“So what the hell happened?” Jacob asked.
They gave him a much condensed story about what had happened to Nikki while she was alone in New Orleans and Gabe’s ordeal with the cage fighter.
“So that dickhead is just gonna walk?” Jacob said.
“With a slight limp, thanks to Gabe,” Melanie said. She traced his bruised jaw gently.
“A very slight limp,” Gabe said.
“I’ll try to get Nikki to press charges,” Melanie said. “Even if he doesn’t go to jail, maybe it will damage his reputation.”
“Is she strong enough to go through that?” Gabe asked.
“Probably not,” Melanie said. “But I’ll work with her. She listens to me.” Melanie laughed. “Okay, that’s a lie. But she wants to please me, so maybe she’ll listen this time.”
“I think she needs professional help. A good psychiatrist.”
“She has one,” Melanie said, “but she insists she likes my therapy better. Nevertheless, I’ll make her an appointment when we get back to Wichita.”
Gabe stroked her tangled hair, and she gazed up at him with weary hazel eyes. This woman was every sort of wonderful, and he had a chance to make her his. He wouldn’t mess it up.
“Do you want to accompany me and Nikki on our girls’ day out?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Perhaps he’d been a bit hasty. He did get to spend the entire day with Melanie, checking out the local flavor and stealing kisses, touches, and glances from the woman who had stolen his heart. He had to steal moments with Melanie because Nikki never left the woman’s side. Melanie offered him apologetic smiles, but he understood why she indulged Nikki’s every whim that day. Even if it did put a damper on their limited time together. By the time the trio headed to the arena so Gabe could prepare for the concert that evening, he was exhausted. Exhausted from lack of sleep and exhausted from keeping up with two women with a credit card. He left them on the tour bus, eyeing his bunk with weary longing, but went to do his sound check. Maybe he could catch a nap afterwards. And maybe, just maybe, Melanie would join him. Without Nikki.
“Hey, man.” An employee of the arena stopped him as he walked down one of the echoing hallways. “You’re that guy from last night.”
“Huh?”
“Aren’t you the one who tried to beat up Dick Bailey for hurting your sister?”
Sometimes he wished he was less recognizable. Now everyone would know he got his ass kicked by a douche bag. “She wasn’t my sister,” Gabe said. “Just a friend.”
“Some of the other fighters heard what you accused him of and beat the ever-loving shit out of that guy.”
“They did?”
“Yeah.”
“I would have liked to have seen that.” Since he’d mostly been seeing stars.
“You taking him on like that was pretty badass,” the guy said.
“Badass or stupid?”
“Badass,” the guy assured him. “Everyone is talking about it.”
Gabe didn’t feel badass, but he’d take his accolades when he could get them. “Thanks.”
A slight smile on his face, Gabe headed to the stage to beat on something that never hit back.
After sound check, Gabe paused at the top of the tour bus steps, smiling at the obvious closeness between the two friends. Nikki sat on the kitchen counter with Melanie standing between her legs. Melanie’s arms were wrapped loosely around Nikki’s waist, and Nikki’s arms were resting on Melanie’s shoulders, her hands linked together behind Melanie’s head.
“We had fun today, didn’t we?” Nikki said, looking positively giddy with happiness.
“Yeah.” Melanie chuckled. “I think we melted my credit card with all that swiping, but it was fun.”
“Mel?”
“Yeah, hon?”
“I love you,” Nikki gushed. “I don’t think you’ll ever realize how much.”
“I love you too.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
Eyes closed, Nikki leaned forward and kissed Melanie. Not a peck on the cheek. Not a friendly brush of her lips on Melanie’s. A deep, open-mouthed, let-me-introduce-your-tonsils-to-my-tongue, sexually charged kiss.
Suddenly light-headed, Gabe stumbled backwards down the stairs, catching the handrail at the last minute. It was the only thing that saved his ass from meeting the pavement.
Regaining his footing, he stood outside the bus, thinking he should be angry, that he should be livid that Melanie had been hiding her romantic entanglement with Nikki from him. But he mostly felt a hollow ache in his chest and unbelievably stupid for not believing the signs. He’d recognized them—and they’d haunted him while he’d lain awake the night before—but he hadn’t believed them.
Apparently he should have trusted his gut.
Friends didn’t have the kind of dependent relationship that Nikki and Melanie shared. No simple friend would put up with Nikki’s drama for as long as Melanie had, not unless she had deep, romantic feelings for her. Roommates didn’t sleep in the same bed, cuddled together like lovers. People with platonic relationships didn’t kiss the way he’d just seen the two of them kiss.
Jesus, no wonder Nikki had kept trying to talk Gabe into a threesome. The two women probably picked up guys and did it all the time. He was just the latest dupe.
Melanie had played him for a complete fool.
And she had actually made him fall in love with her. The fucking bitch.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Melanie pulled away from Nikki’s kiss and stared at her in astonishment.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I told you,” Nikki said, her big blue eyes suddenly flooded with tears. “I love you, Mel. I love you. You said you love me too.”
“Nikki,” Melanie said. “Honey, you’re confused. You’re not attracted to me. We’re just friends.”
Nikki dropped her chin to her chest and whimpered like a wounded animal. “But you must love me, Mel. You’re the only one I care about who has never hurt me. The only one.”
Melanie swallowed the lump in her throat, knowing she was going to have to hurt Nikki now, when she was at her most vulnerable. Melanie was not interested in a romantic relationship with Nikki, and she didn’t know if there was a way to salvage their friendship with this on the table. She should have recognized the signs. She’d honestly thought that when Nikki made sexual advances toward her—and she’d been making them more and more frequently—that she’d just been playing around. It had never occurred to her that her best friend—a woman—could be sexually attracted to her. She was having a hard time processing that reality.
“Do you remember why we became friends?” Melanie asked her.
Nikki sniffed. “You mean when we were little?” she said in a tiny voice.
“Yeah. We met in the park. You were sitting under a bush, sobbing. Remember?”
Nikki swallowed and nodded. Melanie lifted a hand to brush Nikki’s hair back, but thought better of it. She clenched her hand into a loose fist and dropped it to her side. Melanie did love Nikki as more than a friend. She loved her like the little sister she’d never had. Someone to take care of. To defend. To cherish.
“I went over to see what was wrong and you had this huge bruise on your face,” Melanie said.
“My stepfather was an abusive son of a bitch.”
“But that wasn’t why you were crying. Do you remember why you were crying?”
Nikki nodded again. “I had found a beautiful blue butterfly. I held it so gently and stroked its velvety wings. And it died right there in my hand.”
“We spent the rest of that summer chasing live butterflies in the park.”