Shame on Me

Lorelei was called back into court because a verdict for the case she’s working on came in earlier than expected. Thank God for that. If I had to listen to one more minute of her explaining to me all the ways Kennedy would remove the limbs from my body, I was going to scream.

I convinced her not to tell Kennedy by promising I wouldn’t do anything stupid until she got back so she could finish raking me over the coals. I wonder if Googling Matt’s ex constitutes stupid? It’s not like I ran out the door as soon as Lorelei left and went straight to Matt. I’m being smart. I’m doing research. Research doesn’t compromise anything.

According to her Facebook page, Melanie Gates-Russo is single. I guess they don’t have “whore” as a relationship status. I look through her photo albums and don’t see any pictures of her with the mystery man from the other night. She also doesn’t have any pictures from her time with Matt. Not that I was looking specifically for pictures of Matt. Like ones of him shirtless. Or sunning himself on a beach. Or lifting weights with sweat dripping down his toned chest.

Research. It’s just research.

Melanie certainly has quite a few Internet pictures of kittens in various poses, however. Twenty-two pictures of kittens in sweaters and eighteen of kittens in hats. Seriously? What is she, five?

Clicking out of her photo albums, I notice a status update that wasn’t there a few minutes ago:

Hangin’ with my grls 2nite at Blu Nightclub. Hit me up!

Are you kidding me with this? He not only married a chick who likes to post kitten pictures, he married one with poor grammar skills. Good God.

Closing out of her Facebook profile, I quickly look up where this Blu Lounge is.

Crap. It’s in Indianapolis. That’s almost three hours from here.

I glance at the time on my computer. There’s no way I can make it there and back before Lorelei gets out of court. She specifically told me to stay put. Taking another few minutes to contemplate what I’m thinking, I shut down my computer and head for the door.

I haven’t taken orders from anyone since I left Andy. Why should I start now?



According to its website, Blu is a trendy nightclub in the heart of Indianapolis. Since I had a long drive ahead of me, I ran home, grabbed an appropriate dress, shoved it into my backseat, and changed at a McDonald’s right before I got here. As I show my ID to the bouncer, he doesn’t even glance at it as he takes in my red, backless halter dress and matching four-inch red peep-toe Steve Madden stilettos before looking at my face. His eyes widen in recognition when he sees who I am, and I smile flirtatiously at him, flustering him a bit so he’ll let me in without drawing unwanted attention to myself. I’m immediately assaulted by the thumping beats of Top 40 dance music courtesy of the DJ on the other side of the club. I stick close to the wall as I take in my surroundings. The dance floor is packed with sweaty, writhing bodies, and all of the VIP lounges around the outer edge of the floor are filled with partiers. I have no idea how I’m ever going to find Melanie in this place, but I have to try.

The VIP areas are all roped off, and you can’t even go up the three steps to get to them without an invitation, so I decide to head right through the middle of the dance floor in the hopes that I might spot Melanie.

Five minutes of shoving my way through all of the people, I’m thankful that I pulled my long blonde hair up into a high ponytail. I’m already working up a sweat and I’m not even dancing. With one last surge of my body, I finally make it to the other side and squeeze myself in between a crowd of people standing around the bar.

The bartender hands a drink to the person next to me and then nods his head in my direction. “What can I get you?”

“Just an ice water, please,” I shout above the music and loud conversations on either side of me.

While he turns away to grab my drink, I take the time to scan the crowd. This was the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. There is no way I’m going to find her in this place. There’s got to be at least five hundred people here.

“Okay, this is starting to get weird. Are you stalking me?”

My head whips around when I hear the voice close to my ear and I come face-to-face with Matt. I swallow nervously until I see his face light up with a teasing smile. He’s not wearing his glasses tonight. Or a sweater vest. Sweet Jesus, does he look good. He’s wearing a fitted black button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows tucked into a pair of charcoal-gray dress pants. Gone is nerdy-chic Matt. In his place is hot-as-balls Matt. The temperature in this place suddenly went up a thousand degrees.

“I was just kidding about the stalking thing—don’t look so shocked,” Matt says with a laugh, right by my ear.

I’m suddenly okay with the noise level in this place if it means he has to be this close to me to talk.