“What’s that grin for?” Wendy demands. “I’m not sure I like that you two have inside jokes that I’m not privy to.”
“We stayed at a roadside trucker motel in a little town in Illinois,” Melissa tells her.
“No way!”
In the mirror, I watch Wendy’s eyes open comically wide.
“Yep,” Melissa replies. “It was our only option. The heavy snow hit us real fast, and the only hotel at the next exit was a trucker motel. And we were lucky, because they only had one … room … left.”
I can tell by the way she paused that she didn’t mean to let that information slip about the room.
“Hold. The. Phone,” Wendy says. “You two shared a room?”
“We kind of had to,” Melissa explains. “I wasn’t about to make Bobby sleep in the car during a blizzard.”
“Please tell me there was only one bed,” Wendy says.“Please.”
Randall chuckles beside me. “That would make her little romance-book-loving heart so happy.”
“Hey,” she retorts. “I have abigromance-book-loving heart. Get it right.”
“Sorry, dear,” Randall says in a sing-song voice.
“Whatever.” She reaches forward and flicks the back of his head. “Anyway, how many beds?”
“Two,” Melissa says.
“Darn it.”
I laugh at Wendy’s response, and then I wonder if Melissa will tell them the rest of the story.
She doesn’t.
After a few seconds of silence, Wendy asks, “So what did you do … in your trucker motel room … all alone …togetherrrrr?”She drags out the final word.
Melissa says, “Watched TV for a while. Then we were going to play cards, but the power went out, so we went to bed.”
“Did you tell each other secrets in the dark?” Wendy asks. “Please tell me you did.” I know without looking that her hands are clasped together under her chin.
My body tenses as I wait to see how Melissa will respond.
“Maybe we did. Maybe we didn’t,” Melissa replies.
“I’ll get it out of you, you know,” Wendy says. “Bobby, you’re awfully quiet up there.”
“Leave him alone, babe,” Randall orders.
“Melissa’s doing just fine telling you the story,” I say.
Wendy harrumphs. “She’s not telling me much of anything. I want all the details.” When neither Melissa nor I say anything else, she says in a sly voice, “Shannon seemed to be happy to see you, Melissa.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. I know what Wendy’s trying to do, and unfortunately it’s working. I shouldn’t be jealous of Shannon. As I told his dad, I have no claim on Melissa. But the man looks like a swimsuit model with none of the arrogance of one. He’s charm personified, but not in a creepy way. Everybody likes him, and I mean everybody—both women and men. Irrationally, that makes me want to hate him. But I can’t. So instead I’ll apparently just be jealous.
I glance in the mirror at Melissa, who, interestingly enough, is glaring at Wendy.
“Yes, it was good to see him again,” Melissa says to Wendy in a terse tone. “Now, what did you all get up to last night? I doubt you were able to have any fun without Bobby, since he’s always the life of the party.”
Randall laughs as I stifle a smile at the knowledge that Melissa brought the conversation away from Shannon and back around to me. I shouldn’t be as happy about that as I am. Melissa deserves better than me, with all the baggage and history I bring. She belongs with someone like Shannon—someone her age who can give her the fairytale. I’m well past being able to give that to anyone.
