Shelby

Shelby sat up, rubbed her eyes and looked around the darkened room, confused for a moment as to why she was at her parent's house- and then it all came rushing back. She was still in her suit from earlier, now wrinkled and frumpy, twisted around her body.

She got up from the bed, pulling at the buttons on her jacket and the zipper to her skirt. Her face felt dry and caked. A glance in the mirror revealed black streaks down her cheeks and around her eyes. She winced, looking back at the pillow. Her makeup had run in her tears and stained the pillow.

A soft knock at the door sounded. "Shelby? We’re holding dinner. Did you want to eat?" Renee's voice was muffled on the other side.

"Yeah, mom," she called through the door, her voice ragged. "Dinner smells good. I'll be right down."

"Okay. See you in a few minutes."

Shelby listened to the sounds of her mom walking away and back down the stairs, then went to the adjoining bathroom where she washed her face and brushed her teeth and ran a brush through her hair, restoring order as she went. She changed into a plain t-shirt and jeans, slipped out of her heels and into a pair of slip on sneakers and then headed down the steps.

She hadn’t thought she was very hungry but the smells coming from the kitchen changed her mind. Roast beef, potatoes, and green beans were being served up in healthy portions. Shelby took a full plate, grabbed a roll or two and sat at the dining room table. Bob sat at one end, Renee across from her.

“Hot one, today.” Bob sliced his roast beef into bite sized pieces and then, coupled with a dollop of potatoes, popped a forkful of food into his mouth. “Probably hit near a hundred degrees in some places.”

Renee only nodded, chewing slowly, watching Shelby stir food around her plate. The sound of forks and knives tinkling against porcelain plates was almost deafening when it was the only sound in the room.

“Uhm…” Shelby started speaking and then stopped to clear her throat and set down her fork. “So I met with Robin. And uhm…we think we have a way for this to all go away. At least we hope they’ll go for it.”

Renee seemed relieved, albeit curious. “Well, that would be wonderful, if you could make it happen, honey. Then you could be finally free of all of this.”

“What did she say?” Bob demanded, always more impatient than his wife.

Nervous, Shelby picked up her fork and poked at the pile of plump, vibrant green beans. “I uh… I went to the bank, today and had them draw up a check for a fourth of the settlement. It was, I think, what the family trust—or maybe just Melina—was expecting. The only way they get the check is to muzzle Melina. She forgets I ever existed, they get the check, she gets her portion and never bothers me again. And she doesn’t hunt down the men I date and tell them that I killed her father. I did not kill Lucas.”

“You really think that family is motivated by money?” Bob scoffed, pounding his fork through a mountain of potatoes. “Lucas was wealthy. I’d bet they got a fair sum when he died. They wipe their asses with what you’re offering.”

“No, I don’t think they’re motivated by money, Dad. They’re motivated by me having Lucas’ money. They’re motivated by this woman that screwed Lucas getting the same fair sum that they got. And on top of it, I sued for wrongful death and I got even more money that they feel they’re entitled to. A fourth is what I’m offering. They can take it, or we can go to court.”

Shelby paused, listening to herself. Since when was she ready to go to court over the money? Over what Lucas provided for her? Over what she’d been awarded, fair and square, just to prove that she wasn’t the gold-digging whore that Melina insisted she was?  Months ago, she’d been such a coward that she packed up in the middle of the night, leaving her name and her past behind. She’d invented a whole new Shelby—a strong, confident, aggressive Shelby… but that Shelby was fake.

Right? Or was this person inside her all along?

Renee seemed tired, sipping on a tall glass of iced tea. She licked her lips, watching the back and forth banter between her husband and daughter. “Well,” she broke in, “We’ll find out soon if it works, right? What’s the next step?”

“Robin has her team working on gathering details to present at the meeting—all of the internet postings that Melina makes about me, about the case and the settlement, the package that she sent to me and to JC. It borders on harassment and stalking. The Samuels family shuns any negative publicity. Robin feels like if we say that they’ll get the funds if they muzzle her, they’ll be more motivated because she’s likely screaming at them, too about going after me. Except they won’t, because it’ll hit the papers. So Melina gets what she wants, I get what I want. And if they refuse…”

“You go to the press,” Renee finished, nodding. “It just might work, Shelby.”

“I hope it does. I just feel so guilty about wrapping JC up in all of this. I don’t want any of this to tie back to him, not right now. He’s working so hard to build a new image for himself, and—“

“You worry about Shelby Coster.” Bob pointed his fork at her, his brows knit together in the center of his forehead. “JC is a grown man. He’s a big boy and he’s a veteran in show business, right? He knows how to handle himself, how to squash something. You, on the other hand, are not that savvy. You worry about you, sweetheart.” With a resolute nod, Bob went back to his dinner.

Renee abandoned her plate, only half empty. Her eyes drooped and she seemed to slump over, leaning onto one elbow. “So,” she asked quietly, mid yawn, “When will you know?”

“Ma… get up from here. Go lay down, you look exhausted. I’ll clean up. I’ll make daddy help.” Bob grumbled but didn’t protest much, or very loudly.

“Answer me,” she insisted. “When will you know their decision?”

“I don’t know,” Shelby answered. “You’ll know immediately after I do. In the meantime, we wait. And hope it doesn’t take long.” Following her mother’s lead, she gave up on finishing her dinner as well and stood. She picked up her plate and her mother’s plate on her way into the kitchen and scraped the leftovers into a Tupperware container.

Mindlessly, she began tidying the already nearly spotless kitchen. Renee had always believed in ‘cleaning as you go’, so all that was left was to put the plates, glasses, and silverware into the dishwasher. Her thoughts drifted as she worked, occasionally to JC. What was he doing and who was he with and where was he? Wishing he would call. Or text. Or something, find a way to tell her that he wouldn’t stand for her running away from him and demand, once again, to know everything. She’d tell him, this time. Why didn’t he fight for her? Why didn’t he fight for them? He knew everything, now. He let her break it off and hadn’t said a word.

His silence was speaking volumes. Those volumes were breaking her heart.

Since her nap had been so long, Shelby laid awake long after her parents finally retired for the night. Under cover of darkness, with only the flicker from the TV offering flashes of brightness in the living room, she curled up in the corner of the couch, alone with her thoughts. She dreaded these times. The worst part of being with JC was any night that wasn’t Thursday, or a night she didn’t work, or didn’t have something to do for school, her life was reduced to sitting on the couch or out on the patio chairs near the pool and thinking.

Thinking was dangerous, sometimes. Thinking created questions that didn’t have answers, so her mind made them up. She believed in the answers so fervently that she operated her life by them. Her thoughts created questions about JC that her mind immediately answered.

Of course she couldn’t tell him about the Lucas thing. He’d be repulsed. Of course, she couldn’t fall in love with him and want to be with him. Once he found out what kind of woman Shelby really was, at her core, he’d want nothing to do with her. He’d met enough of that for a lifetime—he left LA, where that kind of woman ran rampant. He had to have been searching for something different, for someone different. Shelby convinced herself that she wasn’t someone different, or something different. She was the same woman he would have fought to untangle himself from, if only he knew.

Shelby sighed, hugging a throw pillow, and flipped to her other side, willing the thoughts to go away. The thoughts told her this was all her fault and all her doing. If she hadn’t been so hot for him and so forward and so naïve to think an affair with him could be surface and simple, she wouldn’t be in so much pain. Those cameras never would have caught 8 seconds of her face. Melina would never have found her. And she wouldn’t have been forced to walk away.

And he wouldn’t have been forced to simply accept it without so much as a whimper.

JC

There were a few lights on inside—the kitchen, the hallway, the lights above the steps. JC moved slowly into the house, rounding the corner into the kitchen. He tossed his keys across the counter and glared at the tall, thin, statuesque woman standing in the middle of the room, guzzling a beer.  

“This shit tastes stale,” she mumbled, tossing the bottle into the empty recycle bin next to the refrigerator.

“It is,” he said, dropping his satchel on the counter next to his keys and slowly crossing the threshold of the kitchen. “It’s months old. I haven’t been here in awhile. Tyler probably left that, the last time he was here.”

She nodded, rubbing her belly through a thin, silky red blouse. “That explains why it tastes like shit. Tyler never could pick beer.”

JC got right to the point, not in the mood for small talk about beer and insults about his brother. She wasn’t a part of the family, anymore. She couldn’t talk about Tyler like she was family. “Why are you here, Kim?”

Her eyes dropped to the floor, following the nervous tapping of her toes against the ceramic tile. Her jeans were skinny and nearly painted on her body; her feet wrapped in leather and lace Louboutins, her hair sleek and bouncy. She looked great. Really good, actually. Kim shrugged a shoulder, smiling shyly.

“Just came by to say hey. I heard you were in town. Someone said they saw you.” She stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. JC watched her limbs move gracefully, and then couldn’t stop staring at her chest, accentuated by her arms crossed under it. “I can’t come by and say hi?”

“No,” JC said, the word falling out before he even knew he was saying it. “No, you can’t just come by and say hi. Not when you left me by sneaking out while I was working and left a letter taped to the fucking TV about how you weren’t in love with me and I never saw you again.”

JC paced the length of the kitchen, walking past Kim one way and then another, ranting. “I waited for you, you know. I waited a long time to hear from you. I waited for some kind of explanation of what I did wrong. What was it that I did to make you leave me?” He shook his head slowly, his narrow eyes staring her down.”I never found out. And now I don’t care.”

“I made a mistake, JC. I never should have left.”

“Damn right, you shouldn’t have.”

“I mean it, JC.” Her eyes pleaded with him, following his every move from one end of the kitchen to the other.  “I loved you. I did. You know I did, or you wouldn’t have been so confused and messed up after I left.  I knew you were about to propose and I…I freaked out. I thought I wanted something different and I didn’t know if I even deserved you. I found out the hard way that I didn’t. I heard you were in town and I wanted to see you. To see if you still felt the same, and maybe if you did, we could start over. I’d like that.” 

While she spoke, Kim was inching toward him until she was directly in front of him, so close that he could smell her perfume. That scent, as it filled his nose, was familiar. That voice and those eyes and that hair, it was all familiar. Memories rushed to mind—the good times, the times before things fell apart, the times when, at least he thought, they were happy.

Kim stretched up, onto her toes and wrapped both arms around JC’s neck, stepping even closer, so close that he could feel her body heat and every curve, all the way down her body. His body responded-- she was warm and soft and smelled good. He didn’t like it but couldn’t help it. She smiled up at him, grinding against him.

“Hello, old friend,” she murmured, her voice husky, her breaths curling up around his neck, tickling his skin. She rotated her hips, pushing herself up and into him.

JC’s breath quickened as he became aroused against his will. Except it felt good. So good. He had missed her, but missed Shelby more. Shelby was way more difficult than Kim, though. Kim was simple. Easy.

“I uhm…” He cleared his throat, trying hard not to touch her, to keep his hands at his sides. “I thought you were with someone. Someone you left me for.”

She shook her head. “It ended almost before it started,” she said, her eyes closed. “I missed you, JC. So much.  I was too proud to come back and then when I heard you left town, I blamed myself. It sounds conceited, but I really did blame myself.”

She opened her eyes, shiny and rimmed with tears. He almost felt sorry for her. “I heard Rod’s song on the radio. I knew you wrote it. It has JC Chasez written all over it.”

There was something about her, about her knowing him so well that she could tell when he had a hand in a song, even if he didn’t write the song originally. He’d reworked it, sure. Put his own touch on it, apparently. Obviously, it showed enough that Kim took notice. Despite the situation, he smiled, a little proud.

“Thanks, Kim. I mean that, thanks. But this…” He touched her, finally, but only to push her away. “This can’t work, right now. I can’t just jump back into something with you. Not after how things ended with us. It took me a long time to get over you, and—“

“Are you really over me, JC? You’re sweating and breathing heavy and your dick is hard and you’re scared to touch me. Do you think if you touch me, you won’t be able to resist me? Are you sure you’re over me?”

She stepped close to him again, gripped him by his forearms and forced his arms around her body. Instinctively, they closed around her. “Or are you fighting this because you think you shouldn’t still want it? You think you should hate me… but you don’t. Do you?”

Words. The words wouldn’t come. ‘No’ and ‘get away from me’ and ‘I don’t want you’ and ‘I’m over you’ wouldn’t come up from his gut and out of his mouth. His mind was a swirl of what he knew was wrong but what felt so good to him. His body literally ached for human contact, the kind of contact he wanted from Shelby, not Kim. Yet he was reacting to her—the sight and sound and feel of her up against him, her lips on his neck, teeth nipping at his skin, She knew him so well, still. She knew what drove him up a wall and threw no punches, standing in the middle of the kitchen.

She must have read his mind, too. Sensing that the kitchen was the least romantic place to reconcile, Kim stepped back from JC, out of his arms and grabbed his hand, pulling him out of the room and toward the stairs. JC followed blindly, helpless. Was this really happening? Was he really doing this?

They reached the bedroom and Kim snapped on the nearest lamp. Her eyes crawled the barren space, her face registering shock. So much of what she was used to seeing in the room was no longer there. Shadows and markings were in their place—reminders of another time. A different time.

“It’s so… empty in here,” she said. “I can’t believe this is the same place.”

“Yeah, I… I moved everything down to Winter Park. I’m living out there while I work with Rod and the band. Seemed easier.”

“Oh, yeah. Rod hates LA. But I don’t want to talk about Rod, right now.” In one smooth movement, her blouse was off and she stood in front of JC in just her bra, which joined the sheer, red material on the carpeted floor moments later.  She pushed JC, pushed him back until his legs hit the mattress and he lost his balance, landing on the bed.

Kim climbed up onto the bed, her thighs on either side of his. Her jeans were tight and thin, so thin he could feel the heat coming from her core. Helpless, he laid there while she straddled him, grinding her hips against the long, hard lump in his jeans.

“God,” she moaned. “You drive me crazy. I missed you. I want to be with you. I’m sorry I left, but we don’t have to stay broken up.” She gripped him through his jeans, running her fingers along the length. “You still love me. You still want me.”

His jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped, the band of his boxers pulled down and he was exposed. The cool evening air hit his skin and his dick began to rise higher and grow harder. Kim bent over him, her rock hard nipples scraping against the soft cotton of his t-shirt, moving herself down until her breasts were cradling him. His head rolled back and his eyes drifted closed.

So close to giving in. Just this once. He could pretend it was Shelby. He could believe that it was Shelby hovering over him. It was Shelby that wanted him so badly that her hips were making tiny, convulsive circles against him. Those were Shelby’s breasts that he wanted to fill his hands with, her nipples he wanted to lick and flick and suck.

“Don’t torture yourself, with trying to do what’s right. What does your body want? What does your heart want?”

Those weren’t Kim’s lips around him, her mouth sinking down on him, sucking him in. Warm. Wet. God.

His heart? His heart didn’t want this. “Fuck! Stop! Kim…. No.”

He grabbed her head, pulling her away, off of him. He fell from her mouth but stood upright. It almost pained him to stop her, but he had to. She wasn’t Shelby. His heart wanted Shelby.

Kim, meanwhile, was wide eyed and panicky, moving off of him and sitting up. “What’s wrong? I thought you wanted this.”

JC sat up, tucking himself back inside his boxers and his jeans and zipped them again. He scrambled around the bed to pick up her bra and blouse and tossed them at her. They bounced off of her chest and landed in her lap. “I do want this. Just not with you. I can’t. I can’t do this. Not with you.”

Kim’s eyes were blazing with rage, her skin turning a deep crimson, a visual meter for her anger. She pulled her bra on, then yanked her blouse over her shoulders and with shaking hands, buttoned it.

“Not with me?” She huffed, rolling her eyes. “Then with who? You’re so goddamn picky, you probably haven’t had any since the last time I fucked you. Good luck jacking off in the shower, later. Are you still doing that?”

“Kim… let’s not make this ugly. I’m not the one that left. I’m not the one that snuck out of here. I’m not the one slinking back six months later, acting like nothing ever happened. Like you didn’t rip my heart out and stomp on it and then parade it up and down the street for the press. I wasn’t the one seeking out attention and playing the victim.”

Kim finished buttoning her blouse, adjusted and stood up. Despite the size of the room, she made it a point to pass JC so closely that her breasts brushed his arm and her hip collided with his still hard dick. She glanced down at him, chuckled and shook her head.

“Waste,” she spat, pausing in the doorway. “That’s what you are. A waste. You don’t know a good thing when you’ve got it. You could have found me, you know. I wasn’t hiding. Instead of waiting for me to come to you, you could have found me, if you missed me so badly. You could have told me I was an idiot and tried to get me back. You never said anything. You never came after me. I took that as a hint that you didn’t want me back.”

Kim turned on a red-soled heel and stomped down the stairs. From three flights above, JC heard her heels clicking against the hardwoods and then against the tile of the kitchen, and then the front door opening.

What did she say? I could have come after her?

JC raced down the stairs, skipping two and three steps at a time, throwing the front door open and bounding down the front steps just as Kim was getting into her car.

“Wait! Don’t leave yet! Wait!”

Kim paused, key in ignition. A smug grin bent her lips as she pushed the button to roll the window down. Eyebrows raised, she said, “Change your mind?”

“Sort of,” he said, leaning against the door, almost inside the window. “You just said if I would have come after you, you’d have come back. Is that true, or were you just saying that to make me feel like I missed out on something? Would you have really come back to me?”

“At first, no,” she said, uncharacteristically quiet. She relaxed against the leather seat and sighed. “I left because I thought I couldn’t handle what we had. It was intense, you know? Like, really deep and I thought I wasn’t ready for that. I knew, right away that it was a mistake to leave,  but I was too proud to go back. So, I stayed away and watched you destroy yourself. I wanted you to come find me. When you didn’t…” She shrugged a shoulder, looking at him, sincerity in her eyes and voice. “I just figured I’d lost you. Forever.”

“But if I had come after you…”

“In a heartbeat,” she said, on the verge of tears, her bottom lip trembling. “Are you? Are you coming after me?”

He hated to say it. He wasn’t this guy, this mean guy that got joy out of shooting her down, even though she’d caused so much pain for him. He wanted her to be happy, even if he couldn’t bring happiness to her. He wanted to be happy, too and despite having to let her down easy, she was giving him hope.

“Honey… no. We had something great and special, something I could have lived with for the rest of my life, and I’ll never forget what we had but… it’s gone, now. I couldn’t ever go back to that time and that relationship because I’m not that same guy.”  Before he continued, he questioned whether he should even say the words on the tip of his tongue.

“You know what, Kim? I loved you. A lot. And I still love you, yeah. You still turn me on. You always will. But… I met someone, down in Florida. It’s real complicated right now, which I hate, but she loves me. I know she does. Except she left, too. And I was blaming myself, you know? Licking my wounds. I haven’t talked to her or anything because I didn’t think I should.”

“And now you think you should? Because of what I said? That I’d have come back if you came after me?”

JC nodded, slightly, searching her face for an answer. Mainly, the one he wanted to hear.

“You love her?” He nodded, again. A pained expression crossed her face, very briefly, before she made it disappear, replacing it with a brave, nonchalant gaze. “Call her. Don’t beg, or anything. Just call her. If she wants you back, she’ll pick up.”

The answer was so simple; it could not possibly be a real answer. Just call her? Just pick up the phone and call her?

“You’re not sending me to the wolves because I rejected you, are you?”

Kim laughed, wiping an errant tear crawling down her cheek. She reached up to cup his chin in her palm, stroking the stubbly hairs on his cheek. She sat up, kissed his lips lightly, then sat back and dropped her hand.

“I hope she deserves you,” she said, before turning the key in the ignition. The engine purred to life. Her fingers reached for the button to slide the window back up. JC took the hint and stood, moving away from the car as she backed out of the driveway. The last he saw of her was a wave to him in the rear view mirror, and then the back of her coupe as she drove down the hill and turned the corner.

Shelby

Whoever was calling at 5am had to know her very well. They had to know that she didn’t sleep well, especially the past few nights, and would likely be awake; otherwise a 5am phone call was rude as hell. But this person did know her well--she was awake. Bleary eyed and exhausted, but wide awake. She hadn’t slept a wink, and was lying in her bed reading when her phone alerted, chirping the cheery tune she’d picked out to identify JC.

Thinking it was a mistake or a misdial, she reached for the phone to send the call the voicemail. Instead of ‘unknown’ or an unrecognized number, the display read, ‘Muzikman’. Her name for JC.  It was JC calling.

Her heart almost beat out of her chest. She forced herself to press the button to pick up the call.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

Oh, God. Shelby felt like rolling over and crying for days and days at the mere sound of his voice, the way he said hi, how the tone of just that one word made her feel. Instead she tried to breathe and concentrate on talking.

Say something.

“Uhm. Hi. How…errr…”

“Did I wake you up? I thought you’d be awake, or at the least I could leave a voicemail.”

“No. No, I’m up.” She heaved a breath, sitting up, crossing her legs and running her free hand through her hair, though he couldn’t see her. Was this happening? Did he actually call? “Uhm. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” he said, rather unconvincingly. “I just… wanted to call. I got your message. A few days ago.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry I had to do it that way, but I—“

“Me too, Shelby. As much as we’ve shared, you couldn’t just pick up a phone?”

“I could have, yes,” she admitted, after a pause. “I was scared. And embarrassed about all of this stuff going on and how you found out about it. And pissed off that Melina found you. There were things you were never supposed to know. This is something you weren’t meant to be involved in, JC.”

“I know. And it sucks that I found out the way I did. But that’s the past and we can’t change that. Dumping me doesn’t make anything go away. Does it?”

“No,” she whispered. “It doesn’t.”

“Shelby…”

“What?”

“I miss you. A lot. And not just because of the sex, before you say it. I miss you. The sound of your voice and your smile and the way you say my name and the way you shoot tequila straight. I miss you up against me and around me. I miss you in my life, even the little bit that you were in it. I don’t want to lose you, over this. It doesn’t have to be over, if we don’t want it to be.”

Shelby sighed, her heart virtually crying. “It’s just so much, JC. There’s so much that you don’t know yet, and you could potentially get wrapped up in some ugly shit. What I did was best for both of us.”

“I don’t want it. Neither do you. And I won’t accept it. I won’t be pushed away, because you think it’s the right thing to do. It’s not. The right thing to do is to let me in, so I can be there for you, Shelby. Please.”

“I don’t have any right to ask for that or expect it, JC. I’m some girl you met at the grocery store one morning. You were hot for me, I was hot for you, and we got together and hung out some. And you’re an amazing person. Please don’t think I’m saying you aren’t. I don’t want to involve you in something that could take you down. This could.”

“How many times, in how many ways do I have to say I don’t care? I can’t think of anything I care less about than the shit that came inside that envelope. I get that you couldn’t tell me. I understand, Shelby. But like I said, that was the past. I know, now. I’m here, now. I’m willing to fight it out with you, right here beside you. Right now.”

“I hear you, and I appreciate that—“

“I don’t think you’re listening, honey, because you’re not hearing me. Shelby, I’m not going anywhere.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “You’re so damn stubborn!”

“I am. Especially when I think I’m right. And I do. The sooner you realize it and agree with me, the sooner we can figure out what’s going on and what to do about it.”

Shelby laid back down again, turning out the lamp next to the bed and closing her eyes. “If… if things go all stupid, I want you to know that I don’t blame you for bailing. This might be rough.”

“I’m ready. Rough is my middle name. Well, not really, it’s Scott.” He stopped to chuckle at himself. “But really, I’ve been through a few battles in my life, though. I know a thing or two.”

“I have an attorney,” Shelby said, giggling. “You don’t need to know a thing or two. But I would appreciate your support.”

“You got it, honey. You always had it. I was just waiting to be let into the inner circle. I hate that I had to be ushered in by something nasty.”

“And I’m sorry. About the email. I didn’t know what else to say. I thought you were pissed at me. And you didn’t answer, so I thought you agreed it was the best thing to do.”

“I did think it was best, for awhile. I thought you wanted me to go away. I was doing what you wanted me to do. But something happened, and changed my mind about it.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Uhm…. actually. When I got home tonight, my ex was here. In the house.”

A pang of jealousy stabbed at Shelby’s heart. She sat bolt upright in the darkness, a death grip on the phone. “Kim? What’s she doing in Orlando? What’s she doing in your house? I don’t even have a key!”

“I’m in LA, honey,” JC said, calming. Soothing. “We’re mixing the album, out here. I got to the house and she was here. She still had a key, I guess.”

“I guess. So what happened?” JC hesitated, causing her heartbeat to speed up, again, only not out of excitement. “JC?”

“Shelby…nothing. Nothing happened with her. She wanted it. She kept saying that I never came after her. I never showed her that I didn’t want the breakup, I just accepted it. And then she accepted it because I accepted it. I was waiting for her to think it was a mistake and come find me. She was waiting for me to fight for us. And I realized that I was doing the same thing, with you. Just letting things happen.”

“You didn’t sleep with her?”

“No. I didn’t. I told her about you. I told her that I love you.” He paused, waiting for a response. Shelby was too shocked to form a cogent one. “I told her that I think you love me, too but that something was going on and that you left and I didn’t know what to do. She said to call you and if you wanted me back, you’d pickup. So I called. And you picked up.”

Shelby lay down again, willing her heart to stop beating so fast, so loudly in her ear. She’d almost lost her mind at the thought of him being with his ex-girlfriend. Kim was the holy grail, the stick by which everyone else was going to be measured. Shelby didn’t even know where she ranked, against Kim. Deep down, she didn’t really want to know.

“I’m not saying you’re right, or anything. But if I was going to say I loved you, it wouldn’t be on the phone.”

JC laughed at her coy admission, her saying it without saying it. “Well, I’m out here for a few days, and then headed back home. I have a break for awhile, before the album drops. Maybe we could work on saying it in person. And maybe you could say some other things in person. Maybe you could say everything in person.”

“Uhm…” Shelby sighed, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling. “I’m in Miami. Dealing with this Melina thing. I’m waiting to see if we have a meeting set up to try and resolve it. I might not be in Orlando when you get there.”

“Oh.” JC sounded surprised, a little shocked. Maybe he’d already been planning their reunion in his head. “Then I’ll come to you. It doesn’t matter where we say the words.”

Shelby wanted to argue, but didn’t. She wanted to tell him not to bother, to go to Orlando and live his life and stay out of the mess, but didn’t. She couldn’t. He was offering, and he wanted to be there for her. And she wanted him to be there for her, more than life itself. She took it.

“Then let me know when you’re heading back. I’ll pick you up.”

“Deal.” She heard a long, loud sigh on the other end. “I’m hard. I’ve missed you.”

Shelby laughed. What a transition. “I do really wish I could help you with that, right now. We missed our date.”

“We did. I haven’t really slept in days.”

“Me either. It’s been kind of stressful, plus all this stuff with us… sleep seems like a luxury.”

“Well, sweetie, just relax. Don’t stress yourself out too much over it. It’ll work out.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. No one knows for sure. I’ll believe it when I see it I’m so worried about this. And I know you said you don’t care, but I care if your name gets brought up.”

“You let me worry about that,” he said mirroring Bob’s words at dinner. “I know what to do.” He yawned, loudly, in her ear. “Now, it’s late here, so it’s really late over that way. I’ve gotta put up with Rod all day, so I need to get some rest. And you just need rest, because you don’t ever sleep.”

Shelby smiled into the phone and snuggled further down in the bed. “Yes sir. I’m in the bed. I’ll try to sleep.”

“Wish I was with you. Will be soon. Night, Shelby.”

The line disconnected and there was dead air in her ear, but Shelby held the phone, not wanting to let go quite yet. If she didn’t move and didn’t disconnect, then she could stay in this place where she was happy and relieved and overjoyed. The moment she moved or hung up on her end, she would lose the warm, fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach. It would be replaced by immeasurable fear and nervous anticipation.

The years before Lucas were a dark corner, to JC. One that was about to be lit up with a fluorescent bulb, all shadows chased away. Shelby was nowhere near out of the woods with him.

Melina had merely scratched the dirt on the surface of the woman she used to be. Shelby hoped JC really was in for the long haul. There was a lot yet to uncover.