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Melanie taught her morning classes on Friday on autopilot. She and Logan had their phone escapade on Tuesday night and he’d said he would be home in two days.
It had been three.
Three long days of nothing.
No texts, no calls, no FaceTime.
But most of all...no orgasms.
She’d made a pact with herself that if Logan was going to be home in two days, she would abstain from self-gratification.
Easy right?
Yeah, not so much.
Not touching herself when thoughts of Logan swam inside her head as soon as her head hit the pillow was harder than one might think.
Her hands itched to take the path that his would take when they were together. But she’d held off.
And for two days, it hadn’t been so hard. But now it had been three. And she was about to combust.
“Oh look,” she heard Carly say next to her, “someone is wearing that glassy expression again.”
Mel punched her in the arm. “Shut up.” They were walking down the corridor to the office. Both had just finished teaching their last classes of the day.
“I’ve been silently waiting for you to be ready to tell me what is going on with you.”
Mel stopped walking, putting her hands on her hips. “Silently waiting? Really? So that wasn’t you who hounded me this whole week?”
Carly also stopped walking and turned around to face her. “I wouldn’t have to hound you if you would let me in on your life.”
“There’s nothing to let you in on.” She lifted her hands in the air.
Carly looked around and moved closer to her. “So you screaming yes, yes, yes the other night is just nothing?”
Melanie felt her cheeks burn. “You heard that?”
Carly rolled her eyes. “My room is right next to yours.”
Mel hung her head, covering her face with both her hands. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said and it came out muffled since her hands were over her mouth.
“Anything that makes you scream yes, yes, yes like that is not something to be embarrassed about.”
Melanie removed her hands from her face. “I had phone sex. With Logan.”
“Since I’m super smart, I pretty much figured that out. But want I want to know is what happened between getting drunk on Sunday because you hated him, to having phone sex – and oh my God, can people quit having sex with my cousins.”
Melanie laughed. “Let’s go to the office. If I have to tell this, I might as well tell Leah, too.”
They found Leah at her desk doing what she was always doing. Paperwork.
“How you can sit there and stare at numbers, I will never know,” Mel said.
“It’s a sickness,” she answered.
“Stop whatever it is you are doing and pay attention. Mel is finally ready to talk.”
Leah turned, her face covered with shock. “It’s about damn time. Listening to Carly whine about not knowing was seriously starting to get to me.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” she said.
“If it wasn’t that big a deal, you would have talked to us before now,” Leah said.
“Okay enough talking about it. Just tell us already,” Carly said.
Melanie sat, figuring that might be a better idea. “Sunday night after I got home, Logan FaceTimed me.”
“He did?” Carly asked.
“Yeah and we talked. About a lot of things.”
“You and him things?” Leah asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. Without making a big thing about it, he ended up telling me that he has always had feelings for me but he was just now realizing them. And that he wants me to wait for him.”
“No shit,” Carly said. “So what about Tuesday?”
“I’m getting to that.” She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. “We had phone sex.”
“That’s not news,” Carly said. “How the hell did it happen?”
“How does phone sex ever happen? It just does.”
“I’ve never had phone sex, so cut me some slack.”
Leah and Mel both looked at Carly. “I find that hard to believe,” Leah said.
“Cause I have so many men lined up to have phone sex with me,” Carly said sarcastically.
“You could have men lined up if you’d stop turning them away,” Mel said.
She waved a hand in front of her face. “We can deal with my lack of sex next but right now I want to hear about you.”
Mel shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. We had phone sex.”
“Did he talk dirty?” Leah asked. “I bet Logan knows his way around dirty talk.”
Melanie was not a shy person but right then she wanted to crawl into a dark corner.
“OMG!” Carly shouted. “Does Bran talk dirty? And what is wrong with me? I don’t want to know that. Why would I ask that?” She was practically in hysterics.
Leah looked at Mel. “Since she doesn’t want to know, I’ll tell you. Yes, Brandon talks dirty, Really, really dirty. Wanna know something else? I like it. A lot.”
Hearing Leah say that, helped her to not feel like such a slut. “So did I.”
“So he did talk dirty!” Carly screamed.
“I thought you didn’t want to know?” Leah said.
“I don’t, I just...” she got quiet and her voice got softer. “Mel, I just want you to be okay. Ya know?”
Mel nodded. “I do know and thank you for worrying about me. But with Logan or without Logan, I’m gonna be alright.”
“Can we get back to the phone sex?” Leah asked, arms crossed and leaning back in her chair.
“What else is there to say?”
“What happened after?” Carly said.
“That’s where I’m confused. He said he’d be home in two days. It’s been three. And not only is he not home but he hasn’t contacted me either.”
“Hmm,” Leah said. “That does seem odd, but maybe something came up?”
“I guess. But don’t you think he would have at least texted to let me know?”
“Have you tried contacting him?” Carly asked.
She shook her head side-to-side. “I don’t want to be that girl.”
“What girl?”
“The girl who can’t let the guy live his life, the one who’s always nagging.”
“Oh fuck that,” Carly said. “He’s the one who didn’t come home when he said he would.”
“Why don’t I have Brandon text him tonight and see what is going on?” Leah said.
“Or better yet,” Carly grabbed her phone, “I will text him right now.”
Mel tried to grab the phone from her. “Don’t say I told you to text.” Mel felt like she was back in high school.
“Like I would do that.” She was texting away.
“What did you say?” Carly tilted the phone so that she and Leah could read what she’d written.
Carly:
Are you ever coming home?
“That’s about what Brandon would have said,” Leah told her.
They were all quiet while they waited for his reply. Just when Mel was ready to go home and say fuck it, Carly’s phone dinged.
Logan:
I got home yesterday
The three of them looked around at each other.
“He’s home?” Melanie said. “Why wouldn’t he have told me?”
Neither girl said anything but Carly typed out another text.
Carly:
Why didn’t you tell anyone?
His response was immediate.
Logan:
My life is nobody else’s business.
Carly stood. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“Not if I kill him first,” Mel said. Her anger from the day he’d left was back. Why had he done a complete one-eighty? Sunday and Tuesday, he was so kind and likable. But right now, based on his text, he was back to being a jackass.
Melanie was done. She couldn’t live her life like this. One minute thinking they were going to be together and the next, him being standoffish and rude.
“Maybe we all need to take a deep breath,” Leah said. “It’s possible it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“How could it not be as bad as it looks? He’s in town and didn’t call me.”
“What are you going to do?” Carly asked.
“Nothing. I’m going to do nothing. If he doesn’t want to see me then he doesn’t have to see me.”
Leah touched her hand. “Are you sure? It’s not like you to not want to give him hell.”
“I can’t beg him to love me. And in my mind, him being home for a day and not contacting me is his way of saying he doesn’t.”
She grabbed her bag and stood. “I’m heading home.”
She took about three steps and then turned back to her friends. “Don’t shut him out just because he’s a dick to me. He needs people.”
Acting strong in front of her friends was one thing but forcing herself to drive home instead of to Logan’s house was another thing entirely.
She wanted to know what his problem was, wanted him to explain himself. Yet at the same time she wanted to never see him again.
Loving Logan Graham was possibly the worst mistake she had ever made.
Back at home, she shed her dance clothes and went to grab a shirt to sleep in. Except when she did, it was the shirt she always slept in. Logan’s old tee. Telling herself she didn’t need him or his shirt, she fell into bed naked.
After three days of not sleeping, her body listened to her head and fell right to sleep.
––––––––
A noise from somewhere in the house woke her up. She glanced at the clock and noticed that it was almost three and then she heard the noise again.
Almost like someone was climbing the stairs.
After being knocked unconscious when she’d walked in on Leah’s crazy stalker months ago, her mind automatically went on high alert. She grabbed the baseball bat that she’d started keeping next to her bed and stood up.
She had taken one step, when her bedroom door opened.
“Don’t move!” she yelled, wielding the bat over her left shoulder.
“Mel it’s me,” she heard the voice say.
“Logan?” she squinted and finally her eyes came into focus. “What the fuck?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“At three o’clock in the fucking morning?” She dropped the bat and that’s when it hit her that she was standing there completely naked.
She reached out for her comforter but then heard Logan say, “Don’t.”
She wasn’t sure why that made her stop or why she would even listen to him.
“You’re so beautiful.” He didn’t move from where he was standing, instead he just stared at her.
Hands at her sides, she asked the question that she knew made her sound like a clingy girl. “Why didn’t you call?”
His eyes moved up and met hers in the darkness. “I wanted to call, had to force myself not to, actually.”
“Why would you force yourself not to? I thought we were on the same page.”
“The page changed.” He shook his head. “No, it’s more like someone ripped the page out of the fucking book and tore into little pieces.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m no good for you anymore.”
The way he said anymore, triggered something in her head. Needing some leverage she grabbed the shirt that she’d dropped on the floor when she’d gone to bed. Wearing his shirt was better than being naked when she needed to get to the bottom of this.
“Anymore?” she asked once she’d pulled the shirt over her head.
“You deserve someone who has a career, who has goals.”
For the first time since he’d opened her door, she got a good look at him. “Are you drunk?” His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was disheveled. Plus, now that she was breathing normally, she smelled alcohol.
“I’ve been drunk for five days and it’s still not enough.”
Having no clue what he was talking about, she walked by him saying, “Follow me and I will make you some coffee.”
He grabbed her arm. “I don’t want coffee?”
She pried his fingers off her arm, his touch setting fire to her insides. “Yeah, well, coffee is all I am offering.”
She made him coffee while he sat at the kitchen table. When it was done, she took hers and his and joined him.
“Drink this and tell me what is going on?” Before all this. Before he had any feelings for her. She had been his friend. And right now it seemed like he needed that more than he needed a girlfriend.
“I had a plan and it was a really great plan. It was going to set me up for life to do what I love but to not travel all the time. To live here in Cedarville. With you. But everything changed in an instant and now my plan is fucked.”
She was clueless as to what his plan was so she asked, “Tell me about this plan?”
He took a sip of his coffee. “I met with a gallery owner this week?”
“You did?” Mel knew how much taking photos meant to Logan and how sick he was of always photographing models. A gallery would mean he could choose his subjects.
“Missy was her name. And she seemed nice. It was all going great, until it wasn’t.”
“Tell me.” She reached across the table and touched his hand.
“She came on to me. Asked me back to her place.”
Warning bells went off in her head and she pulled her hand back from his almost as if his touch caused her pain. Was this why he hadn’t called? Had he slept with this ‘Missy’ woman?
He kept going, not seeming to notice the change in her. “I told her I had a girlfriend, that I wasn’t interested in her.”
Okay that was good. Maybe.
“But she wouldn’t take no for an answer and said if I wanted the contract, I’d do it.”
And that’s when she knew what had happened. Logan would never take that kind of ultimatum. It wasn’t his style.
“So I walked away.”
His eyes held hers. “Oh, Logan, I am so sorry. But there are other galleries.”
“There aren’t,” he said. “She’s already contacted them all and basically blackballed me. Nobody wants to work with me now.”
Her anger boiled up and over. “Are you fucking kidding me? She offers sex for a contract and you are the one who gets blackballed.” She stood because sitting was too tame for her emotions.
“It’s how the business works.”
“There has to be something you can do?”
He dropped both his hands flat on the table with a loud thud. “What do you think I have been doing for the last three days. There’s nothing. Nobody will touch me.”
She started to say something but then heard a noise. She turned when she saw Carly coming down the stairs. “What the hell is going on down here?” She looked from her to Logan. “And why are you doing it at three in the morning?”
“Sorry, Carls,” Mel said.
“I just stopped by to talk to Melanie,” Logan put in.
“Could you maybe talk a little quieter? I need my beauty sleep.”
Logan nodded and Carly started up the stairs, but before she got too far, she turned and mouthed the words ‘Are you okay?’ to Mel. Mel nodded twice and turned her attention back to Logan.
Taking a deep breath she asked. “I get why you are angry and drunk but what I don’t get is why any of this means we can’t be together?”
“Have you not been listening? I don’t have a job. No one will hire me.”
She bit her bottom lip. “So you’ll work here in Cedarville like you have been?”
“And that’s enough for you? Saying that your boyfriend is a family photographer in a small town?”
She understood pride. Got what he was saying. But that didn’t mean she agreed with it. “Is it enough for you to say that your girlfriend is a dance teacher?”
“I don’t care about that, plus you own the damn studio.”
“So let me get this straight, you don’t care what I do but I’m supposed to care what you do? Do I look like a fucking snob?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He dropped his head on the table.
Going to him, she sat down and rubbed her hand over the back of his head. “You’re tired and drunk, Logan and I’m emotionally spent. Maybe we should go to bed and then we can talk about this more tomorrow.”
He lifted his head, making her hand fall to the table. Picking it up in his own, he asked, “Can I stay with you?”
She knew he was asking if he could stay in her bed, but she wasn’t ready for that. Yet. They might have had phone sex, but right now they had a lot to talk about before she jumped into real sex. Even if her body was telling her otherwise.
“I’ll make up the couch.”
The eagerness she had seen in his eyes just seconds before disappeared, replaced with acceptance.
Moving to grab blankets and a pillow she made a pact with herself.
She would not give up on Logan even if it meant that he would never belong to her.