His Melody

by Nicole Green

  “He didn’t come home last night,” Avery said in an apologetic tone when Melody sat down for her last breakfast with Avery, Donnie, and Leigh Anne. “He called Mom early this morning and sent me a text. Said he’d see us at the shop.” She made a sour face. “I tell you, that brother of mine is a complete fool.”

  “I didn’t really expect him to be here.” She’d hoped he would be, though. She forced a smile and poured herself a glass of orange juice. “It’s fine.”

  “No it’s not,” Leigh Anne said, shaking her head. “I apologize for my heathen son’s poor behavior.”

  “It’s okay, really. You don’t have to do that,” Melody said, but they were wooden words on a wooden tongue. Everything felt so unreal that morning. It seemed almost impossible that just two nights ago, she and Austin had shared a bed and more passion than she’d ever shared with anyone.

  “Did you have fun at your going away party last night at least?” Avery asked.

  “Yes, thanks,” Melody said automatically because it was the polite thing to say. And because it had been so nice of them to throw her the party. It wasn’t their fault that she couldn’t be anything but miserable. He’d told her he would come back with her. She’d been so close to having him take the trip back to Atlanta with her. Now, she was about to take that long drive all alone with plenty of time to think about how much she missed him.

  Screw the showcase, screw New Face. Screw it all. All she wanted was him.

  Leigh Anne gave her a sympathetic smile, patted the back of her hand, and passed her the pancakes and butter. Leigh Anne had made all Melody’s favorites for breakfast that morning. At least she had plenty of comfort food if she couldn’t have Austin.

  “I can’t believe that fool,” Donnie grumbled.

  “This isn’t anybody’s fault,” Melody said. She didn’t want everything she’d tried to do while in Sweet Neck to be a failure. She hadn’t brought Donnie and Austin back together just so that she could be the one to tear them apart again.

  “Sure it is,” Donnie said.

  Avery gave him an elbow to the side and a meaningful look. Donnie muttered under his breath and piled his plate up with eggs and bacon, but didn’t say anything else about Austin.

  After breakfast, they all walked her outside and hugged her goodbye. Leigh Anne had gotten her address and promised to write and maybe even visit one day. Melody looked at her shabby red car and took a deep breath.

  Austin had driven the car to the house Monday evening, but Melody hadn’t bothered to drive it herself yet. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of being close to the thing that would take her away from Sweet Neck forever—the same thing that had brought her there in the first place. Finally, Melody slid into the car and turned the engine over for the first time since the day she’d discovered Sweet Neck. The car started right up. It sounded better than it ever had since she’d bought it from those crooks at the so-called Used Car Shopping Mall. She smiled faintly. Austin did good work.

  Smiling sadly, she pulled out of the driveway, waving to Leigh Anne, Donnie, and Avery in the rearview mirror. She hated leaving this way, but she had no choice. Austin should have been leaving with her, but he’d made his choice, and that choice didn’t include her. She needed to get used to that fact. And maybe if he was going to go jumping to conclusions and not let her explain, she was better off.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Austin slid from under a car when he heard his brother and sister enter the garage.

  “Austin, you’re an idiot.” That was his brother’s greeting to him.

  Austin slid back under the car. He watched his brother’s feet coming toward it.

  “You can hide underneath there all you want, but you know it’s true.” Donnie laughed. “Just like you to hide behind your work, huh?”

  “She lied to me,” was all Austin said without sliding from under the car. He was already having a hard enough time trying to forget about her. He didn’t need Donnie mouthing off and making it worse. Unfortunately, those were Donnie’s two greatest talents.

  “You didn’t even hear her out, man.”

  Austin slid from under the car again and stood. “Isn’t this what you wanted? You kept telling me to stay away from her. Well, I’m far way from her now.” He didn’t even want to think about how many miles there were between Sweet Neck and Atlanta. And how many of them Melody had covered by then.

  “At first,” Donnie admitted. “Yes, at first before I saw how good you two were for each other. You were different when she was here. And it don’t take a genius to see that she’s something special.”

  Choosing not to take the easy shot at his brother even though Donnie had practically handed the ammo to him, he said, “That’s what I thought, too, but she’s no different.” He thought back to his days in New York and his agent. Bianca. He’d thought he was more than dollar signs to her once, too. He’d been wrong about that, and it’d cost him more than anything ever should have. He wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

  He’d told Melody about New York, too. It was something he didn’t share with many people. Dammit, she knew everything and she’d still gone and done what she did. That proved she didn’t care. That she was no better than those slimy creatures he’d known in New York. She was just better at hiding it.

  “You don’t know what she was saying to that man on the phone,” Donnie said. “Her boss or whatever,” Donnie said.

  “Neither do you.” Austin snorted. “What, you think she can’t lie?” She’d lied to him more times than enough. “I heard her end of the conversation. I know all I need to know.”

  “You jumped to conclusions like you always do. You’ve always been hotheaded. You got the nose to prove that.” Donnie pointed to Austin’s nose.

  He touched his nose where it was slightly crooked. He’d gotten in a fight with some members of the rival team at the homecoming football game one year because they kept at him. Then they started in on his girl. The guys on the other team had gotten the worst of it, though.

  “Think about it,” Donnie said. “Think about all she did for you that she didn’t have to do. Do you really think she did all of that just to trick you into working for her?” He shook his head sadly. “How full of yourself are you?” He started to walk away, and then he turned around and said, “Did you ever stop to think that it was because she cared about you? That maybe, just maybe, she was trying to do this for you as much as for herself? If not more than for herself?”

  Austin stared at his brother for a moment. Then he turned to Avery who gave him a disappointed look before heading over to a minivan that needed an oil change and a state inspection.

  Austin turned on his heel and headed for his office. He threw the overhead light switch and looked around. The office was cleaner than it’d been in years. Damn, who was he trying to fool? It looked great. He could actually move around in there. Thanks to Melody. Everywhere he looked, he saw her.

  He sat down behind his desk with a sigh, put his elbows on the wooden surface, and steepled his fingers together.

  If things had been different, he’d be on his way to Atlanta with her right now. Had she passed Glennville yet, where he took her to the open mic night? What was she thinking about? Maybe the fact that he could’ve gotten her job back for her, and he hadn’t. If she was thinking about that, could he really blame her?

  You expect too much from people. That’s your biggest problem, bro. That was what Avery said to him sometimes when talking about Donnie. Austin stood and went over to the safe, which was built into the wall next to the bookcase in the office. He spun out the combination, opened the door, and reached in and grabbed the envelope labeled simply, “Austin” in the shaky handwriting that had been his dad’s near the end.

  Shutting the safe, he went back to the desk. He sat down again and put the envelope on the desk. Smoothing his hand over the surface of it, he thought about the man who’d written the letter. Both of them had made mistakes, but that man still had it in his
heart to write this letter.

  His father had never talked much. The letter reflected his spare use of words. It consisted of three short paragraphs. It basically said that everyone makes mistakes, and it’s how we choose to pay for them that matters. It also said that he wanted the shop to do for Austin and his brother what their dad had never been able to. All he wanted was for his family’s wounds to heal and for everyone to be close again like they had been when the boys and Avery were younger.

  Folding up the letter, he stuck it back in the envelope and carried it out to the garage bay in which Donnie was working. He stood next to his brother who was bent over under the hood of a 1975 Chevy Scottsdale. That old truck had seen better days, but the owner would never give up on her. Whenever he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her himself, he brought her to the shop.

  Donnie looked up. “What is it?” He wiped at the sweat on his forehead with the shoulder of his coveralls.

  Austin held up the envelope. “I’ve been thinking about it, and…Dad would’ve wanted me to let you read this.”

  “Really?” Donnie looked at him as if he thought this might be a trick.

  “Yeah.”

  Donnie stared at the envelope for a moment before saying, “Give me a minute to wash up a bit.”

  Donnie went to the back of the shop, and when he returned with clean hands and without his coveralls, Austin handed him the envelope. He went into the office with it and closed the door behind him. Avery wandered over to Austin.

  “What was that about?” Avery asked, her dark blue eyes filled with concern.

  “I guess you’re right. Maybe I do expect too much of people sometimes,” Austin said. “He’s reading the letter Dad left for me.”

  Avery clapped him on the back. “Well. Maybe your head ain’t completely full of rocks after all.”

  He laughed. “Only half?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, maybe about half.”

  Later, when Donnie walked out of the office, he grabbed Austin’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said, looking his brother in the eye. He handed him the envelope. “You’re all right, I guess. For the most part.”

  “For the most part?” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’ll take it.” Austin tucked the envelope in the inside pocket of his coveralls.

  “Yeah,” said Donnie. “For the most part. You’re still hardheaded as the devil, bro. You know it’s true.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Everybody back to work,” Austin said. “These cars ain’t gonna fix themselves while we stand around gabbing all day.” He went back to the car he’d been under earlier that morning when Avery and Donnie walked in. He stared down at it for a moment and glanced back at the office.

  He shook his head as if that would help him clear out all thoughts of her, crouched down before laying on his back on the creeper, and backed himself under the car again.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling, however, that he’d made a huge mistake. Possibly the biggest one he’d ever made in his life. And that was saying a lot.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Austin spent the next day moping around the house. He’d sent his brother and sister to the shop without him. He couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was her. All he could think about was the way her skin had felt under his—the softness of it. The taste of her lips. Why couldn’t he get her out of his system? A woman hadn’t had an effect like this on him since…Isadora.

  When Leigh Anne came downstairs, he was on the couch in the same sweats and T-shirt he’d slept in, staring at the television.

  “Well, you came home last night,” Leigh Anne said. “I guess that’s an improvement.” She put herself between him and the television. When he tried to look around her, she grabbed the remote from its spot beside him on the couch and turned it off.

  She put her hands on her hips and said, “Son, you know I love you, and anything I say comes with the guarantee of the best of my intentions.”

  He nodded.

  “Right now, you are being the biggest fool I have ever seen you be. And I have seen you do some quite foolish things. Do you know what you’re doing?”

  He knew, despite the pause, he wasn’t supposed to try and answer that.

  “You are blaming other people’s mistakes on that poor woman. You are making her pay the price for the scrapes you’ve gotten into because of other people’s stupid choices, including your own.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, maybe she’s better off without me whatever the reason is that she’s without me,” Austin said.

  “If you can’t get it through your thick head that people make mistakes, and that’s life, and we have to move on and learn when to take the good with the bad and when to let go, you’re right,” his mom said.

  “She lied to me.” Even as he said the words, they sounded stupid and hollow to him. Like a very weak excuse made by a man who would rather undergo a root canal than admit he’d been in the wrong.

  “I don’t want to hear that foolishness, boy.” Leigh Anne said sternly. “Even if she did, and I’m not saying I believe she did, maybe she did it for you. For your own good.”

  “Hmph,” Austin said.

  “You’re trying to pin this all on her, but the truth is, you’re afraid, Austin.”

  “Afraid?” He snorted. “Of what?”

  “Leaving Sweet Neck again.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I go to Glennville all the time.”

  “You know what I mean.” She tapped her foot impatiently and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “No, I don’t.” He sank back into the couch.

  Her expression softened. “I know you’ve been through a lot. I was there for a lot of it, remember? But you can’t use that as an excuse to hide in Sweet Neck forever.”

  “And what am I hiding from?”

  “You’re hiding from what you really want and who you truly are. From the person who left here for New York at the ripe young age of eighteen. Now, sure, you went about it the wrong way back then, and you’ve paid the price and learned better how to handle things the next time around. And that next time has come around. You’ve grown up a lot. You dream big—or at least you used to—and that’s not a bad thing at all. Don’t be afraid of the life you really want to live.”

  “I’m living the life I want. The life I was meant to live.”

  “The life you think you were meant to live. Your father wanted to bring you back to your family, not trap you here forever. And he wanted to share something with you that meant a lot to him. Both of those things can be accomplished without you sacrificing your happiness, you know.”

  “But I am happy,” he insisted.

  “Sure, Austin. You go to that garage and you come back here just about every day. Most days, that’s all you do besides work out, eat, and sleep. You’re not even thirty quite yet. That’s not a life for anyone—especially someone your age.” She walked over to him. “But when Melody was here, you were a different man. A happier one.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she gave her head a firm shake, indicating she didn’t want to hear it. He knew better than to argue with that particular headshake.

  She patted his shoulder. “Just think about it. For once in your life, try not to be so impulsive and quick to jump to conclusions. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re this miserable without her, you should at least give her a chance to explain. Right?” She walked out of the living room, leaving him alone with his dark thoughts to stare at the blank television screen.

  When Donnie and Avery got home, he heard all three of them talking.

  “He’s just been laying there all day,” Leigh Anne said. “I think he’s taken up permanent residence on that couch.”

  “It’s just as well,” said Avery. “He was just about useless at the shop yesterday.”

  “Poor fool,” Donnie said. “I don’t think he even knows what he’s doing to himself.”

  Dinner smelled heavenly as always—especially the gravy—but Austin couldn’t be b
othered to lift himself from the couch. He didn’t think he’d be able to eat anyway. He rolled over and buried his face in the couch cushions.

  It was Thursday. The showcase was two days away. She hadn’t even tried to call him. Maybe she’d called Mom. Mom hadn’t said anything if she had. Why would she try to call him? He guessed there was no reason to. He’d made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk to her ever again on Tuesday evening.

  He flipped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. She was under his skin forever. There was no way of changing that. He should’ve never touched her, never kissed her, never held her. He couldn’t quite say he regretted it though. Every moment with her had been worth it.

  He glanced toward the kitchen. Were they right? Was he doing it to himself? No matter the reason she was gone, it was better to cut his losses. Whether or not she lied, whether she thought she cared about him or not, eventually it would’ve fallen apart. It was better to let go. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, getting involved with her.

  And saying he’d go back to Atlanta—why had he done that? He acted like he’d gotten temporary amnesia or something. There was a reason he didn’t get tangled up in relationships anymore. A very good reason. Really, more than one.

  The phone rang. His mother picked it up.

  “Oh, hi Melody darlin’! You’re home?”

  He clenched his teeth. Just knowing she was on the other end of Mom’s phone conversation hurt. Austin flopped onto his stomach and buried his face in a throw pillow.

  “Oh, I see,” Mom said. “Well, I guess that’s true. Yes, dear.” She talked for a while longer before passing the phone around to Donnie and Avery.

  Austin slunk up the stairs, passed the bathroom even though he sorely needed a shower, and went straight to his room. Shutting his eyes, he passed out.

  He didn’t know how long he slept, but he woke up to Regan’s pounding at the door and loud voice.

  “Come in,” he called out hoarsely, sitting up.

  She stood in the doorway and shook her head in disappointment. “You fool.”