TEN
Mellie opened the door to let Amy in, arms full of bags.
“Give me those.” She peeked inside. “You’re a good friend.”
Amy licked her lips. “Only the most delicious breakup food for my bestie. Cotton candy, giant Pixy Stix.”
“Perfect for cutting off the plastic ends and drinking…”
“Chocolate milk,” Amy finished for her.
“Tell me you have chocolate milk in there.”
Her friend grinned. “And lots more chocolate.”
Mellie unloaded the bags, spreading the booty out on the counter.
“You didn’t think I’d forget the trashy magazines, did you?” Amy held a stack of all the latest gossip rags and laughed. “I have lots of experience. We’ll get you through this breakup, no problem.”
She fanned the magazines out on the coffee table. “Now, tell me everything, and don’t leave anything out.”
“First I need a shower.” Mellie fingered the waistband of sweatpants that at one time had been navy but were now more of a faded bluish gray.
“I like the t-shirt.” Amy pointed. “Did I just roll my eyes out loud? It’s perfect.”
It was one of Mellie’s favorites. Though she’d been wearing the same thing for the past three days, and, with a discreet sniff, wrinkled her nose. Definitely a shower.
Amy was a good enough friend not to say anything, but Mellie needed to at least change.
“Go on, Mellie. Get a shower. I brought my comfy clothes too. I’ll change while you shower.”
Mellie poured a big glass of chocolate milk and took it with her to the bathroom. By the time she was clean and dressed in leggings and another t-shirt, this one proclaiming, My book boyfriend is better than your real boyfriend, Amy had straightened up the living room and was surfing through the channels, her hair in an old scrunchie, wearing a pair of shorts and a tee with a picture of Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy.
“Much better.” Mellie sighed as they clinked glasses, and she told Amy all about being dumped via social media.
“…so that’s what he did, and I haven’t heard from him since. Well, other than all the posts of him and Melinda looking like they’re madly in love.”
“Girl, you have got to quit going on social media and looking at him. You need to delete his contact immediately, block him, unfriend, unfollow, and whatever else you have to do to erase his presence. Trust me, I’ve been there. You’ll feel better in the long run. Rip the bandage off and get it over with.”
Amy shook her head, and Mellie had to admit that her friend had a point, even if she had a tendency to scare men off, talking about their future and things they could do together over the next year, all on the first or second date. Was it worse to be ghosted? The guy fading away, or seeing all the social media crap? She hoped she would never have to personally compare the two to find out.
Unbidden, he popped into her thoughts: Connor. Who she’d found out was not her new coworker. Jacob had been confused because of the names. He thought Connor was the guy’s last name, not his first. Henry Connor showed up on time to start work, and the kids loved him. While Connor—her Connor, as she’d been thinking of him—was at Mint Hill for three more weeks. She shuddered.
“What’s wrong? Thinking about Greg again?” Amy handed her a family-size bag of peanut M&M’s and opened up a box of chocolate-covered Oreos, taking four.
“Let’s see what scary movies we can find to watch. I suggest an entire marathon until we either pass out into a sugar coma or bounce off the walls. Or we’ll scare ourselves silly and then we won’t be able to sleep and we’ll have to stay up all night. Sound like a plan?”
Grateful to have such a great friend, Mellie laughed. She and Amy always joked that they would be the ones to help each other move a body, no questions asked.
“No, I wasn’t thinking about Greg at this moment, believe it or not. I was thinking about my coworker— Never mind. He wasn’t really my coworker.”
“What you mean? You said that Connor guy was hired to tell the kids about medieval history, but was all scary and totally hot at the same time. And some kind of thief or something. What’s going on?”
Mellie couldn’t help but grin at her friend’s glee over the prospect of a new hot guy, even if said guy was currently under a psych eval.
“Turns out Connor was actually a thief. Mint Hill found several of the weapons from the cases that were damaged in the storm on him. Guess he’d taken them, probably thought he could sell them. And the coins they found… They were in mint condition from the fourteenth century. He was basically carrying a fortune in gold and other assorted coins.”
Mellie twisted a curl around her finger. “It’s a shame. He’s so good-looking and charming. There was something about him that made me want to say yes to everything. Which is a big part of my problem.”
The magazine pages fluttered when Mellie slapped her hands down on the table. “I am done with picking the wrong men. No more losers, workaholics, and guys who put their jobs first. For once, I want a guy who will put me first. Make me his number one, number two, and number three priorities. Is that too much to ask?”
Amy wiped her eye. “Not at all. It’s what we all want.”
They spent the rest of the evening watching scary movies, eating way too much junk, and laughing until they cried. Amy had the ability to say the most outrageous things that made Mellie laugh until her stomach hurt and tears ran down her face. Her friend was always working on a project, she had the best parties, and Mellie envied Amy’s ability to make friends wherever she went. While Mellie herself was a serious introvert who’d rather read than socialize. She found it difficult to warm up to people. It took a while, long enough the person who’d made the overture would move on, tired of her being so standoffish.
Her thoughts vacillated between Greg, the Fourth of July family party, and, of course, him. She’d tried to call once to find out how he was doing, but no one would give her any information. And every time Mellie swore she’d put him out of her mind over the past week, those blue eyes kept coming back to haunt her. The look of utter betrayal on his face as the cops took him away. It was late, almost four in the morning, when Amy woke up.
“Are you looking at more Greg pictures?” Amy yawned.
“Nope.” Mellie shut the laptop and hid it under a pillow.
Amy snatched it, put it up on the top of the bookcase, and piled blankets on top.
“No more looking at Greg and Melinda, the witch,” she called out from the kitchen as she rummaged through the cabinets.
“I think it’s time for Pixy Stix and cotton candy.”
“For breakfast?”
Amy laughed. “Breakup food doesn’t count. You can eat it whenever you want and the calories don’t count, so we better enjoy it while we can.”
“You’re right. Let’s chow.”
“So what are you going to do about the big family event?”
Mellie sat cross-legged on the couch. “I thought about coming clean and telling my family what was going on, but then I decided there was no way I was listening to my brothers and their wives’ pitying comments and platitudes about how I’ll find the right guy, blah blah blah. I’m sick and tired of all their crap, so I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago…I’m going to make up a boyfriend.”
When Amy didn’t tell her she was losing it, Mellie went on, the story unfolding before her as she created the perfect man.
“He lives in another state, a corporate attorney who works all the time, so we only see each other on weekends. I figure I can keep him in play for the next month, which will get me to the big family reunion, and suddenly the night before the event, I’ll say we had a big fight and broke up.”
“Absolutely brilliant.” Amy clapped, a huge grin on her face, a piece of cotton candy stuck to her nose. “In fact, it’s so brilliant I think I’m going to use the same thing with my sister. Do you know what she told me the other day?”
Mellie shook her head, and pixy dust went up her nose, making her sneeze.
“She had the nerve to tell me that I was too pushy and too demanding, and I needed to look back to the fifties to learn how to keep a man.” Amy waggled her eyebrows. “Can you believe it? What am I supposed to do, bring him slippers and his pipe and greet him at the door with a cocktail as I’m wrapped in plastic wrap?”
Amy shook her head, agitated as she paced around the living room, Oreo crumbs flying like rain.
“I don’t think so. If anything, he can have a cocktail waiting for me when I come home from a hard day at the office.”
Mellie raised her glass. They’d run out of chocolate milk and had switched to mimosas. She touched her glass to Amy’s. “To fake boyfriends. May they make us incredibly happy.”
They touched glasses, giggling until their sides ached.