Romance: Dance with Me (California Belly Dance Romance Book 2) Read Online Free

anyway.”
    Melanie turned on the water the instant she entered the cramped bathroom, with its pink porcelain sink and matching toilet. Her mom thought the silver foil wallpaper with fuzzy pink flowers “opened up the room.” Melanie had thought it looked sad and desperate when her mother put it up ten years ago, when they’d moved into the place after Dad left. And it looked even worse now, with its peeling and ripped edges and the water stain in the corner. She stared into the mirror as the steam accumulated around her.
    Why had she come back here? When Abby offered up her couch, she should have taken it. She shouldn’t have let her pride get in the way. A little shame seemed like a small price to pay compared to this churning, aching feeling in her gut. All the guilt, regret, and pain she felt every time she stood under this roof.
    She tried to shake the feeling by peeling off her black yoga pants and the black shredded tee-shirt over the cherry red tank. Other people’s parents softened as they got older. Not Ginger. Every year she just got crankier and more withdrawn.
    When every thread of clothing sat in a pile on the floor and the air dripped with moist, heavy heat, she stepped into the narrow, pink stall. She flinched when the spray hit her like a thousand burning needles. Slowly, oh so slowly, she relaxed into the sensation. The pain seared everything else away: every thought, every worry, every regret. When the water was hot enough, it numbed her to everything else.
    She let it wash away the perspiration from the drive, and let it rinse away her exhaustion even as it turned her skin an angry shade of pink.
    She stayed there, wrapped in the water’s hot embrace, until the heat became part of her, until her flesh burned red, until even the hottest setting no longer had any effect. She turned off the water, wrapped a frayed towel around her, and tried to find her way back to the ordinary world.
    She wiped the fog from the mirror and hardly recognized the face in front of her. No mascara, no eyeliner, no lipstick. Not to mention all the kink and frizz in her hair. All the work from her morning date with her curling iron and the flat iron completely down the drain. She pulled the damp mass back into a ponytail and tried to brush it into a curl. She gave up. It wasn’t like her mother would tear herself away from the television long enough to notice anyway.
    She was wrong.
    “You look like a drowned rat,” Ginger said when she returned to the front room after grabbing herself another soda.
    When Melanie didn’t answer, Ginger poked again. “If you paraded around like that at Chet’s place, it’s no wonder he kicked you out.”
    Melanie closed her eyes. She wished she was someplace else.
    Her mother smirked. “If you knew how to treat a man, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
    Melanie’s hands balled into fists. She knew she should keep quiet. Anything she said would only egg her mother on. The words came flying out anyway. “What mess exactly? My life is just fine, thank you. If you want to know the truth, I left Chet. I dumped him, Ma. No one ever dumps me.”
    Her mother’s eyes snapped in her direction. Her lip curled with disgust. “I suppose you’re proud of yourself then. You’re too good to be dumped, is that it? Not like your mother. She’s just worthless, right? A doormat a man can wipe his feet on before walking away.”
    “Don’t,” Melanie said, the word clawing through her. “We don’t have to fight about this. Chet and I didn’t work out. End of story.”
    Her mother folded her arms over her house dress. “So you think I’m going to say, ‘Oh, it’s all right.’ Well, guess what, Peaches. It isn’t going to be all right. When are you going to grow up and realize you’re damn lucky if a man is willing to put up with your shit? But, no, you’re much better at pushing men away, aren’t you? You pushed your father away and you’ve been pushing away any man who looks at you