Realizing he wanted to be Melanie’s top priority wasn’t easy to take either. He wanted to be the only thing on her mind tonight. The entire weekend. As long as she’d have him. Seriously?
“Fuck,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Melanie was done. Done running interference. Done preventing catastrophe. Done picking up the pieces. Done.
She grabbed Nikki by the arm and without a word dragged her toward the exit. They were out of the dressing room and halfway down the hall before she stopped and turned to confront her friend. Friend? More like soul-sucking leech.
“You are going to the hotel right now,” Melanie said, providing no opportunity for argument. “I am going to the concert by myself and I am going to Gabe’s house in Austin tonight without you. Do you understand? You are not going to weasel your way into accompanying us.”
Nikki opened her mouth to protest, and Melanie lifted a finger of warning at her.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” she said, “but sometimes I have to think about myself. There is no reason for you to be here. You saw Shade. He doesn’t want to see you. You knew he wouldn’t, but you came anyway. And right now, I don’t want to see you either.”
Nikki released a pained gasp and Melanie had to force herself not to look away. She didn’t like to hurt people and she’d just shredded Nikki’s heart. Melanie could see the devastation in every tense line of Nikki’s face.
“If you’d rather go straight home, you do that. Figure out how to solve this problem you created, Nikki. I’m not giving up my shot at happiness because you need someone to take care of you. You need to take care of you. Got it?”
Nikki’s eyes pooled with tears and Melanie softened her tone—partly because she couldn’t stand the look of anguish on Nikki’s face and partially because her throat had tightened with emotion to the point of strangulation.
“I can be your friend,” Melanie said. “I want to be your friend. But I can’t be your knight in shining armor. I have my own ass to rescue.”
Tears began to flow freely down Nikki’s cheeks and yeah, Melanie’s vision blurred as her own tears threatened to overflow. She wasn’t good at doling out tough love. It wasn’t her thing. Tough love was so much harder than enabling, but she had to do this for Nikki’s good as well as for her own sanity. Nikki wouldn’t see it as beneficial. She’d see it as Melanie being mean to her. And yelling at Nikki made Melanie feel mean. She felt like a horrible person for hurting someone who had been hurt so many times already—broken, used, and abused by those she should have been able to trust—but Melanie couldn’t back down on this. Not even if it elevated her to megabitch status.
Heart thudding and eyes stinging with the threat of tears, Melanie pivoted and started back toward the dressing room. Don’t look back. Don’t let her see you’re about to crumble. Melanie hadn’t taken three steps when a body careened into her and a pair of arms tightened around her waist.
“You can’t leave me, Mel,” Nikki sobbed against the back of Melanie’s shoulder. “You just can’t. I have no one in this world but you. I have no one. No one.”
This was not another case of Nikki’s fabricated drama. Nikki actually believed it, because it happened to be true. Melanie closed her eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling, but a fat droplet crept out from beneath each eyelid and streaked down her face.
“I’m not leaving you, Nikki. I’m leaving this situation you created.” And the guilt was already robbing her of breath. She knew Nikki didn’t have anyone. Melanie wanted her to be surrounded by caring people. She wanted Nikki to find more friends and a boyfriend who cared about her. She wished Nikki had a family that wasn’t completely dysfunctional and abusive. But if Nikki’s neediness was trying on their strong friendship, it was devastating to new ones. Nikki tried too hard to make people love her and went about it all wrong. She slept around because for the few hours she was with a man, beneath a man, she could pretend that he loved her. But no one could really love her until she loved herself. And Melanie knew how Nikki struggled to see her true self-worth after everything she’d been through.
God, I’m such a selfish cow. How could she have yelled at Nikki when she knew how much her disapproval would hurt her?
She was also a spineless coward, it seemed, because she was totally going to cave again. She could feel her resolve crumbling already. Melanie turned in Nikki’s arms and held her while she cried. Tough love was one thing. Leaving your best friend sobbing in a corridor in an unfamiliar city was another.
“Pull yourself together,” Melanie said gently. “It’s going to be all right. You want me to be happy, don’t you?”
Nikki nodded.
“Then give me this weekend with Gabe. Can you do that?”
Nikki hesitated and then nodded slowly, her tears still falling. At least she wasn’t sobbing and wailing any longer.
“Do you want to go back to the hotel or do you want to fly home to Wichita tonight?” Melanie realized she was treating Nikki like a toddler again, giving her two solid options and not an open-ended what do you want to do?
“I’ll stay at the hotel.”
“Are you sure?”
Nikki nodded again. “And can we do something together when you get back on Sunday, Mel?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Just the two of us?”
“After Gabe leaves.” She wasn’t going to make promises she was unwilling to keep.
Nikki sniffed. “I’ll stay here.” She took a deep, gasping breath. “Alone.”
“I’ll get you as far as the hotel and then you’re on your own for the weekend. You can handle that, right?”
Enabler, enabler, enabler, a nasty little voice seemed to whisper in her ear.
“I think so,” Nikki said, sniffing again.
“I know you can.”
Melanie pulled away slightly and waited while Nikki wiped her wet face on the hem of her T-shirt. Several curious men watched them, obviously wanting to comfort poor beautiful Nikki. Poor fragile, broken sex kitten Nikki. But the comfort those men had in mind was the last thing Nikki needed.
“Let’s go call you a cab,” she said. “Or maybe Gabe will let you ride in the limo.”
“Do I have to ride up front with Parker the penguin?”
Melanie laughed. “No, hon.” She cupped Nikki’s streaked cheek in one palm. “You ride in the back and drink champagne.”
“But I don’t like champagne.”
Melanie smiled and kissed the tip of Nikki’s nose. “Drink it anyway. Wait here,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to Gabe about the limo. Okay?”
Nikki nodded and the instant that Melanie stepped away, two guys tripped over each other trying to get to Nikki’s side, as if the first to touch her could claim her as a prize.
Melanie found Gabe slumped forward in a chair, his elbows resting on his knees and a bottle of beer between his palms. He was staring at the spot between his impressively large feet with a scowl on his handsome face. The high forehead, square jaw, and long straight nose would have looked good on anyone. His lower lip was slightly larger than the upper and just begged to nibbled on. Every visible inch of the man was long, lean, and hard. Masculine. Lord, he was gorgeous. And he was even better looking when he smiled; his perfect grin lit up his mesmerizing grass-green eyes from the inside. Melanie intended to put that smile back on his tasty lips as soon as possible and keep it there. She hated the glum expression he was currently sporting, especially since she knew she was responsible for it. It didn’t suit him. Or her.