by Jc Emery
SEE WHAT UR MAN IS DOING.
THAT’S NOT U, IS IT?
ENJOY THE SHOW? I AM.
GAME ON, LULU. U STRUCK 1ST. I LIT THE MATCH. - L
My blood runs cold at the last message, but I try to act cool. The last thing Mel needs is to know how freaked out I am. Lulu is something personal that I’ve kept between us. Unless she’s told someone, I can’t think of anyone capable of this level of cruelty who knows I call her that.
The final message came in this afternoon and appears to be what caused her flipping out. I just don’t know why she didn’t tell someone. She should have called the cops. She should have called me.
“Is there anything else that’s happened recently? Anything even remotely strange?”
She’s silent, but she lifts her head and meets my eyes. Her mascara has mostly worn off from all the crying, and her lower lip trembles. I can’t help myself. I reach out and drag my thumb down her lip and cup her cheek.
“Tell me, baby.”
“Mom ordered my dress for the Heroes in Action ball, and when it came in, it had a note attached to it, which is very unlike the shop owner to do. It said “Welcome home, Lulu,” and it smelled like gasoline. Mom contacted the shop, and they knew nothing about the note. Then the pictures started coming in. Two days ago I went digging in my purse for my wallet and found a bunch of broken match sticks in the bottom of it.”
“Is that everything?” I’m trained to keep a level head in scary situations. I’ve been with the fire department since I was twenty-one years old and was raised by a man whose life slogan is “keep calm,” but this scares the shit out of me. Depending on the origins of a fire and any chemicals or materials it comes in contact with, it can go from small and manageable to an all-out multi-alarm blazer in a matter of moments. But I know how to handle a fire. I have the equipment and a team backing me that’s trained to identify a fire’s weakness and how best to take it down.
This shit?
Someone fucking with my girl?
I have no idea how to handle this or to make it stop, and it pisses me the fuck off that I feel like a failure who can’t keep her safe.
“I think so. I don’t know,” she says. “You could always ask her.”
“Listen to me,” I say quietly and get as close as I can while still keeping her eyes on me. “I don’t think Lydia did this. I know her well enough to know this wasn’t her. I wish I thought it was, because a jealous ex causing trouble isn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things.”
“If it isn’t Lydia, then who is it? Who would do this to me?” she asks. Her eyes well with tears. I brush them away and hold her close to me, doing the only thing I can do in this moment to try to comfort her.
Chapter 16
Melanie
“My toes are gorgeous,” Janet says with a big smile on her face. I peek over at her feet and admire the peach polish she’s chosen.
“I love spa day,” my mom says with a content sigh. “Though I wish we could have made an actual day out of it.” Her pointed glare isn’t something I miss. But I’m distracted by her disapproval of my day’s plans and nearly miss the smirk on Royal’s face. She’s sitting across from me in a massaging spa chair with a glass of orange juice in her hand.
She raises the glass to her lips as she says, “Next time, I say we leave the spoilsport at home.”
Claire raises her glass of champagne from beside me and says, “Hear, hear!”
“Oh, leave the girl alone,” Janet says. She leans over and twirls a strand of my hair affectionately. She does this a lot, and I still don’t know what it’s about, but it makes me feel wanted and loved. And I love her, so I don’t really care why she does it. I open my mouth to thank her, for defending me but then she finishes her thought. “She’s sorting out which one of my sons is going to father her children. She needs time with them both.”
It’s no use arguing with her. While Royal’s on shift later and is drinking orange juice, my mother and sister have been drinking champagne. Janet brought her own whiskey and only asked the salon to supply the glass. Royal was embarrassed for half a second, until I decided that a spa day between the Kincaid and the Hayes women required hard liquor. I’ve had two glasses, but dear Janet’s had at least four.
“Mom, you’re getting weird,” Royal says and covers her face with her hands.
“No, no, let’s discuss,” my mother says gleefully. Claire and Royal slink down in their chairs and don’t meet anyone’s eyes. I hate that Bailey and Rae both had to work today. They’re mature enough to defend me from our mothers. At least that’s what I’ve spent the last hour telling myself.
I lean over with my glass and point at the emptiness of it, then crook my finger and raise my eyebrows.
“For a socialite, you sure know how to put away the whiskey,” Janet says slyly. I don’t tell her how I never really drank whiskey until I met Jameson.
“Speaking of whiskey,” I say and give Royal a bright smile, “what’s with the whiskey names?” I know they were all named after types of whiskey, but aside from the fact that it appears to be the family’s favorite drink, I don’t know why. Naming your children after booze seems a bit weird, even now. She fills my glass with twice the amount of whiskey than she did the first two times.
“About time you asked,” she says. “I met Roy when I wasn’t even in my second trimester yet. I was working as a barback—”
“Wait, what?” I lean in and take a sip. It barely burns. Jeez, how often do I drink this stuff now? It used to be that I’d take a small sip and it would make me sick. This isn’t Jameson, and it’s not Hennessey. I don’t ask her what brand this is, because if I tell her I know which brands it’s not, she’s going to make a joke about sampling the available merchandise. Plus, I have far more interesting things to tend to—like how Janet was apparently pregnant when she met Roy.
“Oh yes,” she says in a guffaw. “Bailey is not Roy’s biological daughter. But it’s not something he cares to be reminded of.”
“Holy crap.”
“I’ll give you that. It’s a holy crap situation. But anyway, Roy and I fell in love so quickly and so fiercely. It was all consuming. I already knew I was pregnant—a story I’ll gladly tell you about when it’s more relevant—and I told him. I knew this big, tough firefighter with a smart mouth and a great backside would run. I kind of wanted him to. But he didn’t. He said he wanted to marry me, and so we got married. It was the late seventies, so it wasn’t as bad to be pregnant and unmarried as it would have been in my mother’s time, but it wasn’t ideal.
“Well, I’d like to say that I protested and tried to spare him the burden, but the truth is that I wanted Roy Hayes all to myself. So we got married and moved in with his mother—now that woman was a character—and from the day we married, he never told anyone that my baby wasn’t his. Well, his mother figured it out, and that was fun for a little while, but you’ve met our girl. Once she was born, it was impossible not to fall in love with her.
“She didn’t have a name for several hours. Connie, Roy’s mom, and I went through dozens of names. The boys at the firehouse wanted to celebrate and dragged Roy out drinking with them. When he returned, I asked what he’d been drinking. He just kept saying, “Bailey,” again and again until the little baby in my arms looked like a Bailey. I guess you could say a tradition was born. Whatever Roy got smashed on when our kids were born is what we named them.”
I sit and listen to her story in awe.
“Imagine the name I could have had,” Royal says. Claire and Mom break into a fit of giggles while Janet easily ignores the teasing.
“Mellie,” Mom says with a relaxed smile. She taps her freshly painted nails on the arm of her chair and adjusts herself. “Cancel with the boys, will you?”
“You wouldn’t like it if I canceled on you last minute. You raised me with better manners.”
“Sheesh. She grows up and thinks she knows everything.”
“Are you sure?” Claire
asks. Her eyes are filled with sadness, and she’s going to the place I really don’t want her to go—the place she can’t go. She can’t go to that place because I can’t go to that place. Not with the ladies in my life, at least. It’s different with the men. They’re all about protecting me and making sure I’m safe. They don’t ask how I’m feeling, only if I’m okay. They don’t push when I don’t feel like talking about it, where the women want to know every bit about how scared I am.
“Positive,” I say and look to Royal for help. She’s better than the rest of them, but even she makes comments about how she would feel if it were her who was being harassed for no apparent reason. There’s a reason, I’m sure. There must be a reason. Of course there’s a reason. Just not one that Detective Capriotti or the rest of us can figure out. After I’d freaked out on Lydia—and I still maintain I had every right to blame her—Jameson took me to the police station where we filled out a report. The detective was kind enough, but he seemed to have bigger problems than ours.
“Another beer?” I ask. I shift on my bar stool and wait for Hennessey’s answer. Since Jameson is on shift right now, he elected Hennessey to keep an eye on me. He’s enacted some kind of martial law and convinced everybody that I can’t be left to my own devices. Not that I want to be left alone. If Jameson isn’t with me, then one of his brothers or Royal are. He even got Claire in on it, but I’m usually with one of the boys. One night he had his dad walk me home, and another afternoon my dad got a car to pick me up from an early shift. These security measures made Detective Capriotti happy. Not that he seems like a man who is happy often. I couldn’t figure it out, but for some reason the good detective and the Hayes boys seem to have underlying issues.
“You still haven’t given me an answer,” he says imploringly. I signal to the bartender for two more beers, just assuming he wants another one. I’m stalling. “Melanie . . .”
“To what?” I ask. He hasn’t asked me anything lately, but I know damn well what he’s talking about. I’m just buying myself a few seconds’ time to formulate a fair response.
“I asked you out.” His voice is firm, and he’s staring at me expectantly. “But I’m getting the impression that you’re avoiding giving me an answer.”
“Perceptive,” I say with a nod. “I like you. You’re a good friend.”
He nods with a stern jaw and focused eyes. The bartender, Ernie, brings two fresh bottles and sets them in front of us. It’s enough of a distraction to keep his mouth busy as he takes a drink. I blow out a breath and decide it’s better to be totally honest than to half-ass it and risk hurting his feelings even more than I already am.
“But I love your brother.” Crap. I said that aloud. Jeez. I didn’t think it would feel so weighty and important once I said it aloud, but it does.
“Saw that coming,” he says with a discontented laugh.
“Do you really think you have feelings for me?” I ask, because I doubt that he does.
“You’re really asking me that?”
“Yeah, I mean, you’re always telling me about the last girl you hooked up with and getting my opinion on whether or not you should ask them out again. I just think if you genuinely liked me, you wouldn’t do that stuff.”
“The truth?” he says.
I elbow him in the side and laugh. “Absolutely.”
“I don’t like to lose to Jay. Yeah, I like you but it’s mostly like . . . you somehow encourage me to be a better person. Like fucking around all the time with women I don’t even know isn’t always going to be enough.”
“I represent a stability that you seek but have yet to figure out how to obtain. Makes sense.”
“Okay, Dr. Mel, did you decide to go to medical school when I wasn’t looking?”
I shrug my shoulders. I don’t know that I will, but it’s an idea. I was leaning more toward social work, but therapy pays better, and I know plenty of people who have serious issues and too much money to spend. I just don’t know if I could make a career out of listening to other people’s problems.
A group of guys who look beat and are wearing their house’s shirt walk in and meet Hennessey’s eye. They must have just gotten off shift. Hennessey gives them a nod and raises his beer.
“Go talk to your buddies,” I say and wave him off. He gives me a guilty smile. I cut him off before he can ask if I’m sure, because I am. I don’t really want to keep talking about Hennessey’s fake feelings.
“Okay, I’ll just be across the bar.”
“I’m not going to run off, Dad.”
“Ouch. But listen, maybe you can help me figure out how to be a better guy?”
“I can put you through a ‘Don’t Be a Douche’ camp if you want,” I say with a contemplative smile. His eyes slide across the bar and fall on the new bartender, a curvy woman with black hair wearing a short-sleeved black mock turtleneck. His eyes soften, and it’s in this moment that I realize there’s a motivating factor in Hennessey’s sudden desire to not be a womanizer. I don’t even know her name, but I’m determined to now that I know she matters to him.
I clear my throat and catch his attention. His eyes widen just slightly before a flirty smile slides across his lips and he says, “Shut up, Kincaid.” He walks over to his buddies at a table in the corner and starts chatting. I turn my attention back to the female bartender. I wait until the Ernie isn’t paying attention and then call her over.
“Hi, I’m Mel,” I say in my friendliest voice. I’m being a creeper, but I don’t care. I just have to meet the woman Hennessey wants to change for. She nods her head.
“What can I get you, Mel?”
“Your name, perhaps?” I’m feeling a little shyer than a moment ago. Most people respond in kind when you offer up your name. But not this woman. No, she squints her eyes for a second before smoothing her face out and forcing a polite smile to her face.
“Dani,” she says. “What do you need?”
“Nothing, just wanted to introduce myself.” She starts to walk away, and I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart,” she says with a confident smirk on her face. It falters for half a second, telling me she’s not as practiced at this confidence thing as she’d like for me to believe. When she realizes her coat of armor has faded slightly, she stands a little more upright and with her chin sticking out a little more. It’s like she’s trying to prove herself, but to who, I don’t know. Maybe herself.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I stutter and watch in embarrassment as she walks away. Over the next few minutes, the crowd gets heavier in the bar, and there’s not a single seat available. I’m tempted to go join Hennessey with his friends, but I’m not up for being the token vagina at the table. Grown men have a way of making a chick feel awkward when she’s by herself. Either they want to create an obvious distinction between me and them, or they try to make me feel like one of the boys. It never ends well when you’re too unfamiliar with someone to just be freaking normal around them.
A cardboard disposable coaster that the bar uses slides toward me from down the bar top. It stops right in front of me, hitting my untouched beer bottle. I stare at it intently for a moment, wondering what the hell it’s doing here. It occurs to me a little too late to look around for who may have sent it my way. A chill runs down my spine before I decide I’m just being dramatic, and I lift it up to read it. It’s your standard one-time use coaster with PORT OF CALL on one side along with the bar’s address and phone number. I flip it over to see if it’s the same deal on the back and freeze at the sight of the familiar print in black marker. It says LEAVE, LULU. OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.
I hold the coaster in my hands for several minutes before making a decision. I could live in fear, or I could fight back the only way I know how—by rebelling. Leave or I’ll regret what? What are they going to do? Send me more pictures of Jameson with random women. That hurts, but it’s not lethal, and if anything, it
’s forcing Jameson to own up to his actions. Everything the person has done so far has been unpleasant and creepy, but barring the day I freaked out on Lydia, it’s not so bad that it’s something I can’t deal with. Signaling to Dani, I ask for a glass of water and summon the courage to do the only thing I can to express my disapproval of this little game this sick asshole is playing.
She brings me the glass, and I give her a quick thanks. Half the crowd that was surrounding me has moved to the back where the pool table and darts are at. I catch sight of Hennessey and decide I’ll tell him about this in a minute. It’s just—I don’t think the police can do anything about this crap. At least that’s what Detective Capriotti said—that we’d have to have stronger evidence of wrongdoing before the DA will prosecute. But I can’t act like a sitting duck for the rest of my life. Plus, we don’t know that this person is even dangerous. It’s all so up in the air right now.
I situate my feet on the bottom rung of my barstool and stand with the water glass in one hand and the coaster in the other. I hold both in front of me at eye level and slowly dunk the coaster into the water. I look around the bar, seeing if anybody responds, and I say loud enough for the people within a few feet of me to hear, “Game on.”
I sit back down, and it’s not another minute before Hennessey’s at my side. He checks out the water glass and asks me what I just did as he fishes the coaster out of the water. I turn on my barstool to explain and apologize, because what I just did was extremely stupid. All confidence and bit of bravery I had is now gone.
