"Are you trying to get rid of me or something?" she asked teasingly.
"They'll have to pry you out of my cold, dead hands," he promised.
She laughed. "That's a disturbingly romantic vow," she said, as she turned into a driveway. The car came to a stop outside a small house with peeling gray paint and a broken screen door.
For some reason, Dylan didn't want to go inside without being clear with her.
"I'm in this, you know?" he said, feeling emotionally stunted, wishing he could just say the words he wanted to say. "With you. I'm in this." He forced himself to look her in the eye. Her chest rose and fell as her breathing stuttered for a moment. He'd surprised her; was that a good or a bad thing?
"I'm in this, too," she said quietly back to him. "Whatever happens. Whatever we're dealing with. I am so in this."
Dylan wrapped his fingers around hers and placed a long, lingering kiss to the back of her hand, her palm, and the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat and life pumped through her veins. He wanted to toss her into the backseat and lose himself with her for a few hours, but he forced himself to remember why they were here. Connection or closure. He was trying to convince himself he would be satisfied with either.
Melody broke their staring contest first. "Come on. Talk to your dad and I'll buy you a snow cone later."
"Do you know how much sugar is in a snow cone?" he groused.
She rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll buy you and your vag a tofu kale salad."
"I hate tofu," he muttered. He looked back out at the decrepit house. His brain told his body to open the car door and get this surprise reunion started, but his nervous system obviously wasn't sending the message through the right channels. Melody allowed him to sit there in a silent stupor for a full minute before she spoke.
"What is it?" She had her hand on his thigh. He was pretty sure she put it there to distract him. Unfortunately, he was so keyed up that she probably couldn't have distracted him if she had stripped down to her skivvies and started washing the hood of the car. Although...to be fair, that would have distracted him quite successfully.
"I'm scared," he confessed. "This is him, you know? This is the guy who blew up my whole world."
"The man who blew up the world," she mused. "Sounds like a sad song."
"Maybe the sad song has a happy ending?" He wasn't sure if he said it for her benefit or his, but he wanted those words to be true so badly he could taste it.
"Let's go find out," Melody said. She opened her door and walked around to his side. He remained in the passenger's seat, stuck in place. As she reached for his door handle, he had the childish desire to hit the lock and refuse to get out. Thankfully, he resisted the urge.
"I'm here," she promised, standing back so he could get out.
He took her hand and held onto her tightly as they walked up the front porch together. The doorbell was cracked and broken, so he knocked on the dirty white paint of the door.
They waited for what seemed like an eternity. Then the door swung open...it suddenly was as if Dylan was four years old again. His mother was crying in the bathroom, Grace was destroying everything in her room in a fit of rage, and Dylan was in the sitting room, staring up at his father. Suitcase in hand, the old man had barely been able to meet his son's gaze. He'd leaned down and placed a hand on the top of Dylan's head, one of the more affectionate gestures he'd ever bestowed on him.
"Be better than me," he'd muttered before he had opened the door and vanished forever. Dylan had forgotten those words until just now. He hadn't remembered his father saying anything before he left. How could he have failed to remember?
Twenty-seven years later, his father's eyes were older. Dylan realized, for the first time, that he had his father's eyes. His mother also had blue eyes, so he'd just assumed he had gotten them from her. But as he stared at his father, he understood that all the features he'd believed he had inherited from his mother had been decoys, disguising themselves so he wouldn't suspect the truth: Dylan Bennett was his father's son, down to the smallest molecule.
Melody tightened her hold on his hand. Dylan could only imagine what she could be thinking, seeing Dylan's future self before her eyes.
"Mr. Bennett?" Melody asked quietly. Dylan was glad she broke the silence. Left to their own devices, he was sure the Bennett men would have just stared at one another on the porch forever.
"That's what the bills say," he said with a voice that sounded raw and unused to speaking. "That you, boy?" He laughed, the sound even more brittle than his speaking voice. "Course it's you. Might as well be looking in a mirror."
Dylan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He was starting to get the feeling that this had been a horrible, cataclysmic mistake.
"We were hoping to speak with you," Melody said, giving him an expectant look. "Dylan was hoping to speak with you."
"That so?" His father moved back from the door, holding it open for them. "Be my guest."
Melody moved forward, but her firm hold on Dylan's hand halted her, because he had remained in place; unmoving. She looked back and widened her eyes at him. "I'm here," she mouthed. This time, when she gave him a gentle tug, he allowed her to pull him off the porch and into his father's house.
The walls were bare-there were no photographs in the house. A recliner was set up in front of a television, empty bottles of tequila sitting on the tray beside it. The kitchen was little more than a small nook right off the living room. Empty pizza boxes and containers of instant soup littered the counters. A folding table was set up by the room's only window, and four folding chairs sat around it. Dylan wondered why his father bothered with the pretense. It was obvious that no one but him had set foot inside this house in years.
"So, you finally decided to look me up?" the old man said. He nodded to himself as if that made sense to him. Then he looked at Melody in a way that made Dylan curl his hands into fists with the desire to make contact with human flesh. "What's her name?"
"My name is Melody," she answered with a bright smile. "What's your name, sir?"
"Sir," he scoffed. "No one's called me that in years. Name's Blue."
"Blue?" Dylan was shocked. His father's name, as far as he had ever known, was Carl. That was what his mother had always called him.
"Carlton's my given name," he grumbled. "But I've gone by Blue all my life. Your mother never liked it." The bitterness in his voice resonated in the room, lingering in the silence that followed his words.
Melody cleared her throat, obviously feeling awkward. Dylan couldn't blame her. This reunion was the very definition of awkward. Dylan could feel cynicism coming off his father in waves. It was acidic, thickening the air with a foul, sour taint. He didn't know how the three of them didn't choke on it.
"Well...this is nice," she said in a hesitant voice. "You know Mr. Bennett, if you'd like, I could make you some coffee while you and Dylan talk, or-"
"Out of coffee," Blue said. "Keep meaning to get down to the store."
Why bother, when he could get cheap pizza delivered, and he could buy tequila from the local liquor shop in bulk?
"Well then, why don't I make a quick grocery run?" Melody offered. "I'll pick up some coffee and eggs, maybe some toast, and I'll make us something to eat."
Panic rose in Dylan's chest at the idea that she was leaving him alone with Blue. He wasn't even his father anymore. He was a stranger...a stranger who happened to look exactly like an older version of Dylan himself.
Melody pressed a kiss against Dylan's temple, promised to be back in a few minutes, and slipped back out the door. Tough love. That was what she'd say if he had bothered to ask what the hell she thought she was doing. Melody was a big fan of tough love. Dylan was not.
"Cute girl," Blue said, once she was gone.
"Amazing girl," Dylan corrected. "I don't know what I'd do without her."
Blue laughed. "That was how I felt about your mother"
"It was?" Dylan didn't know why he was surprised. He imagined his parents must have loved each other at some point; they had gotten married and had two kids, after all. But so many of his memories were of them fighting that it was hard to imagine his father loving his mother in a way that even remotely resembled the way Dylan loved Melody.
"Genie, Genie, with the long brown hair," his father murmured, and Dylan felt his heart gasp an unsteady beat. The girl with the long red hair-that was how he sometimes still thought of Melody.
"You never remarried?" Dylan asked.