Page 45 of So Much More
“I figured. You tell her what you did?”
“Yeah, but you only know half of what I did.”
He gives me an assessing look. “What else did you do?”
I tell him about missing breakfast with her sister and then about my brief interaction with Wendy.
Bobby lets out a long whistle. “You’re going to be lucky if she ever looks at you again, much less wants to date you.”
“That’s real helpful.”
He shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”
I hang my head. “I don’t know. I guess I keep hoping somebody will give me at least a tiny kernel of hope that I didn’t completely blow this whole thing up with her when it had barely started.”
“Well, you did blow it up, but you two were friends before this, right?”
I nod. “Which makes it worse.”
He’s quiet for a minute before saying, “I’m not sure that’s true. It might make her more likely to try to work this out.”
I tilt my head to look at him. “What makes you say that?”
“I think she’ll eventually realize this is out of character for you. She’ll understand it was a mistake. Add in the fact that her friend is dating your brother and how awkward it’ll be for everyone if you two don’t make up, then maybe there’s a chance.”
“You think?”
“I saidmaybe. But you’re going to have to work for it. Since Wendy won’t talk to you yet, the first thing you can do to try to fix this is to find out the sister’s last name so you can leave her a message at her hotel.”
eighteen
“Before I tell you what he did,” I say to Melissa once I’m curled up on her couch, “I want to thank you again for doing this for me. I know it might be weird for you, because you haven’t made a secret of the fact that you’re interested in Randall.”
Melissa grew up with Ash and Randall, and she recently reconnected with them when she moved back to Chicago after going to college and working in New York City for several years. She has also become good friends with Leslie, and I’ve spent some time with her as well.
“I’m not interested in him anymore,” Melissa says. “When I was at dinner with him, Ash, and Leslie last week, I could tell he wasn’t into me, and I decided I should move on. And now that I know you two are together, that seals the deal for me. You’re my friend, and I don’t try to steal men from my friends.” She grimaces. “Not that I have a habit of stealing men from anyone, mind you.”
I nod. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you there was something between me and him. I should have, because that’s what a good friend would have done, but we didn’t tell anyone until a few days ago. In fact, he and I didn’t even acknowledge what was happening between us until then.”
“You’re forgiven,” she says. “Now, tell me what he did to you so I’ll know exactly why I’ll be yelling at him later.”
I laugh at her statement but then quickly sober up when I remember what I’m about to tell her. “I might as well start at the very beginning,” I say, “so you’ll understand the full impact of what he did.”
When I’m finished, she asks, “Can I hug you? Or will that make you wish things were okay andhewas the one with his arms around you?”
“Please hug me,” I say. “I can’t let him ruin hugging for me, too.”
Melissa takes a seat next to me and wraps her arms around me. I sink against her and rest my head on her shoulder as we sit in silence for a minute.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I finally ask her.
“What do you want to do? Do you want to know the details? Do you want to try to work things out?”
“I want to know the details for sure. At the moment, I don’t want to try to work things out. I want to yell at him and then forget I ever met him.”
“You sure about that?”
I sigh. “No. Well, I’m sure about knowing the details. Not about the other.”
