Page 13 of Truth or More Truth (Throwback RomComs #3)
twelve
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“ I ’m sensing some tension between you and Melissa,” Randall says in a low voice as we battle each other on the Nintendo. “And I’m talking the good kind of tension. What happened on that trip, man?”
Speaking of tension, my body is currently as tense as it can get, thanks to Randall’s perceptiveness.
“Nothing,” I say.
He scoffs. “Whatever. You were totally undressing her with your eyes a few minutes ago.” In my peripheral vision, I see his gaze flicker toward me. “Please tell me you didn’t undress her for real last night.”
“Seriously? What kind of man do you think I am?” I feel like a hypocrite saying that, because at one point in my life I was exactly that kind of man.
“The kind with eyes and what I’m guessing is a healthy libido. You know I think my wife is the most gorgeous woman on the planet, but Melissa comes in a close second. And if you tell either of them I said that, I’ll murder you in your sleep.”
Before I can respond to his chilling declaration, the front door bursts open, and seconds later Diego enters with his arms spread wide.
“The second-best man has arrived!” he announces with a booming laugh. “The party can begin! ”
Randall tosses his game controller down and leaps to his feet to hug Diego. Ash and I follow, and I greet Shannon and Mr. Beckett.
While my hand is still clasped in Leslie’s dad’s hand, Shannon scoots past us and wraps his arms around Melissa, who has made her way into the living room from the kitchen.
My jaw clenches as he picks her up and swings her around before kissing her cheek and setting her back down on the floor. She giggles and pats his chest.
“Easy, there,” Mr. Beckett says, and I release my tight grip on his hand.
I give him a sheepish look. “Sorry, sir.”
“Please call me Ernie,” he says. “And if you have any claim on that woman, you let my son know, and he’ll back off.”
“I don’t.” But I might want to. I clear my throat as I try to wipe that thought from my brain. “I thought Shannon had a girlfriend.”
“Mmm. They broke things off a month or so ago.” He shrugs. “It was amicable.”
“Ah,” I say noncommittally.
“Tell him,” Ernie reiterates.
I shake my head. “It’s not like that between us.”
He snorts. “That’s not what it looks like to me.”
An hour later, I’m driving us to the hotel.
Wendy and Randall came with us, as they need to change clothes before the rehearsal as well.
Wendy decided there was no reason to take two cars when we could all fit in Melissa’s.
And somehow it’s become our default for me to drive now.
We didn’t even discuss it. Melissa simply handed me the keys and then climbed into the backseat with Wendy.
“What kind of hotel did you stay in last night?” Wendy asks us.
I glance in the rearview mirror at Melissa, and we grin at each other .
“What’s that grin for?” Wendy demands. “I’m not sure I like that you two have inside jokes that I’m not privy to.”
“We stayed at a roadside trucker motel in a little town in Illinois,” Melissa tells her.
“No way!”
In the mirror, I watch Wendy’s eyes open comically wide.
“Yep,” Melissa replies. “It was our only option. The heavy snow hit us real fast, and the only hotel at the next exit was a trucker motel. And we were lucky, because they only had one … room … left.”
I can tell by the way she paused that she didn’t mean to let that information slip about the room.
“Hold. The. Phone,” Wendy says. “You two shared a room?”
“We kind of had to,” Melissa explains. “I wasn’t about to make Bobby sleep in the car during a blizzard.”
“Please tell me there was only one bed,” Wendy says. “Please.”
Randall chuckles beside me. “That would make her little romance-book-loving heart so happy.”
“Hey,” she retorts. “I have a big romance-book-loving heart. Get it right.”
“Sorry, dear,” Randall says in a sing-song voice.
“Whatever.” She reaches forward and flicks the back of his head. “Anyway, how many beds?”
“Two,” Melissa says.
“Darn it.”
I laugh at Wendy’s response, and then I wonder if Melissa will tell them the rest of the story.
She doesn’t.
After a few seconds of silence, Wendy asks, “So what did you do … in your trucker motel room … all alone … togetherrrrr?” She drags out the final word.
Melissa says, “Watched TV for a while. Then we were going to play cards, but the power went out, so we went to bed.”
“Did you tell each other secrets in the dark?” Wendy asks. “Please tell me you did.” I know without looking that her hands are clasped together under her chin.
My body tenses as I wait to see how Melissa will respond .
“Maybe we did. Maybe we didn’t,” Melissa replies.
“I’ll get it out of you, you know,” Wendy says. “Bobby, you’re awfully quiet up there.”
“Leave him alone, babe,” Randall orders.
“Melissa’s doing just fine telling you the story,” I say.
Wendy harrumphs. “She’s not telling me much of anything. I want all the details.” When neither Melissa nor I say anything else, she says in a sly voice, “Shannon seemed to be happy to see you, Melissa.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. I know what Wendy’s trying to do, and unfortunately it’s working.
I shouldn’t be jealous of Shannon. As I told his dad, I have no claim on Melissa.
But the man looks like a swimsuit model with none of the arrogance of one.
He’s charm personified, but not in a creepy way.
Everybody likes him, and I mean everybody—both women and men.
Irrationally, that makes me want to hate him.
But I can’t. So instead I’ll apparently just be jealous.
I glance in the mirror at Melissa, who, interestingly enough, is glaring at Wendy.
“Yes, it was good to see him again,” Melissa says to Wendy in a terse tone. “Now, what did you all get up to last night? I doubt you were able to have any fun without Bobby, since he’s always the life of the party.”
Randall laughs as I stifle a smile at the knowledge that Melissa brought the conversation away from Shannon and back around to me.
I shouldn’t be as happy about that as I am.
Melissa deserves better than me, with all the baggage and history I bring.
She belongs with someone like Shannon—someone her age who can give her the fairytale.
I’m well past being able to give that to anyone.