Chapter 38: Chapter 38

When Melody turned back to the counter, she looked at Delaney, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming. Had Reid really just asked her on a date? A real date?

“Oh. My. Gosh!” Delaney said, keeping her voice as low as possible so as not to alarm the other customers.

“Can you believe that?” Melody asked, still not sure she could believe it herself. “Thank you so much for dragging my keister down here.” She sat down on one of the barstools, knowing she couldn’t go running back to the shop just yet.

“He’s so cute,” Delaney said, leaning on the counter in front of her. “Oh, I’m so happy for you!”

“Thanks,” Melody said. Delaney had called her earlier in the week to let her know what was happening with her and Josh, so she added. “I’m happy for you, too. But I need to slow down and not get ahead of myself. This is just a date. And Michael will be there, too, maybe even my mom, so it’s not even like a date date.”

“It’s a date date,” Delaney assured her. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Mel.” She emphasized the nickname, letting Melody know she’d caught that, too. “He’s definitely in to you.”

Melody took a long drink of her hot cocoa, and if she’d been a drinking woman, she’d have wished it was Irish. “Maybe,” she said when she finally set the cup back down. “But it’s all so complicated.” Lowering her voice and waiting for Delaney to lean in, she whispered, “I still don’t know what happened to Michael’s mom. And there’s a chance Reid isn’t ready to date anyone seriously. It’s got to be hard with a little boy.”

“A little boy who thinks you hung the moon,” her friend reminded her. “Look, Melody, I don’t know if you two are meant to be together or not, but I think he’s a great guy, and it would be nice to see you genuinely happy again. You deserve that.”

Melody considered her words. At the very least, she was thankful that Reid and Michael had given her a distraction during this most difficult time of the year for her. “I guess we’ll just see how it goes on Friday.” She nodded her head, hoping she could convince herself to find the middle ground between freaking out with excitement and self-doubting her way to a break up that hadn’t even happened yet.

“Do you want me to dump those cold cocoas out and get you new ones?” Delaney asked, tactfully changing the subject.

Though she’d been sipping hers, she had no idea what the temperature was. She tested it again. “No, it’s okay. It’s still warm.”

“Okay,” Delaney said.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Please, girl. You just made my day.”

“Mine, too,” Edie added from over Delaney’s shoulder, smiling.

Melody was no longer annoyed at her presence and felt bad for having negative thoughts earlier. “Thank you,” she said to both of them. Gathering the cocoas and muffin, she gave them another smile, and said, “I’ll talk to you soon,” to Delaney before making her way back out into the cold, though the bite didn’t sting quite so much this time.

***

Melody had not made it to church on Wednesday evening. She knew Michael was disappointed, even though she’d explained to him that afternoon on the way to Ms. Karen’s that she wasn’t able to go. She hated to disappoint him, but she just couldn’t handle another Bible study class full of Christmas wishes and stories of rejoicing for everything God had given His people when he’d sent His son to the Earth. She knew all that—she believed all that—but she didn’t want to hear it right now, not when memories of that horrible night two years ago flooded her from all directions.

She’d stayed home working on the website, trying to lose herself in her work. It would’ve been impossible to do anyway, but her mother made it even worse when she sent a picture of Michael holding up a craft he’d made in his children’s group, a big grin on his face and the message saying, “He made this Baby Jesus in the manger for you, Melody.” Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot.

Rather than calling Reid when she dropped Michael off the last two afternoons, she’d sent him a text, and he had replied back to her via text as well. She was secretly glad, though she wouldn’t have been upset to have the chance to speak to him. Now that he had actually asked her out on what she had to assume must be a real date, she felt like she shouldn’t really speak to him or see him again until Friday night. It was almost like the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding. If they talked before the date, they just might jinx the entire thing!

Thursday afternoon, however, once Michael was dropped off, she decided she might actually need to determine what the plan was for the next afternoon, so she sent Reid a text asking him to call her when he had a chance so she could see where he wanted to meet before the parade. He’d answered that he was busy fixing a broken pipe, and he would call her that evening when Michael was in bed.

At 8:30, Melody sat down on her bed, dressed in warm, comfortable pajamas, her phone in hand, waiting. She likened the phone to a pot filled with water, poised on the stove top, but despite her own internal warnings, she couldn’t help but stare at it.

She remembered that the last time he had called her in the evening, he mentioned that Michael went to bed unexpectedly easy that time, so when 8:45 rolled around, and he still hadn’t called, she tried not to panic. There was a good chance that Michael had been so excited about the parade, his last day of school before break, and Christmas itself that he just couldn’t sleep.

By 9:00, she was wondering if maybe he had forgotten he said he would call. Even though she’d spoken to him on the phone several times now, she didn’t want to call him; she didn’t want him to know that she was so impatient. What would he think if he knew she’d been staring at her phone for over thirty minutes? Maybe she should just wait until tomorrow morning and send him a text then.

A few minutes later, when she was ready to toss the phone aside and try to get some work done, it started to buzz, and she breathed a sigh of relief when his name popped up. Waiting until it had rung at least three times, she answered, trying to keep her voice as calm and even as possible. “Hello?”

“Hey. Sorry it’s so late. Someone didn’t want to wear the Pokémon pajamas to bed tonight. He wanted the Spiderman ones—which were nowhere to be found.”

“Oh no. Was there screaming and crying?”

“Yes, but eventually I calmed down, and then I helped Michael find them.”

Melody giggled, and just to give him a hard time, she joked, “Well, they were your pajamas.”

Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that sort of a remark, and his laughter filled her ear. “Now, that’s funny, Mel. And since I am a gentleman, I won’t make any inappropriate comments about what I actually sleep in.”

“Or the shape of your bed?”

“Not this time.”

She let out a nervous chuckle, remembering how embarrassed he had been at the bakery the other day when he had said she should see his bed. “Sorry about the PJ wars. I was beginning to think maybe you did fall off Mrs. Watson’s roof.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t as windy today, so I got it all finished. I’m definitely going to need to go back over there and make some repairs, though. I hope what she has holds until I can get back and we don’t get another big snow.”

“I’m glad you were able to get the lights done. She really is a sweet woman. She took over playing the piano at church again at the festival the Christmas Eve my dad died, and she’s been doing it ever since. She was the church pianist before him and sort of retired, I guess. Now, she says she’ll keep playing until they find a replacement.”

“That’s really nice of her,” he said quietly. Melody wondered if he was considering saying more or asking about her dad. She didn’t know for sure if he had realized her dad actually died on Christmas Eve. After a bit of a pause, he said, “I’m going to ask you something that I already know the answer to, but I promised I’d ask, so please forgive me. But since we’re on the subject of the piano, Karen wanted me to see if you’d consider giving lessons to her daughter Kayla. She said her daughter used to be a student of your father’s and since then she hasn’t been able to find anyone who inspires her the way that he did. I told her I was certain that you wouldn’t, but she said it wouldn’t hurt to ask. While I beg to differ, I promised her I’d run it by you. Now, you can go ahead and tell me no.”