Wreck the Halls(80)
Didn’t matter. He would have taken any odds in the hopes of being alone with Melody right now. Tonight. Something inside of him had changed and he didn’t know what it meant for him. For them. He only knew Melody would be there while he figured it out—and that made everything okay.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Melody took Beat’s borrowed jacket and hung it on her coatrack, studying his face as he saw her apartment for the first time. Having him there didn’t feel real. Especially after running six blocks in disguise to ditch two pissed-off producers and avoid a mob of people who knew way too much about them. The direction in which Melody’s life was headed remained unclear, but she was allowing herself to settle into this state of limbo. The unknown.
It wasn’t scary when her best friend was beside her.
Right. Best friend.
She could still feel his fingers clasping her chin. I’m not pretending. You know that, right?
He’d been referring to the implication that they would die for each other.
These were big feelings, big declarations. Big things happening under the title of friendship that she wasn’t sure belonged there. Or maybe she and Beat had their own category of relationship that wasn’t discovered yet. Was that arrogant? Maybe. She was really leaning into the whole jock vibe, apparently.
“It’s exactly what I pictured,” Beat said. Was his voice deeper than usual?
“Which is to say . . .”
He hummed while choosing how to respond, his steps carrying him into the living area. “Everywhere I look, there’s something that feels like you. That string of yellow yarn holding back the curtain. Colorful ceramics, but simple white flowers. The fuzzy sock sticking out from between those couch cushions, your nightshirt on the coffee table.” He ran his index finger along the back of the piece of furniture in question and cast her a sidelong look. “You fall asleep on this couch a lot, Mel?”
She was still watching that sensual finger where it dragged side to side on the leather. Her leather. Up and back on the seam. “Every night, actually. I finally gave in and bought a huge couch. It takes up too much space, but it doubles as a bed.”
“I fall asleep on the couch every night, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He was using his thumb on the cushion seam now, raking it up. Down. “The attic at Trina’s house was the first time I’ve fallen asleep in a bed in years.”
Words spoken so casually about the night they’d had sex were like a velvet punch to the belly, followed by a long, slow twist. “Imagine that.”
Beat’s thumb dug into the cushion hard. “I do, Peach. All the time.”
The air was growing thicker by the second, Melody’s pulse traveling lower, lower, to a dangerous region of her body. It would be so easy to pretend she hadn’t set a boundary between them in New Hampshire. But she had and she would be doing herself a disservice by ignoring it. “Beat . . .”
“Something feels different tonight, Mel. Different from in the attic or any time before.” A line ticked in his cheek, his gaze more intense than she’d ever seen it. “I have no right to ask. You can tell me to fuck off right now, but . . . I want a lot more than friendship with you.”
Was the ground moving or was that her imagination? “What changed between now and then?” she managed, barely able to hear over the pounding of her heart.
“I don’t know exactly.” Beat swallowed. “I can’t stop thinking of the way you looked at me, back in the park. When you tackled me,” he added wryly, before sliding toward serious again. “Maybe I’ll never be unguarded like that with my friends. With anyone. But I loved being that way with you. Just . . . open. Exposed. There’s no judgment. No guilt. And I think that’s because you’re the good part of me I’ve been missing. You’re the one who gets me. I just want you to have all of me.” His chest lifted, plummeted, lifted again. “God knows I want all of you.”
Heat seared the backs of Melody’s eyelids. There was a monotone ring in her ears, the kind she imagined would hit her during a flight-or-fight ultimatum. This man standing in front of her held half her heart in his hands. She’d given it over the first time they met—and he was completely and utterly worthy of it. He was. But she had to protect the half still in her possession. The one she’d healed through years of therapy and self-acceptance.
“We’ll take it slow,” she whispered.
He made a gruff sound, his grip tightening on the back of the couch. “Thank you.”
Oh God, she needed to do something with her hands. She was going to stretch and twist the hem of her turtleneck to the point of no return. They wanted very much to reach for Beat, stroke the whisker growth on his cheeks, warm the wind-reddened skin of his neck, reacquaint themselves with the dips and swells of his pecs and abdomen. But they would move too fast if she did that. The next time she touched him, she didn’t want to feel rushed. She needed to know it was right.
“Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“I can make us sandwiches.” Melody waited a moment, then brought up the subject that had been riding on her shoulders since the snowball fight. “We can eat while you tell me why you need the Applause Network’s money.”
Beat was already nodding, as if he’d expected her to go there. Yet she couldn’t help but notice the way his expression became momentarily hollow. “Yes.”