by Holly Martin
‘So you weren’t the least bit annoyed with me?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘You moved the bread basket.’
Had he? He remembered now that he had. ‘So?’
‘Because you didn’t want me to embarrass you by knocking it off the table again,’ Melody said.
‘No!’ Christ, this was getting worse.
‘This is my life, Jamie, disaster follows me everywhere. You really want to put up with that shit?’
‘I’m not putting up with anything. Why can’t you see what I see?’
She started pacing around the room. ‘Everything has gone wrong since we started dating.’
He couldn’t believe how this conversation was unfolding. ‘How can you say that? It’s been the best week of my life.’
‘I’ve poisoned you, we got caught kissing on the beach by the police and then the whole town heard we were having outdoor sex. We got trapped in a cave, I spilt beans on toast on you, I set fire to you, I’ve fallen face down in a sandcastle, I’ve spilt an entire drink over me.’
‘And we’ve held hands and kissed and made love. We’ve laughed and talked and made plans for the future,’ Jamie said.
‘Maybe we are better off just being friends, it would probably be safer for you,’ Melody said as if she hadn’t heard any of that, as if none of that mattered to her. ‘That’s what you wanted anyway. You told Klaus that we had a friends with benefits arrangement.’
‘No, wait, I never said that.’
‘Just friends with sex. Was that all it was to you?’
‘Of course it wasn’t!’ he exploded. ‘How could you even think that?’
‘You kept referring to it as a “sort-of” relationship, or that we were “sort-of” dating.’
‘That was… You were the one that said you wanted to be friends that date. I didn’t really know what label you wanted to attach to what we had after that. I didn’t want to get the wrong one.’
Christ, he really was rubbish with women. For once, why couldn’t he say the right thing?
‘You were never looking for a relationship and I forced you into that.’
‘You never forced me into anything. Why are you being like this?’
Her voice broke when she spoke. ‘I can’t be with someone who is disappointed in me.’
‘I’ve never been disappointed in you. Your little calamities and accidents have never pissed me off. You’re putting all that on me and that isn’t the case at all. You’re just trying to protect yourself and I get that, I really do, but you don’t need to protect yourself from me.’
‘You’ll get tired of it; everyone’s patience wears thin eventually. You know why my last relationship ended? I dropped his laptop. That was it, the final straw. Admittedly, this was after weeks of accidents and clumsiness that he’d had to put up with, but the laptop was obviously worth more to him than I was. When I left home, I spent years telling myself that I didn’t need people’s approval. This was me and I was happy with who I was, but just like that my worth was reduced to nothing.’
‘But you haven’t resolved those issues at all. You just avoid talking to your mum who makes you feel bad about yourself every time you see her. Avoidance is not dealing with it. Until you talk to your mum and face it head on, it’s never going to go away.’
‘Says the person who has avoided any kind of relationship for years because you’re scared of getting hurt,’ Melody said.
He pushed his hand through his hair. She had him there.
Anger suddenly bubbled over in him. He was losing her and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
‘You’re looking for perfection and I can never give you that,’ Jamie said. ‘I will always say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and I can’t change that. You’ve read so many of these romance stories and now you expect the fairy tale. This week has been incredible but if you insist on only seeing the negative then there’s nothing I can do.’
‘I don’t want you to change, I don’t want perfection.’
‘You want the perfect date, the perfect relationship. You picked the wrong guy for that,’ Jamie said.
‘I don’t want that.’ Melody was close to tears. ‘I’m scared I’ll drive you away. Your face in the restaurant—’
‘You want to know what got me so angry? Bloody Polly Lucas laughed at you when you spilt your drink. My anger was at her, not at you. But if you think so little of me, if you think I could possibly walk away from you because of a little clumsiness, then maybe we should call it a day now.’
He stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind him. He moved quickly onto the beach and stared at the sea, the waves rolling in and crashing on the shore.
What the hell had he just done?
Melody stared at the closed door in horror. She moved to the sofa, sat down and let her head fall in her hands. Rocky immediately came over to her, obviously sensing that she was upset. He pushed his nose into her hands and wagged his tail. She sank to the floor, put her arms round his shoulders and cried into his fur. Rocky just stood there and let her do it.
What was wrong with her?
It all seemed so hopeless all of a sudden. How the hell were they supposed to get past this?
She thought back over the evening. Had she overreacted? She still felt angry with Jamie, angry with bloody Polly Lucas. She had every right to be upset. He had spent the whole time in the restaurant staring at another woman. Who would be OK with that? Why hadn’t he explained why he was so distracted? Although, to be fair to him, he had said he wanted to leave and she’d said no. Was he still hung up over his ex? There must be some underlying feelings for him to get so upset about seeing her again. Had he been looking at Melody and thinking that he would never feel for her what he’d felt for Polly Lucas?
She groaned, because in reality she was more angry at herself. This fear that she wasn’t good enough had ruined everything.
It had all been going so well between them. Granted, every date so far had been a bit of a disaster but none of that seemed to matter to Jamie. He enjoyed being with her despite all of that. But that hadn’t helped to push away her fears. He was right, those worries that she wasn’t enough, brought about by her dad leaving and exacerbated by years of living with her mum’s negativity, were never going to go away. Not unless she faced up to them. Right from the very first date she had been fearful of losing him, of driving him away, and in the end that fear had pushed him away anyway.
Why would he want to put up with that crap?
Maybe he didn’t.
He’d said before that if he loved someone he would never walk away from them. But tonight he had walked away from her, so was that really it between them? Was it really over?
She stood up. She had vowed she was never letting him go. It might be over but she was going to at least try to fight for him. She had no idea what she could say to him to make this right, but she was going to give it a go.
She grabbed her keys and quickly left the house.
Jamie sat down on the beach, propping himself up against an upturned boat that had been dragged up onto the sand. The argument was still ringing in his ears.
He was an ass, he knew that. Melody had every right to be mad at him. He had been on a date with her and he had spent the night staring at another woman. What was she supposed to think? Shit, he shouldn’t have told her Polly was laughing at her. She’d be hurt by that. He’d rather she stayed angry at him than hurt her like that. Bloody Polly Lucas. He’d let her ruin his life for too many years to count and now he’d let her ruin what he had with the woman he loved too.
But he was angry at Melody too. She had pushed him away. He had let fear enter their relationship, letting it stop him from telling Melody how he felt for her, but she had let fear break them completely. Maybe she didn’t love him at all if she could push him away so easily. How could she doubt what they had after the week they had spent together? When they had made love, did she not feel what he felt; had
she not experienced that connection between them?
He stood and threw a stone in the water, causing silvery ripples to dance across the waves.
He wasn’t sure there was any way past this now.
He looked back towards Melody’s house, then turned and walked away.
Melody banged on Jamie’s door and heard the dogs going mad inside. The lights were on so she knew he was in. She could even hear music playing – it sounded like a radio was on, playing some cheesy love music.
She heard a noise behind her and turned to see that Dobby had come from the back garden to find out who was at the door. He didn’t seem too perturbed to see her as, after an idle glance her way, he carried on pecking at the garden.
There was no answer from inside so she banged on the door again. She had no idea what she was going to say to Jamie but she knew she had to say something. She had to try.
She saw the curtain twitch in the lounge window. It was pulled back a few inches and then let go. Jamie had clearly seen who was at the door. She waited but to her surprise he still didn’t come to answer it.
He didn’t want to speak to her.
She stared at the closed door in shock, emotion clawing at her throat.
Anger suddenly filled her and she banged on the door again. ‘Jamie Jackson, you open this door right now, do you hear me. We need to talk about this. This is not over. I’m not letting you go.’
There was still no response.
The lump in her throat got bigger, the pain in her chest hurting even more than it had when he’d left her house. Tears filled her eyes. She pressed her head against the door and cried.
‘Please, open the door. I’m so sorry, for everything. I love you. Please.’
She heard shuffling behind the door but it still didn’t open. And then the light went off.
Tears falling down her cheeks, she turned and walked away.
22
Melody knocked on Isla’s door the next day after having spent most of the night in tears. She knew she needed to fix this thing with Jamie, but she didn’t know how. If he wouldn’t speak to her, there was no way to make this better.
Leo opened the door holding a laughing Elliot on his hip. They were both topless and soaking wet and, judging by the water pistols they both held, they were apparently in the middle of a water fight.
She smiled weakly, for Elliot’s benefit, but clearly it wasn’t enough for Leo, whose face fell as soon as he saw her.
‘What’s wrong?’ Leo said.
‘Nothing.’ Melody waved it away.
‘You look like you’ve been crying,’ Elliot said, insightfully. ‘You need to have a hug from Leo.’
Melody smirked despite everything.
‘My hugging services are freely available,’ Leo said, opening one arm.
‘Thanks, but I’d rather have a hug from my favourite nephew,’ Melody said, and Elliot immediately held out his arms so she could hold him.
She scooped him into her arms and held him tight as Leo stepped back to let her in. Elliot was soaking wet but a hug from him always made her feel better, albeit temporarily.
‘Isla’s in the bath,’ Leo said, awkwardly, obviously out of his depth in dealing with an emotional woman.
Melody plonked Elliot down on the kitchen top and he ruffled Melody’s hair affectionately, which was obviously something that Isla and Leo did to him. She couldn’t say anything to Leo while Elliot was there but maybe just being around her nephew for a little while would be enough to ease the pain.
‘Elliot, why don’t you go and get your magic show ready? Choose your top ten favourite tricks and then you can show Melody how brilliant you are,’ Leo said.
‘Yes!’ Elliot said, hopping down from the counter, excitedly. ‘You are going to be amazed.’
He ran off, his feet thundering on the stairs as he went up to his bedroom.
‘Coffee, tea, something stronger?’ Leo said, indicating she should follow him into the kitchen.
‘Tea is fine, thank you,’ Melody said.
Leo started making three cups of tea, probably hoping Isla would be down shortly to help him out.
‘Want to tell me what happened?’ he said.
And although she hadn’t planned on talking about this with Leo, she couldn’t stop the tears forming in her eyes again as she thought about what a mess she’d made of everything.
Leo turned round and saw her crying and immediately stepped forward and hugged her.
‘Come on, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fixable,’ Leo said, holding her tight. ‘Have you and Jamie had a row?’
‘We broke up,’ Melody sniffled.
‘No, I don’t believe that for one second. He is crazy about you. This is a blip, nothing more.’
‘I pushed him away,’ Melody said against his chest.
‘So that’s it? I don’t think so. Jamie is not going to walk away from this because of a silly row.’
Melody pulled back from him and saw Isla had come down. She was watching them with a look of complete love for Leo on her face. Isla moved over to hug Melody, and then pulled her down to sit at the dining table with her as Leo continued making the teas.
‘What happened?’ Isla said gently.
‘I don’t know. Everything was going great. I mean, our dates weren’t exactly smooth running, I bloody poisoned him on our first one and I set fire to him a few days ago, but he didn’t seem to care about any of our little disasters. Then last night we went out to a restaurant and he saw his ex, Polly, and—’
Leo groaned as he carried three mugs over to the table. ‘She’s a nasty piece of work, that one. She broke him.’
To her surprise, Leo sat down to join them instead of escaping the drama.
‘Because she dumped him?’ Melody asked.
‘Because he told her he loved her and she burst out laughing, right in his face.’
Melody had no words at all. She suddenly remembered what Agatha had said, that Polly had told everyone that he was only good for sex. No wonder Jamie had held back from relationships for so long, that kind of experience would be enough to put anyone off love for life. How could you ever risk your heart again after it had been damaged so badly? It must have been so humiliating for him.
‘Oh god, poor Jamie,’ Melody said quietly.
‘I imagine he wasn’t too thrilled to see her again,’ Leo said.
‘No, he kept staring over at her. I could tell how unhappy he was, but I didn’t know why. He never told me who she was until we were back at my house. I started to think he was unhappy with me. I spilt a drink over myself and apparently she laughed at me,’ Melody said, sadly. ‘He was so angry and I thought…’
‘That he was angry at you,’ Isla finished for her.
She nodded.
‘Oh honey, of course you would think that. Years of being exposed to Mum’s negativity and Dad didn’t really have the patience for your clumsiness either. Seeing Jamie react in seemingly the same way, that has to hurt.’
‘But he was angry at her, not me. I put my fears on him, that wasn’t fair.’
‘And he should have explained what was going through his head too, not left you in the dark,’ Leo said. ‘We all have baggage, we get scared and we push the people we love away before we can get hurt. But you’re only scared because this means so much to you. Jamie will be back, because you mean as much to him as he does to you.’
Melody shook her head. ‘I went round to see him last night after we had argued and he refused to answer the door. The lights were on, and the radio was playing, and I saw the curtain move when he looked to see who was at the door. But when I banged on the door and shouted at him to answer it, he simply switched off the lights and went off upstairs to bed.’
‘That doesn’t sound like him,’ Leo said.
There was a knock on the door, just as Elliot came rushing back in, wearing his top hat and carrying a box.
Leo got up to answer it as Elliot laid out his things on the table.
&
nbsp; Tori and Aidan came into the kitchen and Tori rushed over to Melody as soon as she saw her.
‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. We went to your house and you weren’t there and so we thought we’d try here. Are you OK? Did you and Jamie have a row?’
‘Yes, why? Have you seen him?’
‘Yes, on Sunshine Beach, outside your house. He’s waiting for you. He asked us to find you and to tell you to meet him on the beach. He’s tried calling you but you’re not picking up.’
Melody grabbed her bag, but it was quite clear her phone wasn’t in there. She must have left it at home.
‘What does he want, did he say?’ Melody asked, nervously.
‘He looks awful, he hasn’t slept all night, he’s been down at the studio finishing off his sculpture for the competition,’ Aidan said.
Melody thought about this. He was down at the studio all night, not at home?
‘Melody, he has placed his sculpture for the competition on the beach,’ Tori said.
‘But he said he wasn’t going to submit one this year.’
‘Well obviously he changed his mind. You need to see it.’
‘You’ve seen it?’
‘It’s not covered,’ Tori said.
‘But all the sculptures are supposed to be covered until tonight.’ Why was she focussing on that? ‘What is it?’
Tori shook her head. ‘It’s incredible, but you need to see it yourself.’
Melody stood up and saw Elliot look up at her. Immediately she sat back down again.
‘I need to see Elliot’s magic show first, I’ve really been looking forward to seeing it.’
As much as she loved her nephew, she hoped to god that this magic show was quick.
To her surprise, Elliot shook his head. ‘It’s OK, Melody, you need to go and find Jamie. If he’s as upset as you are, he probably needs a hug from Leo too. But I bet he would prefer a hug from you more.’