Chapter 9: Give An Inch


Melody's birthday passed, finally making her twenty-one. It was odd not to have to sneak beer or alcohol, or use a fake ID to get it. Maybe when her co-workers asked her to go out on Friday nights she could actually go. They never seemed to realize she wasn't twenty-one before, not even her boss. Melody kept her mouth shut just in case she happened to run into someone.

She was finally beginning to be able to deal with her newly acquired feelings for Collin. No one knew, except maybe his mother and Brady. She couldn't tell if Brady had figured it out or not, but he had caught her that one day and for a long time afterwards carefully watched her. Melody was beginning to become easily distracted by Collin. At least the summer months had passed, because she wasn't sure how many more excuses she could make to avoid swimming with him before she ran out of them.

Collin was changing too, looking at her in a way he never had before. It wasn't desperate, more like thoughtful. His eyes weren't always filled with lust, but an unnamable emotion instead. She couldn't figure out what it was, but she thought she was starting to like it and even return it too.

She'd given up keeping track of when Collin would be legal. The days dragged by too slowly and it was driving her insane to count them. Collin was at her house now, silently watching her as she attempted to make some homemade carrot cake. So far all she'd done was make a mess.

"Okay, I know I promised to feed you but this isn't working out very well," Melody giggled, attempting to fling the gooey mixture off her hands and into the bowl. She had somehow made the dough too dry, and her attempt at making it more wet had ended horribly to say the least.

The thoughtful look had left his eyes, and he came over to lean over her, looking into the bowl. Her laughter quieted and she clutched her fist, staring down into the bowl with him and feeling the planes of his chest against her back. She felt every ripple, every contour to his body and it made her breathless. "It doesn't look to bad," he murmured. She tilted her head back to look at him, and a teasing grin was on his face. She nudged him with an elbow, rolling her eyes.

"At least I tried! You know I'm not that much of a cook." Collin actually cooked better than her. Not as good as his mother, but still better than her. At least she didn't burn water, something Sarah somehow had accomplished once. Sarah couldn't even cook ramen. Melody looked like a five star chef compared to her.

"You did try," he agreed. "Now let's get this in the oven and see what it taste like."

It was a joint effort, cleaning the kitchen back to its original condition and getting the glue-like substance off her hands. She had to wash for almost five minute to get it all off. Her clothes were probably going to be a disaster to clean.

They both sat at the table when finished. Sarah was still at work. Her mother owned the local gas station so Sarah got paid pretty well for helping her mother to keep it running. It was a joint effort between the two, something that Sarah had stepped up for about two years back when Melody started cleaning up her act too.

Collin was staring at her again with that unreadable expression. Melody began to tap her fingernails on the table biting her lip, looking anywhere but at him.

"So how has school been," she asked, clearing her throat.

He gave her a small smile. "Good, kind of tough with pack and all, but you already knew that."

She did, he had been having the same problem of balancing pack and school since she met him. All the pack struggled with it. There were only a few of them in school still though.

"We've known each other for three years," he said suddenly, as if this had just dawned on him.

"Yes," she agreed softly.

"It's been three years, and we're still the same as before." He looked thoughtful, taking a deep breath in as she stared at the counter top.

Maybe he did understand all the time that had gone by wasted.

She made a noise of agreement in the back of her throat, her smile not reaching her eyes.

"Melody?" His voice had come out deeper than normal, more level, which startled her enough to look his way. "Last time I kissed you, you cried."

Melody winced, the taps on the table speeding up in time with her anxiety. "I… did," she agreed in a halted voice. She hadn't meant to cry, but all she could think about during the kiss was how she was taking advantage of this kid who looked at her as if she were life itself. She had felt horrible, but didn't want to hurt him further by pulling away.

But the tears in her eyes hurt him more anyways.

He stared at her unblinking, waiting to speak until their eyes met again. "If I kissed you now would you do the same thing?"

She froze, her eyes widening into saucers. She couldn't pull her eyes off of him, too frightened to do anything at all. Collin went from contemplative to worried, watching her as she watched him. "Melody, are you breathing?"

She realized she wasn't, and took a deep breath in and finally pried her eyes away from his. "Why do you ask that?" she murmured.

"Because people are whispering things in my ear, and now you're giving me mixed signals all the time."

She bit her cheek hard, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth. A perusal with her tongue revealed the mutilated flesh, throbbing in time with her heartbeat.

Well she hadn't done a very good job hiding her feelings.

There was Brady, who now she was almost positive had said something to Collin. Then there was Collin's mother too, who Melody just had to reassure the other day.

Melody was never very good at covering the truth. Even she knew that.

She didn't know what to say to him. Denying she felt that way would only hurt him, but admitting it would be just as bad for her. She wasn't ready for that yet, it was too soon. One could say this had been three years in the making, but Collin was only seventeen. It was illegal, it was wrong.

But what made this so different from all the other illegal stuff she did?

The thought stilled her. Drugs were illegal at any age, and drinking wasn't allow until twenty-one which she had just turned. She was driving before she even had her license, and had sex the first time a fourteen. It wasn't something she was proud of. She had gone to her first high school party. The guy she was with kept giving her more alcohol, and she didn't know her tolerance back then. It was the first time she had gotten drunk.

The next morning she had woken up alone in a bed, naked and more hung over than she really knew what to do with herself. He came around the next day, apologizing during school when he met her in the hall, telling her that he had gotten drunk and had to get home before his mom noticed he had not come back that night. She had accepted it, and they dated a few more weeks before going their separate ways. Shortly after the world of drugs and alcohol had opened to her and she hadn't looked back.

No, this was different because she was trying to get her act together. No more illegal stuff. She had to be better than that.

"It doesn't matter what I feel," she said firmly. "It's illegal, and I'm not like that anymore." She could see the cogs in his brain working this out, and when he did he stared unmoving at her.

"So you finally feel that way about me," he said when he gathered himself enough to respond. His body was tense, and eyes wider than usual.

"It doesn't matter," she repeated.

He stared at her a moment longer and flung himself into a standing position, his chair skidding a few feet behind him with the sudden movement. He took a step closer to her and sat down in the chair next to her.

"Melody, what do you mean it doesn't matter?" he said incredulously. "That's all that has mattered."

She swallowed thickly. "It's illegal," she answered simply.

His eyes drifted back and forth to her eyes, left to right, over and over again as he tried to understand her. "Melody, it's only illegal if my parents were to press charges. Do you really think my mother would do that?"

What?

Her brows furrowed, and she stared down at the table tracing the flowery pattern engraved around the edges. Collin's mother adored her, more than anything the woman wanted both of them to be with each other. Collin's dad really didn't care, but thought it would be nice for them to date. She brought her gaze back up to find Collin closer than before. She flinched back, able to count every individual eyelash that line his eyes. His skin was dark, darker than any of his pack mates, but his eyes were the lightest too. They were beautiful eyes, a caramel brown that got darker near the edges.

She turned her face immediately, knowing exactly what he meant to do. "Collin," she whispered, her body pushed as far back in her chair as it could go.

"Melody," he said softly in her ear, making her heart race. "It's okay. I'm not a kid anymore. You don't have to feel bad or be afraid." She could feel him breathe her in, his nose a hairs breath away from her neck. He brought it down her neck and under her chin before pulling away, her stomach a mess of nerves and butterflies.

"You know, before I could tell you didn't want it. You were happy to continue on as we had, so I had to be happy too." But he wasn't happy, she thought to herself idly. "But now that I know I'm not going to continue on like this. I love you, I have for years. I love you more than words, more than you could ever understand, and watching you all these years so close yet so far away was torture."

Her eyes filled with tears at his admittance. He had never said anything like this to her before, although she could always tell he felt that way. Anyone with eyes could.

"I do love you Collin," she murmured turning towards him.

"But do you love me like I love you?" he asked.

"I-I don't know," she stumbled out. "Everything is so confusing, and now I don't understand anything."

He sat back in his chair, watching her with that look that infuriated her on his face. She couldn't understand it, and that frustrated her at this moment. She was so vulnerable, yet he got to keep his secrets? It wasn't fair.

But then it wasn't fair for him to be pining after her all these years either, a voice in her head whispered. No, there was no such thing as fair in the real world.

"I want to do the right thing," she muttered, fidgeting with her hands.

"The right thing is to be with me."

She shook her head roughly, her hair falling out the loose bun she had put it in. "It's to wait until your eighteen."

He sat back as if stunned, taking her in with large eyes.

"It's the right thing," she whispered again, biting her lip.

"So the right thing is to torture me for another year?" he stated incredulously.

This wasn't going the way she planned. None of this was.

"What did I do to torture you?" she asked in a soft voice.

"Being here," he said, gesturing to her general area. "Being near you, and being away. Touching you, yet not being able to touch you the way I want. All of it is torture."

There was never a happy ending for Collin when it came to Melody. She knew that, his best friends did along with his pack. Everyone seemed to know this except him. She didn't know if she was an exceptional actress, or if it was just the imprint.

"I don't know what to do," she said in a vulnerable voice. "I know what's morally right, but then that hurts you."

He placed his hand on top of hers, squeezing it. "Then just be with me. No matter what you think you're outcomes aren't that great. At least someone will be happy out of this, and in a year none of this will even matter anymore."

The thought was too delicious for her deny. It all wouldn't matter in a year. But even as he said that her stomach heaved.

She turned to him before standing up slowly, sitting down in his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck with her head leaning on his collar bone. She had done this before, back when Collin was younger and needed a lot more assurance from her. She felt him tense for a moment, before loosely placing his arms around her. "I can't do that yet," she murmured against his skin. "I'll-I'll try more things with you. I won't avoid you anymore. I-"

"I knew it!" he cut in with a snort. "I thought you were avoiding me! Brady told me he thought it was because your feelings were starting to change but I brushed it off. But then things started adding up."

She nodded, scrunching her face up. "But I'll try harder. I'm not sure what we'll be, but it's more than we are now." She sent him a questioning look and he grinned, his mood already improving.

"Does that mean we can go on dates?"

"Let's not call them that." Going on dates meant they were dating, and she wasn't ready to say that yet.

He gave her a mischievous grin. "Does that mean we're friends with benefits?" he teased.

She slapped him lightly on the shoulder, rolling her eyes. "Definitely not." She wasn't even sure if she could kiss him yet.

"So we're working on becoming an item?" he tried again.

"Let's not call it anything," she answered.

"Then it will be the same as before."

"No, it will be different," she promised.

"How different?"

"Different," was her only response. She wasn't willing to say anything she wasn't certain she was willing to give. She had already messed with him enough.

He sighed, but didn't complain. He had made headway for the first time in years. "I love you," he whispered softly, just holding her against him.

She loved him too.


For some reason I had really bad writers block this week. It took me about a week to write chapter 18, when usually I'm able to get out a few chapters in that amount. At least I got past it though. There will be 28 chapters for sure. :)

Also, after this chapter I will be changing my to the-whispering-willow. I've always wanted to change it, but never really thought about what I would change it to. Next update this will be my name.