Tempting /A Jordan Knight fanfic ✔️

26

Chapter 26: The Break

The very next day was unexpected in every way, and it started off with a phone call from Mel.

"I just wanted to thank you again for coming over last night. Having you and Peter there made it a significantly less awful night."

Drying my hands off on a kitchen towel, I chuckled.

"Glad I could do my part. Were things better between you guys after we left?"

"Worse, actually."

"How is that even possible?"

"Well, we cleaned up together and then when I suggested we go to bed, I went to our bedroom and he went to your old room."

"What?"

"Yup. We officially slept in separate beds last night. We're really crushing this whole 'No sex before marriage' thing."

He slept in my old room, in my old bed, instead of next to his soon-to-be-wife?

Images I didn't want of him lying in my bed, feet close to hanging off the edge poured behind my eyes. I even squeezed them shut to stop it, but he was there anyway, in the darkly lit room, trying to find my face in the designs of the ceiling like I had tried to find his on too many sleepless night.

"Mel, that's not okay."

"Eh, it is what it is. We'll figure it out before the wedding. I'm not that worried."

Though, she did sound worried, even as best as she tried to disguise it with indifference.

"Enough about me. I wanna hear about you and Peter! You guys looked awfully comfy last night."

"Oh." I let an awkward laugh tumble from my lips and wandered into the living room. "That's not a big deal or anything."

"What? Why? He's cute in the nerdy sort of way."

"Yeah, I know. He's definitely cute and he's so nice—"

Mel interrupted. "Uh oh."

"Why'd you say uh oh?"

"Because, no great love story starts with either party saying the other is 'nice.'"

"But nice is good. Nice is..." I paused, looking out over my lonesome new home with a growing gloom. "Safe."

"Maybe. But safe isn't always what's best."

"And sometimes it is."

"Sure, yeah." A knot twisted together in my chest as Mel took on the tender, maternal voice she rarely let show. "Just... I don't want you to try and force something that isn't there, okay? If it is, great. If it's not, why settle? You're young and beautiful and you can have any man you look at with those big blue eyes of yours that I'm still pissed Dad didn't pass on to me. Don't settle for the first guy who isn't an asshole to you after having your heart broken."

The knot in my chest cinched tighter, constricting air flow to nothing but a few strangled sputters. Mel's kindness was overpowering. She thought so much more of me than I deserved from her.

"Um," I tried, blanking hard on the right thing to say. I searched the walls of the apartment like the answers were written on them. "I—"

An abrupt pounding shot my head toward my front door. The pounding was aggressive and confusing but a godsend from this conversation.

"Mel, I have to go. There's someone at my door."

"Oh, okay. Call me back."

She hung up right after, and I placed my phone down on the arm of the only piece of furniture I had in the living room. Was the knocking Maintenance finally returning my request? It was Monday, so it was a likely possibility. That or Peter had sent me flowers for last night. Or a box of strawberries.