Melt Read online

  It cost me the guy in the whole dream life scenario, but looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.

  Around one, Jenna pops her head in again. “Want to grab a bite? You look like you could use it, plus these walls are thin, and your phone has been ringing off the hook.”

  “Does that lunch come with a margarita? Because I could really use one.” I survey the stacks of papers I’ve tried to organize on my desk.

  “If you won’t tell, I won’t.” She winks, her cute floral midi dress swaying as I follow her out.

  At least I get lunch with an adult for once. There aren’t sippy cups or sing-alongs in sight.

  Three

  Samantha

  “Lennon, don’t put that paintbrush on the carpet …”

  I walk into my mom’s house a little afraid to see what’s actually happening. “Hello?”

  “Mommy!” I hear a shriek from the living room, and a smocked Lennon comes running at me.

  I manage to pick her up before she hugs around my new black work skirt with paint all over her, and smack a kiss on her cheek. “How’s my girl?”

  “We’re painting fingers!”

  “I believe we are finger painting, but it’s whatever you choose, my dear.” My mom comes up behind her, and I smile a thank you at her. “Now go clean up so we can eat dinner.”

  “Oh, Mom, you didn’t have to do that.” I follow her into the kitchen, the smell of meatloaf coming from the oven.

  “Hush, I didn’t want you to have to cook after your first day. Tell me, how was it?”

  I fill her in on the events of the day as we set the small island together, pulling out the stools and setting up Lennon’s booster chair on one. She pours water and wine for the two of us, and it makes me smile that she knows I need a little red to take the edge off today.

  “Did you meet anyone nice? Make a friend?” My mom still talked to me sometimes like I’d just gotten off the bus from middle school.

  “Everyone is nice so far, but you know … they all had their day one faces on. Give it a week.” I shrug, not kidding myself that people are on their best behavior when they first meet you.

  Mom takes the food from the counter, setting serving dishes full of delicious looking items on the island.

  “Lennon, go wash your hands, dinner is ready.”

  “Okay, Mimi!” Her tiny feet patter on the floor as she runs for the powder room in my mom’s home.

  It was strange being back in my childhood kitchen, the one my family had dined in thousands of times. To see the pictures of my brother, Charlie, as a kid holding a baseball. Now he was in Africa, leaving behind our mom as well to go save lives in the jungle. The especially painful pictures were those of my father, smiling and holding us as if he’d never let us go. A heart attack had taken him when I was just fifteen, and the memory of it still haunted some of this house.

  Tinkling music notes snap me out of my reverie, and I look towards the front door. “What is that?”

  “Ice cream truck!” Lennon bolts from the bathroom, running to press her nose up against the glass of the screen door.

  My mom wipes her hands on a dish towel and goes for her purse. “You may have one scoop before dinner, no more. And only because it’s summer and Mimi can’t get enough of that Lemon Poppy Seed flavor that man sells.”

  They both walk out, my mom grabbing my daughter’s hand as they make their way to the curb. I follow, curious and also annoyed that my daughter is going to have sweets before dinner.

  Walking out the front door into my mom's Alexandria cul-de-sac, I'm surprised when the same truck that Lennon ran up to two days ago pulls around the circle of pavement.

  Cones & Corks is emblazoned on the side of the bright teal truck, with a picture of a delicious looking triple scoop next to a glass of wine sitting next to the words. A couple of other families in the neighborhood run to catch the truck, children yelling and waving a precious dollar in their hands. A few of them get to the truck before Lennon as it stops on a certain part of the sidewalk, and I increase my pace to make sure my daughter has only one scoop.

  As I join my mom and Lennon in line, I can't help but stretch my neck to see who is inside the truck. The sun glints in my eyes and I can't make out the body attached to the hand serving melting scoops.

  But by the time we get to the front of the line, I see that it’s Jake. The cute guy who gave us free ice cream and knew my name. The one who looked at me with those sparkling green eyes and for a second I forgot where I was.

  “Hi!” Lennon looks up at him, and I can’t help but smile.

  My daughter may have grown up in a home that was laced with tension, but it doesn’t seem to have affected her. In fact, I often have to stop her from hugging strangers, or mannequins at the mall.

  “Well hi again … Lennon, right? I think you liked our cookie flavor last time.” He directs that charming grin on her, and she nods her head emphatically.

  “How does Jake know our little girl?” My mom turns to me.

  “Hey, Molly!” Jake waves at my mom, and I swear she blushes like a schoolgirl.

  “Why does the ice cream guy know your name?” I raise my eyebrow at her.

  She goes up to order her Lemon Poppy Seed, and his eyes find me at last. “Do you live in the neighborhood?” As if catching himself, he laughs. “Wow, that wasn’t creepy at all.”

  I have to laugh, because it was kind of forward. Mom ushers Lennon back into the driveway, both of them licking at their sweet treats. “Said the grown man riding around in an ice cream truck.”

  His smile drops, and I instantly feel bad. “I didn’t mean …”

  “No, it’s okay.” He chuckles. “I typically don’t do the night routes, or any of the neighborhoods. I employ some college kids to do the big legwork, but one called out sick today and so it’s this thirty-year-old hanging out the window tonight.”

  He employed them? “So the trucks are yours?”

  “They better be, with as much money as I pay for the permits and maintenance. What can I get you tonight, Samantha?”

  Something about the way he said my name, and the fact that he owned his own business, made my stomach flutter. Oh, the things that turned me on these days … I couldn’t decide whether I was more impressed by his dimple or his job status.

  “Oh, I’m okay, we were just about to have dinner. Can’t spoil my appetite.”

  Jake leans out of the truck window, his bicep flexing out of his light green T-shirt. “Life is short, eat dessert first.”

  I’m so sex-starved these days that I instantly imagine him pushing me up against a freezer in his truck. Shaking my head, because oh my God how embarrassing that I’m having my fantasy right in front of the real life man, I try not to stutter when I open my mouth.

  “Okay, what do you recommend?”

  He holds up a finger, as in “give me a minute” and disappears into the truck. He comes back with a single scoop in a cup, the ice cream a mint green.

  “I just thought this up this morning. Mint chocolate chips with peppermint schnapps mixed in. The chocolate chunks are from this local DC chocolatier I work with, try it.”

  He seems so excited about the flavor that I kind of get excited too. Taking the spoon, I ladle a small amount into my mouth. And proceed to die from food orgasm.

  “Oh my God, that is heaven.” I think I may close my eyes. And my knees may go weak.

  The smile on his face is cocky when I open my eyes. “I’m pretty good at what I do, and that’s just a fact. So how do you know Molly?”

  The sun is setting over the back of the truck, and he probably has a route to get back to but it doesn’t seem like he’s leaving anytime soon. And even though Mom and Lennon have gone inside, I don’t have the urge to join them just yet. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t gotten real male attention in a long time, but this is nice. Even if Jake isn’t flirting with me, but come on I totally think he is, it’s nice to just banter with a man.

  “She’s actua
lly uh … my mom.”

  His face goes full of surprise. “No way?! What a small world. I started on this route when I was just starting out, and she has been a loyal customer for three years.”

  I nod, not knowing what else to say now. “Well … I should probably head inside and eat dinner. It was uh … good to see you again.”

  Raising my hand in a wave, I start to walk back up the sidewalk, cursing myself for being awkward and so off my game from years of not speaking to other men.

  “Hey, Samantha?” His voice floats over my ears. I turn, waiting for him to speak. “I know that you don’t really remember me, but we’ve now bumped into each other twice … and I’d be stupid not to ask. Would you want to get dinner with me sometime?”

  Now I really do blush, unused to being asked out on a date. Especially by someone who seems to go after whatever he wants, all honesty.

  Inside, my heart strings tug. So many things circle in my head. Lennon. Derek. My age. My life right now. Wanting to live a little. Deciding I am still young. Needing something outside of my everyday routine.

  “Sure, I’d like that.” I nod, as if making up my own mind in that moment and promising to myself.

  For the first time in eight years, I give a man my phone number. And try not to scream like a teenage girl while I walk back inside, thinking about when he might call and what I might wear.

  Four

  Jake

  The machines whir as I walk by them, inspecting them like soldiers in a row. Gleaming massive, silver canisters, my pride and joy, churning my latest brain children.

  “How you doing today, Betty?” I lay a hand on the second machine, rubbing it like a genie’s lamp.

  “You know they can’t actually hear you, right?” The snarky voice comes from the doorway.

  Leaning against it is Alice, my business partner slash sommelier slash therapist slash savior. When I decided to forge out on my own and start a business, much to the dismay of my family, I’d bumped into the tattooed, tough-talking woman in front of me, and we’d hit it off. She’d haunted the DC foodie scene for years, working in bars and eateries. She knew her shit, knew the ins and outs of what tasted good, what marketing sold, what we needed to do to get our business out to the masses. With my business degree, good-boy attitude and determination, we made quite a team.

  I take in her hair, a shade of deep purple this week, and smirk. “It’s the secret to our success, so don’t knock it.”

  “And here I was, thinking I was the special sauce to this business. Hey, the new pinots are in from California, and they’re fucking delicious.” She cracks her knuckles, her nose piercing glinting as she walks into what we call “the kitchen.”

  Our office is a small building on the outskirts of the city, nice enough that it doesn’t get broken in to, but cheap enough that it takes me forty-five minutes to get out here in traffic. The perimeter is fenced under a key code so we can keep the trucks here overnight, and all of our operations are handled under one roof.

  “Taste test tonight, then? Tell Jana and we’ll set up the conference room.”

  Taste test was code word for “let’s drink all of the new stock to quote unquote, see how it would fit into recipes we’d been dreaming up.” It was key for business, but it also gave us an excuse to kick back a little as an office. Along with Alice, we had a part time receptionist and bookkeeper, Jana, and two college students turned drivers who were with us most of the year, Ben and Freddie. Other than the five of us, we had rotating temp drivers that I’d come to trust and worked with a time or two if we were in a jam.

  “Got it, how did the drive go? Sorry you had to drive the truck, Manny just couldn’t fill in today.” Alice walks into the hall and I follow, bypassing the three office doors until I reach the large conference room at the end of the building.

  “Eh, it’s no big deal. Plus, I got a girl’s number.” I give her a charming smile; the one I know she’ll roll her eyes at.

  She smiles that shit-eating grin, the one that makes me nervous. “I got a girl’s number too, and I bet mine’s hotter than yours.”

  As well as being a kickass business partner, Alice is also a player. She’s one of the only people, man or woman, I know that has a rotating schedule of sexy, single women climbing in and out of her bed. I’d almost admire her if she hadn’t stolen girls right out from under my nose numerous times.

  “I don’t think so, this one … she’s gorgeous.” I think of Samantha’s face, the mystery lurking beneath the mommy facade.

  “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you got a girl’s number in the truck?” She raises a dark eyebrow at me.

  I cringe at the blond who’d keyed one of the trucks after I did her in it and never called her again. My conscience shudders and guilt roils in my gut. “Well, this one is a little different.”

  “Are you blushing, dude? Wowwwww. Who is she?” Alice pushes my shoulder.

  I set up the conference table for a tasting, with the mini-wine glasses, spit buckets, plates for fudge and cheese. “She’s a woman, a grown-ass woman. And that’s all you need to know for now.”

  Alice stops, like a frozen caricature of herself. “Who are you and what have you done with Jake Brady? Damn, I think I need to meet her.”

  I laugh, brushing her off. But in all honesty, since I saw Samantha this afternoon in that cul-de-sac, all I’ve been thinking about is using the number that she gave me. And typically, I’m not the type to chase a girl. Sure, I’ve picked up my fair share, more than, and we have a fling and it’s sexy and fun … but that’s usually it. If any of them had ever introduced me to their kid, I’d have hightailed it the other way. If a woman snubbed me years ago, only to not act too interested, or not even know my name, when I saw her again … I would have turned and hooked the closest ten with a mini-skirt on. And that sounds shallow, but I’ve never felt like pursuing anyone.

  Until now, I guess. I hadn’t gone after her at college all those years ago, and I was not dumb enough to ignore fate knocking on my door. That sounded so cliché, but then again, I’d admitted that I liked flowering trees not too long ago so I was surprising myself in all kinds of ways these day.

  “Let’s get to it.” Jana came in rubbing her hands together. “I’ve got two hours before I have to go home and play wife and mom, and I plan to do that with at least a great buzz, so show me the money.”

  Her husband was an ear, nose and throat doctor who worked long hours, and she had two little boys at home who were cute, but a handful. I’d only babysat them once, but after I’d slept for about three days I was so exhausted.

  “Are we waiting for the drivers?” I asked, not knowing whether to put out more supplies.

  “Screw that.” Alice grabbed the farm fresh cheese and homemade fudge from the fridge. “Those newbs don’t even know a Pinot from a pineapple. More wine for us, and plus, I don’t need to fraternize with children today.”

  Jana laughs and takes a seat, pouring herself a proper tasting size out of one the bottles lined up on the table. Alice and I sat down on the other side of the table, taking glasses and pouring for ourselves. We sip in silence for awhile, the sun setting outside the windows.

  “Yuck …” Alice spits into one of the stainless steel containers. “Tastes like moldy vagina.”

  Jana lets out a sharp laugh and her cheeks go pink, our kind of humor a little crude for her still.

  “That’s the worst kind of vagina.” I shake my head in mock dismay.

  “No, the worst kind is no kind, and you my friend are in a dry spell. I know it, just by the look in your eyes.” Alice takes a sip of a new wine, and writes down something about the notes.

  While she’s a vulgar jokester, her mind for alcohol and marketing is whip sharp, and I’m a lucky guy for her to have found me when this idea sparked in my head.

  And she’s also a mind reader, because I haven’t told her about my lack of dates or female company lately. “What are you, the relationship whisperer?”
>
  Jana, a little tipsy and not as experienced in holding her liquor, giggles. “It’s like she can look into your soul and tell that you haven’t gotten laid in a while. Quick Alice, tell me if my husband is going to give me a real Fifty Shades experience!”

  “It is decidedly so.” Her purple locks shake as she nods her head and moves on to the next bottle.

  “The magic eight ball of pussy and dick, everyone.” I sigh, leaning back in my chair.

  “Just let me know if you’d like me to work my magic. I don’t like to see any genital go hungry.” She bows her head like she needs to pray for me.

  This was the perfect way to end the night, with my feet up drinking good wine and working on my business. The only thing that would make it better is using the number that was burning a hole in my pocket.

  But I was going to bide my time, and I needed a clear head when I finally reached out to Samantha.

  So for now, I would let my imagination wander into creation land, thinking up flavors and new possibilities.

  Five

  Samantha

  The phone rings just as I’m about to get up from my desk, and I sigh, my shoulders sore and my brain frazzled.

  “Samantha Groff, National Parks, how can I help you?” I set my overflowing purse, which more resembles an entire country, on the floor next to me.

  It’s been a trying, but rewarding, Friday, and all I want to do is get out of here.

  “Hi, Samantha, it’s Elvin. I just wanted to say thank you for helping with the situation before. I know we were probably clipped with you, but I just wanted to let you know how crucial your help was at the time.”

  Internally I melt, sometimes needing to hear how good I am at my job. Because I know it, I’m damn good. But in the heat of the moment during the day, with all of the crisis that falls across my desk, I’m rarely thanked. To them, I’m just management, sitting in some corporate office dictating policy and procedure. But some of them know that I’ve been in the field, that I could handle these tasks with my bare hands if I were left to it.