She turns around now and comes into the kitchen with me and opens the fridge. “Oh my God. What is that smell?” she asks, putting her hand in front of her nose.

“I have no idea,” I say, and I cringe when I see all sort of food gone bad. “I don’t usually eat here.” She walks over to grab the garbage and starts tossing shit in the bin. “I usually crash at your house for dinner, or we go out.”

“Yeah, we should definitely be eating here more.” She shakes her head, and I want to tell her that she can come and eat here every single day if she wants to.

“The door is always open.” I smile at her, and I want to bend my head and kiss her, but the doorbell rings. She looks at me, and I shake my head, turning and walking out of the kitchen and past the dining room and formal living room toward the big brown doors. I open the door and groan inwardly.

“Well, hello there, Mayor,” Melody says, pushing her way in and leaning up to kiss my lips. It happens so fast that I don’t have time to step back. I made the mistake of agreeing to go out with her on a date, and the minute I sat down, I knew that it was a one-and-done sort of date.

“Melody.” I say her name and look at her. She’s wearing a tight red dress that has her breasts practically falling out of it. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“Well, I tried to get to you at the party, but you disappeared, so I figured I’d drop by to congratulate you in person.” She steps in closer, and I take a step back.

“It’s really not a good time,” I say.

“You’ve been saying that for weeks.” She uses her finger to run down my chest. “I thought we had fun.”

I want to tell her the last thing we had was fun. It was one dinner, and I kissed her on the cheek and then spent the night trying to wash the smell of her off me. Besides, she was like an octopus the whole night, and I felt like I was at a kung fu class. “Listen, Melody …” I start to say, but she wraps her arms around my neck, and before I can peel them off me, I see Savannah standing off to the side. My head turns to her, and it makes Melody turn also. “Oh, hey, Savannah,” she says, not taking her arms from around my neck. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Yeah,” she says, avoiding my eye contact and forcing a fake smile on her face. “I was just leaving,” she says, walking toward the door. “I’ll just leave you two be.” She nods, and she is out of the house before I can even do or say anything.