Page 8 of Love is a Harmony
“You’ve been spending too much time with Noah.” He called things posh all the time.
Jo’s face darkened. “Don’t mention Noah in this apartment.”
“Whoa there.” Melanie sat next to her on the couch. “You two have a lover’s quarrel?”
“For us to quarrel, he’d have to answer my calls.”
Jo was as independent as they came, but being pregnant changed something in her. Maybe it was being pregnant and alone. She held on tighter to the group, almost as if she feared they’d abandon her. But Noah… the friendship he had with her was special, something Melanie envied. They had a connection.
“If it makes you feel better, he hasn’t answered my calls either. Not since I chastised him for the pictures with the model.”
A laugh burst out of Jo and then another until she couldn’t stop. “He can’t help himself,” she wheezed. “I knew he’d get himself in trouble as soon as he left me.”
“Why did he go home?” Melanie hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of him. In fact, she didn’t know much of anything about his life in London when he wasn’t being Noah Clarke, beloved British bad boy rocker.
Jo shrugged. “I’ve never understood his need to go there.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe it’s a woman. You think he’s really in a relationship with that model? Noah has never done relationships well.” She stuck a spoon in her mouth. “Oh, this will be entertaining.”
Melanie set her bowl on the coffee table. “Does that explain why he missed the Rockstars Anonymous meeting? Or why he won’t answer any of our calls?”
“He’s Noah.” Jo shrugged. “He’ll turn up, eventually.”
Something tugged at Melanie, some feeling of wrongness. She couldn’t help worrying Noah wasn’t okay.
“Melanie Snyder.” Jo gasped, leaning forward to peer into Melanie’s full bowl. “You haven’t taken a single bite.”
Melanie leaned back and looked to the ceiling. “Not hungry. Just tired.”
“Bull. When a pregnant chick invites you for ice cream, you eat ice cream.”
Melanie hid her worries from her clients and sort of friends. She didn’t tell them she considered how each morsel she put in her mouth would affect her health, that she couldn’t shake the fear of doing something that would hurt her in the long run.
She’d seen what an early death looked like. She’d watched someone gasp for their last breaths.
And she made herself believe she could prevent the same fate from happening to her, that she was in control.
Because if she wasn’t, if it truly was up to chance, well, she wasn’t sure she could handle that.
* * *
Melanie stayed until Jo fell asleep and got back to her empty apartment close to midnight. Like her office, she hadn’t gotten around to decorating in the three years she’d lived here. Boxes of her old belongings from a life a decade in the past sat in one of her small closets.
She had two bedrooms, one of them converted into a small office. Her kitchen was what her dad called a one-butt kitchen, only truly big enough for one person. The label paid her well, and she could’ve afforded more, even in the expensive city, but she’d never wanted more.
Dropping her computer bag on the couch, she slipped off her shoes and sank down, wishing she could just curl up in bed and go to sleep.
But she’d never slept well, only getting a few hours each night, and there was no reason to believe tonight would be any different.
Checking her phone once more for any missed calls from Noah, she set it on the coffee table and sighed. This was about the time she gave up on sleep each night and got some work done instead. Everyone at the office thought she was efficient because of how much she accomplished. No, she just worked harder than anyone else.
And still, she couldn’t stop staring at her phone, thinking something was wrong. “Come on, Noah.”
Glancing from her phone to her computer bag, she sighed. No work tonight. Not when she was worried. She pushed up from the couch and walked into her bedroom, not bothering to remove her jacket.
An old shoe box called to her from her closet, and she lifted it down, removing the familiar lid. Her fingers skimmed the worn folds of the papers inside. Soon, she’d need a bigger box for all the letters. None of them were ever sent… but then, who would she have sent them to?
The person she wrote to was ten years dead.
Closing her eyes, she soaked in the stillness for just a moment before setting the box on the bed and retrieving a notebook and pencil. She walked to the large windows that looked out on a wooded area, her favorite part of the apartment. Pushing aside the curtains, she smiled when she saw the full moon hanging overhead.
