you come inside with me? Or we could go somewhere quiet.”
“I gotta work.” The sound of their footsteps rose up from the pavement, the heavy impact of his boots balanced by the staccato clips of her high heels. “And listen, I’m married.”
Melissa stopped. Stamped her foot. “Get out. You are? Joyce said you weren’t ever going to settle down.”
“You meet the right person, that’s all it takes.”
“Well… shit.” She recrossed her arms and looked him up and down. When her eyes came back to him, there was a sly light in them. “But married isn’t always… you know… married, necessarily.”
“It is with me.” He took her elbow and started walking again, drawing her along. “But come on, someone like you, I’ll bet you’re beating ’em off with a stick.”
“You’d be surprised,” came the dry response.
“You know, I don’t remember you looking…”
“So good?” She smiled at him and put her head on his shoulder. “Go on, you can say it and not violate your vows.”
“Fine. I don’t remember you being this hot.”
“Plastic surgery is expensive,” she murmured with a laugh. “But the shit works.”
“Clearly.” He nodded down at her black, sparkling outfit. “And is this ensemble Chanel or am I crazy?”
“It is! How’d you know?”
Like anything else came with all those interlocking C’s? he thought.
They chatted about the past during the walk back by the garage where he’d left the R8, and he was surprised how good it was to plug into those memories of growing up—and by that, he didn’t mean the shit in his household, with his father hating him and his mom being flinchy about everything. He meant the kids stuff. The friend stuff. The school stuff. Not all of his childhood had been bad.
At least not until Janie was abducted and murdered and raped. In that order.
“So you’re not married?” he said.
“Nah. There was someone, but it didn’t work out.”
“I can’t imagine any man walking away from you.”
“You say the sweetest things.” Mel gave his arm a squeeze, but then cursed under her breath. “He found someone he liked better.”
“Hard to imagine.”
“She was nothing like me.”
“Well, his loss.” He looked over. “Was it recent?”
“Yeah. Very. I’m just getting my feet back under me again. I feel kinda lost.”
As they came up to the club, he took Mel right to the head of the wait line. When the bouncer looked her up and down, it was clear that she was going to get in without a problem, but just to be sure, he made a little arrangement with the guy’s gray matter.
“You sure you can’t come in with me?” she asked.
“No, but thanks.”
“Let me give you my number. Tell me yours so I can text it.”
“You know, it’s been nice catching up, but I’m going to leave you off here.”
He debated whether to go into her mind and clear the memories, but he found himself not wanting to be a ghost to everyone from his past.
“I won’t tell her,” Mel murmured. “Joyce, that is. It’s pretty clear you don’t want to have contact with her. Or you woulda.”
“It doesn’t matter. You do you. Goodbye, Mel—”
“Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”
“Maybe.” She seemed rootless and floundering as she stared up at him from out of her beautiful face, and he felt bad for her. “True love’s out there, okay? I promise you. Hell, I never thought I could find it, and if the shit can happen for a loser like me? You’re going to be a piece of cake.”
When she launched herself at him and gave him a hug, he lightly patted her shoulder blades and then stepped back.
“Go on,” he said. “See if your new man’s waiting for you in there.”
“What if I’ve already found him.”
Butch frowned. But before he could say something on that, she gave him a wave and strutted into the strobe-lit check-in area.
The club’s door closed, but Butch didn’t immediately step away. Lifting the sleeve of his leather jacket to his nose, he breathed in. Poison by Dior was all over his sleeve.
Like he’d been marked.
CHAPTER TWENTY
McGrider’s was indeed a local establishment that served a lot of cops and firemen, and, back in the heyday of newspapers, Jo imagined that most of the CCJ’s staff ate here as well. The vibe was scuffed convenience, everything worn down by generations of patrons, the beer signs in the windows Bud Light, Michelob, and Pabst. And as she and the man in leather settled into a wooden booth—or, rather, she settled and he squeezed—her eating companion