But strangely, Melina liked it. She was starting to see exactly what was so intoxicating about being on the receiving end of one of her rules: always leave them wanting more.
NINE
In the two months since they’d been together, Joshua noticed that Aussie was good for his social life. Incredibly good. That dog has more game than any guy I know, Joshua thought.
Some days Joshua and Aussie’s walk ended on a covered patio behind the brewpub where Stephanie’s brother Derek was the brewer. Aussie never failed to draw attention from the other customers. His big, friendly eyes reeled in girls to pet him, and of course, to talk with Joshua.
Stephanie and Mark don’t have to worry about finding me dates. Aussie can land a phone number, no problem.
He’d been out on a few dates, but they usually ended with noncommittal phrases like, “That was fun. I’ll see you around.” The girls he’d met lacked a certain spark—they were either too nice or too dim to turn their bullshit detectors on him.
Except one. Melina was a piece of work—feisty, frosty, sexy and wicked smart. Joshua enjoyed the chase, but he knew Melina wasn’t just being coy.
She’s not playing hard to get. She is hard to get.
Generally, by the third or fourth date, Joshua had his mind made up. He either liked a girl, or he didn’t, and frankly, if he didn’t like her pretty well by date number two, there would never be a third or fourth. But Melina was hard to figure out.
On their first date, it seemed like they were playing cat and mouse—and he was the mouse. So he thought it was only fair to turn the tables on her for a lowbrow, messy dinner at the Sea Shack—he wanted to get her out of her element.
Melina rose to the occasion, showing up in jeans and a Seahawks jersey to fit in with the crowd as they drank beer, ate fish and clams and fries, and licked their fingers.
He watched. She licked.
When Joshua invited Melina on date number three, she accepted readily, surprising him. But she chose the location and steered them to one of the newest—and most exclusive, expensive and packed—restaurants in Seattle, Mercury Grill.
It was the place to be seen this month; its bar was practically a singles mosh pit. Melina knew the executive chef from a previous marketing assignment—she seemed to know someone everywhere—so they got a pristine table far enough from the bar to be able to carry on a conversation.
Melina’s choice was a hit with Joshua, and recalled several of his father’s international postings. They split nearly a dozen small plates, each one celebrating the pepper: from mild, sweet paprika to smoky chipotle and fierce habanero.
Joshua told Melina a little about his background, how he traveled the world with his family. He even managed to make it sound more like an adventure, and less like he had felt: excess baggage.
***
The elevator chimed and the button indicating the twelfth floor went dark. Joshua and Aussie stepped out of the sliding doors, still breathing heavily from their run, a familiar routine set: Joshua pulls off his sweatshirt, Aussie laps greedily from his water dish and spills much of it, Josh feeds Aussie and mops up the wet, he chugs a sports drink and kicks off his running shoes.
But now, the variation: Joshua doesn’t settle down in his living room to watch TV or flip open his laptop. He’s changing his clothes, combing his hair, and brushing his teeth. He’s putting on his watch and a nicer pair of sneakers. He’s ruffling Aussie’s thick coat, telling him to be a good boy.
Just as Joshua reached for the door handle to leave, his mobile phone rang and he felt a sudden prick of worry—was Melina calling to cancel their date?
“Just who I wanted to talk to,” purred Stephanie in lieu of a greeting. “Are you busy?”
“I was just heading out. Why? What’s up?”
“Crystal just called.”
The name slithered over Joshua like the waft of tobacco reaching a newly quit smoker. Despite their breakups and makeups, Crystal had been his habit—more permanent than almost anything in his life.
“What did she want?”
Stephanie chuckled. “You know her so well. Of course she wanted something—her car’s got some problem. She said she tried to call you?”
Joshua mumbled, buying time, thinking of the two calls from her number he’d missed. He’d never listened to the voicemail. But then, he hadn’t deleted the messages, either.
“Joshua? You still there?”
“Yeah. What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her where you live now, if that’s what you’re asking,” Stephanie said. “She sounded—”
Joshua listened hard as Stephanie paused. How was she? What was she doing now? No doubt she wanted his help on her car, but was she reaching out to reconnect too? Was the car an excuse?
“She sounds fine.” Stephanie’s tone was matter-of-fact. “You don’t have to call her back, Joshua. You’ve got to move on, not go backward.”
Am I ready to move on, really? Joshua wondered. Can you just sever ties with your past, like losing a limb, or does the ghost of that limb still haunt you, the itch you can’t scratch in the middle of the night?
“Look. Forget I called. Forget she called. She’s not right for you.”
“Then who is?” Joshua wondered out loud, anxiety sharpening his voice. “And who says she—or anyone, for that matter—is right or wrong for me? She knows me better than anyone. We were together for ten years. We have history.”
“We have history too,” Stephanie reminded him.
Joshua stopped cold. “No. We don’t have history. We had a thing. A fling. That’s not the same. And it’s not right to bring that up.”
“I’m sorry,” Stephanie’s voice shrank to a whisper. “That’s not what I meant. I just want you to be happy. I’m happy with Mark. I just think you should be happy with someone who deserves you.”
Joshua suppressed a snort. “Deserves. That’s a funny word. Who says whether Crystal or Melina or anyone deserves me? Maybe I don’t deserve them.”
“Melina? Are you seriously going out with her again?”
“Yes, and if I don’t hang up this phone right now, I’ll be late. Seriously.”
“Wait. Joshua. I’m not trying to fight. I just wanted you to be ready, in case Crystal calls. So you can be ready to tell her no. Or—well, tell her whatever you want to tell her. But I know how hard it was for you to leave her, to make a change in your life. And I’m proud of you for doing it. That took courage.”
Joshua exhaled slowly. It had taken more than courage—every fiber in his body warred against his decision to finally move out, to start a new life for the umpteenth time. He hated starting over.
He wasn’t proud of the sullen lump he’d been after the breakup, parked on Stephanie and Mark’s couch until they coaxed, bribed and even threatened him out of his funk. The change, the rift he created and what he left behind, terrified him.
“Thanks. And thanks for telling me she called. But I’m going to need you to trust me when I make some more changes, like when I start seeing someone new.”
Stephanie sighed. “I just want you to—”
“I get it, Steph.” Joshua cut her off. “But the training wheels are off. You’ve got to let me do this myself.”
He clicked off his phone and headed out into the cold, not-quite-spring Seattle air.
TEN
Melina didn’t want to believe it when she looked up the address Joshua gave as the location for their fourth date. He wouldn’t tell her what they were doing, only the address and to wear jeans and a warm jacket.
Melina refused to be caught off guard. She plugged the address into a search engine and her heart sank. Frank’s Family Fun Center? Bumper cars. Batting cages. An arcade. Mini golf. A Grand Prix mini-race track.
A nightmare, Melina thought. This is what you do when you’re sixteen, not thirty. I’m glad I won’t run into anyone I know here—they wouldn’t be caught dead.
She spun her Audi coupe in a tight circle to pa
rk in front of the main entrance, then stepped out and surveyed the parking lot, looking for a shiny Porsche containing her date.
Nothing. He must not be here yet. He probably didn’t tell me what we were doing so I wouldn’t have the chance to say no, Melina grumbled silently. She zipped up her red down jacket, stuffed gloves in her pocket, and headed inside.
“Melina! You found it,” Joshua said, a wide grin lighting his face. He surprised her with his enthusiasm. “Sorry for the cloak-and-dagger, but I figured you would have tried to talk me out of it.”
“I would have,” Melina frowned. “Dinner sounds great compared to batting cages. Even dinner at the Sea Shack.”
“Come on. You liked the Sea Shack. You loved the razor clams.” Joshua raised his eyebrows, daring her to disagree. She had eaten every fried razor clam mantle on her plate, enthusiastically biting into the crisp Panko crust. And she conceded that the clams knocked the socks off some of the better restaurants in town.
“OK, I’ll cop to that. I liked them. But what I don’t like is cotton candy and hot dogs, which looks like about all they have here.” Melina shook her head at the backlit menu board with moveable letters.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Joshua whispered in her ear, sending a shiver up her spine. “We’re not here for the food.”
Melina gave him a dirty look. “We’d better not be. So what do you want to do then? Hit some balls? Mini golf? Last time a client wanted me to golf I just about lost it during the lessons. I hate playing a sport I can’t win.”
“You can win at golf,” Joshua countered.
“No, I can’t,” Melina huffed. “Even if you shoot the best round of your life, someone else has shot it better. You might get beat by someone in your party. You’ll definitely get beat by someone that day. And when you get up to the elite level, you are still trying to shave strokes off your game. There’s really no end point. There’s no point where it’s like, OK, you’ve arrived. You’re the winner and that’s that.”
Joshua looked dubious, but he took her elbow and steered her toward the sales counter. “We’re not here to golf—we’re here to drive. I know you’re from Indiana, and so I was thinking, Indy 500, you might like car racing—you have a sports car, right? So the question is, how badly are you going to lose this race?”
He’d thrown down the gauntlet and her eyes sparked. “Game on.”
Joshua grabbed her hand and pulled her outside to the track, handing their tickets to the teenage attendant and sliding into an idling car.
“Before we start,” Joshua shouted over the noise of the mini-race cars, “any friendly bets you want to place? Or are you chicken?”
Melina secured her seatbelt in the car next to Joshua’s, helmet fitting tightly over her blonde ponytail. “When I win, what are you going to give me?” Melina shouted back.
Joshua laughed. “Your way!”
His foot stomped hard on the accelerator and he lurched forward into the first stretch on the racetrack, one of the few places wide enough to pass. Melina’s tires screeched as she followed suit, eager to prove she could outdrive, outmaneuver and outsmart her competition.
***
Melina slammed on her brakes at the stop line in a rush of adrenaline. She unsnapped her seatbelt and popped out of the racecar’s seat, turning as Joshua pulled up behind her.
She’d won.
Melina pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair, which had pulled free of the ponytail and tangled in the wind. She unzipped her down jacket and sauntered to the side of the track, putting an extra sway in her hips, letting him watch. Victory lap.
Her face was flushed with excitement, her forehead slick with sweat from the helmet, her lips chapped and nose red and raw from the cold. Melina peeled off her gloves and watched Joshua launch himself out of his car’s seat, pulling off his helmet and walking with it tucked under his arm.
“You think you’re pretty hot, don’t you?” Joshua said, giving her a smoldering look as his eyes cruised the length of her body.
“You think I am.”
“I do, it’s true. And probably more so now. I can’t believe I wasted so much of my allowance on this as a kid and I don’t have respectable racing skills to show for it.”
“They were more than respectable,” Melina admitted. “We tore up the track. I just did it with a little more style.” She flashed a grin of mock conceit.
“I used to race my brothers. They’d give me grief if they knew you’d passed me using one of Charlie’s dirty tricks. I should have seen that coming.”
“That hairpin turn on the back stretch was hardly a trick. It’s called maneuvering,” Melina licked her lips, watching Joshua watch her. His warm brown eyes darkened. “But I admit—it was a little bit dirty.”
Joshua caged Melina against the chain link fence with his arms and she held his gaze, daring him to make a move. “A little bit dirty is just the way I like you.”
ELEVEN
Melina cruised into Pursuit Marketing a half-hour early, ritual latte in hand. Arriving early creates the impression of efficiency; staying late suggests you can’t get it all done.
This maxim served her well; she was always first to review the morning’s news, the first to send urgent emails and the first to arrive for meetings—ensuring a plum seat at the table and the ear of the senior partner.
Melina headed to her office and shrugged out of her cashmere coat, hanging it behind the door. Her promotion earned Melina the right to move from a cubicle to an office with east-facing windows, and now she rarely needed her office lights.
Melina opened a prospective client folder and got to work, outlining the marketing strategy she would suggest during their pitch next week. The task completely occupied her as she filled several sheets of paper with lists connected by freehand lines, charting dozens of interconnected ideas floating around in her head.
A knock on the office door broke Melina’s concentration. “Come in,” she called, annoyed by the intrusion.
“Hey, I thought you’d want these,” Holly grinned. Even a cold spring morning couldn’t depress Holly’s warm, upbeat attitude. She planted a massive bouquet of lilies and roses on the corner of Melina’s desk.
“You’ve got to spill. Is it loverboy?”
“So what if it is?” Melina countered. “It wouldn’t be the first time that some guy goes overboard.”
“How many dates is it now?”
“Four.” Melina eyed the envelope on a little plastic spear at the heart of the bouquet.
“That’s, like, practically a world record!” Holly laughed. “You think he’s a keeper? Have you kissed him?”
Melina tried to keep her expression neutral, but Holly pounced. “You did! I know it! Did you sleep with him?”
Melina held up her hands. “Whoa, there, sister. I didn’t say I kissed him. We had … a moment. I though he was going to, but he didn’t. You know, sometimes it’s good to take it slow.”
“Mel, four dates isn’t slow. It’s prehistoric. But maybe he’s sending you flowers because he wants to get cozy? When are you seeing him next?”
“What makes you so sure I’m seeing him again?”
“That look. You like him. He’s not just another suit.”
Melina shuffled her papers, considering. Do I have a look? Or is she just fishing?
“You’re right. He’s not a suit. He’s an engineer for a medical company. But he’s not nerdy.” She furrowed her brow, remembering the strange racetrack-and-arcade date. “Well, not that nerdy. He’s fun. He’s not self-conscious.”
How do you explain someone like Joshua? He’s challenging. He’s confident but not cocky. He’s genuinely nice, and about as far as you can get from the stuffed-shirt bar guys. He doesn’t care what other people think of him.
“He’s authentic,” Melina said finally, settling on a word that made sense to her.
Holly watched her, head tilted. “You do like him! That’s so great, Melina. I’m really happy for you
. For a while, I was convinced you’d never find the right guy because no one would be good enough for….”
Holly trailed off as Melina winced. “I’m not a serial dater. I can do relationships.”
“Oh, really? Name one that’s lasted more than four dates,” Holly challenged.
“Sam.”
“The guy with the Tesla Roadster? I’ll give you points for his hot car, but as a long-term relationship, he doesn’t count. The only reason you didn’t break up with him sooner is because you wanted to go to his cousin’s wedding.”
“Can you blame me? It was in the Hamptons. I’d never been there before,” Melina explained. “Well, what about Gerard? We were a thing for, like, six months.”
“Hate to tell you, but he doesn’t count, either,” Holly said. “Partly because he was a client and I don’t think you ever had the hots for him, and partly because he spent half his time in France. You had, like, one date a month?”
“Yeah, he was always on buying trips in Paris,” Melina rolled her eyes. “He stank. I mean, seriously, he needed to bathe more. He was a genius decorator, but after I got him that feature spread in Sound Living, it was like he didn’t need me anymore.”
“OK, strike two. Not a real boyfriend. You got any more exes I don’t know about?” Holly cast a meaningful eye at the bouquet.
Melina rotated the flowers on her desk. She withdrew the card and flicked opened the envelope.
“Congratulations on eight years with Pursuit Marketing,” the typewritten message read. “Thank you for your exceptional contributions that won new accounts this year. Sincerely, James Hendrick, President and CEO, Pursuit Marketing, Inc.”
She dropped the card on her desk, defeated. It wasn’t from Joshua. It wasn’t from any suitor. It was a note from the CEO because of all the money she made for her firm. Suddenly, Melina felt much less attractive.
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