Surprise Me...

“Which he hasn’t done.”

“Mom, it’s only been two days. I can’t crowd him.”

“In my experience, when a man wants you, there is no mistaking it.”

“He’s…busy.” Her fear ran deeper. He couldn’t disappear, not like the others. Maybe Melanie had been with too many men, but she knew when sex was more than just sex, because she’d had so much that was nothing more. Sometimes it was even less.

“What’s up with this Edgar guy?”

“Edgar?” She felt all jumbled up at the question. “Why do you ask that?”

Tricia shrugged and pulled out a pair of soft gray dress pants, frowned, and put them back. “Just curious. You guys have been friends for a while, right?”

“A couple of years.” She extracted a flowered sundress from the crowded sale rack, feeling light-headed and strange. Kind of how she’d felt when Edgar had made that completely bizarre joke about him being the one in bed with her two nights ago. She couldn’t imagine many things more unsettling than making love to one man, then finding out he’d been someone else. Added to that, there was no way she could connect the goofy, lovable guy that was Edgar with the sexual Adonis she’d been writhing all over the previous night.

And yet…if it had been Ed? That’s where things got really unsettling. She’d felt panicky and disoriented, excited and terrified. The relief when he admitted he was joking had been as overwhelming as the complicated feelings she’d just been fighting through. “He’s a good guy.”

“Seems like. Ever think of dating him?”

“No. No.” The denial was quick and automatic, then Melanie laughed, realizing that wasn’t quite true. “Well, sort of. I mean I thought I should date him because he’s nice, but one look at his brother, boom, there went that idea. You know me.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Melanie had started perspiring. Did they turn off the air-conditioning in the store? “What, hmm?”

“It’s that when you talk about him, you—”

“What do you think?” Alana strutted over, modeling the sweater, which did all the right things in all the right places for her figure and brought out the color in her cheeks. Love-color.

“You’re beautiful.” Melanie couldn’t help a wistful sigh. Even if Alana had been wearing the green-and-orange shirt she’d be beautiful. Melanie had never seen her happier than since she’d met Sawyer. Okay, maybe not at first. At that initial meeting, he’d just moved in with Melanie because he needed a place to stay, and Alana had barreled up from Chicago to “save” her baby sister from a guy she’d assumed was Melanie’s next user jerk boyfriend. And, yeah, maybe Melanie had sort of given her the idea that she and Sawyer were involved…um, actually…engaged. Matrimony had been Melanie’s goal, anyway, but she couldn’t summon anything for Sawyer other than sisterly affection. So poor Alana had first met him when Sawyer crawled into her bed in the middle of the night by mistake. At the time Alana had been more furious and outraged than happy. Not only because of that but because she’d thought he was dating Melanie and couldn’t understand why he kept coming on to her. Eventually, of course, she had fallen, and how.

Melanie always fell first and became furious and outraged later. Maybe she needed to try it the other way around.

Except Stoner…Stoner was different. She felt him in her heart, whereas most of her previous passions she felt mostly in her fantasies and, to put it bluntly, between her legs.

“That’s a sale. You’re lovely, Alana.”

“Thanks.” Alana managed a tight smile at her mother and strode back to the changing room.