CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
MEL
Three weeks flew by too incredibly fast. Mel had been elected by foundation they were organizing the benefit with to emcee the event and she couldn't have been more terrified. Not only was her heart not in anything lately, but she had never emceed anything in her entire life. She was certainly not a public speaker. Since Zac was the other main player for 3CG, she tried to pass it off to him, pointing out that he was a familiar face already and she wasn't. But no. Mel was the philanthropist and this was her brainchild. Lovely.
She spent as little time at 3CG as possible in those weeks, so as to not have to encounter Taylor. She could feel her heart melting just a little every single time she saw him. She didn't want that. She was more comfortable with her icy, cold heart. That was the one she wanted to keep. She didn't want to give in. She didn't want to accept things for the way they were. Most importantly, she didn't want to fall.
Mel did not care a thing about a dress for the benefit. All the excitement had long since been drained out of her. It was only when Nikki dragged her shopping and told her that Kate and Natalie were attending that Mel suddenly began to care what she wore. She may have felt like shit, but she was for damn sure going to look
infinitely more fabulous than Natalie.
It didn't take her long to find a dress. It was fortunate that Nikki knew where to find all the designer
boutiques because Mel wouldn't have thought twice about them. She found a gorgeous, simple black Vera Wang. It was a one-shoulder sheath column dress that cinched to her waist opposite the side of the one shoulder. Just underneath the cinch a slit started high on her thigh. The material was roomy and the cinching created a fuller skirt complete with a court train that brushed the floor. To finish the ensemble, Mel selected a very simple pair of open-toed stilettos that strapped around the ankles.
Mel, along with Isaac, Zac, and Taylor, wives in tow, were to arrive in LA a day early to meet with the foundation heads, the bands, do sound checks and work on last minute details for the benefit. To her horror, all of them had booked the same flight and by the time she was aware of it, it was too late to upgrade or make any other changes to her ticket. Mel was absolutely not in the mood to be on the same flight as Tay and Natalie. Not even in the slightest.
Mel made sure to board the plane several people behind Tay and Natalie. She prayed. She had never prayed so hard in her life. She was one of the last to board, on a small plane that was nearly full. There were barely any seats left and her heart pounded. As she approached the seat she had been assigned to, her heart sank. She and Taylor both had aisle seats--directly across from each other. Her first instinct was the he somewhat orchestrated this on purpose but she knew that this was merely an unfortunate coincidence. On this small, full plane where she sat next to a couple she didn't know and Ike and Zac were several rows away. Mel looked around frantically. There was no saving grace!
She could see Tay out of the corner of her eye, looking up at her and straightening up in his seat in realization of what was about to happen. She dared not look his way as she held her chin high and sat stiffly down in her seat. She wanted desperately to start up a conversation with the couple on her row but she quickly discovered that, sadly, they didn't speak English. She was doomed.
She didn't want to hear Natalie's voice. She didn't want to listen any type of discussion they may have about anything, afraid of what she might overhear. Thankfully, she had brought along her iPod and as soon as she had the opportunity, she put the buds in her ears and cranked up the heaviest metal she could find at a moment's notice. She closed her eyes and smiled as Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction filled her ears, making her blissfully unaware of her surroundings. She hadn't listened to good metal in awhile. Sometimes it was easy to forget how this was her musical genre of choice.
After they had gotten into the air and she was a few songs in, blissfully lost in her own personal symphonic
Metallica concert, the stewardess dropped a folded napkin with the glass of water Mel had ordered. Needless to say, the folding of cocktail napkins was not formal procedure for them. She didn't want to open it up. She didn't even have to look over at Tay to know where it came from. What she wondered, however, was how he managed to do it in front of Natalie without her noticing.
Her music still blaring in her ears, she unfolded the napkin carefully. "This seating arrangement is making me crazy," the note said in his handwriting. She glared at the napkin in her hands. He was something else, that was for sure. She couldn't help but agree with him, though, but he didn't need to know that.
Slowly, she turned her head to look across the aisle at him. More importantly, at Natalie. She appeared to be...napping? Interesting. Mel locked eyes with Tay and ripped up the napkin and shoved it straight into her water glass. Tay smiled at her and then turned his attention forward again and laid his head back against his seat. She narrowed her eyes at him. He was--he was amused by this!
This infuriated Mel. She was infuriated by how suddenly turned on she was by his expression and the secret note passing. She was infuriated with him for making her feel that. It wasn't fair. Her heart pounded and her breath quickened. No. No, she wasn't feeling this way. She hated him. He was a miserable bastard who was nothing but bad for her. No...
She jerked a stack of cocktail napkins off the stewardess's cart as she passed. Quickly she scrawled a response. "Pretty sure it's not the seating arrangement." She wrote his seat number on the front after she folded it and passed it back to the same stewardess who'd delivered her first note.
When she knew he got it, she dared glance across the aisle again. Why was she doing this? Why was she going against the way she thought she was supposed to feel about him right now? Why did she find this...fun??? He looked over at her and grinned, a mix of mock hurt on his face. "Ouch," he mouthed silently at her, still smiling.
Mel rolled her eyes and continued to look forward. She cranked up the Poisonblack song that now took over her ears. She prepared to take herself to an entirely new emotional level with the music when yet another napkin was placed on her tray. Mel sighed. She was getting agitated. She got very easily upset when any song she was listening to was interrupted. Some things never changed.
She opened the napkin. "What are you listening to?"
Mel huffed and took one of her loudly-playing ear buds out and let it hang listlessly from her hand. The plane was quiet so she knew he could hear it. She knew he wouldn't be familiar with it because he used to only listen to her music when he was with her. They weren't together when this album came out.
He strained his ears to listen for a second and then smiled and shook his head at her. "Figures," he mouthed silently. He wouldn't know what to appreciate and what not to appreciate if it kicked him in the ass anyway. Mel hastily put her bud back in her ear and turned her attention away from Taylor once more.
Two songs later, another napkin. Was Natalie seriously still sleeping?? Mel peeked across the aisle. Well, goddamn. This wasn't a terribly long plane ride. Five hours tops? And yet she slept. Did she sleep last night? Well, she was pregnant. And probably hormonal. Maybe they had a wild romp in the sack last night. Mel wanted to vomit at the thought.
Mel looked on in terror as she read the new napkin. This didn't help matters. He did things like this--on purpose. She knew he did. He knew she couldn't create a scene on the plane. He said things to her that infuriated her, knowing she couldn't react the way she wanted to now. KNOWING IT!! Forget it, she hated him. This was it. He could rot in hell for all she cared.
"Bon Jovi, Keep The Faith, track 5."
She didn't even have to think about it. She knew exactly what he was talking about. That bastard. Mel instantly ripped the buds out of her ears, threw her iPod in her carry-on, grabbed her water glass, and violently threw up her lap tray. Standing from her seat, she stormed down the aisle, squeezed by a
stewardess, handed her the water glass, and entered the restroom, slamming the tiny door behind her.
Barely fitting in the restroom, Mel melted to the floor and curled her knees up and sobbed, as quietly as
possible, for she knew that every sound she made could be heard by the entire plane.
___________________________________________________
TAYLOR
Taylor closed his eyes and rested his head against his seat. How could he have been so stupid? She was finally, somewhat, communicating with him and he had to go and--just like he always did. Never thinking, just acting.
He shouldn't have written what he wrote. He knew what that song meant to her. He had dedicated that song to her on several different occasions in the past. It was his go-to "I'm sorry" song to her and it used to work like a charm. Now things were a little too heavy and a little too real and he knew it and he shouldn't have written that track listing. He knew she wouldn't speak to him for the rest of the trip.
And now Zac was hastily seating himself in Mel's seat, leaning across the aisle. "What the hell was that?"
he whispered.
Tay looked over at Zac, annoyed. "It's--I don't know."
Zac spotted the napkin that had fallen to the floor when Mel stood up. He bent down and read it as he picked it up. "What's this?"
Tay jerked the napkin with the track listing on it out of Zac's hand and ripped it up. "It's nothing."
"It didn't look like nothing," Zac hissed, pointing toward the bathroom. "It probably doesn't sound like
nothing in there, either."
Taylor sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Did you come up here to rub all this in my face or what?"
"No, I was just concerned."
Tay scoffed and smile wryly. "Yeah, I'm sure you are."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Keeping the wry smile, Tay glanced and nodded toward the restroom. "Come on now..."
Zac glanced in the direction Tay had referred to and looked back at Tay, eyes wide in the realization of what
he meant. "Oh, Tay...really? We're doing this again? I thought you were through being that guy? I thought you were past this? Better than this?"
"I'm just saying. I mean, you spend an awful lot of time glued to each other's sides lately. If the shoe fits..."
"You know what? Fuck this. I'm not going through this again with you. This is ridiculous. And apparently you're more fucked up than I thought you were. I lost a lot of respect for you for awhile back then and you're
riding that line again with this bullshit right now. When you decide to get your shit together, I'll be four rows back there," Zac said, nodding toward his seat. And then he got up and left.
Goddammit, Zac was right. Taylor knew it. He knew he was on dangerous ground with his feelings right now. He could feel them creeping up, one by one, and it scared the shit out of him. He didn't want to be his old self again. He didn't want to be jealous of every move Mel made and of every man that interacted with her,
including his own brothers. He didn't want to feel the old "if I can't have her, nobody can" feeling that he used to feel when his own insecurities got the best of him. The truth was, she had been nothing but good to him their entire lives and he was the one who always fucked everything up. And instead of owning up to his own mistakes, he would blame them on her and the vicious cycle would just go round and round. He was feeling it again and he didn't want to. How did he make it stop? How did he stop feeling like the only thing he wanted to do right now was just possess her?
Mel finally returned to her seat across from him. His heart pounded at her presence. It happened every time he was around her. She made it hard for him to control himself, to control anything within him. She made him crazy. All he had ever wanted in his entire life was to be with her. He was--he was obsessed with her...
Natalie stirred beside him and opened her eyes slowly. Shit, here was reality rearing it's other head. As she woke up, she smiled at him. He smiled back at his wife, then glanced across the aisle at the woman he loved. Sunglasses covered her eyes and her buds were back in her ears. Her face pointed straight ahead. She had locked herself down once more.
______________________________________________
You can only push someone so far
You can only break so many hearts
Used to be love one another
Now it's lust for your lover
Baby, I was trying to burn Bridges of Stone
You can only wait, you can only wait so long
You can only wait, you can only wait so long
In this game we play, things are often wrong
But you can only wait so long
There goes memories from yesterday
There goes poetry of all the things I couldn't say
You can only wait so long
Before all the flower petals are gone
Baby I was trying to burn Bridges of Stone
Why didn't you call out for me?
It's not like I was ever far away
Oh, dive into the endless dark and deep
There's nothing left but a million words to say
You can only push someone so far
You can only break so many hearts
We all love memories
And I've served my time in pain
Don't give in to enemies
They'll just leave you in the rain
We'll find a way somehow
Through this winding, twisting road we found
You won't find me crying in what used to be home
You won't find me trying to burn Bridges of Stone
Checking into the hotel was kind of a nightmare. The hotel had misplaced their reservations. All of them. A couple of lines down, Taylor could hear Zac getting irate with the receptionist. "How could it be misplaced? WE'RE hosting the benefit that's being held in THIS hotel!"
Tay's heart stopped when Mel's voice suddenly bellowed over everyone else's and the lobby got quiet, including the other hotel guests. "Because the reservations aren't under your names. If anyone had bothered to read the emails I sent, you would know." Then she said toward the desk clerks, "The reservations are all
under the foundation's name, four rooms for 3CG. They're not name-specific, they're all going on the same account. Four rooms for 3CG, just pass them out." In one swift movement, Mel finished her own check-in,
snatched her key from the desk, and stormed toward the elevators.
After check-in, Taylor lost track of Mel and he was disappointed. He was sure he wouldn't see her until tomorrow morning. He missed her every time she even left a room. This whole thing was getting more and more torturous as it went along.
Awhile later, after they'd settled in, Natalie was in the shower and Tay lounged on the bed, staring at nothing. Suddenly, he heard a man's voice, loud, right outside his door. "Hey, gorgeous," it said.
Something compelled him, and he didn't know what, to race to the door to observe what he could observe through the peep hole. His heart shattered. He couldn't see much but he'd seen all he needed to see. Firstly, Mel's room was right across the hall--and that was crazy enough in itself after the whole plane debacle. Natalie could NOT know about this. This should have excited him to no end except that the voice outside his door belonged to the Hawaiian Adonis himself.
"Oh my god, you're here early," Tay faintly heard Mel say.
The Adonis spoke again. "I got here as fast as I could."
Taylor's stomach churned with every word they said and now Isaac's words played back in his head like a
cancerous tumor, just growing and growing. "You won't get a third chance like this second one you just had. Not with Jason waiting in the wings for her. And trust me, he'll wait."
He watched Jason wrap his arms around Mel, Taylor's Melody, and then they went inside her room and closed the door.
Tay dropped his forehead against the door and stood there, gripping the doorway. His entire world had just finished crashing down upon him and his wife was about to come out of the bathroom. He couldn't hide it this time. There was no way.
He knocked on the bathroom door and called to her, "Hey, I'm gonna run to Zac's room real quick, I'll be back in a minute."
"Okay. Hurry back, our dinner reservation is in an hour!"
At this point his concern wasn't hurrying back, it was hurrying out and off of that floor.
_____________________________________________________
MEL
Three weeks flew by too incredibly fast. Mel had been elected by foundation they were organizing the benefit with to emcee the event and she couldn't have been more terrified. Not only was her heart not in anything lately, but she had never emceed anything in her entire life. She was certainly not a public speaker. Since Zac was the other main player for 3CG, she tried to pass it off to him, pointing out that he was a familiar face already and she wasn't. But no. Mel was the philanthropist and this was her brainchild. Lovely.
She spent as little time at 3CG as possible in those weeks, so as to not have to encounter Taylor. She could feel her heart melting just a little every single time she saw him. She didn't want that. She was more comfortable with her icy, cold heart. That was the one she wanted to keep. She didn't want to give in. She didn't want to accept things for the way they were. Most importantly, she didn't want to fall.
Mel did not care a thing about a dress for the benefit. All the excitement had long since been drained out of her. It was only when Nikki dragged her shopping and told her that Kate and Natalie were attending that Mel suddenly began to care what she wore. She may have felt like shit, but she was for damn sure going to look
infinitely more fabulous than Natalie.
It didn't take her long to find a dress. It was fortunate that Nikki knew where to find all the designer
boutiques because Mel wouldn't have thought twice about them. She found a gorgeous, simple black Vera Wang. It was a one-shoulder sheath column dress that cinched to her waist opposite the side of the one shoulder. Just underneath the cinch a slit started high on her thigh. The material was roomy and the cinching created a fuller skirt complete with a court train that brushed the floor. To finish the ensemble, Mel selected a very simple pair of open-toed stilettos that strapped around the ankles.
Mel, along with Isaac, Zac, and Taylor, wives in tow, were to arrive in LA a day early to meet with the foundation heads, the bands, do sound checks and work on last minute details for the benefit. To her horror, all of them had booked the same flight and by the time she was aware of it, it was too late to upgrade or make any other changes to her ticket. Mel was absolutely not in the mood to be on the same flight as Tay and Natalie. Not even in the slightest.
Mel made sure to board the plane several people behind Tay and Natalie. She prayed. She had never prayed so hard in her life. She was one of the last to board, on a small plane that was nearly full. There were barely any seats left and her heart pounded. As she approached the seat she had been assigned to, her heart sank. She and Taylor both had aisle seats--directly across from each other. Her first instinct was the he somewhat orchestrated this on purpose but she knew that this was merely an unfortunate coincidence. On this small, full plane where she sat next to a couple she didn't know and Ike and Zac were several rows away. Mel looked around frantically. There was no saving grace!
She could see Tay out of the corner of her eye, looking up at her and straightening up in his seat in realization of what was about to happen. She dared not look his way as she held her chin high and sat stiffly down in her seat. She wanted desperately to start up a conversation with the couple on her row but she quickly discovered that, sadly, they didn't speak English. She was doomed.
She didn't want to hear Natalie's voice. She didn't want to listen any type of discussion they may have about anything, afraid of what she might overhear. Thankfully, she had brought along her iPod and as soon as she had the opportunity, she put the buds in her ears and cranked up the heaviest metal she could find at a moment's notice. She closed her eyes and smiled as Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction filled her ears, making her blissfully unaware of her surroundings. She hadn't listened to good metal in awhile. Sometimes it was easy to forget how this was her musical genre of choice.
After they had gotten into the air and she was a few songs in, blissfully lost in her own personal symphonic
Metallica concert, the stewardess dropped a folded napkin with the glass of water Mel had ordered. Needless to say, the folding of cocktail napkins was not formal procedure for them. She didn't want to open it up. She didn't even have to look over at Tay to know where it came from. What she wondered, however, was how he managed to do it in front of Natalie without her noticing.
Her music still blaring in her ears, she unfolded the napkin carefully. "This seating arrangement is making me crazy," the note said in his handwriting. She glared at the napkin in her hands. He was something else, that was for sure. She couldn't help but agree with him, though, but he didn't need to know that.
Slowly, she turned her head to look across the aisle at him. More importantly, at Natalie. She appeared to be...napping? Interesting. Mel locked eyes with Tay and ripped up the napkin and shoved it straight into her water glass. Tay smiled at her and then turned his attention forward again and laid his head back against his seat. She narrowed her eyes at him. He was--he was amused by this!
This infuriated Mel. She was infuriated by how suddenly turned on she was by his expression and the secret note passing. She was infuriated with him for making her feel that. It wasn't fair. Her heart pounded and her breath quickened. No. No, she wasn't feeling this way. She hated him. He was a miserable bastard who was nothing but bad for her. No...
She jerked a stack of cocktail napkins off the stewardess's cart as she passed. Quickly she scrawled a response. "Pretty sure it's not the seating arrangement." She wrote his seat number on the front after she folded it and passed it back to the same stewardess who'd delivered her first note.
When she knew he got it, she dared glance across the aisle again. Why was she doing this? Why was she going against the way she thought she was supposed to feel about him right now? Why did she find this...fun??? He looked over at her and grinned, a mix of mock hurt on his face. "Ouch," he mouthed silently at her, still smiling.
Mel rolled her eyes and continued to look forward. She cranked up the Poisonblack song that now took over her ears. She prepared to take herself to an entirely new emotional level with the music when yet another napkin was placed on her tray. Mel sighed. She was getting agitated. She got very easily upset when any song she was listening to was interrupted. Some things never changed.
She opened the napkin. "What are you listening to?"
Mel huffed and took one of her loudly-playing ear buds out and let it hang listlessly from her hand. The plane was quiet so she knew he could hear it. She knew he wouldn't be familiar with it because he used to only listen to her music when he was with her. They weren't together when this album came out.
He strained his ears to listen for a second and then smiled and shook his head at her. "Figures," he mouthed silently. He wouldn't know what to appreciate and what not to appreciate if it kicked him in the ass anyway. Mel hastily put her bud back in her ear and turned her attention away from Taylor once more.
Two songs later, another napkin. Was Natalie seriously still sleeping?? Mel peeked across the aisle. Well, goddamn. This wasn't a terribly long plane ride. Five hours tops? And yet she slept. Did she sleep last night? Well, she was pregnant. And probably hormonal. Maybe they had a wild romp in the sack last night. Mel wanted to vomit at the thought.
Mel looked on in terror as she read the new napkin. This didn't help matters. He did things like this--on purpose. She knew he did. He knew she couldn't create a scene on the plane. He said things to her that infuriated her, knowing she couldn't react the way she wanted to now. KNOWING IT!! Forget it, she hated him. This was it. He could rot in hell for all she cared.
"Bon Jovi, Keep The Faith, track 5."
She didn't even have to think about it. She knew exactly what he was talking about. That bastard. Mel instantly ripped the buds out of her ears, threw her iPod in her carry-on, grabbed her water glass, and violently threw up her lap tray. Standing from her seat, she stormed down the aisle, squeezed by a
stewardess, handed her the water glass, and entered the restroom, slamming the tiny door behind her.
Barely fitting in the restroom, Mel melted to the floor and curled her knees up and sobbed, as quietly as
possible, for she knew that every sound she made could be heard by the entire plane.
___________________________________________________
TAYLOR
Taylor closed his eyes and rested his head against his seat. How could he have been so stupid? She was finally, somewhat, communicating with him and he had to go and--just like he always did. Never thinking, just acting.
He shouldn't have written what he wrote. He knew what that song meant to her. He had dedicated that song to her on several different occasions in the past. It was his go-to "I'm sorry" song to her and it used to work like a charm. Now things were a little too heavy and a little too real and he knew it and he shouldn't have written that track listing. He knew she wouldn't speak to him for the rest of the trip.
And now Zac was hastily seating himself in Mel's seat, leaning across the aisle. "What the hell was that?"
he whispered.
Tay looked over at Zac, annoyed. "It's--I don't know."
Zac spotted the napkin that had fallen to the floor when Mel stood up. He bent down and read it as he picked it up. "What's this?"
Tay jerked the napkin with the track listing on it out of Zac's hand and ripped it up. "It's nothing."
"It didn't look like nothing," Zac hissed, pointing toward the bathroom. "It probably doesn't sound like
nothing in there, either."
Taylor sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Did you come up here to rub all this in my face or what?"
"No, I was just concerned."
Tay scoffed and smile wryly. "Yeah, I'm sure you are."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Keeping the wry smile, Tay glanced and nodded toward the restroom. "Come on now..."
Zac glanced in the direction Tay had referred to and looked back at Tay, eyes wide in the realization of what
he meant. "Oh, Tay...really? We're doing this again? I thought you were through being that guy? I thought you were past this? Better than this?"
"I'm just saying. I mean, you spend an awful lot of time glued to each other's sides lately. If the shoe fits..."
"You know what? Fuck this. I'm not going through this again with you. This is ridiculous. And apparently you're more fucked up than I thought you were. I lost a lot of respect for you for awhile back then and you're
riding that line again with this bullshit right now. When you decide to get your shit together, I'll be four rows back there," Zac said, nodding toward his seat. And then he got up and left.
Goddammit, Zac was right. Taylor knew it. He knew he was on dangerous ground with his feelings right now. He could feel them creeping up, one by one, and it scared the shit out of him. He didn't want to be his old self again. He didn't want to be jealous of every move Mel made and of every man that interacted with her,
including his own brothers. He didn't want to feel the old "if I can't have her, nobody can" feeling that he used to feel when his own insecurities got the best of him. The truth was, she had been nothing but good to him their entire lives and he was the one who always fucked everything up. And instead of owning up to his own mistakes, he would blame them on her and the vicious cycle would just go round and round. He was feeling it again and he didn't want to. How did he make it stop? How did he stop feeling like the only thing he wanted to do right now was just possess her?
Mel finally returned to her seat across from him. His heart pounded at her presence. It happened every time he was around her. She made it hard for him to control himself, to control anything within him. She made him crazy. All he had ever wanted in his entire life was to be with her. He was--he was obsessed with her...
Natalie stirred beside him and opened her eyes slowly. Shit, here was reality rearing it's other head. As she woke up, she smiled at him. He smiled back at his wife, then glanced across the aisle at the woman he loved. Sunglasses covered her eyes and her buds were back in her ears. Her face pointed straight ahead. She had locked herself down once more.
______________________________________________
You can only push someone so far
You can only break so many hearts
Used to be love one another
Now it's lust for your lover
Baby, I was trying to burn Bridges of Stone
You can only wait, you can only wait so long
You can only wait, you can only wait so long
In this game we play, things are often wrong
But you can only wait so long
There goes memories from yesterday
There goes poetry of all the things I couldn't say
You can only wait so long
Before all the flower petals are gone
Baby I was trying to burn Bridges of Stone
Why didn't you call out for me?
It's not like I was ever far away
Oh, dive into the endless dark and deep
There's nothing left but a million words to say
You can only push someone so far
You can only break so many hearts
We all love memories
And I've served my time in pain
Don't give in to enemies
They'll just leave you in the rain
We'll find a way somehow
Through this winding, twisting road we found
You won't find me crying in what used to be home
You won't find me trying to burn Bridges of Stone
Checking into the hotel was kind of a nightmare. The hotel had misplaced their reservations. All of them. A couple of lines down, Taylor could hear Zac getting irate with the receptionist. "How could it be misplaced? WE'RE hosting the benefit that's being held in THIS hotel!"
Tay's heart stopped when Mel's voice suddenly bellowed over everyone else's and the lobby got quiet, including the other hotel guests. "Because the reservations aren't under your names. If anyone had bothered to read the emails I sent, you would know." Then she said toward the desk clerks, "The reservations are all
under the foundation's name, four rooms for 3CG. They're not name-specific, they're all going on the same account. Four rooms for 3CG, just pass them out." In one swift movement, Mel finished her own check-in,
snatched her key from the desk, and stormed toward the elevators.
After check-in, Taylor lost track of Mel and he was disappointed. He was sure he wouldn't see her until tomorrow morning. He missed her every time she even left a room. This whole thing was getting more and more torturous as it went along.
Awhile later, after they'd settled in, Natalie was in the shower and Tay lounged on the bed, staring at nothing. Suddenly, he heard a man's voice, loud, right outside his door. "Hey, gorgeous," it said.
Something compelled him, and he didn't know what, to race to the door to observe what he could observe through the peep hole. His heart shattered. He couldn't see much but he'd seen all he needed to see. Firstly, Mel's room was right across the hall--and that was crazy enough in itself after the whole plane debacle. Natalie could NOT know about this. This should have excited him to no end except that the voice outside his door belonged to the Hawaiian Adonis himself.
"Oh my god, you're here early," Tay faintly heard Mel say.
The Adonis spoke again. "I got here as fast as I could."
Taylor's stomach churned with every word they said and now Isaac's words played back in his head like a
cancerous tumor, just growing and growing. "You won't get a third chance like this second one you just had. Not with Jason waiting in the wings for her. And trust me, he'll wait."
He watched Jason wrap his arms around Mel, Taylor's Melody, and then they went inside her room and closed the door.
Tay dropped his forehead against the door and stood there, gripping the doorway. His entire world had just finished crashing down upon him and his wife was about to come out of the bathroom. He couldn't hide it this time. There was no way.
He knocked on the bathroom door and called to her, "Hey, I'm gonna run to Zac's room real quick, I'll be back in a minute."
"Okay. Hurry back, our dinner reservation is in an hour!"
At this point his concern wasn't hurrying back, it was hurrying out and off of that floor.
_____________________________________________________