“That’s right. Caleb.” Mitch put down his spoon only part way through his meal and said, “Can I get anything for you?”
Mel eagerly asked after coffee, and waited patiently for it to be brought to her. She was proud of herself for doing a little bit less hobbling around lately. She hoped Mitch noticed how hard she was trying and accepted it for the compliment that it was.
“Here we are,” Mitch said when he returned. “Piping hot coffee.”
Mel cocked her head, smiling at his oddly formal announcement of her breakfast beverage.
“Sorry,” he said with a chuckle. “I used to be a waiter. Old habits die hard.”
“Did you really?” Mel said, all interest. She had not taken Mitch for the kind of man who’d ever held a customer service job.
“Don’t get excited,” he said with a laugh. “It was just summers in high school, and I was awful at it.”
“Where did you grow up?” Mel asked, suddenly realizing she didn’t know that detail, or many details at all, about him.
“Michigan,” he answered. “Western Michigan,” he clarified, “in a town on the lake. Lots of tourists. Lots of tips.”
Mel smiled. “Gotta love the Midwest.”
“I used to think I’d leave the Midwest and never look back. Before Aiden came along, I mean.”
Mel coached herself into asking with an appropriate amount of interest, and no resentment: “Ashleigh didn’t want to move somewhere else?”
Mitch shook his head. “No, not at all. She was so serious about staying put, which didn’t even make sense to me, because her family hated me and never wanted me around. I felt like I was unwelcome in my own family, whenever her mom and dad were around. But, she still didn’t want to leave them.”
Mel should have known that, sooner or later, the topics she’d been working hard to avoid would come back around. So she said, “Is that why you guys didn’t get married?” Mitch’s head snapped up to look at her, and Mel was worried she had said something wrong, but she held her ground. She needed to know this if she was going to grant his wish. But, to soften it, she added, “Five years is a long time to be engaged, and I know you really love her. Both of them, really.”
“I guess…I don’t know.” Mitch sighed. “I don’t know what the big hurry is, you know? Like, if we’re going to be married for the rest of our lives, then what’s the rush?”
Mel shrugged. “I always wanted to elope. If I decide I want to get married, then that’s it. Boom! Married.”
Mitch laughed and shook his head. “Yeah. I can see that for you. I guess that just isn’t how I felt about it with Ash.” After a quiet moment, he added, “But I’m ready now.”
Mel nodded. “That’s good. I mean, I hope it all turns out…good.” That sounded pathetic, and Mel knew it. She decided to turn the conversation and try to cheer Mitch up. “Well, I don’t know what you have going on today, but I’m doing an end-of-semester push on relaxation yoga, and I’m going to get some flyers printed and put them up around campus. Sound like fun?”
Mitch said, “Just when I was starting to think you were listening about not overexerting yourself on a bad knee.” But he was smiling.
Mel conceded, “I really can’t do it without you.”
“Well, I’m here for you,” he said.
He really was here for her. Mel felt warm suddenly, and impulsively said, “I know you are. I’m so glad we met, Mitch. I can’t remember the last time I met somebody who was just such a good friend so fast. You know?”
Mitch seemed embarrassed but happy at the same time, and Mel was glad that she’d let herself indulge that moment of gushy praise. She liked to tell her friends how she felt about them, but she also knew that people didn’t always take it well.
“If I bring my crutches,” Mel said, changing the subject so Mitch wouldn’t be uncomfortable, “then will you let me walk sometimes?”
“Just can’t stay still, can you?” Mitch teased.
“I’m going crazy!” Mel answered. “I just want to be better already!”
“It’s already been a week,” Mitch pointed out. “Only five to go until you’re totally recovered. One until you’re cleared to walk some. You can do this,” he said, and he gave her a high-five, which Mel found totally adorable. She beamed up at him, and he said, “In the meantime, what can I get you for breakfast?”
They spent a fun day together, driving around and posting flyers at dorms, lecture halls, and bulletin boards. They stopped at the studio for a while to update Subha on their progress, and together with Amos, they all had lunch at a shop nearby. Mitch fit in great with Mel’s friends. They seemed to like each other, and while Mitch could sometimes be cocky, he had none of the arrogance that had made Greyson so rude to her friends back when they’d dated.
Being around Mitch was making Mel think of Greyson much more than she had in some time. While she was totally over Greyson, she really hadn’t dated anybody as seriously since. She hadn’t met anybody she’d wanted to. Mitch was the first one, and as luck would have it, he loved somebody else. She knew she was supposed to use her gift for Mitch, and then he would be totally lost to her forever—and ultimately, that would be a good thing. But that didn’t make it any easier.
But maybe this friendship could still be a good thing for Mel. It had brought her to a place where she was thinking about a serious relationship again. When your heart is ready, the real thing can’t be far behind, can it?
Mel’s optimism never let her stay down for long, and Mel made a point of avoiding speaking alone to Subha for fear she would say anything more to suggest Mitch didn’t feel the same way Mel did. Mel didn’t want to focus on the negative right now. She had enough to worry about. But Subha did stop her long enough to invite her to come Christmas tree shopping with the family on Saturday. Amos was coming, too, and it sounded like fun. At the time, Mitch was off hanging some flyers in the front of the café, and Mel assumed he and his son would leave on Saturday after making sure she was comfortable. So she agreed to come with them tomorrow. That was something nice to look forward to.
When they got home after a long day of marketing in which Mitch never did let Mel get out and walk, the first thing they did was get Mel settled on the couch. Mitch was looking at his phone as often as he had on the first day they’d met, and soon he got the text message he’d been waiting for.
“Ash says Sam is on his way to pick her up and Aiden is ready for me,” Mitch said, staring at his screen.
“Great!” Mel said, trying to get him to view the weekend as a good thing, although she knew the prospect of his ex spending a weekend with her new boyfriend was enough to ruin every happier feeling. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
Mitch forced a smile. “Yeah. Okay, I guess I’ll go pick him up from our—from Ashleigh’s house.”
Mel’s stomach rumbled, and after Mitch left, she hobbled to the kitchen and dug through the freezer for her sister’s meals. There wasn’t anything that looked like it would be particularly appealing to children among those casseroles and crockpot meals. Francy would have to work on that before her little peanut showed up next year, Mel thought with a smile. Relieved, she noticed there was a frozen pizza underneath everything else, as well as a bag of chicken nuggets leftover from when the kids had visited. Perfect.
Mel heated up dinner and sent a quick text to Amos, who came by, grumbling and reluctant, to help her move her television from her bedroom back down to the basement so Aiden would have something to watch. He also took dinner out of the oven for her, and Mel settled back on the couch after seeing him off, just in time to see Mitch walk in with a little boy who could not possibly have looked less like him.
Mitch, who was brown-haired, hazel-eyed, and tan skinned, had a son with curly red hair, freckly skin, and large, green eyes. Mel smiled and said hello, and the boy smiled back, and then Mel could see a resemblance. The same bright smile, and now that she noticed it, the same nose, too. He dashed up to her and grabbed her aviation magazi
ne.
“Hi! I’m Aiden, and you’re Mel, and we both like planes,” he said.
“We do,” she said, smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear as she glanced up at Mitch. “I hear you like this plane, particularly,” she said, pointing to the cover picture.
“I love all the planes,” Aiden clarified, and he scooted her leg back on the couch so he could hop up beside her and flip through the pictures.
Mitch jumped forward to stop him from hurting her knee, but Mel had already cushioned it with a pillow. “It’s alright,” she said.
Mitch sniffed the air and asked, in a tone that was half accusatory, half resigned, “Did you make dinner?”
Mel was proud to be able to answer, “No, I asked Amos to come. You probably just missed him.”
Mitch grinned. “I’m glad to hear you’re finally taking your doctor’s advice.”
Aiden lifted the magazine in the air and started reading it with his head tipped backwards. “Daddy is a doctor,” he said absently, now batting at the pages that were flapping above him.
“It’s pizza,” Mel said. “And chicken nuggets. I hope that’s okay—I know it isn’t the healthiest.”
Mitch smiled. “No, that’s fine. He deserves a treat every now and then. Are you hungry, Aiden?”
“Yeah!”
“But wait. You already had dinner, your mom said,” Mitch said, glancing at Mel.
“But it was yucky! Mommy made me eat two bites, but that’s all I had.”
“Really? What was it?”
“Fish sticks and green beans.”
Mitch made a face, and Aiden giggled. “Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. Okay, buddy. You can eat dinner with us.”
Aiden cheered and hopped off the couch, leaving his magazine haphazardly strewn across the floor. Mitch followed him, saying, “I have to bring a plate out to Melody first, okay? Remember, she’s the patient who can’t walk. She isn’t allowed to walk at all without help, so if you see her try, you be sure and tell me. Okay?”
He winked over his shoulder at Mel before they both disappeared out of sight. Mel chuckled to herself. This was going to a fun night.
It was a happy holiday feast. After they finished eating, Mel told Mitch and Aiden about the set-up downstairs with the TV, and Aiden practically shrieked with joy before dashing down the stairs. His shouts of, “Oh, cool!” floated up to Mitch and Mel, who were making their way more slowly to the staircase. Mel explained how Amos had helped, and Mitch gave an apologetic smile as he left her behind on the stairs to join Aiden.
Mel told the guys where they could find DVDs, games, extra pillows and blankets, and the half-bath. Figuring Mitch could handle the clean-up from dinner, she hobbled down the hall to her bed. Their voices continued to float up the stairs, laughing and enthusiastic, for more than an hour. It sounded like Mitch was having a lot of fun with his son, which made Mel smile. He was, by his own admission, not a natural, but at least he tried. Greyson never would have tried. It was like he was proud of how much he disliked kids, which was always something that had worried Mel when they were together.
But why was she comparing these two men again? It wasn’t like she was dating Mitch. That was totally out of the question; the only reason she was even talking to Mitch at this point was because she felt obligated to grant his deepest wish to get back together with Aiden’s mom.
But, no—that wasn’t really the only reason, at all. He was here voluntarily, after all. She hadn’t invited him, or asked for help, or made any friendly gestures beyond that Thanksgiving invitation—and it was no more than anybody else would have done. But now, they were friends. For all she knew, barring any huge screw up on her part, they would stay friends. Maybe, after the wish was granted, she’d be Ashleigh’s friend, too. But the thought made her impossibly sad.
Mel shook her head. She didn’t know why she was torturing herself. The fact was, her life had become dull. Mundane. Stuck in a rut. She was used to thinking of herself as a catch, but it had been years since she’d met any man who seemed worth the trouble. But Mitch was another story altogether. His deepest wish might have been to be back in a relationship with his ex, but Mel’s wish was for him to be on the market. She hardly knew when it began, but overhearing his and his son’s laughter as they got ready for bed, she knew it wasn’t just her gift that was making her heart flutter.
The next day was Saturday. Subha had been texting Mel about whether her knee could handle the trip to the Christmas tree farm, and Mel had spent a good part of the night before convincing her that her knee wouldn’t be a problem. In actuality, she was pretty sure her knee was a big problem, but being stuck indoors with nothing to do was driving her crazy. Assuming Mitch would want to take Aiden back to his place at least for a while, she knew she would never be able to pick out her own tree with her knee like this. If Mitch and Aiden left early, they would never even know what Mel and her friends were getting up to. The good doctor couldn’t force her to sit still if he wasn’t around. She hopped in the shower half an hour before she expected them to arrive for breakfast.
It was all planned, but when Mel emerged from the bathroom, she could hear Aiden’s happy voice chattering to Amos in the entryway.
“What…what…what kind of Christmas tree is…do you want to get?” Aiden’s excited stutters made Mel smile. Oh, the innocent and unpredictable interests of children.
“Just a green one, I guess,” Amos said. He was definitely not a morning person, but Aiden was positively vibrating with enthusiasm regardless of Amos’s lethargy.
“A spruce? Blue spruce? A douglas fir? Pine?”
Mel reached the living room in time to see Aiden practically dancing around her guest with energy, hopping from foot to foot as he named kinds of trees. What on earth? Mel smiled. This was not the kind of information she expected a five-year-old boy to know.
“Concolor fir, I think,” Mel said as she approached.
“Mel!” Aiden shouted, running to hug her as though she were an old friend he hadn’t seen in ages, instead of a new acquaintance he’d met the night before. Mel’s heart warmed. She guessed pizza and chicken nuggets were the way to this kid’s heart. “What is a concolor fir?”
“It’s the best smelling tree,” she answered, waving at Amos. “And its needles are blue!”
“Really?!”
“Well. Sort of. Blue-ish green.”
“Wow!” Aiden stared up at her with wide eyes. Mel couldn’t resist reaching down to ruffle the little carrot-top’s hair.
“Where’s your dad, anyway?”
Aiden shrugged.
“You don’t know?”
“Sleeping?” he suggested.
Mel glanced at her watch. It was almost 8 o’clock, but Mitch was probably tired. He’d been waking up so early every day, and when Mel had fallen asleep last night, she could still hear Mitch puttering around, even though Aiden had been asleep for hours.
“I guess we should let him sleep,” Mel said. Aiden continued to stare up at her in expectation. “Want breakfast?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Aiden hopped up and grabbed her hand. “I’m HUNGRY!”
Mel grinned and followed after Aiden as he tugged her toward the kitchen. She was practically hopping on one foot to keep up with him. Over her shoulder, she called to Amos, “How about you? Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” Amos said, jogging over to help Mel hobble into the kitchen.
Mel had been pleased to see, upon opening the refrigerator, that she still had unopened rolls of buttermilk biscuits. She’d planned to make them for Thanksgiving, but when Mitch had brought rolls, she hadn’t needed them. That meant she could make one of her only specialties: monkey bread. The name alone had Aiden convinced that it was something he wanted to try, while Amos, who had eaten Mel’s monkey bread before, needed no convincing.
It took much less time to make than normal, what with her two assistants. The whole thing was baked golden-brown and ready to eat before 9:00. Meanwhile, Subha had arr
ived with her husband and the kids, and all were seated at the dining table, feasting on cinnamon-sugar-doughy goodness when Mitch finally woke up.
Still in his pajamas, he wandered into the room and stopped, caught off-guard, to see the crowd. It took him a moment to locate his son, who was bookended by Subha’s adoring toddlers, for whose amusement he was building monkey bread towers on his plate.
“Hey, kiddo,” Mitch said, walking over the Aiden and kissing the top of his head.
“Good morning,” Mel said, and Mitch caught her eye over the table and nodded.
“Quite a crowd you’ve got here,” he said.
“Yeah, they’re here for Christmas tree shopping,” Mel explained. “I figured you guys would want to go to your own place first thing today, so I invited my friends to meet up here. But, then I figured you probably needed more sleep, so I just…let you.” She shrugged. “Want some monkey bread?”
Mitch was staring at Mel with his mouth slightly open. Her smile faltered. Was he angry? She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. After all, it was her house, and he was the one who’d snoozed until after 9 and left his son to fend for himself.
But then, Mitch smiled back, and the warmth of it gave Mel butterflies in her stomach. She had to remind herself that Mitch was kind of a loner. Having a big breakfast with friends was probably a nice surprise for somebody so busy and, by necessity, solitary. “I’d love some,” he said. In one fluid motion, he scooped his son out of his dining chair, seated himself there, and plopped Aiden onto his lap. Aiden and the twins giggled.
“Not mine, Daddy. You have to get your own.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks for telling me.” Mitch rolled his eyes, and Melody got up to hand him a plate. Only after she had hobbled back to her chair did Mitch say, “So, no matter what I say to you, you’re still gonna try to get around on that knee of yours, aren’t you?”
Christmas Melody: a romance for the holidays Page 7
