“Welcome to Daisy’s. Looking for something special?” she asked, setting down her scissors and stepping out from behind the counter.
“Actually, I’m looking for Lily.”
“And you are?” she questioned, eyeing me warily.
“I’m a friend of hers. Zach. Look, she just called me she sounded upset. I was just going to check that she and Ava were okay.”
“You’re the fireman?”
“Huh?”
“The fireman with the tattoos. The one who found Ava.”
I was confused, how did she know who I was, but I didn’t have time to stand around chatting. Even though I was trying to play it cool, I was anxious to see for myself that they were okay. There was only so many times anyone could hear the word fine before it stopped having any meaning.
“Uh, yeah. That’s me I guess.”
“So, you gonna show me your tattoos?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Sage. I help Lily sometimes at the shop. She asked me to cover for her for a couple of days while she gets things settled with Ava.”
“Where are they now? Are they upstairs?”
“No. They’re at Lily’s grandmother’s place.”
“Where’s that?”
After Sage gave me directions and a huge bunch of daises, I headed to the address she’d shared. A moment later, I pulled into the driveway of one of the most beautiful homes I’d ever seen. Sure, the paint was peeling, and the gardens were overgrown but beyond that this house screamed potential. Maybe I was looking at it through paint-stained glasses because I was in the middle of my own renovations, but I could just imagine sitting out on the huge wraparound porch on warm summer nights nursing a beer.
Grabbing the flowers from the front seat, I shut the door and bounded up the walkway. The moment my feet hit the steps, they groaned under my weight.
Knocking on the door, I could hear crying on the other side. “Hello?” I called out as I pushed it open.
“Come on, sweetheart. Please…” There was pleading in her strained voice.
“Lily? It’s Zach. Can I come in?”
“Shit! Come in, Zach. I’m in the bedroom.”
Stepping inside, I began to get a sense of how much Lily was struggling. Sitting on the table by the door was a plastic bag filled with containers of what looked like last night’s untouched dinner. There were blankets and cushions all over the floor. It wasn’t dirty, just untidy.
“Lily?”
“In here.”
Following the cries, I found them exactly where Lily said they’d be. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of an unmade bed, with Ava lying in front of her kicking her chubby little legs as she squirmed about in her nappy and singlet. Taking in the sight, a huge hit of guilt sucker punched me in the stomach. Lily, as naturally beautiful as she was, looked terrible. Her hair hung limply down over her shoulders, she was pale and her shirt had a wet patch across her chest. I didn’t even want to know what it was.
Not wanting to frighten them, I knocked gently on the bedroom door.
Lily looked up, and the moment her eyes locked with mine, she burst into tears. Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. Moving towards them on instinct, I sat down on the end of the bed.
“She keeping you up?” I asked dumbly.
“She doesn’t sleep. All she does is cry.”
“Mind if I…” I pointed to Ava who was looking up at me with the most hypnotic eyes I’d ever seen.
Lily nodded.
Reaching down, I carefully lifted Ava into my arms, cradling her against me. She was so warm and smelt so good. I might have been almost dead on my feet and my stomach was trying to eat itself, but there was no way I was about to focus on anything but the beautiful little girl in my arms.
“She’s quiet!” Lily exclaimed in an excited whisper.
I’d been so caught up in her, I hadn’t even realized the silence that had fallen over us. When Ava lifted her tiny little fist up and rubbed her eyes before letting out the cutest yawn ever, I was gone. This kid owned me.
“Yeah,” I replied dumbly. I had no words.
“Is she… is she asleep?” Lily’s voice was thick with disbelief.
Glancing down, I saw her beautiful eyes closed, her long lashes resting on her cheeks. Nodding, I saw a look pass over Lily’s tired features, one I wish I understood better. I couldn’t tell if it was frustration, shock or relief. Maybe a combination of all.
When Lily flopped back against the pillows and pinched the bridge of her nose, she sighed heavily. Checking Ava, she was completely out of it. Her tiny hands were clenched in fists as soft snores rumbled from her tiny chest. Standing up, I heard a groan and spun around. Lily had rolled over, hugging a pillow tight against her.
As carefully as I could, I set Ava down in her cot and stepped back, holding my breath. I couldn’t deal if she woke up screaming. The last thing I wanted to be was the cause of her crying. When she didn’t move a muscle, I took a tentative step back and turned to head out. As I went to leave, I looked over at Lily who was now snoring loudly. As I tugged the blanket up over her, she didn’t move at all. Poor girl looked like she hadn’t slept in a month. Yawning loudly, I resisted the urge to curl up beside her and have a nap. Instead, I backed out of the room quietly.
Standing in the kitchen, I had no idea what I was supposed to do now. Lily and I were practically strangers. There’s no way I’d call us friends, and I was in her house while she slept. After sitting at the kitchen bench and flicking through the crumpled magazine on the counter, I knew sitting still wasn’t going to keep me awake for long. Instead, I collected the empty coffee mugs and filled the sink. Not afraid to get my hands dirty, I started cleaning up.
An hour later, my cleaning frenzy came to a screeching halt. Dropping the cloth where I stood, I took off towards where I’d left Ava sleeping. Moving as quickly as I could, I found myself half laughing as I hurried along. I didn’t have such a severe adrenaline spike running into a burning building as I did trying to get to Ava.
Reaching the cot, I reached down and picked her up. As soon as she was in my arms, she burrowed her face against me and fell quiet. Looking over at the bed to see if Ava’s cries had woken Lily, I was shocked to see her spread out but still dead to the world.
“Come on, pretty girl. Let’s let Lily get some sleep,” I told her. It wasn’t until I draped the pink blanket over my shoulder that I realized how stupid I must sound. I was having a conversation with a baby who wasn’t even a month old.
6
LILY
I woke up and felt more alive and more human than I had in days. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but damn I needed it. Even more surprising, Ava hadn’t woken me. Shit. Ava!
Shoving off the blanket, I scrambled from the bed, tripping over my sneakers as I hurried towards her crib only to find it empty. My heart plummeted. With my stomach in my throat, I ran out to the lounge room only to have the wind knocked right out of me.
Sound asleep on my grandmother’s ratty old couch was Zach. A shirtless, sleeping Zach with Ava curled on his chest, with her tiny fist wrapped around his finger. Both of them snored softly. Holy shitballs Batman, this was not okay. How was I supposed to hold myself together? How was I supposed to stop myself from falling stupidly and crazily in love with them both when I woke up to find them like this? Shaking my head, I forced myself to walk away. Now was the perfect time to take that long hot shower I was desperate for. With Zach had Ava occupied, I could afford a few minutes to myself to wash my hair and shave my legs. But not before I snapped a photo, you know, for posterity’s sake. Not for me to look at later tonight when I was tucked up in my big bed feeling lonely.
Setting my phone on the bathroom counter, I stripped off, turned on the faucet and waited until the water was running hot and the room full of steam.
“Oh my god. Nothing’s ever felt that good,” I mumbled to myself as I stepped out of the bathroom tightening the towel knotted betw
een my boobs.
“If nothing’s felt that good, the guys you’ve been hanging out with don’t know what they’re doing.”
I froze where I stood. I was naked. Like wearing my birthday suit, wrapped in a towel with another towel tied as a turban on my head. If I’d thought the water had been hot against my skin, then it had nothing on the heat radiating from my core caused by the stare Zach was throwing in my direction.
I couldn’t let Zach best me though. He wasn’t going away in a hurry, so I couldn’t afford to be acting like a schoolgirl with a crush every time we were in the same room.
“Who said I like guys?” I replied, white knuckling the towel, making sure it didn’t drop to my feet and show off everything my mother gave me.
He coughed, looking at me like I’d grown an extra head. I watched as he swallowed deeply, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. I have no idea why I found that so damn sexy, but I found myself clamping my legs together trying to ease the throb.
“Each to their own,” he replied quickly. “Come on, pretty girl. Let’s get you changed and leave Lily to take care of herself.”
With a cheeky wink, Zach sauntered out of my bedroom, blowing raspberries against Ava’s cheek and causing her little chubby legs to kick wildly.
I watched them go before closing the door and sliding down the wooden frame. My palms were sweating, my pulse racing. I felt like I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs and my thighs were sticky. This was not good. Not good at all.
On the other side I could hear Zach starting to sing some weird song I didn’t know, but his voice, with that damn Aussie accent, was making everything tingle. Forcing myself to my feet, I stomped back into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face before hurrying to get dressed. In many, many clothes. Layers were my friend. Layers and ugly underwear; not that I really owned any pretty panties, but sticking to my trusty spanx and beige bra was another layer of protection. One I had a feeling I was going to need.
Keeping my makeup minimal, since I had no intention of leaving the house, I stuck to a quick swipe of my mascara wand and a dab of my favorite strawberry lip gloss, I smacked my lips together, straightened the skirt on my dress and headed out to find them. While I knew Zach was more than capable of taking care of Ava, I didn’t want to take advantage of his generosity.
Finding them in the kitchen, Ava was in her stroller changed into a light pink onesie with Piglet on her chest, sucking her pacifier, her eyes drooping sleepily. I don’t know how Zach did it, but it seemed like he was a magician when it came to our beautiful Ava. She quietened and calmed when he was near and fell asleep easily. It was a magic I was desperate to learn.
“Don’t you own a shirt?”
Wow! I hadn’t planned on blurting that out. It was so unlike me to be so rude, but for some reason, Zach brought the worst out of me. Or made me less ladylike, at the very least.
“You look beautiful too, Lily.” Zach smiled back at me, his teeth so perfectly white and straight he should be in a toothpaste commercial.
I blushed. I knew I did. My cheeks burned under his stare.
“Thanks.”
He bent over and pulled something out of the oven, and my stomach growled embarrassingly loudly. When he sat a casserole dish on the counter, one I recognized from when I was a kid, I couldn’t help but smile. Being here, in this house, had that effect on me.
“What’s that grin for? Was it the view of my ass when I bent over? Cause I can do it again, I mean, if you want me to.” I don’t know if it was the mischievous smirk covering his face or the playful tone in his easy-going banter or maybe it was just the fact I felt slightly human, but he made me feel lighter. More like myself.
“You wish.”
Zach shrugged. “Maybe. Now, do you want to grab a couple of bowls so we can eat while it’s hot?”
My feet were moving before my brain caught up. With my head in the cupboard, I grabbed a couple of bowls and glasses. “You’re staying?” I asked, although it wasn’t really a question.
“Unless you don’t want me to?”
“I’d love you to.”
“Then it’s settled. I’m staying.”
“On one condition…”
“What’s that?”
“You need to find a shirt.”
“I’m that irresistible, am I?”
Ah, yeah. “Only in your dreams, Captain Kangaroo,” I deflected. The last thing I was about to admit was how close to the mark he was. I don’t know if it was the abs or the cocky grin or the accent that was making me stupid, but it was undoubtable.
Zach set the serving spoon down and headed for the door. My heart raced. I’d been playing with him. Flirting almost. But if he was making a dash for the nearest exit, it only proved how bad at it I was. “Or maybe it’s in your dreams, Lily. I mean, I’m pretty sure I heard some moaning earlier…”
“Don’t know how you could’ve heard anything over your freight-train snoring.” Shocked with myself, I clamped my hand over my mouth. Who was this woman saying these things? This wasn’t me. I wasn’t sassy or a smartass. I was polite, well-mannered, nice even. I wanted to blame Zach. He was bringing the absolute worst out of me, and although it caught me off guard, I didn’t exactly hate it.
I glanced down at Ava, who was still asleep. She looked so sweet and adorable, I could barely believe she slept. We were making a racket and she didn’t even bat an eyelid. I heard the screen door shut gently and Zach disappeared from view. Guilt crept up my spine, and I found myself creeping towards the door and peering out the glass. I watched as he rifled through the back seat of his truck before finding what he was looking for. As he turned back to the house, I darted back into the kitchen. The last thing I needed to do right now was give him more ammunition to use against me.
I filled the bowls with the creamy pasta and grabbed the jug of water from the fridge, missing the glass and splashing it all over the counter. “Shoot!” I complained as I mopped up the mess with a tea towel.
“Need a hand?”
Looking up, my eyes locked with Zach’s, and I almost became the puddle he needed to clean up. The abs may have been covered and those arms, inked with dark tattoos that I was desperate to get a closer look at, had disappeared under his long-sleeve navy fire department t-shirt, but he still looked just as delicious as the dinner I was serving.
“I got it,” I choked out.
Dinner was weird, to say the least. The food was delicious, and Ava slept through like a champ, but I had no idea what to say to Zach. We barely knew each other, and if it wasn’t for Ava coming into our lives, we probably would never have met.
Even though the conversations had been stilted at best, when he asked about the house, I found that I couldn’t shut up. I blurted out way more than he ever wanted to know. I told him about my mother’s death when I was only three and Dad’s spiral into drugs and depression which resulted in me living with my grandmother. I hadn’t heard from my dad since I was seven. Not that I wanted to. Last time I’d seen him, he was all skin and bone, his face was pale, his eyes sunken and his hair wiry. He’d stolen the necklace from my jewelry box, the last thing I had of Mom’s, and emptied my piggy bank that sat on my shelf. His own mother, completely appalled and heart broken by his actions, threw him out and told him not to come back until he cleaned himself up. Sadly, I was still waiting.
“She sounds like a remarkable woman. Where is she now?”
Zach’s question was innocent enough, but it was a huge kick in the guts. Tears welled in my eyes and I swallowed down the lump in my throat. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. It was the reason I hadn’t eaten spaghetti in years. One moment Grandma was standing in the kitchen, wearing her pink spotted apron cooking dinner while I sat at the kitchen bench practicing tying the perfect bow, when she dropped the saucepan, boiling water and soggy noodles falling to the floor as she crumpled. I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough.
“She passed,” I gritted out, overcome with emotions.
I wanted to brush off his sympathies, but the look on his face made me believe he was genuine. “It was a long time ago now.”
“Yeah, but still…”
“Yeah.”
For a few minutes quiet fell over us, and although I expected it to be awkward, for some reason it wasn’t. It was almost peaceful. I was caught up in my own head as memories of Grandma and her crazy antics whirled and then, unexpectedly, I had a light-bulb moment.
“What do you think of this house?”
7
ZACH
I couldn’t move a muscle. Everything ached. From the hair on my head to the tips of my toes, I was sore. Whoever thought working a double and then using my free time to renovate my house was a good idea was on crack. Thankfully, I’d managed to bribe some of the other guys from the station to come and give me a hand gutting the bathroom and ripping up the old tiles with cold beers and pizza, but I’d still done a hell of a lot of heavy lifting. And I had the cuts and bruises to prove it.
Mom was getting worse, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she was going to need more care, which had me speeding up my timeline. My plan—before Mom tripped down the front steps and took the skin off the side of her face which had the neighbor calling me mid-shift—had been to take my time and work through the place one room at a time. Living in a construction zone was not my idea of fun so I wanted to do it in a somewhat organized way. Besides, I only had so much money to throw around and had to budget wisely. But now, things had changed. That luxury was gone and now I was suddenly in a hurry.
My phone beeped on the coffee table, but it was too far away to reach and too much effort to get up. When it kept going, I heaved my ass off the couch, brushed the chips from my shirt and grabbed it, immediately noticing I’d been added to a group message.
Apparently, beers and burgers were at Hooligans tonight, and my presence was required. As much as the thought of getting dressed and going out sounded like torture, I kinda owed these guys. They’d given up their time off to give me a hand, so being the anti-social shithead I’d been known as back in Australia wasn’t really an option.
Fallen: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) Page 4
