The girl presented a definitive and dramatic thumbs-down.
“I will not stand for this insult,” Melody said, staggering back when Vance hit her in the stomach with a brutal throw.
“Hey!” Beat growled at his friend. “Watch it.”
Vance gulped.
Beat strongly considered turning on his friend, but Melody demanded his attention when she shouted, “I’m coming for you, Dawkins.” Once again, she produced an artillery of snowballs seemingly out of thin air, cradling them in her arm as she ran toward him, firing as she came closer. They’d already established that Beat couldn’t bring himself to throw anything at Melody, giving him no choice but to jog backward, deflecting the balls being launched at him. One by one, white burst in the air as the snowballs connected with his palms. When there was finally a cease-fire and Beat realized she’d run out of ammunition, he watched in disbelief as she barreled toward him, launched herself through the air, and tackled him backward into a snowdrift.
Melody, who just about reached his shoulder, had brought him down. And pure joy almost fractured his chest muscles. Tendons stretched to allow the feeling to expand and it didn’t merely spread, it ran wild, rocketing a laugh upward from the deepest recesses of his stomach, busting down a sky-high barrier—a barrier against feeling this much happiness all at once—he’d put in place without even realizing it. There was no keeping her out, though. She kicked it down and hurled herself over the debris and he could barely breathe over the rush of . . . everything. All at once.
Relief. Shock. Gratitude.
Love.
The avalanche of emotion was so overwhelming that it took Beat a moment to realize Melody had lifted her head to watch him in awe. “Ohhh . . .” she breathed.
“What?”
“You’re letting me see it, Beat,” she whispered.
He started to breathe hard, more tendons snapping in his chest.
“You’re so beautiful like this. Not hiding anything from me. From yourself.”
Despite being lodged in a snowbank, he was hot. Everywhere. His skin prickled and heated more and more. What the hell was happening inside of him? He didn’t know. But he couldn’t look away from her unblinking eyes. She was the anchor holding him in place. Hiding wasn’t an option. Not from Melody.
“Mel, I want to tell you everything tonight,” he said gruffly. “Why I need the network’s money. Why I needed to do this god-awful live stream. All of it. Okay?” He wet his lips, desperate to get the rest out. “Maybe I needed two days away from you to realize . . . you’re this gift I’ve been given and I’m squandering you by keeping things to myself. You’re the one person who will get it. Get me. Every time.”
“Beat,” she murmured, a sheen forming in her eyes, her mouth lowering to his—
“Hey, guys. I hate to interrupt.” Beat jolted, wrapping his arms around Melody on instinct, tucking her face into his neck. Jesus Christ. There was the camera, pointing straight at them from ten yards away. Vance stepped into the shot, possibly on purpose, with Savelina at his side. “There are people coming. Like, a lot of people.”
Savelina shot a look toward the edge of the park. “They must have figured out your location pretty quickly, thanks to the live stream.”
“But fear not.” Vance waggled his eyebrows. “We have an idea.”
Beat watched as both groups of friends, nerds and preppies alike, moved in a big herd and blocked them from view of the camera. Meanwhile, Vance and Savelina hurriedly removed their outerwear. “Quick,” said Melody’s boss. “Swap jackets and hats with us. We’ll lead them one direction, you guys run in the other.”
Melody pushed up into a sitting position but remained on Beat’s lap. “Really?”
“Hurry,” Vance prompted. “I have to pee.”
Savelina giggled, throwing her orange beanie at Melody, shouldering off her black parka. “We have to hang out again,” she said to Vance.
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“What else? Watching these two pretend they wouldn’t die for each other.”
“Oooh. Viewing party?”
“I’ll bring sangria.”
“We can hear you guys,” Melody murmured, casting Beat a fleeting sidelong glance.
He took her chin before she could look away, holding her stare, smoothing his thumb across her plush bottom lip. “I’m not pretending,” he said firmly. “You know that, right?”
A shudder coursed through Melody. She nodded.
“Good,” Beat said, releasing her chin to unzip his coat.
The clothing trade took under a minute. Beat put on Vance’s jacket, though it was a tight fit, and donned his flannel ski cap. Melody pulled Savelina’s orange beanie down low over her ears and buttoned up the black parka. It was going to be a tough sell that Vance and Savelina were Melody and Beat, but maybe from a distance?
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.”