Melissa had recovered and calmed down from her encounter with the unexpected morning visitor and spent the better part of the day shopping. She had been a single mother for so long it was still hard for her to get used to Spencer's insistence that she have carte blanche to do things like shopping, for herself, for Anna, for all of them. She and Anna had had to watch every penny they spent back in those days and Anna had long ago learned the words 'no' and 'sorry we can't afford that'.
Melissa recalled one of several conversations she'd had with Spencer about spending. She always felt bad about spending his money. He'd repeatedly corrected her, calling it their money. "We're a team now. A unit. A family. We share everything, don't we? You share Anna with me, don't you? I'm sharing my income with you and Anna. God, Melissa, you've supported and helped me so much, please don't tell me we're gonna fight over something as stupid as money."
And she recalled ending that argument swiftly, the same way she always seemed to quash disagreement between them. A smile stretched across her lips as she remembered that conversation and how it had ended. Rubbing her belly, it occurred to her that may even have been the night they'd conceived.
"I'm not gonna fight with you, Spence." She threw her arms up around his neck and ended any thought of further talking with a resounding kiss. He'd responded in kind and stopped just long enough to pick her up and carry her to their bed.
Now, she juggled her packages as she searched through first her purse, and then her pockets for the hotel room door keycard. After a thorough search, the offending item was finally located—how did it end up inside the cellphone case anyway she wondered? —and she made her way into their room.
Almost immediately, her cellphone beeped to indicate there were messages waiting for her. She put down her shopping and looked at the phone, seeing the Wi-Fi indicator just finishing signaling reception was reconnected.
"Dammit, I had data shut off?" she berated herself, hoping nothing urgent had occurred while her phone had been on vacation. The menu indicated she had four texts from Spencer, one from Garcia, one from Hotchner and an entire string of them from Anna.
Pouring herself a glass of water, she sat down by the desk to read them, deciding to read them in chronological order.
Hi Mommy was followed by a series of little hearts and puppies as Anna was just learning to use a keyboard on the tablet she'd gotten for her birthday. I 3 you was the second message from Anna. The third through ninth were more hearts and puppies and the tenth was apparently JJ intervening: sorry about that, she was just playing around on it, hope you guys have unlimited texting on your plan! Lol!
The texts from Spencer were all of the hope your day's going well, I miss you and I love you variety. She smiled at that. Hotchner's text, marked at 1148am was an invitation to join them for lunch downstairs at the hotel restaurant if she was still around and available at noon. And Garcia's text, the most recently received one time-stamped 115pm, simply said 'He's OK but I think U guys need 2 talk abt Alexa Lisbon'
She drew a sharp breath. "Oh my God," she said aloud, along with a lot of other unmentionable words. Quickly, she texted Garcia back wtf happened?!