One In A Melon Read online

  “I’m here,” I promise, staying put. And God, it’s a glorious place to be. In his arms, I feel every inch of my skin on fire, his strength wrapping around me and grounding me, and somehow lifting me higher all at once.

  “You feel so good,” he tells me, his lips brushing my cheeks, and I smile against his smile. I laugh, and he does too. Laughs that are deep and real and raw. Ours. Six years is a long time to wait, but I would have waited even longer if I knew this was what was on the other side. If we were on the other side. And here we are.

  His fingers lace with mine and I smile. His cock is deep inside me and I moan, biting his shoulder as we roll in the bed, laughing and kissing and touching. Our skin is hot as we make love, my hair a mess and his eyes bright with hope.

  “My body’s on fire,” I pant, his cock rocking deeper as I moan louder. “Oh yes,” I cry. “Yes, yes, ohhh.”

  He comes inside me as my pussy tightens, pulsing with a heat I’ve never known before. His come fills me up and I hold him tight, and he doesn’t let go. He won’t let go. He is mine and I am his and I don’t want this to end.

  I’m scared there’s a shelf life on this kind of happiness. Grady is too good for a girl like me. I’ve been so scared of failing I haven’t even tried.

  Until I did.

  And God, that’s what got me in this mess.

  But it’s also what got Grady in my bed.

  I’m scared to tell him the truth because I’m scared he will leave me even if now, with blinders on, he swears he won’t.

  If one night is all I get from him… it will have been enough.

  We roll on our backs, catching our breath. Smiling, dizzy and blissed out.

  I lick my lips. Satisfied.

  “What?” Grady asks. “You’re thinking something.”

  “I was thinking how you really are one in a melon, Grady.”

  “Is that your way of asking for another slice?”

  I laugh, rolling on top of him. “It’s my way of saying I love you too.”

  Chapter Six

  Grady

  When we wake up, the first thing I do is roll over to pull Georgie to me — but she isn’t in bed.

  “Georgie?” I call out, and when there isn’t an answer, I pull on my pants and look around the apartment. She’s on the balcony, the sliding glass door shut, and she’s crying, talking on her phone. I look at clock on her microwave — it’s eight a.m.

  Apparently, she wasn’t exaggerating when she called me here, in trouble. I feel like shit, letting her put off her problems instead of facing them last night.

  She catches my eyes and wipes her cheeks before ending her call. She shoves the phone in the pocket of her hoodie and pushes the door open, meeting me back inside.

  “So, I guess that was about the trouble you’re in?”

  She nods, biting her bottom lip. Tears well up in her eyes again. She turns away, walks into the kitchen, and brings me a cup of coffee she’s brewed.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, taking her hand and leading her to the couch. I set the mug on the coffee table. “I need to apologize before you start, though. Georgie, I shouldn’t have had you put off your problems for another day. Forgive me.”

  “No,” she says, shaking her head. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. And I needed last night more than I’ve ever needed anything.”

  “Can you start at the beginning?”

  She nods. “I didn’t realize what it was until it got out of hand. Until it was too late. I just wanted to hang out with Karen, I hadn’t seen her since high school… She’d invite me out, and I was so taken by her. I thought she was so cool because she would get invites to all these exclusive events.”

  “What would you guys do?”

  “We’d get dressed up in her designer clothes and go to clubs or parties and make new friends quickly. Or so I thought… turns out that to Karen, they were potential passengers who seemed like they might want to make a buck or two. Or twelve grand.”

  My eyes widen. “Twelve grand? And what do you mean, passengers?”

  Georgie sighs. “After a month of going out with her, I started asking questions. Why did she want so many people’s phone numbers? So a few days ago, Karen caved and told me about the game she was playing. It’s called the airplane game, and she was the pilot. She needed eight passengers to buy a thousand-dollar ticket on her metaphorical plane. She’d been doing it for years, apparently. She started as a passenger herself but she’s worked her way up and she already has four flight attendants and two co-pilots below her. She just needed those eight passengers to cash out.”

  I nod, trying to follow. “So it was a pyramid?”

  Georgie nods slowly. “A pyramid scheme.”

  “And you played?” I ask, trying to figure out how involved she is in all of this.

  “I didn’t play, not once,” she says quickly. “The buy-in is a thousand dollars. So when all twelve people are on a ‘plane,’ the pilot gets all the money from the ‘tickets’ and the two co-pilots are promoted to pilots on their own planes, and so on.”

  “Why didn’t you turn her in to the cops when you found out what she was really up to?” I keep my face neutral, not wanting to voice my thoughts before she explains it all.

  “I knew it was wrong… so I told her I was going to tell my brother everything. She threatened me,” Georgie says. “Said she’d make sure it looked like it was all my idea. I was scared. She’s really powerful, or at least that’s how it looks.”

  Trying to get the story straight, I ask, “And how exactly did you get in touch with her again?”

  Georgie smirks. “At the grocery store. She probably saw me, this girl she used to know, who was supposed to become something special, who ended up with a shopping cart full of Hot Pockets, and thought I was an easy target.”

  I bounce my shoulder off hers. “Don’t knock Hot Pockets. They’re delicious.”

  Georgie laughs sadly. “Grady, don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Try to remind you to breathe?” I take her hand. “This is going to be okay. Explain what happened next.”

  “Yesterday, Karen left town, and left a lot of people out of money. She gave them my number – can you believe that? Now I feel responsible because I’m the person they are all calling, wanting to know what happened… and I’m the only one who knows where she went.”

  My stomach drops. Karen’s the person Vance is looking for.

  Georgina

  “What is it?” I ask Grady, seeing a dark look in his eyes.

  “We have to tell your brother,” he says.

  I shake my head. “No. That’s the last thing we need to do.”

  “Georgie, listen to me. You need to tell him everything. I think he’s looking for Karen.”

  “Why are you even helping me?” I ask, pulling back. “Aren’t you totally put off by what I’ve done?”

  Grady swallows, clasps his hands together, looking down. Thinking. I squirm in my seat, the agony of knowing he is so close to walking away kills me.

  But then he looks at me, not with pity but with determination. “First of all, you didn’t know what was going on. And secondly, we can get through this. We can get through anything. I promised you that last night and I’m not backing down. We’ve all done stupid shit, Georgie.”

  “You’ve never done anything this dumb.”

  He runs a hand over my cheek, pulling me close, and our foreheads meet. “It was pretty fucking dumb to wait so long to tell you how I feel.”

  “What will happen to me?” I whisper.

  Grady pulls me into an embrace and I melt against him. “I don’t know the laws, what might happen, but I do know this — whatever you’ve gotta face, we can face it together.”

  Grady’s words give me the confidence to call my brother. I ask him to meet Grady and me for breakfast.

  “How about the Hot Spot?” Vance suggests Val’s diner.

  Half an hour later, the four of us are sitting in a booth, and Vance and Val
erie are looking at us, stunned.

  “You guys are together?” Val asks, hurt. “How long have you been keeping this from us?”

  “It’s not like that. Grady and I… we’re just starting out. I haven’t been hiding that from you.”

  Valerie has been my closest friend for a long time, but I’ve been pretty crappy at treating her like a BFF. I’ve been hiding so much out of embarrassment. A woman like Val doesn’t have to pretend to be someone she’s not. She’s confident without any falsity. Me, though? I’ve been trying so hard to be something that I forgot how to be myself.

  “Look, I need to apologize to both of you,” I say, making the bravest choice I’ve made in a long time. “I’ve made a big mess of things and it’s time I owned up.”

  I explain it all — my insecurity about not having a clue where my life is headed, how Karen seemed to come into my life at the perfect time, and how I fell for her lies. And then I explain her pyramid scheme.

  “I knew the moment she explained it that it was shady, that someone would end up losing money, and when I called her on it, she skipped town.”

  “Hell, Georgie,” Vance says, shaking his head. “Karen is the woman our department is after. She’s done this in three states. There are a shit ton of people looking for her.”

  “I know where she is,” I say with shaky breath. “She left for Miami two days ago, and that’s why I got so scared. The people she took money from started calling me, asking me to get them their cash back, but I don’t have access to it. Karen has it. All of it.”

  “What I don’t get is why you didn’t talk to me about any of this. Tell me about Karen,” Valerie says. Her eyes are dark, hurt fills them.

  I press my lips together. “Val, you’re the strongest person I know. You’ve been through hell and never blamed a soul. You pulled up your bootstraps and made your life this beautiful thing. I wish I was brave like you. But I didn’t know how to explain how shitty I felt about my dead-end job, my barely written novel… and Karen made me forget all that. I didn’t know how to tell you how stuck I felt.”

  Valerie reaches across the table. “But that’s what friends are for, Georgie. To help get one another unstuck.”

  “I’m learning that now, a little too late.” I wipe the tears from my eyes and Grady rubs my back.

  “It’s not too late, little sis,” Vance says. “I’m gonna go to the station and get to work. You’ll need to come with me.”

  “Are you going to arrest me?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No, you didn’t steal anything. Karen did. And you’re gonna help me catch her.”

  Chapter Seven

  Grady

  Grady’s Garden Supply Co. is open for business as usual, but my head is not here. Myra’s at the register, texting someone instead of working, but I’m too focused on Georgie to say anything. It’s been a hell of a morning, and I’m dying to hear from the woman I love.

  I’m unpacking a box of freshly delivered melon starts and the fact it’s this fruit, out of any fruit in the whole wide world, is not lost on me.

  When the bell to the shop chimes, I look up and see Georgie walking toward me. A shaky smile on her face.

  “So, what happened?” I ask, taking her hands. She’s been at the station for more than five hours.

  “I gave them all the information I had — her address, her phone number, her parents’ names… and they caught her.”

  “Really?” I wrap my arms around her, kissing the top of her head.

  “Thank you,” she says, looking up at me. “For pushing me to do the hard thing, talking to Vance.”

  “What happens next… for you?”

  “I won’t be charged with anything. I’ll testify if I need to, but I’m off the hook since I didn’t know what was happening.”

  “I’m sorry you went through all of this.”

  “As horrible as Karen is, without her, I wouldn’t have found out something I’ll never forget.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That I don’t need fancy clothes or purses to define me. I get to choose how I see myself.”

  “And how do you see yourself right now, Georgie?”

  She smiles, looking up at me with bright eyes. “I think that maybe I’m enough, just how I am. I don’t need to write some hot-shot novel or have a high-end job. I can just be me. I’m one in a melon, all on my own.”

  I laugh, loving this woman, appreciating the clarity she’s found. Knowing this is how I saw her all along.

  “The last twenty-four hours have been all about me,” she says. “Can we make the next twenty-four hours all about you?”

  “I know exactly where I’d like to take you.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nod. “But it’s not fancy. It’s not an exclusive invite to a night club, and there is no VIP list.”

  “I don’t need any of that, Grady. I just need you.”

  “Then come on, baby. Let me take you to my house.”

  “What will we do there?” she asks, standing on her tiptoes, close enough to kiss.

  I lift her into the air. “I can show you my garden. So long as you don’t mind getting a little dirty.”

  She laughs. A big laugh. The kind of laugh I fucking love, that has my cock twitching. “I’ll get on my hands and knees in your garden, Grady. And maybe you can plant something while you’re there.”

  “I want something else first,” I say.

  “What?” she says, her eyes sparking.

  “Honeydew you want to marry me?”

  Her mouth drops open, clearly shocked. “Really? You want to marry a hot mess like me?”

  I draw her lips to mine. “If you don’t say yes, I’ll be so melon-choly.”

  She laughs, eyes sparkling. “We can’t have that, can we?”

  I shake my head. “No. Not when we have the whole world before us.”

  “Of course I will marry you, Grady. It’s only ever been you.”

  I kiss her then, deeply, with promise. Our love story has just started, but I know it will grow more abundant than any garden.

  Epilogue 1

  Georgina

  Three months later…

  The garden is abundant and beautiful. Fresh flowers are everywhere — spilling over archways, garlands strung overhead, beautiful centerpieces on the tables in the tent.

  In my white sundress and flower crown, the day couldn’t be more perfect. Valerie’s in a soft pink dress and she hands me my bouquet. “You make a beautiful bride,” she says and I am so glad to share this day with her.

  Grady and I considered running away and getting married, but in the end, we decided we cantaloupe.

  “I’m so glad you’re here with me,” I say, squeezing Val’s hand. “You’re the best friend in the world.”

  She smiles. “Well, I won’t argue with that.”

  “I love you,” I say. “For being here for me through thick and thin.”

  “Just promise that when your go through the next thin phase, you’ll let me know what is going on. So I can be there for you.”

  I nod, blinking back tears. “I promise.”

  “No crying on my watch,” she says. “Now get out there and marry the man of your dreams.”

  I pull her in for one last hug and then walk down the aisle toward Grady. The only man I’ve ever loved.

  * * *

  He spins me around the dance floor, his strong arms wrapped around me, and all our friends and family are here supporting us. “You are such a beautiful bride,” he says, his breath hot on my ear.

  “Don’t whisper too many sweet nothings or I’ll have to drag you off this dance floor.”

  He chuckles. “Guess I’ll start talking dirty and see what happens.”

  “First we have to cut the cake,” I say as the song ends. He takes my hand and we walk to the cake that our friend Jessa designed. She said it was the most challenging cake she’s ever made.

  It’s three tiers, but instead of fluffy cake, it’s red watermelon
slices stacked one on top of another. The dessert is covered in whipped cream and fresh blueberries, kiwis and peaches.

  Grady slices it and I shake my head, laughing. “Don’t you dare shove that in my mouth!”

  Instead of making a mess, we offer one another bites as our guests cheer and the photographer snaps photos. Red juice slides down Grady’s chin and I lean in, kissing him.

  Already thinking about doing so much more.

  * * *

  By the end of the day, we’ve danced, eaten, posed for hundreds of photos, and smiled our butts off.

  But I’m not tired. I’m ready for our wedding night.

  “I’m still surprised you didn’t want to rent a honeymoon suite at a hotel downtown,” Grady says after the last guest has said goodbye, leaving us alone in his garden. Well, our garden now. I moved into his house a week ago.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times, I don’t need fancy. I just want real. I want us. And besides, I like our bedroom.”

  After we got engaged, Grady took me to his house and I saw firsthand that the perfect man I was marrying had a dirty secret of his own. He didn’t make his bed and had plenty of clothes littering his floor. It was refreshing, to say the least. And my ideal man just became that much sexier.

  And we made a plan. We decided to hire a housecleaner to come once a week and help us keep the place a bit tidier.

  So now, as Grady lifts me into his arms and carries me upstairs to our room, I know the bed has been freshly made. But as he carries me over the threshold, I don’t expect to see our bedroom turned into a fairytale.

  Candles are everywhere, lit and washing the room in a soft glow. There is a new bed in the middle of the room with a white canopy, and a trail of rose petals lead us.

  “It looks made for a princess.”

  “It has been,” Grady says. “It was made for you.”