Fancy Meeting You Here

Sam Ihle first saw Melissa Sass reflected in the glass of the coffee shop pastry case.

It was the laugh that did it. Not loud—Melissa had never been loud—but pitched just so, airy and confident, like she’d always known she was being listened to. The sound cut through the murmur of Seabrook’s Saturday morning crowd and lodged itself somewhere behind Sam’s ribs, a place he’d boarded up years ago and labeled Do Not Enter.

He froze mid-reach for a blueberry scone.

For one absurd, treacherous half-second, his heart did what it used to do back in Michigan: a hopeful little stutter, like a dog that hears a familiar car in the driveway and forgets it’s been kicked before.

Then reality snapped back into place.

Melissa Sass stood three feet behind him, flawless as ever. Auburn hair, smooth and glossy, curled just enough to look effortless. A camel coat that probably cost more than Sam’s monthly grocery budget. The same delicate gold cross at her throat—a detail that used to make him think she was sincere.

Used to.

“Sam?” she said, tilting her head as if testing the name on her tongue. “Oh my gosh. Sam Ihle. Is that really you?”

He turned slowly, like a man approaching a trap he already knew was there.

“Melissa,” he said. His voice came out polite, neutral, reporter-flat. He was proud of that. “Wow. Hi.”

Her smile widened. “I thought it was you! I almost didn’t recognize you without the snow and the flannel.”

“And I almost didn’t recognize you without the lying,” Sam thought, but he kept that one holstered.

She laughed, lightly touching his arm.

Sam flinched before he could stop himself.

Melissa noticed. Of course she did. She always noticed when attention shifted away from her.

“Oh,” she said softly, withdrawing her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” Sam said quickly, too quickly. “Really. It’s just—surprising.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes searched his face, cataloging changes like she used to: the glasses were the same, but his posture was better now. Less apologetic. There was a steadiness there that hadn’t existed when he was twenty-three and in love and trying desperately to be enough for her.

“So,” she said. “Seabrook, huh? I heard you moved out here years ago.”

“I did,” Sam said. “I work at the Viking now.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “No way. The Seabrook Viking News?”

He nodded. “Crime reporting. Some features.”

“That’s incredible.” She looked genuinely impressed, and for a split second Sam hated how much that still mattered to him.

Then she asked the question he’d been dreading.

“So… are you seeing anyone?”

The universe, which occasionally had a sense of humor, chose that exact moment to intervene.

“Sam!” Jodie’s voice rang out from the door. Bright, cheerful—and then sharpened to a blade when she took in the scene. “There you are. I was wondering where you disappeared to.”

She crossed the room in long, confident strides, heels clicking like punctuation marks. Her hand slipped easily into Sam’s arm, possessive without being performative. If Melissa noticed the engagement ring immediately—Sam knew she did—she didn’t let it show.

Jodie smiled at Melissa.

It was not a friendly smile.

“Hi,” Jodie said. “I’m Jodie. Sam’s fiancée.”

Sam felt the word settle into place like armor snapping shut.

Melissa blinked. Once. Twice.

“Oh,” she said. “Fiancée. Wow. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Jodie replied, sweetness layered over steel. “And you are…?”

Melissa hesitated, just a fraction of a second too long. “Melissa. I’m—well. An old friend.”

Sam almost laughed. Almost.

“From Michigan,” Melissa added, as if geography softened betrayal.

“Ah,” Jodie said. “Michigan.”

She said it the way some people said tetanus.

Sam cleared his throat. “Melissa and I dated. A long time ago.”

Jodie’s grip on his arm tightened imperceptibly. “Did you now.”

“Yes,” Melissa said quickly. “College. Ancient history.”

Ancient history didn’t usually leave scars that flared at the sound of someone’s laugh, Sam thought.

“Well,” Jodie said, tilting her head, eyes never leaving Melissa’s face, “Sam and I were just grabbing coffee before heading back to the office. Busy day.”

She leaned in and kissed Sam’s cheek, lingering just long enough to make a point.

Melissa smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jodie agreed pleasantly.

There it was. The warning shot.

Sam opened his mouth to say something—polite, civil, grown—but Melissa beat him to it.

“Sam,” she said softly. “It was really good seeing you. I’ve thought about you a lot, you know.”

Jodie stiffened.

Sam did not.

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” he said, which was true. He just didn’t add without you.

Melissa’s gaze flicked to Jodie again. “You’re very lucky.”

Jodie smiled. This one was sharp enough to cut glass.

“I know.”

Sam did not realize how much that brief encounter had rattled him until he was back at the newsroom, staring at his computer screen and not seeing a single word.

“You okay?” Katherine Evangelista asked, peering over the edge of his cubicle with the instinct of someone who’d spent years noticing when people flinched.

Sam looked up, startled. “Yeah. Why?”

“You’re scowling at your screen like it personally betrayed you.”

“That’s because it did,” Amanda Slater said from her desk nearby, wheeling her chair over. “That headline has been mocking him for ten minutes.”

Sam sighed. “I ran into Melissa.”

Both women froze.

Katherine’s expression darkened instantly. “Melissa Melissa?”

“The Michigan one,” Sam confirmed.

Amanda’s mouth flattened. “Oh. That witch.”

“She’s in town?” Katherine asked.

“Apparently,” Sam said. “We bumped into each other at the coffee shop.”

“And?” Amanda pressed.

“And… that was it,” Sam said. “We talked. Jodie showed up.”

“Oh thank God,” Katherine said fervently.

Amanda cracked her knuckles. “Did she say anything inappropriate?”

“No,” Sam said. “Nothing technically wrong.”

“Those are always the worst things,” Katherine muttered.

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It just—caught me off guard.”

Amanda leaned forward, eyes softening. “You don’t owe her anything, you know. Not politeness. Not closure. Not forgiveness.”

“I know,” Sam said. He paused. “I just hate that she can still do this. That she can just… appear. And suddenly I’m twenty-three again and wondering what I did wrong.”

Katherine reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She cheated on you. Twice.”

“And lied about it both times,” Amanda added.

“And somehow still made you apologize,” Katherine finished.

Sam winced. “Yeah.”

Across the newsroom, Kori Filipek had been pretending not to listen while absolutely listening.

She popped up now, eyes bright. “Question.”

Sam groaned. “Kori—”

“Purely hypothetical,” Kori said. “If I were a person who dabbled in extremely mild, mostly symbolic hexes—”

Amanda snorted. Katherine sighed.

“—and if I wanted to place a protective ward-slash-‘step-on-a-LEGO’ curse on someone who hurt my friend,” Kori continued, “would I have your permission?”

Sam blinked. “To hex my ex-girlfriend.”

“Again, hypothetical.”

He considered it for a beat, then smiled tiredly. “I appreciate the sentiment. But no.”

Kori pouted. “Fine. I’ll just aggressively think bad thoughts at her.”

“That feels fair,” Sam said.

Melissa did not disappear.

She showed up at the grocery store two days later. At a bar near the waterfront the following week. Once, horrifyingly, outside the Viking building itself, as if she’d just happened to be strolling past.

Each time, Jodie was there—or Katherine, or Amanda, or some combination of the three—forming a loose but unmistakable perimeter around Sam.

Melissa noticed.

“You’ve got a very… protective circle,” she remarked one afternoon, eyeing Katherine and Amanda as they flanked Sam like bouncers.

“They’re my friends,” Sam said simply.

Melissa smiled. “You always did surround yourself with strong women.”

Jodie, who had arrived mid-sentence, slid an arm around Sam’s waist. “We do tend to collect.”

Melissa’s gaze lingered on Sam. “I was hoping we could talk. Just the two of us. For closure.”

The word closure landed like a slap.

Sam felt the familiar pull—the old instinct to smooth things over, to make everyone comfortable even at his own expense.

Then he felt Jodie’s hand at his back. Steady. Present.

“No,” Sam said.

Melissa blinked, clearly unprepared for that.

“No?” she repeated.

“No,” he said again, more firmly. “I don’t need closure. I have it.”

She looked wounded now. Or very good at looking wounded.

“I just wanted to apologize,” she said. “For everything.”

Amanda laughed out loud.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, not sounding sorry at all. “But you don’t get to rehearse apologies in public after stalking him across a city.”

Melissa flushed. “I’m not stalking—”

“Melissa,” Sam said quietly. “Please stop.”

Something in his tone must have convinced her. She straightened, nodding stiffly.

“Of course,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

She walked away without another word.

Sam exhaled shakily.

Jodie turned to him, eyes soft. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I am.”

And for the first time since Michigan, he realized it was true.

Melissa Sass had been a chapter. A painful one. But she was not the story anymore.

That belonged to Sam now—to the people who stood between him and old ghosts, who offered protection without possession, love without conditions.

Kori leaned over the cubicle wall again. “Still no on the hex?”

Sam smiled. “Still no.”

She sighed dramatically. “You’re a better man than I am.”