it had been a blessing. He’d been there so infrequently she didn’t have any special memories of their time together in the apartment. It was still
her
place. And now it was something she shared with Olivia, and she knew she’d never want to forget the memories they were making there.

“There you go, then,” Julian said. “Everything really does happen for a reason.”

Melody smiled softly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Some of my favourite words,” Julian said with a laugh. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll give you the rest of the tour later, but for now, I’m starving.”

Melody followed him inside and through the den. While she went ahead to the kitchen to preheat the oven, Julian opened the curtains and windows in the sitting room. He had said only his friends were allowed in the den. He never really talked about his friends, but then he rarely talked about himself at all unless Melody asked a direct question. She wondered how many non-business associates had actually passed through his doors since he’d been living here.

“Can I ask you something?” Melody inquired when Julian joined her in the kitchen.

“Of course.”

“When you…” She trailed off, feeling suddenly embarrassed by the question she wanted to ask. “When you leave the bar with a girl, do you come here?”

Julian cocked his head to the side and studied her, his dark gaze steady on her face. Melody began to squirm, and was about to tell him to forget it when he said, “Rarely. We usually go to the girl’s place, unless she lives with roommates or her parents or something else that could prove awkward.”

“Right,” Melody said, as if she understood how one-night stands worked. “Have any of them…been in your den?”

Julian let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a quiet laugh. Melody’s head snapped up from her task of unwrapping the foil around the casserole, and she saw that Julian’s head was lowered.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No, no, of course not.” Julian looked up; his face was carefully controlled, but his eyes were sparkling. “And no, none of them have ever been in the den. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even take them to my room. We use the spare bedroom.”

“Seriously?” Melody asked, incredulous.

“Seriously. The den and my bedroom feel too personal. I have pictures of my family, and my favourite books, and things I don’t want strangers seeing or poking around in, you know? I’m not looking to make a personal connection with the girls I take home. It’s just sex.”

Melody could feel heat creeping up her neck and into her face. She turned away from Julian under the pretense of putting the casserole into the oven, but she really wanted a minute to think. She wasn’t stupid or naïve; she knew what Julian did when he left the club with a woman. It was the same thing Olivia usually did when she left with a guy—with the exception of Cameron, of course, who had turned out to be completely different from most guys.

She didn’t know why it bothered her to think of Julian with a long line of women. She refused to believe it was because she was jealous. And yet, she did feel a kind of perverse pleasure in knowing he rarely brought girls back here, and that he trusted and admired her enough to really let her in, and not just into his home.

“Mel?”

The oven door slammed shut and Melody whirled around. “Sorry,” she said. If her cheeks were still flaming, at least she had a good reason now.

“Does it bother you?” Julian asked. “That I…bring girls here?”

“No,” she said a little too quickly. Then, “No, why would it bother me?”

Julian shrugged. He still wore a serious expression, but his eyes remained full of barely contained laughter. It irritated her, but at the same time, she wanted to laugh, and she wanted to see him laugh.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you and Olivia,” Julian suggested in a clear attempt to change the subject.

Melody would allow it…this time. “What do you mean?”

Julian quirked one eyebrow in an ‘oh please’ way. “I saw the note she left on the casserole. Something about a peace offering.”

Melody sighed. “Oh, that. We just had a little disagreement this afternoon, that’s all.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Did she? She wasn’t used to opening up to anyone but Olivia. “It was stupid, really. She asked if I felt like she was neglecting me, I told her no but I thought her relationship with Cameron was moving kind of fast, and she basically asked if I’d rather she have a dead-end relationship like the one I had with Rick.”

Julian cringed. “Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Melody sighed. “It’s a touchy subject and she knows it. She didn’t mean it, though. She’d never do or say anything to purposely hurt me, it just sort of came out. I knew that, but it didn’t stop me from feeling hurt and kind of betrayed. To use my own weakness against me, you know? And then I had to go back to work, so we left it at that except for a couple of text messages later in the day to make sure we were good.”

“And you are? Good, I mean?”

Melody nodded. “I think so. Or at least we will be. In all our years of friendship, we’ve hardly ever fought. We knew girls in high school who said they were best friends, but had these knock-down drag-out fights, held grudges, stabbed each other in the back, and all that other stuff, but that was never Olivia and me. We hated fighting. We had a policy of honesty, and we knew it was better to air our grievances with each other, address them, and move on. Sometimes our feelings got hurt, and sometimes we yelled at each other, but we got over it.”

“You’re lucky,” Julian commented.

“I know,” Melody agreed. “I’m happy for her. I honestly am. And Cameron seems like a really great guy. We’ve grown up, and I can’t expect to come first with her anymore. It’s just so weird, because she’s never been in a committed relationship, and then
boom
, there was Cameron and everything changed.”

Julian was silent for a few beats, then he said, “He’s her game changer.” His voice was soft and almost wistful, with a hint of what Melody could only describe as bitterness.

“Her...what?”

Julian's eyes focused on her and he smiled slightly. “Her game changer.” He sighed heavily and patted the stool beside him. Melody stepped around the counter and perched next to him, regarding him expectantly.

“I haven’t told you about my high school best friend, have I?” Julian asked.

Melody shook her head.

Julian took a deep breath. “Okay…well…”

CHAPTER 14

“We met at the beginning of ninth grade,” Julian began. “All my elementary school friends went to the same high school, but because of some stupid zoning law I had to go to a different school. I didn’t know anyone, and, well, let’s just say I haven’t always been the fine specimen you see in front of you today.”

Melody laughed and shook her head. “You mean you didn’t always have an ego the size of Mars?”

Julian chuckled. “No. Not even close. I was kinda geeky. I wore glasses, and I was a really bad dresser. The kids I grew up with were used to it and accepted me without question, but these new kids...they ate nerds like me for lunch. I was teased, I got shoved around a bit, and when they weren’t making fun of me, I was invisible. I had no friends, and I was a teacher’s pet to boot because I was so smart and studious. Then I met Gil. Or more accurately, Gil
found
me. I used to eat lunch in the science hall because if I was in the cafeteria or out in the courtyard I'd get food thrown at me, or get called names or whatever. I knew they wouldn’t find me in the science hall, so that’s where I went every day.”

Julian paused and ran his hand over his chin; it made a quiet scratching sound from the light five o’clock shadow that had appeared there. “Gil found me there one afternoon. I’d seen him around school, and had a class or two with him, but he’d never spoken to me before. His silence wasn’t hostile or purposeful like the other kids, he just didn’t really talk to anyone. I’d overhear the girls saying how mysterious and sexy he was because he was a loner. Anyway, he just came and sat down next to me, and long story short, we became friends. I don’t know which of us was more surprised, to be honest.” He paused and met Melody’s eyes. She had trouble picturing him as a gangly, geeky thirteen-year-old kid.

“Gil didn’t want to change me. It wasn’t like some clichéd teenage movie where he taught me how to dress better and got me to wear contact lenses. That came later on, but it was my decision. He was just my friend, and he was an amazing friend. When the other kids at school saw us hanging out, they slowly stopped teasing me. I still got ribbed a bit when Gil wasn’t around, but it was nothing compared to those first few weeks of high school.

“Around grade eleven, Gil became a real player. He still didn’t have many friends, and he still didn’t really talk to anyone except me, but the girls still paid attention to him, and he loved it. He started sleeping with a few of them, and it became like a game to him. He wasn’t mean or calculated or anything—it really was just a game to him. He told me he could set me up with some girls, but I wasn’t interested. College was a different story, though...”

“What happened in college?” Melody asked. She realized she was leaning toward him slightly, eager for him to go on. She’d spent weeks wondering why he wasn’t interested in committing, and what had turned him into such a player, especially when she knew he was soft-hearted and kind.

“Right away I met this girl. She and I dated for a few weeks, and I fell really hard, really fast. I thought she felt the same way, but then I found out she’d been sleeping with half the campus behind my back. That was when Gil introduced me to the club scene and taught me about his game. Until then, I hadn’t really asked for details. He told me to scope out the crowd and find a woman who seemed confident and comfortable with herself. One who wasn’t checking out every guy in the bar, or hanging all over any guy who crossed her path. Those were the ones to go for.”

“Why them?”

“Because they understood the game,” Julian explained. “Even if they didn’t consider it a game, they understood the rules. I had a few hits and misses. Most of them understood it was a one-night thing, but some of them wanted more. I learned to hone my skills, so to speak, and was able to just find those girls who were interested in the same thing. Gil and I went out two or three times a week and ended up going home with someone new every night.”

Melody's mouth dropped open. “That often? That...many?”

Julian shrugged. “I knew guys who were worse. Gil was worse. He’d go to the corner store and end up going home with a woman.” Julian chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “Anyway...I’d ask him sometimes if he ever planned to settle down. He said he’d never say never, but he wouldn’t count on it. His parents divorced when he was young, and it was nasty. They stayed together longer than they should have, and they made each other—and Gil—miserable. Constant fighting, really verbally abusive to each other and sometimes to Gil, that sort of thing. Gil joked that it must be something in the water, ’cause a bunch of his friends’ parents were the same way. Made him think that’s what love was, you know? Arguments and fights, bitterness and resentment.”

Melody thought of her own parents. She knew how lucky she was to have parents who not only loved each other, but genuinely liked each other as well. If they ever fought—and she had to assume they did, they were human, after all—it was never in front of her. She’d had amazing role models, and it had made her believe in love, and in partnerships. Olivia was a different story, of course. She was like the female version of Gil and Julian.

“So…” Melody prompted when Julian remained silent.

“Oh. Right.” He shot her a rueful grin. “Then one night, he met her. Carrie. The game changer.” Julian let out a long breath and ran his hand through his hair several times, making it stick up slightly. “Gil fell head over heels for her. We started to see each other less and less. Stopped going out to the clubs. Within six months, they were engaged, married another six months later.”