by Kait Nolan
Unable to resist the siren song of peau de soie, Lexi stripped down, unzipping the dress and slipping it off the hanger. She stepped into it, drawing it up and over her hips, feeling the heavy satin settle against her like water. Zipping it took a little contortion, but she managed, then she simply stared at herself in the full-length mirror. Because it fit like a glove. Exactly as it had been made to do.
She reached a hand toward her reflection. “It’s perfect.”
“Some of my finest work.”
Lexi ran her hands softly over the skirt, where it molded to her curves. “It makes me feel like Cinderella.” A very sexy, siren version, in this rich red that made her skin glow. Which was so far from how she usually felt, it was almost like stepping into another skin.
Leandra grinned. “Does that make me the fairy godmother?”
“You’re certainly magic when it comes to a needle and thread. Thank you for this. Again.”
“You’re welcome, mija. But you’re not Cinderella. You don’t have to wait for a fairy to give you a pumpkin coach and permission to go after what you want. The power to grant your own wish has been yours all along. You only have to reach for it.”
In this dress, Lexi was almost certain she could do it. In this dress, she felt brave and beautiful.
Maybe she’d go to the reunion. Maybe she’d kiss the bejeesus out of Zach. That would get the point across without room for misinterpretation. It would change things. But her mom was right. Things had already changed between them. It was time she stopped running away from that.
The doorbell rang. Lexi glanced at the clock. Zach would still be at guys’ night. Which was good. Despite the peptalk and her newfound resolve, she wasn’t quite ready to face him yet. It was probably another casserole. They’d been rolling in with regularity since word got out about her mom’s ankle.
“I’ll get it.” Lexi picked up her skirts and swept down the hallway. She loved how the dress swished around her and how the bodice wrapped her body. A little giddy at the idea of surprising this unsuspecting, casserole-bearing neighbor, she opened the door.
It wasn’t a casserole.
Zach stood under the front porch light, a worried frown bowing his lips. “Hey, I…” His words trailed off to nothing as he took her in.
Lexi felt naked. She wasn’t ready to face this, for him and her and this dress that symbolized everything that went wrong to be in the same place at the same time. She had no armor, no time to prepare.
But he was really looking at her. Her brain snapped a burst of pictures, one after another, capturing every nuance of his expression, as his mouth dropped open and his eyes traced her from head to toe and back up again, lingering at her hips and breasts. It felt like a caress, like those hands that had led her with such confidence in a dance were cupping and molding her flesh. Lexi couldn’t stop the shiver of arousal that raced down her spine.
When his gaze came back to hers, it was full of unadulterated lust, and his voice was low and full of gravel. “You look stunning.”
Lexi’s limbs went soft and pliant. Her nipples pearled beneath her bodice and a flush of heat swept along her skin, settling low in her belly, as she let herself enjoy his very male reaction. This wasn’t what she’d planned, but maybe it was Fate intervening. Why else would he have just showed up on her porch?
Before she could take that step toward him, Zach shook himself, visibly sobering. “I wanted to talk to you.”
His words and that oh-so-serious expression dashed her arousal. She curled her fingers around the doorknob, as if it could anchor her. “Can’t it wait? I’m tired.” And that was the absolute truth. She was so, so exhausted from fighting this internal war with herself over him.
“No, I don’t think it can. It’s waited ten years, and I think that’s more than long enough.”
With creeping dread, she held tighter to the door as her mouth went dry. “What’s waited ten years?”
But he was still staring at the dress. “I thought you weren’t going to the reunion.”
“I’m not.” The words fell from her lips automatically, as if she hadn’t just made a new plan. Because she had a hideous suspicion where this was headed and she didn’t know how to stop it.
“Then what is this?” He waved a hand encompassing her appearance.
“Just a dress Mom let out for me. I was seeing if it fit.”
“It looks absolutely made for you.”
“It should. It was.” As soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth, Lexi wished them back.
The lust was gone when he lifted his eyes to hers. And there it was. That potent mix of accusation, betrayal, and confusion, all wiping out the attraction that had so recently warmed her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I tell you what?” But the words were an empty delay tactic. She knew what.
“That this was for prom. That when you asked me, you were serious.”
She wished the floor would just open up and swallow her so they didn’t have to have this conversation. She hadn’t ever wanted to have this conversation. So she said nothing, just squeezed the living daylights out of the doorknob and tried not to shake.
“Why did you let me think you’d been joking?”
Lexi closed her eyes, her chest clamping so tight she could barely breathe. The secret she’d held so close, spent all this time and effort to protect, sacrificed the better part of their friendship to keep hidden, had been ripped away and laid bare. The fragile, new dream she’d just spun shattered into dust, and her nascent hope that things could be different this time died a swift death. He’d ruined all of it by finally figuring this out. Now. When it was so far beyond too late.
“Why, Lexi?”
Knowing silence couldn’t be her only response, she opened her eyes and jerked her shoulders, fighting for a tone of no-big-deal and failing. “You said it first. What was I supposed to say?”
“Something along the lines of ‘Hey dumbass, you already agreed to be my date first.’”
“And ruin Isabelle’s prom?”
“Isabelle didn’t matter. You did. You do.”
The earnestness in his tone lit a flame inside her, burning through her mortification to ignite temper. If he was going to push this, then by damn, she was going to finally, finally be honest about how much he’d hurt her.
“How can you expect me to believe that? The very idea of going on an actual date with me was so far fetched it had to be a joke to you.” Saying it out loud was like wrenching open a door that had been jammed, not quite shut, for years. All the pain and humiliation that had leaked out at a trickle suddenly crashed over her in a wave, leaving her feeling exposed and raw.
Zach’s face was stricken. “Lex, I—It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean…”
“It doesn’t matter what you intended.” She was tired of this. Oh, so tired. Of the lies and the pretending, and the fighting with herself. “On purpose or not, you hurt me.” Unable to watch the pity come into his eyes, she fixed her gaze somewhere around his left ear. “And now I need you to go.”
“Go? But we’re not finished wi—”
“We are finished. I can’t do this anymore. I’ll finish editing my shots for the wedding and send them. Then I’m going back to Austin.”
She started to shut the door, but he shoved his foot over the threshold, his eyes panicked. “You can’t just leave like this.”
“I can, and I will. I’m done. I’m just done. Go home, Zach.”
Forcefully nudging his foot back, she shut the door in his face.
“Shit, dude. That’s bad.” Leo punctuated the statement by finishing off the beer he’d been nursing while Zach spilled out the whole, sorry tale.
“Thanks, Captain Obvious. You think I don’t know that? I don’t even know how to apologize for being so unbelievably clueless.”
“I don’t think you can. That’s a whole lot of old hurt she’s been living with.”
Zach glared at him. “Not helping. There’s a d
istinct possibility she’s done with me. On every level. Forever.” The very idea of it made him want to put his fist through a wall. Or maybe his own face. He scrubbed both hands through his hair. “I hurt her. Like really fucking hurt her.”
He was never going to get her face out of his head. That twist of unvarnished grief and pain when she’d finally dropped the mask and stopped hiding. The image was burned indelibly into his brain.
“Yup.” Leo’s easy agreement made him want to scowl.
“I get it now. I understand what I did back then. I see how that was hurtful, and made her pull away and…basically everything that happened after because, yeah, it was shitty. I own all of that. But I don’t understand why this is so fresh and raw. Why is she so upset about this now?”
With a head shake that clearly said I-pity-how-utterly-stupid-you are, Leo kicked his feet up on the wooden door balanced over two milk crates that served as his coffeetable. “So let’s review, shall we? You were an oblivious dumbass in high school and didn’t get that your best girlfriend was trying to change things. You thought it was a joke, and she went with that rather than admit the truth. Why do you think she did that?”
“Because it would have changed things. Because she was embarrassed.”
“Right on both counts. So she grabs for the explanation that it was a joke to save face, pulls back, spends a fucking decade more or less avoiding you. Suddenly, she’s back here, and you’re picking back up with your friendship as if nothing happened.”
Zack thought about the weeks she’d been back, about that initial reticence that seemed to fade as they got comfortable with each other again. Her standoffishness made sense now.
“Except this time,” Leo continued, “it’s you who wants to change things. You’re not satisfied with the status quo, and you ultimately decide to pursue her. How did that go for you?”
He considered all those steps, big and small, he’d taken toward something more. At each and every point, she’d stepped back, emotionally and literally. “She balked.”
“Why?”
Zach didn’t think it was out of disinterest. “She’s scared.”
Leo nodded. “Yes. Why?”
“Because it would change things. Because we can’t uncross that line.”
“Has she said that?”
“No. But it’s why I’ve hesitated.” And it was hard not to question every move he’d made, wondering if there’d been a better way.
Leo nodded again, looking for all the world like he was pleased a difficult student was finally getting a clue. “Right, so you pursue, she balks. And you finally work your way around to realizing your dumbassery from high school. And what do you do? You immediately go to confront her about it. No stopping to think what bringing up this obviously painful thing directly to her was going to do. No considering how bringing up this old, no doubt embarrassing event was going to impact her. All you could think about was getting to the bottom of the why. When all this time she’s put all this effort into avoiding you, avoiding this topic because she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
Leo’s face hardened. “No, stop with the buts. There’s no justifying you being a fresh dumbass. You want to know why she’s acting like this all just happened? Because you embarrassed her. You dragged this thing I have no doubt she’s spent years trying to forget out into the open, destroyed the cover story you’ve both been living with for a decade, and put her on the spot, expecting some kind of an explanation that demands a vulnerability from her that you, frankly, haven’t earned. That’s not even fresh dumbassery. That’s composted dumbassery over years that has fertilized the earth for a truly bumper crop of stupid. Instead of approaching this whole thing from a place of vulnerability yourself, where you put yourself and what you feel out there, you cornered her about her feelings.”
Defensive, Zach rose to pace. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Admit you’re in love with her for a start.”
His knees wobbled as he rounded on his friend. “In love with her?”
“What is it you feel when you think about her going back to Austin?”
Zach’s chest went tight with panic as desperation clawed up his throat. Fuck no, she couldn’t go back to Austin. Not like this. Not with everything completely messed up between them. He didn’t want her to go back at all. He’d been fighting that nagging sensation that he was going to lose her from the moment he’d seen her again in The Grind. Because she was the piece he hadn’t known had really been missing.
“Shit.”
Whatever was on his face apparently confirmed Leo’s theory because he kept on rolling. “Right, so you’re in love with her, and you corner her about what may be one of her greatest sources of humiliation ever. You don’t just point out the white elephant, you parade that shit around in a fucking tutu, and it’s everything she’s been afraid of all this time because now you know. And everything’s changed and your friendship is fucked up and it’s not even because there was kissing. What is it you think she’s going to do in response to all of this?”
“Run.” Because that was her M.O. It had been her response to all of this from the beginning.
That was when it sank in exactly how deeply and truly he’d screwed up with the woman he loved. The woman he’d maybe always loved but had been too stupid to see it.
Lexi was going to run and not let him anywhere near her to fix it. And she didn’t have the burden of a show of friendship to maintain this time. She could and would go back to Texas and cut herself off, for good.
“Oh, God. Oh, shit. Fuck. How can I possibly fix this?” Shoving both hands into his hair, he paced a tight circle. “This is bad. This is so damned bad.”
Leo stepped into his path, gripping him hard by the shoulders. “Pull yourself together, dude. Yeah, this shit is bad, but it’s gonna be okay.”
Zach lifted his head. “How?”
Leo grinned. “Because I have a plan. And it doesn’t involve elephants.”
Chapter 8
When Lexi had made her dramatic, mortified proclamation last night, she hadn’t considered exactly how that would impact work. There were more jobs on the books than just finishing up with the wedding shots. Like it or not, she’d made a commitment to Zach that involved other people—his clients—and that meant she actually had to interact with him. Whatever her personal humiliation, she wouldn’t do anything to endanger his business. That wasn’t who she was. So she would put on her big girl panties and do the right thing. Maybe after another cup of coffee to fortify herself.
But the additional caffeine did nothing to stem the creeping dread as the morning ticked by and she tried to decide what to wear to armor up for seeing him. How could she even look him in the face after last night? She didn’t think she could bear to see the shattered pieces of their friendship. To know that, in the end, she’d done that to them. She’d hurt him with her lashing out. In the moment, she’d wanted him to feel as raw and wounded as she had all this time. But getting it all out there, venting her spleen, hadn’t been as cathartic as she’d imagined. She didn’t feel free or relieved. She just felt miserable.
Her phone pinged. Grateful for any excuse to put off going into the studio, Lexi grabbed it, going still when she saw the text was from Zach. Anxiety curdled in her gut as she opened it.
Zach: I’ve set up cloud access to the studio calendar. Your shoots for the week and all the relevant details can be accessed through this link.
The next text was the calendar link.
Lexi waited for another five minutes, but he didn’t say anything else.
It seemed she was off the hook for having to see him. He’d just given her the perfect way to avoid him for the rest of her stay in Wishful.
It should have been a relief. There’d be no dreaded second confrontation or awkward dancing around things she didn’t want to talk about. But it was cold comfort.
He didn’t want to see her either.
That hurt,
more than she’d imagined it might. Maybe because she’d never imagined a scenario where Zach didn’t want to see her. That had been the one constant in all the years they’d known each other. He’d always, always wanted to see her, even when she’d been standoffish and distant.
This was so much worse.
It felt wrong to leave things like they were. But she took the reprieve, hoping she’d manage to find some way to say…something to him once they’d both calmed down.
In the five days that followed, the opportunity never presented itself. There’d been no co-shoots scheduled. As the week rolled on, she dropped into the studio several times, thinking to rip the bandaid off. Zach was never there. Not for the newborn shoot. Not for the senior portraits. Not even when she turned in the shots for Hank and Lorna van Buren’s fortieth anniversary. He was, it seemed, as determined to avoid her now as she had been since high school. Had it hurt him this much when she’d done it? When he didn’t know the why of it?
She hadn’t realized, until the second day passed and she’d heard nothing, that deep down she’d still believed that somehow it would all be okay. She’d let go of that hope a few hours ago and started packing. The town where hope sprang eternal was no place for the likes of her.
Lexi caught herself staring at the pile of folded clothes next to her suitcase, wondering how much time she’d lost to just standing there, doing nothing. She been doing that a lot lately.
Thank God she headed back to Austin tomorrow. Her mother was on the mend and officially off crutches, so her reason for being in Wishful was coming to an end. She’d be slinking out of town like the coward she was, without seeing the rest of her friends. She had no idea what Zach might have told them, and it hadn’t seemed worth the risk of facing him again to go to the reunion tonight for the chance to say goodbye. That felt just as shitty as the rest of this situation. But surely, once she got back home, to her own studio, to her routine, she’d stop feeling this hole in her gut.
