Accepting the Fall

by Meg Harding

  “That’s good.” Zander cracked his knuckles, a nervous habit he’d always had. “It didn’t…. At the accident, it looked bad.” Despite what he’d just said, he smiled. “You were pissed.”

  “Language,” Cole admonished. At this point in his life, it was an ingrained reaction to curse words. Then he parsed the rest of what Zander had said and snorted. “Uh, yeah. There wasn’t exactly a lack of things to be mad at. I can’t say ‘get in a car accident’ has ever been on my bucket list.” The episode had already led to a few nightmares. Cole didn’t want to rehash it right now—or ever. And he didn’t want to make Zander out to be the hero of that story. His first responder could have been anyone. “So, you’re a firefighter, huh? I should have guessed you’d choose an adrenaline fueled career.”

  “It’s a, uh, new development for me,” said Zander. “I was in the marines, but with Savanah showing up….” He shrugged, drawing Cole’s gaze to the line of his broad shoulders. “I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t exactly doing the kind of thing you could bring a kid along with you for.”

  And he’d hated the life of a military brat. He wouldn’t have wanted to put Savanah through it. Cole knew this without it being said. Cole had been a firsthand witness to how much Zander had despised living on bases and being shunted off to be someone else’s problem. The resentment he’d felt toward his father could have been spotted from miles away. Cole had figured it was that same resentment which would keep Zander from joining the military. He’d made it clear he wanted to be nothing like his father.

  Wanting to keep the conversation from going down too tricky a road, Cole said, “She’s doing better. Savanah.” He didn’t miss the flash of pride in Zander’s eyes. “She’s being nicer to her classmates. Still a, uh, bit of problem with authority figures, but we’re working on it.” The substitute had plenty to say about the attitude of Miss Savanah Emerson. By this point everyone in the front office was on a first name basis with her. He’d gotten a hug from Savanah when he’d returned to work at last. It had shocked him, rendering him silent and still for a long moment. When she’d let go, it was to shove a container of brownies at him.

  Reminded of the brownies, Cole moved his gaze from Zander’s stunning eyes to his nose. Coward. “I should probably thank you for the brownies.” Which, worded like that wasn’t actually doing so. He cleared his throat. “So, thank you. They were delicious.” Dark chocolate with mints crunched in the mix, they’d melted on his tongue and lasted five seconds in his house. He hadn’t let Patrick try them.

  Zander shifted, their knees knocking together with the movement. “It was all Savanah.” His lips curled in a smile, teeth flashing, and Cole’s traitorous heart skipped a beat. “She wanted to be the best.”

  For all her rough edges, Savanah truly was a sweetheart. Cole glanced around to make sure no one was listening, and then leaned forward. “You can’t tell anyone else this, but she was.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Zander laughed. He’d angled himself to fit the conspiratorial nature of the conversation. Cole could see the striations of his irises and each grain of stubble if he cared to look for them—and he did, it was beyond his control not to. “Good to know. It only took us four batches to get it right.”

  There were mere inches separating them. With the smallest of movements, Cole could close the distance. He could relearn the shape of Zander’s lips, the way they felt against his and responded to him. Would the spark he’d felt at sixteen still be there? Would his entire body thrum with the need to get impossibly closer, to never leave?

  Cole’s homework was scattered over the desk, papers spilling from his textbooks and an army of highlighters awaiting use. Zander was stretched on Cole’s bed, a well thumbed copy of 1984 occupying his attention. He tried valiantly to focus on his work, to not keep sneaking sidelong glances at the lean figure Zander cut.

  “Going to stare all day?” asked Zander eventually. He smirked. “Oh-ho! You’re blushing.”

  Boldness overtook Cole, and he abandoned his work. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he found himself by Zander’s side, staring at his smug face and not really hearing the continued ribbing about how red his cheeks had gone. Before self-preservation could take over, Cole kissed him.

  The world froze.

  “Cole?”

  Cole blinked. Suddenly he wasn’t experiencing his first kiss in his bedroom in Berlin, he was on a school bus with a much older version of Zander looking at him with concern. Predictably, his face heated. The rush of warmth was immediate, burning hottest over his cheeks. He watched as Zander’s gaze took in the blush, and his eyes subsequently widened. They stared at each other, completely still. Cole wondered if Zander was recalling the same memory that had hijacked Cole’s mind seconds ago. If Cole didn’t create space, his primal instinct was going to win out, and he’d close the distance between them. His heart raced, thumping damn near painfully.

  Talk about being wildly inappropriate.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh.”

  The quiet noise was enough to snap Zander’s attention. Zander’s body language changed as he turned away, severing contact where their knees and elbows had been touching. He directed his gaze to the front of the bus. Stiffness had returned to his posture.

  There was no reason for Cole to feel bereft. After all, he’d wanted space. He returned to the window and the view of trees whizzing by.

  What was the etiquette when it came to yelling at other peoples’ kids? Zander was fairly confident it was against the rules, but he was sorely tempted. Zander wasn’t new to being in charge. He’d made a career of it, and he’d been damn good. Four five-year olds should not have been more difficult than six grown men.

  In two seconds he was going to rip his hair out in frustration.

  “Where’s Jayden?” he asked the three children who he hadn’t lost, one of which was his. He thought that should have made Savanah easier. She should have been sympathetic to his plight. Instead she was a menace who kept trying to run off with toys that hadn’t been paid for and demanding food every other minute.

  They’d been at the park for forty-three minutes. He had to survive another five hours.

  He repeated himself when no one answered. Not even a minute ago, Jayden had been standing at his side while they waited in the line for Italian ice. Zander had glanced away for the briefest of moments to check on the other three, and when he’d looked back, Jayden was gone. “One of you had to have seen something,” he said, hating the note of desperation in his voice. How did people raise multiple of these demons? Better yet, how did Cole watch thirty of them five days a week? He had to be insane.

  Adam, the only other boy in the group, said, “When are we going to see the dinosaurs?”

  Is this what an aneurism felt like? Zander bit the inside of his cheek. Everything was fine. Cole had spent the last half hour of the bus ride handing out papers with emergency contact information and meeting points. Granted, Zander hadn’t paid too much attention ‘cause he’d been locked on overthinking every minute of their brief discussion and the way Cole had looked, the way his pale skin flushed so beautifully. But he had the paper, and that should be all he needed.

  He was looking forward to calling Cole and telling him he’d lost a student like a hole in the head.

  He fished the paper from his pocket and scanned through the dense crowd of tourists at the same time, his gaze constantly straying to the three children he hadn’t yet lost with paranoia. He’d seen multiple people with their kids on leashes, and while it looked ridiculous, he understood the sheer brilliance of it now.

  Cole picked up on the second ring when he called.

  “I lost Jayden.” It was always easiest to cut right to the chase when it came to failure.

  “Where are you?” It was hard to hear Cole over the chaos around him, but from what Zander could make out, he sounded calm. That made one of them.

  Hell, he thought but didn’t say. “Seuss Landing. Beside the ride with the fi
sh.” Savanah had insisted on riding it no less than three times.

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t worry, this happens all the time.” Cole ended the call.

  Zander was not soothed. Losing children was common? He glared down at the top of Savanah’s head. Her black curls were frizzing in the humidity. What if someone had lost her? Zander had to take a deep breath and count back from ten to keep from punching the nearest inanimate object at the possibility.

  She glanced up at him and pulled a face, wrinkling her nose and sticking her tongue out. She was a pain in his ass little gremlin, and Zander realized abruptly he’d go to the end of the world for her. He may not know what he was doing, but he’d give her his best. She kept staring, so he stuck his tongue out as well.

  The action caused her to giggle.

  Zander felt dizzy. He was going to blame it on the sun. It had nothing to do with the barrage of emotions he was dealing with.

  Cole found them a few minutes later, his four charges all present and accounted for. “How long’s he been gone?” His face was red and sweaty from the Florida heat despite his hat casting shade, and his eyes were hidden by cheap plastic sunglasses.

  Zander glanced at his watch. “Less than ten minutes.” Though it had felt like hours.

  “So he can’t have gotten far. Let’s go look.” He herded the children into a group in front of him and they set off. Cole nudged his elbow lightly into Zander’s side. In a low voice, he said, “It’s okay. We’re going to find him. Chances are something caught his attention, and he went for it.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so calm about this.” Zander would be beating himself up over this for a long while no doubt.

  Cole shrugged. “I’ve been a teacher for a while. Most parents can’t keep track of their own kids all the time, let alone others. The important thing is to notice they’ve wandered off right away. If you notice an hour later, then yeah, you’ve messed up. Theme park fieldtrips are always the worst.”

  It was Savanah who spotted Jayden almost ten minutes later. She laughed and pointed up, and when Zander followed the direction of her finger, there was Jayden. Sitting in a trolley over their heads, Jayden was giggling along with another small child.

  “Can I do that, Daddy?” asked Savanah, gaze tracking the train as it looped above the park.

  “See, I told you we’d find him,” said Cole at the same time.

  Zander put a hand to his forehead and dug the pads of his fingers in, attempting to massage away the headache. He wasn’t sure what was worse: his failure, this entire trip, or Cole’s cheery, unfazed disposition.

  They met Jayden coming off the ride. Cole put a hand to Zander’s chest before he could go shake the kid and demand to know what he’d been thinking. “I’ll handle this,” he said. He fished around in the backpack he’d brought along and withdrew a small pill bottle. “Ibuprofen. Take one.” He held it out.

  Zander glared. There was a drop of sweat beading at Cole’s temple and his hair—what could be seen of it poking from the hat—was curling. Zander simultaneously wanted to see Cole looking similarly hot and flushed while underneath him and to tell his upbeat ass to fuck right off with his ibuprofen and sunny attitude.

  Cole shook it, his lips twitching. “On second thought, take two or three. Your eye’s started to twitch.” Whatever restraint Cole had been using must have escaped him, and he let a smug smirk takeover his stupidly handsome face.

  Before common sense was able to get a word in, Zander stepped forward. The animal instinct part of him had one goal in mind: kiss the smirk till it went away. Their past didn’t matter in the present. Cole was here and everything about him tugged on parts of Zander he didn’t know what to do with. Only Cole had ever made Zander’s brain go blank with need. Cole turned Zander into the kind of person Zander didn’t know how to be, and much like in the past, it was irresistible.

  And terrifying.

  Unlike his seventeen-year-old self, the adult Zander did now—deep down—possess the tiniest inkling of self-control. It was this iron will that enabled his common sense to kick in right as the tips of his shoes brushed the tips of Cole’s. Cole’s hand, bottle covered by his curled fingers, pressed against Zander’s diaphragm. Zander could feel the jut of Cole’s knuckles through the thin fabric of his shirt. Cole’s eyes were wide saucers, the blue almost entirely swallowed by the expanding black of his pupils.

  It was the same look he’d given Zander on the bus.

  Zander sucked in a shaky breath and on legs that felt wooden, took several steps back. He held his palm out and Cole let the bottle fall, landing dead center. “Thanks,” said Zander, far too huskily.

  Cole still appeared dazed, but he nodded. “Uh-huh.” He visibly shook himself before looking away from Zander and at the children. “I’ll be right back. Do not leave Mr. Brooks’ side.” He waited for their agreeing nods, and then went to collect Jayden.

  Zander wasn’t given the opportunity to watch Cole’s backside as he walked away, or even to thoroughly mentally examine what had just happened. Harper tugged on a crease in his jeans almost immediately and demanded, “Why don’t you have the same name as Savanah?”

  “She has her mother’s last name.” God, why were children so nosy?

  Savanah chimed in, “They were never married.”

  Harper’s eyes widened. “Are you a deadbeat dad?” She sounded scandalized.

  “Am I a….” He glanced to the sky. What kind of question was that? The sun blinded him, beating down and flaying his skin it felt like. “No.” He wasn’t going to explain such things to Harper. Someone else could have that honor, preferably whoever had taught her the term. Zander wanted this day to be over already.

  Cole came back, Jayden in tow. He took one look at Zander’s face and apparently read his damn mind. “No,” he said, “you can’t get out of chaperoning the rest of the day.” He nudged Jayden forward. Zander didn’t miss how Cole carefully kept a decent amount of space from Zander, avoiding eye contact. “Don’t lose anyone else.”

  Feeling guilty—because he had been wishing he could abandon his duties, and he wasn’t a quitter by nature—Zander opened his mouth to defend himself. But Cole had gathered his group and was already walking away.

  Chapter 7

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  Cole blinked and dragged his gaze from Zander on the other side of the restaurant, chatting with the only other father to chaperone for Cole’s class, to Jennifer Loring. A fellow kindergarten teacher, Jenn was looking at him far too knowingly. “I am,” he rushed to assure her. He had no clue what she’d been talking about.

  “Good.” She set her fork down, lettuce hanging from the tines. “What do you think about it then?”

  “It sounds good to me.” Please let it go.

  She arched her eyebrow, skepticism clear in the gesture, and glanced to where Cole had been staring and then back to him. “What part did you like the most?” she asked.

  He shook the remaining quarter of his veggie burger at her. “You’re mean and you know it.”

  Jenn laughed. “I work with small children all day, and I go home to a husband and two teenagers. I know when I’m being lied to.” She nodded in Zander’s direction. “Want to tell me why you’re making doe eyes at a parent?”

  He stuffed the rest of his burger in his mouth and smiled around it, cheeks bulging and lips sealed. He’d known Jenn for going on six years, and he considered her a friend. She’d been there for a couple of his breakups prior to Patrick. She’d gotten him tipsy once and encouraged him to hit on the Little League coach—Cole had done it, using a pickup line involving a catcher and pitcher. He still can’t look Coach Ryan in the face. The point was, he was well aware of how persistent she could be.

  She propped her chin on her hand. “Wow, you look just like my son when he was three.”

  It took Cole a minute to chew and swallow, mouth painfully full. He licked his lips. “Thanks. I’m sure he was a cute kid.”


  Jenn snorted. “When’d you end things with Patrick?”

  Cole snapped a french fry in half. “We’re still together.” His brows furrowed. “Why would you assume I’d end it?”

  There she went with her meaningful looks again, bouncing from him to Zander. “I’ve never known you to so blatantly show interest when you’re already taken.” She tapped the fingernails of her free hand against the linoleum tabletop. “I’ve seen you with Patrick. You don’t look at him with half as much interest.”

  Suddenly Cole’s burger wasn’t sitting well in his stomach. His old friend, guilt, came and sat squarely on his chest. Two years he’d been with Patrick. His toothbrush sat in the holder beside Cole’s and his vitamins cluttered the top of Cole’s microwave along with Cole’s. Patrick had drawers in Cole’s dresser and shelves in his closet. Cole absolutely hated mangos, but Patrick loved them and Cole always kept a few in the fridge. Cole had their Thai order memorized.

  But Cole didn’t remember what Patrick had been wearing when he met him. He couldn’t recall the way he’d felt the first time they slept together. He didn’t remember the name of where they’d gone on their first date. He wasn’t sure what the first film they saw together was. Patrick had settled into Cole’s life comfortably. He hadn’t made waves or shaken anything. He’d slid right in, so smoothly in fact, Cole couldn’t recall the tiny details.

  Nothing about Zander was smooth. Every moment with him had been like electricity sparking over Cole’s skin. He was attuned to Zander in a way he’d never been with anyone else, and time hadn’t dulled the effect. His memories of Zander were like a scrapbook, he could flip through them at will and the images were crystal clear. Maybe—over time—he’d altered the scenes, possibly projecting emotions for Zander that hadn’t been accurate, but the raw essence was there. Cole didn’t need to think for more than a second to remember what he’d felt. Hell, the sheets he’d lost his virginity on had been a light gray, and there’d been a quarter sized stain from a splash of spilled coffee. Zander had jerked, sloshing the liquid over the edge of the cup, when Cole suggested they do something more than kissing.