by Liz Crowe
She kissed him once more, with an inner promise it would be the last time, and put her hands alongside his rough face. “I have to. Now get off me before the whole goddamn place catches us.”
He laughed. But when he pulled out of her, she had never in her life felt more alone.
That night they sat on the beach, sharing a single bottle of rich red wine and talked some more.
“I hated you, so much,” he said at one point as she lay with her head in his lap, the wine gone, and their moods softened, but somber. He trailed his fingers through her hair as he spoke. “You nearly cost me my son.”
“I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t about you. It was about her.” She rolled to her side, facing the ocean, unwilling to revisit that particular topic.
“I know, Melanie. But I hated you. Then.” His hand ran down her arm to her waist and hip. “You were so… hard to like. And for the record, I think it was about me, or more about how you wanted to prove that you were more important to her—to Alicia—than I ever would be.”
“I know.” Tears fell onto his bare leg. She tasted them, bitter, and useless, wishing she’d never opened up this can of worms. Talking about her dead sister felt like grinding a fist full of salt into a fresh wound.
Metin kept talking, and she tried to listen. “But you truly are an amazing woman. Alicia was lucky to have you as a sister.” She sat up, clutching her knees to her chest. “Don’t you believe that?”
He had his arm around her but the sobs ripped out from her soul, the years of remaining strong so everyone else could lose it burst open like an overripe watermelon. He held her close, the sensation of his embrace the most perfect thing she’d ever known. But it was over. Because it had to be.
Chapter Fourteen
Metin watched his date preen and flirt with the waiter, and tried not to roll his eyes. He’d snagged one of the front office sales hotties, hired exactly for her appearance and ability to charm advertisers out of their dough.
She put a high value on keeping herself looking perfect. But having been married to a woman who sometimes had to be reminded to shave her legs lest he sustain rug burns, he was a little immune to this sort of behavior. However, his date had provided him with pleasant enough distraction for the last few weeks since he’d come home from the holiday with Melanie and her family.
He hated reverting to type—“that guy who can’t be alone.” But completely aware of his own vices and weaknesses, he’d decided to embrace them. She had loomed up in his line of vision, so he’d grabbed her, and she clung to him like cat hair on a dark suit.
Melanie remained his friend, as she promised. They spoke two or three times a week, usually discussing Zach’s scholarship offers, her worry over his growing obsession with his girlfriend, and Tanner’s new-found love of basketball.
Metin had breakfast at the café a lot, made friends with the whole staff including the lazy bartender Mel could never bring herself to fire because he had a wife and baby and was such a nice guy. He loved listening to her laugh, hearing her bitch about the staff, her kids, her house, the dog, anything.
But she remained strictly hands-off and seemed to mean it this time. So he found someone to keep him company in bed, although if he were honest, he wished the woman would leave him afterward, not linger and “forget” her extraneous crap all over his house. Tonight, after nearly eight weeks of expensive dates and a lot of vigorous sex, he got the distinct feeling she expected something out of him he was not prepared to give.
“Listen, Traci, I need to make it an early night. Why don’t I take you home and….”
She pouted, leaning forward and giving him an unimpeded view of her ample breasts
This is what you wanted, you stupid fucker. A bed filler. Now she won’t get the hell out of your life. Well played.
His phone buzzed, so he used the opportunity to stop paying attention to her to check it. A text from Zach. Metin frowned, trying to take in what the kid was saying.
Mom went out on a date tonight. With my biology teacher. Thought you should know.
He frowned and responded, Your mother is allowed to do whatever she wants, Zach. Stop hovering and spying on her.
The boy didn’t reply and a low-level buzzing in Metin’s ears reached fever pitch by the time he dropped clingy Traci at her house after much cajoling on her part to get him to stay over. Due to go on a week-long recruiting trip with Rafe the next day, he couldn’t think of anything better than getting some space from this town and everything it represented to him.
He sat in his driveway, composing and erasing several texts to Melanie before deciding that, “I hear biology teachers really know their way around anatomy. Hope you had a nice date,” was snarky and still slightly supportive enough to fly.
He hit send and put his forehead on the steering wheel, cursing his lameness, his inability to convince her that he did love her. Double cursing for letting her accusations get under his skin. Did he merely need someone, anyone, and Melanie had made herself available to him?
No, that simply was not the case. But, it seemed, his window of opportunity to prove that to her had closed and been painted shut.
She responded nearly immediately. I hear sexy ad salesgirls who pretend to be marketing experts give great head.
He laughed and climbed out of the car. They do.
When she didn’t send anything back after an hour, he tried again, unable to stop. But there’s great, and then there is extraordinary. You are in the latter camp.
Flatterer, she replied, quickly. Stop flirting with me. I’m on a goddamned date.
Okay. Sorry. My date ended early. She bores me to tears anymore.
Well, sob your way through getting blown. That ought to fix it.
I’ll get right on that.
Nearly two hours passed, during which he folded laundry, finished packing, and read some of the recruiting materials he’d been gathering on the prospects they were visiting the following week. Her final text of the night set his teeth on edge, and he used every ounce of willpower not to jump in the car and go to her.
I miss you, she said. But don’t take that the wrong way or anything.
I won’t. It’s mutual. Headed out to the West Coast tomorrow with Rafe. Will be in touch. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t with your professor.
I won’t. Goodnight, Metin.
Goodnight, Melanie. He smiled and fell asleep on the couch, waking with a start at four a.m. when his alarm went off, and groaned his way through the shower and freezing cold drive to the airport.
The days stretched to weeks and into months, as days will do when they pile in on each other, forgettable, and lonely. Mel sleepwalked through hers, as nights remained the opposite of restful. She tossed and turned, read books, watched movies, and managed to snag an hour or two until the morning approached. She was short with her staff and kids. The rapidity with which she’d let the biology teacher take her out and get into her pants still embarrassed her, but at least it took that particular edge off.
Brent Malloy was a fixture in her life and had been for nearly six weeks. They’d consummated the deal a few times in his small condo overlooking downtown Ann Arbor. It had been okay and somewhat purged the raw need she harbored for Metin. A handsome, gray-haired, former-researcher-turned-high-school teacher, Brent was divorced, and possessed a self-reliant calm about him that soothed her, when it didn’t make her feel like a raving banshee. While not exactly shy, more like quiet to the point of invisible, at times he irritated the crap out of her with his tendency to defer to whatever she wanted. But he was a tender, generous lover so she really had nothing to complain about—a fact she had to repeat in her mind a lot.
Because his demeanor was so opposite of Metin’s, she caught herself comparing the two men. After a weekend spent together when the boys were both at camp, she burst into tears at Brent’s tidy kitchen table when he’d done nothing more than serve her a picture-perfect breakfast.
“I’m such a bitch,” she mumbled, not
meeting his eyes. “I don’t… I’m not… you are….”
But he had stopped her with a kiss that progressed quickly into something more, right on the kitchen table. Very Metin-like, and encouraging. But the emptiness she still sustained every time she thought about Metin or after having one of their semi-regular conversations, hurt like a dry tooth socket.
Spring approached, and she remained in a flurry of self-denial. Zach was headed to college within months. Tanner had begun devolving from a sweet, supportive boy into his own form of surly teenager, and she missed Metin so badly she ignored his calls in order to get past it. Brent kept up his slow, steady, always-there reliability—and had gotten pretty damn good at oral sex now that she’d taught him a thing or three.
Her father’s health had declined all of a sudden, too. They’d discovered a heart murmur, and she spent a long night in the ER with him just last week, Brent at her side and Metin pacing the hall. At one point, she’d been carrying cups of coffee back for all of them and had stumbled, spilling the stuff everywhere. She’d cried and held onto Metin like a little girl, while he soothed her as if she were the one whose heart was failing. All in all, par for the Melanie Matthews course, she figured, as she rose early for the day’s work at the café.
“Mom! I’ll be late tonight,” Zach called on his way out the door, not giving her time to respond.
She looked at Tanner, hoping for some sign of his former self. But he sat, sulking under a crop of hair in sore need of quality time with a pair of scissors. Ignoring her, he got up and stomped out behind his brother, leaving her alone with her coffee and yet more stupid tears.
Mel tried not to stare at the clock. When it ticked past two a.m. and then two-thirty and she still had no response from Zach, she began pacing. Damn kid knew her rules. If she sent a text, and he did not respond within thirty minutes, she considered him dead on the side of the road and was calling the cops. He’d lived with her paranoia long enough to know he should respond immediately, no matter what. She had sent the first text at one a.m. when she woke after falling asleep on the couch, from a decidedly sexy dream starring Metin’s lips and tongue.
Groggy, she waited for Zach’s usual prompt answer. It didn’t come. She tried Tanner. He sent a message back from a friend’s house.
He and Gayle broke up tonight, I think. That’s the rumor anyway. Let me try a few of his friends.
She re-read his text and her heart skipped a few beats, then began pounding and making her breathless.
After an hour of still nothing from Zach, her panic ramped up by a thousand. She fiddled with her phone, pondering whom she should call. She and Metin still talked, but not as much, although she truly wished she could hear his voice every day. They were nearly done with Zach’s spring season, and Metin had been at every match, causing a fair bit of excitement among the crowd. The boys had one more game before going on to play in the state finals, and all signs pointed to them taking it all.
And at that moment she needed him, required his presence. She sent him a text and sat, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. When nothing appeared in return on the phone screen, she cursed and sent a similar message to Brent at the exact moment she heard a car screech up to the front of her house. Opening the door, she found Metin dressed in a disheveled dress shirt and dark trousers, with a red tie draped around his neck. He smelled distinctly of strange, feminine cologne. She clenched her jaw, determined not to turn this into anything more than it was.
“Okay, have you called Gayle?” He walked past her into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water out of her fridge.
“Tanner said they broke up tonight. That’s the rumor, and that’s why I’m freaking out. We talked about this. He was way too into her. Was bound to get hurt.”
“Yeah.” Metin sat, calm and quiet. “A boy’s first official dumping can be traumatic. I tried calling him after you sent me the text, but it went to voicemail, so his phone is off for whatever reason.”
“Shit.” Mel sat, her heart pounding.
“It’s all right.” He laid a hand on her shoulder and she leaned into him, comforted, in spite of herself. “Relax.”
It was nearly four before the police car pulled up. She’d fallen into a fitful sleep against Metin’s chest as they sat on her couch. She leapt up at the knock, panic beating its wings inside her skull until she spotted Zach, between the two cops. He kept his gaze down, but he wasn’t in handcuffs, thank God.
One of the officers filled her in on the call they’d received about a boy sitting on the roof of the high school, throwing empty beer cans down into the parking lot.
“Get inside,” Metin said, his voice low. “Thank you, officers.”
“He didn’t blow anywhere near drunk. We think he was pouring the beer out onto the parking lot as well. We had to write him up for destruction of property though, and possession of alcohol by a minor.”
Mel clutched her throat and stood back, absorbing the latest disaster.
They left, and Zach slouched into the living room, his sweatshirt hood pulled over his eyes. When she caught his eye, she was shocked at the expression on Metin’s face, one she could only describe as livid.
“Stand up straight, goddamn you,” he barked. Yanking the boy’s hood back, Metin gripped his arm. She stepped toward them, willing to hear his story of young heartbreak. Metin’s hand shot up in the air, stopping her. “No, Melanie. This is serious. He could lose his scholarships over it.”
A small lick of anger at his preemptive behavior with her son replaced her panic about Zach’s safety. He looked at her, silently begging for her intervention. But she held her tongue.
“Look at me, you little shit.” Metin clamped down on his shoulder. “You have worked too hard and your mother has spent too much time and money getting you to this point—do you have any idea how many boys would kill for all the offers you got? And you’re gonna throw that away over what, exactly?”
“Let go of me. You’re not my father,” Zach growled, his blue eyes darkening. She stepped toward them once more, but Metin held up that annoying, bossy palm again, silencing her and adding fuel to the simmering fury building in her chest.
“No, I’m not. But you will listen to me because I know what I’m damn well talking about, Zach.” Zach frowned, but Metin kept going. “You do not throw this away because the first girl who let you between her thighs on a regular basis decided to dump you. It’s what girls do. You’d better get used to it. Man up, son. This is the real world where shit falls apart on you at the drop of a hat. I would know. I’m the one who tossed my entire career aside when I shouldn’t have.”
“Hang on a second.” Mel stepped between them as Zach raised a fist. “Metin. You have no right to….”
“I have every right, Melanie.” His eyes blazed. “You are no better than Alicia was. She coddled my son too much; let him get away with shit even as a little boy. And this one,” he gave Zach another firm shake, “got the same treatment. You can’t let him slide. This is fucking serious.”
“Get out, Metin,” she demanded, her voice choked with emotion.
“Fine.” He dropped Zach’s arm. Running a hand through his hair, he said, “Don’t ask for my help if you don’t want it.”
“Sorry I interrupted your… whatever.” She gestured to his clothes. “But you can leave now.”
He glared at her. “Sorry, I had to get dressed in a hurry.”
She quivered with a choking jealousy, coming face-to-face with his reality. Zach started easing away from them. “I am not finished with you,” she croaked out.
Metin’s voice was firm. “He needs to get on the computer and email every single coach who extended him an offer, especially Duke, if that’s where he’s leaning. They will find out about this and if he doesn’t jump in front of it with some kind of explanation….”
Zach’s eyes flashed with fear. “Okay, um, I’m gonna go do that… like, now.”
She whipped around to face Metin. “Do not speak to my son like
that or bad-mouth my sister in my house. She was a great mother, and you know it.” His jaw clenched and Mel froze, wishing the words back even as she kept talking. “She always told me your innate chauvinist pig was close to the surface. That you were too hard on Ayden, “making him a man” using harsh punishment, and he was only two. Well, I’m here to tell you that you no longer have to worry about us. You can take anything related to my son off your radar.” She held out a hand to Zach, but he kept his distance, looking between her and Metin, who crossed his arms and glared at her.
“Then why did you call me, Melanie? If you didn’t want my help?”
She shook with fury—mostly at herself. Why was she acting like this? “Go,” she ground out, moving away from him, but he grabbed her arm.
“Excuse us, Zach. Come outside with me, please, Melanie. We need to finish this conversation in private.”
Zach nodded and ducked into his room. She stayed frozen in place, focused at the hand Metin had on her. A gut-deep urgency to fall into his arms and let him be who he was—what she wanted him to be with her—made her head spin. “Go on. Get back to whatever bed you crawled out of to come here.”
He tugged her until they were outdoors, in the overhanging carport next to her SUV. Leaving his hand on her arm he turned her, their bodies so close they might as well be kissing. She averted her face.
“Might I remind you this was your idea. This whole go-forth-and-date-and-we’ll-be-friends thing,’” he said, his voice low.
“I don’t know what you’re….”
“I don’t want it this way. I want to be with you.”
“No, you want to be with somebody—anybody will do. You are incapable of being alone. And you only wanted me because….”
Metin made a sound between a growl and a moan. “Stop throwing that in my face as some kind of excuse because you can’t cope with how you really feel. Just….” He let her go, shaking his head. “I’m sorry I was heavy-handed with him. I’m sorry I showed up in my date clothes. But I’m mostly sorry that you are such a colossally stubborn bitch that you don’t see what’s right in front of you. You are not second string, not the replacement sister, none of that shit. I will never, ever stop loving Alicia, Melanie. But she is dead, gone from me, and will never return. You aren’t. You are here. And I love you, you crazy fucking… oh, never mind.”
