Page 54 of Love Unlocked

‘Yum,’ she says, looking inside the oven at the trays of potatoes. ‘Nice. What can I do … to help?’

‘So you are here. Louise said she saw you arrive, but I wasn’t sure because you didn’t let us know you were coming.’

He’s polite but as forward as Sam can be.

‘Why should I let you know? It’s my food truck too. Plus I wanted to visit Mum. Belinda and Derek broke up.’

He flinches, he hates conflict. ‘Sorry to hear that, that’s crazy. Of all the people …’ Then he shrugs and hardens. ‘But you never know, do you, what’s going on in people’s heads.’

Jab taken.

‘You don’t need to be here. We have it under control.’

‘But I want to be here. Look,’ she looks out to make sure Louise isn’t back. The car park is quite a walk away. ‘I know that Louise is annoyed with me. I’m annoyed with me too, I made a stupid mistake on the podcast, and now I’ve quit so nobody needs to worry anymore.’

She’s honestly expecting him to react positively to that. I can’t believe you did that for us, Melody, you’re so amazing. That kind of thing.

‘We didn’t ask you to quit.’ He frowns.

‘No, but it was the best thing to do.’

‘So you did that for us, did you? Quit?’

She hears the sarcasm in his voice.

‘There were a few reasons.’

He finishes chopping, flicks a tea towel over his shoulder and turns to her, giving her his full attention now. The look on his face makes her nervous.

‘So you backed out of it.’ He gives a little shrug. ‘You weren’t feeling it. Got bored?’ He folds his arms. ‘Or was it too much of a commitment for you?’

Are they talking about the podcast or their relationship? ‘I didn’t want to do it anymore,’ she says bluntly.

‘So what am I supposed to do now? Tell my wife that she’s fired, that she can go home, because you quit something else and graced us with your presence today?’

‘It’s my business too!’ Melody finally explodes. ‘And we never even hired Louise. She started off checking our accounts as a help and all of a sudden she’s taken my place!’

Her face feels red and hot.

Sam stares at her, when he speaks his tone is so quiet. ‘She’s here because you weren’t. She stepped up because you disappeared.’

‘I have another job, Sam, we both agreed that was okay.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

Oh god.

‘I don’t know what you want,’ he says quietly. ‘You want to work here when you want but not when you don’t want to. You can’t have it both ways, Melody. You need to commit.’

She closes her eyes. Not this again. She feels dizzy, the truck is too small. She’d closed the door behind her, why did she do that? Her body starts to sweat.

‘First of all, there’s not enough room in here for three people. It doesn’t physically work and secondly …’ He doesn’t finish but he has somehow, while talking, managed to move so much closer to her and it’s tight in the truck. He lowers his voice. ‘When it’s just me, in here, I have to fill the space that you leave. I can’t do it on my own. Louise wants to do it.’

‘I understand,’ she says, swallowing.

‘You should just leave me to take care of this now.’

‘I can’t,’ she says, tears surprisingly pricking in her eyes. ‘I care about this truck. I don’t want it to not be in my life.’ She knows she’s not just talking about the truck. When she broke up with Sam she missed her best friend. There was a big gaping hole in her life and she needed him back but not in the way he wanted. The food truck was the perfect excuse, it was a shared dream. It was selfish of her to bring him back on her terms.