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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 7, 2016 14:39:38 GMT
In lieu of the dramatic, and quite frankly, complicated dinner that Tripp had endured with Melanie's family, the thought of bringing her to the familiarity of his parents' annual Christmas party was almost a comforting one. Almost, he amended, because naturally an event with his family inevitably led to his step-sister starting trouble and his step-mother coping by getting unnecessarily intoxicated. But, as part of the family, it had always been mandatory that he had attended, and while he had gotten older he had been able to see the benefits in socializing with his parents' friends and members of his extended family.
If he was being entirely honest, however, this year's attendance came with the added benefit of introducing Melanie to his family. He supposed that he could have managed to invite her to dinner with them, kept it private and as casual as it possibly could have been, but it seemed like an unnecessary complication when he knew that it would have been an inevitability for them to meet anyway. After the misunderstanding over a brief lunch meeting with Penelope, he had understood that there was certainly good reason to introduce Melanie to that part of his life, no matter how much he would have liked to keep it separate.
The trouble, he knew, was that as they became more involved, and more invested in their relationship, it was going to be inevitable that all of their dirty little secrets came out of the woodwork. And while his relationship, or lack thereof, with his step-sister remained at the forefront of his mind, he couldn't help but dwell on certain bits of information he had gleaned from Melanie's father. Such as the fact that she had lied to him. Whether or not it had been done intentionally, the fact remained that a lie by omission was still a lie. While things such as birthdays perhaps weren't the most problematic lies, he felt that he had entered into dinner with Melanie's family under false pretenses. He wasn't sure that it truly made any difference, but he supposed that he would have liked to at least have known that the woman he had met hadn't actually been Melanie's mother.
Instead of bringing it up to her, however, he had decided to wait. She was free to tell him when she wished, but the fact remained that he still expected her to tell him. It just didn't seem to be anything that she was moving too quickly on.
In spite of the tension that seemed to continue to bubble under the surface, he had wanted to ensure that the evening went as well as it possibly could. Tripp had done everything he would have done under any other circumstance and had picked Melanie up from her apartment, complimented her for how beautiful she looked, and been pleased to show her off to familiar acquaintances once inside of the party.
Penny had been waiting for them to arrive. She had learned through one of her semi-regular lunch dates with Tripp's former girlfriend, Colette, that she had been invited to attend the party. She knew that her friend was around the party somewhere, having greeted her warmly when she arrived, and when Colette had casually inquired about Tripp, Penny had found herself struggling not to clap her hands together in glee. It wasn't necessarily that she enjoyed causing her step-brother so much torment, but when it just came so easily it was hard to pass up the opportunity.
Spotting Tripp entering the party with his new girlfriend on his arm, she smiled brightly and grabbed a drink off of a passing tray before she made their way over to them. "Hello, Tripp," she greeted him.
"Penelope," he returned. Having never been particularly fond of her, he aimed to keep their conversation as short, and polite, as possible. "I'd like to introduce my girlfriend, Melanie Benson."
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 7, 2016 15:37:07 GMT
Melanie was anxious. It was a foreign feeling for her. There were very rarely social situations that she didn’t feel at ease in. Always having been good at capturing people’s attention and making nice with others, Melanie actually relished in the times that Tripp took her to work events. She enjoyed being on his arm and being shown off. However, this was a bit different. She was being brought to meet his family.
Finding nothing in her wardrobe suitable for meeting his parents, she’d bought herself a new dress. It wasn’t exactly something she normally would have purchased for herself and she’d taken an extra hour to get ready, doing her makeup and hair and cursing quite a bit from inside of her closet. When Tripp arrived, he complimented her and she plastered on a smile, hiding her own physical discomfort with her appearance.
Upon walking in and meeting his step sister, Melanie tried to relax. She, of course, recognized Penny thanks to a photograph sent by her friend that had caused quite the embarrassing confrontation between Melanie and Tripp. Still, she smiled again and offered her hand out. “It’s nice to meet you,” she told her sincerely, and while she could tell that her boyfriend’s relationship with his stepsister was strained, she did mean it.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 7, 2016 16:42:59 GMT
Penny smiled politely at the brunette standing beside Tripp, shaking the other woman's hand quickly and as courteously as possible. She couldn't say that she knew much about Melanie Benson, outside of societal gossip and the sparse information that her step-brother had provided to the family upon informing them of his intentions of bringing her tonight. She sipped at the drink in her hand, making no effort to hide the fact that she was, in fact, sizing the other woman up. She could see why she had captured Tripp's attention, that much was obvious, but without knowing much more about her she decided that it was difficult to suddenly be supportive of their relationship.
In all honesty, her friendship - or rather acquaintanceship - with Colette had perhaps clouded her opinion over the years. Colette had been the first woman that Tripp had ever brought to one of these functions where Penny had bothered to remember her name. She supposed it had more to do with the fact that she had ample time to learn it rather than a true solidarity felt between them. At times, Colette had tried much too hard to be the older sister that she had never had, and she was amused to find that the woman standing in front of her appeared to be much more her age than she was the former couple's.
But, she decided, it made it that much more entertaining. "Colette is around here somewhere," she stated to Tripp off-hand. "I'm sure she's just dying to say hello to you."
Tripp eyed Penelope suspiciously at the mention of Colette. He had been vaguely aware of the fact that there was a possibility of his ex-girlfriend's attendance, her consistency in his life for so long had sort of melded her social life into his own, placing him in an awkward situation where he was forced to maintain at least some sort of civility with her. Though, despite their polite friendliness, the way that Penny had brought the situation up made him think that she she was playing at something. "Well, I'm sure I'll get a chance to say hello to her at some point," he dismissed.
"You wouldn't be talking about me, would you?" Colette asked with a grin, joining the conversation. "Penny, you look absolutely lovely, as always. Tripp, I must say that you're looking quite well. It's been too long, we should catch up."
He sighed softly at her sudden appearance at what had already been a uncomfortable situation. "Lettie," he greeted her, slipping into old familiarities. "It has been a while." Though, in all honesty, he had purposefully chosen not to see her in that span of time, especially considering what had happened between them before. Feeling Melanie at his side, he turned to her. "Melanie, this is Colette - she's an old friend. And Colette, this is Melanie - my girlfriend."
Colette grinned, "An old friend? Right, of course. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Melanie."
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 7, 2016 16:59:29 GMT
Melanie kept her smile plastered on when a new woman introduced herself into the situation. She wasn’t sure who Colette was but she could tell that there was more to it than just an old friendship. At the use of an almost affectionate nickname, Melanie did her best not to visibly stiffen. “It’s nice to meet you, too,” she smiled at Colette. She took a moment to observe the way that Colette looked at her and also the way that the other woman’s eyes seemed to appraise Tripp and she felt that it was pretty obvious what she’d just walked into.
After all, it was a game that Melanie had played with her girlfriends all too often, making one of their ex-boyfriends and his new significant other feel virtually uncomfortable in a social situation. Except this time she was on the other side instead of in Penny’s shoes, where she’d usually stood. This time, if there was a game to play she was on the side with a distinct disadvantage as the new player. Her hand found Tripp’s, fingers lacing together with his and she smiled up at him, giving her best attempt at trying to appear comfortable.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 7, 2016 17:40:18 GMT
Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, Tripp smiled down at Melanie quickly. For a moment he almost felt apologetic about what he was sure was just the beginning of the Penelope and Colette's games. Though, he added as an afterthought, he wasn't sure that Colette had ever really been much for playing games. He briefly thought of an exception to that rule but tried to shake away those memories. Regardless of how much he knew that things with Colette were meant to have ended the way that they had, he still had to admit that four years with someone brings a lot of memories along which could be difficult to forget. The fighting, however, seemed to overshadow a lot of it.
Smiling brightly at the pretty brunette at Tripp's side, Colette was curious how much the woman knew and how much she could take advantage of what she didn't know. From what she had been able to gather at her lunch with Penny, it seemed like a lot of the old reasons for her fights with Tripp, a lot of the reasons why their relationship had ended, were no longer reasons. His inability to put anything before his work had been the cause, if not the entire reason, for a lot of their fighting, and so she had been intrigued to hear Penny relay the fact that he had been making an honest effort with this new woman. She supposed that if that were the case, if he had reached a point where he was able to better prioritize things in his life, then maybe there was a distinct possibility that they could have been better together a second time around.
Somebody had once said that a person never forgets their first love, and Colette couldn't help but think about how right they were. She had spent a lot of the last several years thinking back fondly on what they had together. She thought about the way that they had been so carefree and young as they were finishing up college, how they had been so ambitious and determined when they had graduated and moved in together, and sometimes - against her better judgment - she started thinking about all of the ways that things had gone wrong. It was those thoughts, she knew, that had allowed her to pull him back into her bed for a brief one-night stand. But even then, just a year or so ago, he still hadn't changed and they had both known somehow that a relationship between them wouldn't have worked.
But now? She wasn't convinced that was still the case.
"How did you meet our Tripp here?" she questioned as casually and innocently as possible.
If Tripp had been suspicious of Penelope's intentions, the naive way that Colette had questioned Melanie had convinced him of the fact that they weren't planning on playing nice. At least not as nice as he would have hoped. "We met at Cornell, actually," he interjected.
"Oh! That's wonderful. I imagine it was at one of those boring functions you used to always drag us to?" she laughed at the memory.
"Well, Melanie certainly kept it interesting for me," he smirked at Melanie for a moment, thinking back to that night.
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 7, 2016 18:12:56 GMT
Melanie wasn't stupid. She had been the reigning mean girl of her social circle on the Upper East Side for a long while now. She knew exactly what was happening and to Tripp's credit, he seemed to as well - playing a very supportive role in trying to keep the other women at bay. She kept her smile plastered on - the emotional discomfort of the situation on top of her already felt physical discomfort did nothing to truly ease her mind. She laughed at Tripp's comment softly, recalling the night that they'd met.
"That's true, turns out going to that mixer was a very wise decision on my part. And then Tripp was very persistent about seeing me again," she smirked up at him with a small laugh. "Quite glad you did though," she said to him softly. She turned her smile back to Colette and shrugged. "And I don't know that I would call it boring, Tripp tends to keep things very interesting for me."
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 7, 2016 18:57:37 GMT
Penny was getting bored with how easily Tripp and Melanie were deflecting the things that Colette was saying. She blamed Colette for that as she was being considerably nicer that she would have been in her shoes. Her friend's apparent interest in her step-brother again had not gone unnoticed, and while she appreciated the added layer it provided for all of the tension that seemed to fill the room, she thought that they were all skirting around the issue at hand. Which, as she saw it, was that Tripp had brought someone new into a situation where her friend had already been comfortable. She wasn't sure that it was necessarily in either of their best interests to pick up where they had left off - she knew that their relationship had been completely volatile - but at least she knew how to handle Colette.
"If I remember correctly, Tripp used to keep things very interesting for you as well, Colette," she added with a smile. "I'm sure I can think of at least one instance in which you both were ... occupied at something like this."
Taking another drink from the glass in her hand, she looked at her step-brother innocently. "But that's all in the past, right?" She laughed, as though suddenly remembering something. "That is if you consider last year the past. It was just last year that you two almost got back together, wasn't it?"
Tripp tried to remain calm and impassive about what Penelope was saying, but if he had been anywhere else, he was sure that he would have been quick to not only reprimand her for it, he would have had her forcibly escorted out. She had always played these childish little games, and he had always felt that he was too old for them - though perhaps never more so than he did now. "Penelope," he warned. "I think perhaps you should go check on your mother. I'm sure she's humiliated herself by now."
Penny waved the idea off, "She'll be fine."
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 7, 2016 19:40:36 GMT
It took Melanie a moment to absorb what had just been said. The new information registered and she resisted the urge to slip her hand out of Tripp’s. Her mind did the math of what that meant – one year ago from now was about nine months prior to her first time meeting Tripp, it was longer than the time that they’d been dating and while she knew she shouldn’t worry, she came to the realization that she was now staring in the face of some pretty large history from Tripp’s past. At Tripp’s comment to Penelope, she glanced up at him before glancing around the rest of the party and flashing a bright smile at the women in front of her.
She realized that she hadn’t walked into a party or even an opportunity to meet his family. She was walking into an ambush. If there was anything she knew, it was how to play at this kind of warfare, she’d all but invented it. And she knew that what the girls in front of her wanted was a reaction. She could have given them one, she could have even sunk down to their level. But for the sake of the man standing behind her, she resisted the urge. Turning to Tripp, she nodded, “I’m thirsty, do you want to grab a drink?” she suggested, hoping to get them both away from this situation as Penny was acting like a dog that had sunk her teeth into something new and wouldn’t let go.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 7, 2016 21:06:43 GMT
To her credit, Melanie seemed to be taking it all in stride, but when she mentioned wanting to grab a drink, he knew that perhaps she wasn't dealing with the taunts of the women in front of them as well as she was portraying. Giving her hand another soft squeeze, he tried to express to her that he didn't want her to let any of this make her upset. It was difficult to express in any sort of non-verbal way that she had nothing to worry about when it came to his former relationship with Colette, or with Penelope. As they said, her bark was certainly worse than her bite.
Looking at Melanie, he nodded. "Just give me a minute and I'll be right there." He waited for to step out of earshot before he turned on his step-sister. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," she told him, unable to keep the smile from her lips.
"Leave her alone," Tripp warned forcefully.
Penny rolled her eyes, sighing in annoyance at her step-brother's testiness. "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to go apologize for doing nothing wrong? For potentially hurting Princess' feelings? Oh, come on, Tripp. It isn't my fault you've never mentioned any of it to her." Downing the remnants of the drink, she set the empty glass down on a passing tray. "I'm bored now. Good luck with her." She walked away from them, unable to keep from smirking at having left Tripp alone with Colette.
The remaining blonde gave a soft, dry laugh and looked up at him. "Same old Penny, huh?" Despite the fact that she had maintained a casual friendship with the youngest member of the VanderMill family, she couldn't hide from the fact that there were certain tendencies that she had that made things a little more difficult for everyone involved. Still, she couldn't be angry with the other woman for giving her some much appreciated time alone with the man in front of her.
"Look," she started, "I've been meaning to talk to you about some things. Would it be okay if we stepped into the other room where it's maybe a little quieter?"
With a quick glance in the direction of Melanie, he nodded to Colette. "Just for a second."
Colette smiled at him and led him out of the room.
Given a moment to consider her actions for the evening, Penny weighed the pros and cons of having tormented Tripp's new girlfriend. On the one hand, it had been entertaining. On the other, she felt a nagging little tug of guilt after the way that Tripp had chided her. Perhaps, she considered, this woman was a little different to him. And perhaps, as some sort of family relation, she should have attempted to have been a little supportive. But she blamed the situation entirely for presenting the opportunity much too easily.
But all the same, she turned toward where she had seen Melanie head toward the bar and found her easily. "You must be something," she remarked.
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 7, 2016 21:49:38 GMT
Melanie made her way to the bar, easily ordering herself a vodka tonic and taking a deep breath to decompress. She had been expecting to feel awkward as it was meeting Tripp’s parents. But as it were, she was now finding that his step-sister and ex-girlfriend were an unforeseen obstacle for her. She took a long sip of her drink before Penelope showed up at her side. Forcing another smile onto her face. “Well, I’ve been called worse,” she joked, glancing at the other girl and nodding.
“But, yes, I suppose that’s a good word for it,” she shrugged a shoulder up. “As long as your brother thinks that it’s a good something.”
She glanced around looking for Tripp, suddenly curious where he'd gone off to. Her mind was racing, trying to do the math of when this other woman was last a part of Tripp's life - what it meant that he'd nearly gotten back together with her. Was she a rebound? Had they been in love? She had so many questions, none of which she was willing to ask. "Do you know where he went, by the way?" she asked curiously.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 8, 2016 0:42:41 GMT
If Penny took nothing else away from the entire situation, the least she could say was that she was convinced that Melanie wasn't willing to be easily shaken from her step-brother. In fact, she seemed to be taking everything in stride much better than she would have expected anyone to though at the same time she supposed that she had barely even gotten her hands dirty at this point. "I can imagine," she muttered, ordering herself another drink and flashing a smile at the bartender, just for amusement's sake.
"Step-brother," she corrected easily, feeling the same familiar tinge of annoyance of people seeming to disregard that integral difference. "We're not really related - at least not in any way that matters." It was probably that feeling of dissatisfaction with Melanie that had caused her to smirk a little at her question. "He disappeared with Colette," she informed her nonchalantly. "If I were you I maybe wouldn't have left them alone, considering the history between them." The way she said it, she had hoped that it came off as nothing more than just a piece of friendly advice. "They were together for four years, that's an awful lot of memories to put behind you, I suppose."
Tripp hadn't been sure what to expect when Colette had led him out of the room, but he figured that there wasn't any harm in remaining friendly with the woman who seemed unable to shake herself from his life. He wasn't sure how much he still needed to argue with his family that there was nothing between himself and the blonde woman closing the door to his father's office. Though, as he had been forcibly reminded on more than one occasion, he did have to admit that sometimes it was hard to push all of the memories aside.
When the door clicked firmly shut, Colette had turned around and smiled softly at him, walking slowly back toward where he had been leaning against the desk. "You really are looking well," she repeated. "I'm glad. I've thought about you since the last time that we saw each other."
"Colette," he said, sighing as he began to realize what her plan in getting him alone had been. "It's not going to happen."
She laughed and shook her head, "I don't know what you're talking about. I just thought that we could catch up. It's been an entire year since we last saw each other, can you believe that?" Colette liked to think that the reason for that had been because he had been so caught up on work that he had simply forgotten to call her, though the rational part of her mind argued that he clearly hadn't been so caught up that he hadn't had the time to get involved with the pretty brunette she had last seen at the bar. "She's pretty," she confessed. "Melanie or whatever her name is. Not quite your type, though," she added, a smile rising back to her lips as she stepped toward him. "I always thought that you preferred blondes."
If he had doubted for a moment what Colette and Penny's intentions had been before, he wasn't doubting them now. And while he might have entertained the idea of getting back together with Colette a very long time ago, the thought hadn't crossed his mind for a moment in a couple of years. Even when they had slept together as the previous year's Christmas party. She had just become another face in the crowd at that point, and he hadn't felt anything for her that had driven his compulsion to keep her around. Not like he had felt for Melanie. He smiled at the thought of how he had convinced her to stay in the hotel bed in Ithaca and sharply realized that Colette had misinterpreted the action as some sort of fond thought he had toward her.
"I missed you," she added, placing her hand on his chest.
He paused for a moment, looking at her and trying to figure out what she thought she was accomplishing here. He knew that she wouldn't have thought that a girlfriend would have been enough of a reason to stay away, but he was surprised all of the same.
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 8, 2016 1:40:04 GMT
Melanie looked at Penelope, leaning in slightly towards the girl. "I like you, Penny. You remind me a lot of someone that I like quite a bit," she told the other girl. "And I know what's happening here, I really do. A bit of new girl hazing, a bit of standing by your step-brother's ex. But you and I could probably be very good friends - or we could be very horrible enemies. I'd prefer the first, I think it would be so much nicer for Tripp if you and I were able to get along. Maybe I could even help you and Tripp get along better. But frankly it's not going to keep me awake at night if we're unable to do that. But you should get used to me, regardless, because I care about your brother very much and I trust him very much."
Taking another sip of her drink, she glanced around, still finding no sign of Tripp. "Perhaps I should send your friend Colette a bottle of perfume as a belated Christmas gift so she smells a little less like desperation," she quickly downed her own drink and ordered a new one before pushing off of the bar and looking at Penny. "So I suppose to find them I'll just follow my nose." She flashed the other girl a grin and walked away. While she hadn't wanted to make an enemy of anyone in Tripp's family, she also remembered that surviving in social circles in the Upper East Side sometimes required a show of dominance, and as the new girl in this particular circle, she realized that if she intended to stay with Tripp she had to show it as well as possible. And she did intend to stay with him, in fact, she was pretty certain she loved him despite not having said so much to him.
It didn't take very long for Melanie to find them, checking corridors and the first closed door she found. She opened it just as Colette was declaring how much she'd missed Tripp. Leaning against the door jam, her eyes narrowed as she took in the situation in front of her - Tripp leaning against the desk in the room with Colette pressed against him. She cleared her throat, "Aw, honey, that's sweet but I haven't even been gone long enough to be missed."
She lifted her drink to her lips and observed them for a moment, her eyes flicking up to Tripp's face.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 8, 2016 1:57:29 GMT
Tripp would have pushed Colette away regardless, wanting to make it clear to her that any sort of chance she had ever had at getting back together with him was long gone. However, when he heard the door open and Melanie's voice quickly followed, he pushed her away perhaps more forcefully than he had intended. He had never been in a situation where he felt like he was getting caught in the middle of doing something that he wasn't meant to do, having always been involved in exactly the situations he had meant to find himself entwined in. Nothing had happened with Colette, there wasn't anything that he should have been feeling guilty about or that needed to be explained to Melanie, but all the same he had just realized how much he wanted the blonde away from him with his girlfriend's attention drawn to them.
Colette did not appreciate being pushed away and frowned at Tripp before turning her attention to Melanie. "If you wouldn't mind closing the door on your way back out," she suggested with a polite smile.
"Colette, that's enough. Nothing is going to happen." There was part of him that was sure that she already knew that, but for whatever reason she seemed to be determined to get him to change his mind regardless.
"That's what you said last year, and you and I both know how that ended, handsome," she grinned at him, daring him to think about exactly what had occurred before.
"Enough," he repeated.
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 8, 2016 2:23:34 GMT
Melanie ticked her eyebrow up at Colette, she continued to lean against the door almost calmly despite the fact that her blood was boiling a bit at the nerve on the blonde in front of her. Taking another sip of her drink, she let out a soft chuckle and shook her head. "You should leave while your desperation is still cute, Colleen," she replied simply. Stepping further into the room, her eyes met Tripp's again, her expression impassive before turning back to his ex-girlfriend.
"I'm not going to make a scene, because Tripp's family and their friends are all outside, but I really do highly recommend that you go and give me a moment with my boyfriend," she nodded.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 8, 2016 3:07:15 GMT
Colette rolled her eyes at the obvious stab at her by Melanie calling her the wrong name. With a sigh and a soft shake of her head, she gave the girl a small smile. "I hope you realize that you're playing at something that you have absolutely no clue about." It felt odd to list all of the things that she knew about Tripp, all of the small aspects of their relationship that she thought fondly of, but the temptation was still there. Though, with him standing there, it felt a lot less like fond reminiscing and a lot more like she was trying to show off or stake her claim on something that she supposed wasn't hers to claim any longer. Which, she knew - was exactly what it was. "I wouldn't get used to those labels, Melanie. Things are bound to change, as they often do. But, it was a pleasure to meet you, I'm sure. And I do hope that we get the opportunity to see each other again." She turned to Tripp, smiling at him warmly, "I'll see you soon," she promised before making her way back out of the office and returning to the party. A drink was in order, she decided.
Tripp looked at Melanie for a moment, unable to fight the small smirk that had formed when she very emphatically reminded Colette that he was Melanie's boyfriend. For whatever reason, hearing her say it, hearing the possessive statement, had done nothing to maintain whatever tension he had felt between them earlier in the evening. While he still expected her to tell him about her mother, or at the very least mention the birthday that she had glossed over, he supposed that none of that had to come to fruition at the moment. "I apologize about her."
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