Page 17 of Stay Away from Him

Thomas’s hands were somehow still all over Melissa on the drive back to his house, even with him driving.

Darting across the gap from the gearshift, gripping at her thigh as he steered around the lake.

She accepted his touch, placed her hand over his and inched it higher, lacing her fingers with his.

She was aware of her body, aware of his , in a way that was only possible after recently having sex.

As a state of being, it felt both hot and embarrassing at the same time.

They didn’t call it the “walk of shame” for nothing.

Melissa felt as though she were still naked, even with all her clothes on, and—glancing over, remembering what he looked like, what his skin felt like against hers—that Thomas was too.

“Do you think they’ll know?” Melissa asked.

“Who?” Thomas asked, turning into the cul-de-sac.

“The kids.”

“What? That we’ve—”

“Yeah,” Melissa said. “I feel like it’s written all over us.”

Thomas pulled into the driveway. “They’re kids. I don’t think they’ll have a clue.”

Melissa wasn’t so sure about that. Bradley might not know—he was only five.

But Thomas’s girls were grown. Fifteen and seventeen.

Aware of the world, aware of sex , in a way that Thomas might not have wanted to think about.

Girls had to be, Melissa knew, to protect themselves. It was a matter of survival.

She didn’t say any of this, though. He probably wouldn’t want to hear it.

They got out of the car and walked toward the house. On the front walk, Thomas caught up to Melissa and grabbed her hand. She yanked it away.

“Not here,” she said. “Let’s not make it too obvious.”

He grabbed it again. “No, let’s.”

Melissa eyed him, pausing just outside the front door. “You sure? Even if the kids don’t know that we—well…”

“Made love?” Thomas offered.

“Sure,” Melissa said, smiling in spite of herself. “Even if they can’t tell that , seeing us holding hands will tip them off about something .”

“You don’t think the fact we went on a date has already tipped them off?”

“Maybe, but—didn’t you just tell your girls I was a friend?”

Thomas shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “Before you came over, I sat them down and told them I was going out with a woman I liked a lot. Romantically.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Why?” Melissa asked.

“Because my girls and I are honest with each other,” he said. “We respect each other. And that’s part of how we show respect. They tell me everything. And in return, I tell them everything too.”

“Including when you go on a date?”

“What did I tell you?” Thomas asked. “There’s been no one. Until you. This is the first time I’ve ever told them I met someone I liked.”

Melissa thought about that, felt the weight of it.

No wonder Rhiannon was so quiet, so sullen, when Melissa dropped off Bradley.

The girl probably hated her, thought she was trying to replace her dead mother.

She might still have been grieving Rose, might not have been ready for a new woman in her dad’s life—or in hers.

“But how do you know ?” Melissa asked, flustered. “Isn’t there some part of you that wants to be careful? That wants to hold back?”

Thomas tugged on her hand, pulled her toward him, and suddenly she was in his arms on the front porch, his hands gripping her at the curve of her waist, pulling her close until their hip bones touched.

“People will see,” Melissa breathed, but her hands had risen to his neck, the back of his head—she was holding him too. Grabbing him, as though he’d slip away from her if she let go.

“I don’t think either of us is holding back,” Thomas said. “Do you?”

Melissa pressed her lips together, shook her head.

“And when you know, you know,” Thomas continued. “You know?”

“And you know , huh?”

He nodded. “I do. I knew as soon as I saw you.”

It was such a line , the kind of thing that got said in rom-coms and romance novels, but coming from Thomas’s lips, it felt to Melissa like the first time in the history of the world that anyone had expressed the idea, the first time two people had ever fallen so hard and so quickly for each other.

Then Thomas leaned in, and Melissa gave in to his kiss, pulling at the back of his neck, keeping him from breaking away too soon.

She felt lightheaded again, woozy. Thomas said he’d been waiting a long time for this , waiting a long time for her —and maybe she’d been waiting too.

Waiting for a man who’d take care of her the way she deserved.

Now she had it, had him , and she let the feeling take over, let the thoughts fall away: the neighbors seeing, the kids and what they might think, even Rose and what might have happened to her.

It all dissolved in her head until the only thing left was him , the taste of his mouth and the feel of her body pressed close to him.

Then the door clicked open, light from the inside of the house falling across their faces.

“Dad?”

Melissa pulled away from Thomas, straightened out her clothes. She ran her hands through her hair.

“Rhiannon!” Thomas said enthusiastically, like there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

He stepped inside and Melissa followed, ears burning at the withering glare Rhiannon was shooting at her.

“How was the evening?” Thomas asked.

“Fine,” Rhiannon said.

A sound of pounding footsteps grew louder, and then Bradley came around the corner and threw himself at Melissa’s knees.

“Mom!” he shouted. “Can we go home? You were gone a long time.”

Guilt pinged in Melissa’s stomach. “Didn’t you have fun?”

“I did,” Bradley answered, but his voice as he said it was dull, exhausted. He’d spent so much of the day in new places, with new people. Melissa shouldn’t have left him so long.

“What did you do?”

“Kendall showed me the woods,” Bradley said.

Melissa blinked. “The woods?”

Thomas rushed to answer. “The trees behind our house, next to the lake. It’s maybe a hundred acres—hardly a forest, but when they were little, the girls liked to traipse through there and pretend they were explorers.”

“Kendall said there’s a coyote living back there,” Bradley said, and then Melissa understood. An older child had played pretend with him, thinking he’d find it fun, but he’d gotten scared.

“Just a bit of adventure,” Thomas said as Bradley buried his face against Melissa’s leg. “Where is Kendall, anyway?”

“She had homework,” Rhiannon said, nodding upstairs. “I sat with him after we came back to the house.”

“You walked with them?” Thomas asked, with a surprised smile.

She shrugged. “We didn’t go very far.”

Bradley looked up at Melissa. She brushed back the hair from his forehead. “Rhiannon made me a snack,” he said. “Popcorn, with butter.”

“That was nice of you, Rhiannon,” Melissa said. She was surprised—from her sullenness when she’d dropped Bradley off, she’d assumed that the older girl would stay in her room the whole evening, leave the babysitting to her sister.

Rhiannon looked away and didn’t answer.

“What did you do?” Bradley asked Melissa.

Thomas let loose a nervous laugh. “Oh, you know…”

“Grown-up stuff,” Melissa said. “Nothing fun.” She had the urge to reach out and give Thomas a furtive squeeze, but she couldn’t risk it—not with Rhiannon giving her the death stare.

“Can I come next time?” Bradley asked.

It was the kind of kid question tailor-made for a dismissive answer— Oh, I don’t know… —but Thomas sank to his haunches and looked Bradley in the eye.

“Would you like that?” he asked. “You know, we’ve got some really great parks around here.

And I never get to go anymore, because Kendall and Rhiannon are too big to do playgrounds.

” He gave an exaggerated sad face, like Bradley would really be doing him a favor by going with him to a park. Bradley giggled, perked up.

“Can we, Mom? Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Melissa,” Thomas said, looking up at her with a smirk. “Can we?”

She laughed. “Maybe,” she said. “If you’re good.”

“I’ll be good,” Bradley said.

“Not you. I was talking about Thomas.”

“Oh, I’m always good,” Thomas said, rising again to his full height.

“I know,” Melissa said softly, then gave him a smirk. “ Dr. Danver. ”

Thomas’s nostrils flared, and Melissa knew that she’d stirred something in him, turned him on again by reminding him of what she called him in her bedroom.

“Text me,” he said. “Let me know.”

Melissa nodded. “I will.”

***

The drive back to Lawrence and Toby’s house was short, but Bradley fell asleep in that time, his head lolling to the side in the back seat, mouth hanging open.

The sun was beginning to set when she pulled into the driveway, a streak of flaming orange above the interlaced dark silhouettes of the tree branches looming behind the house.

Melissa opened Bradley’s door and carefully unsnapped the harnesses on his car seat, then leaned over to wrap her arms around his back and transfer his weight onto her body.

His chin nested against her shoulder, and as she rose, he turned his head to fold himself closer to Melissa, the heat of him warming her entire body.

“Hmm,” he said, half awakened by Melissa’s jostling, but sinking back toward sleep in her arms.

“I’ve got you, buddy,” Melissa whispered, rubbing his back as she walked to the house. She took the stone walkway to the back, stepping carefully in the growing dark, then snuck in through the sliding door, which she’d left unlocked.

The main room—kitchen, dining room, living room—was dark, and she stepped through to the hallway without turning on any lights.

She smiled to herself as she passed her bedroom, the room where she and Thomas had made love.

The warmth of the secret radiated low in her belly.

Melissa let herself think about it as she walked into Bradley’s room and lowered him toward the bed.

She let the memory of their lovemaking grow in her chest as she changed Bradley’s clothes, carefully manipulating his limp, sleep-heavied limbs into pajama pants and a soft shirt with a snoozing cartoon T.

rex on the front. Then she pulled up a corner of the sheets and gingerly tugged them out from beneath her son’s body, pulling them up to his chin.

Mine , she let herself think as Bradley snuggled into his covers, turned onto his side. This is all mine. I’m so lucky.

This beautiful boy was hers. This place, this refuge—hers. And Thomas Danver—shockingly, inexplicably—hers.

She stood and tiptoed to the door. She left it open a crack and walked away.

In the living room, she turned on a lamp and sat in an upholstered chair.

She looked out the tall back windows, toward the lake—a mass of black under the dying ember of the evening sky.

She stole a hand up toward her neck, let her fingers trail idly back and forth on the stretch of delicate skin beneath her throat and above the cut of her top.

She was aware of her body, aware of herself being in a particular place and a particular moment.

There was nothing she wanted to change. She felt happy and protected and safe.

And then she glanced away from the window toward the dining room, and it was all gone in a moment. Anxiety iced through her stomach. Her neck pulled tense.

It was nothing, really—nothing but a single object out of place. Something she didn’t recognize. Something that didn’t belong.

An envelope, sitting dead center on the dining room table.

Maybe Lawrence had brought it down. Maybe she’d gotten a piece of mail, and he had delivered it to her when she wasn’t around.

But somehow she knew that wasn’t true. Someone else brought it here. Someone she didn’t give permission to enter her home.

She stood and approached the table slowly, as though the envelope were some kind of creature, a scorpion or a poisonous snake, that might lash out and hurt her.

It was unmarked. No writing on the outside. Unsealed too, the folded flap underneath lifting the envelope just a little off the flat of the table.

Melissa picked it up and turned it over. Pulled out the piece of paper inside: a notebook page, lined, the edges jagged and torn where it was pulled from a wire binding.

She gasped when she saw the message, let the paper drop back to the table.

The words were jagged, messy, scribbled—bearing the evidence of haste.

Uncapitalized, unpunctuated, written in black ink from a pen.

The chaotic shape of the letters seemed to communicate some unsettled state of mind in the person who’d scrawled them.

She stepped back, her shoulder blades hitting the wall behind her, but the piece of paper, open on the tabletop, kept sending its threatening message toward her where she stood.

stay away from him unless you want to die