Around nine she re-emerged, looking weak but more composed, and sat across from him at the table.
“Thank you for everything,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect them to call you.” She put her face in her hands. “I was doing okay. But this cold, it was too much to deal with on top of everything else, and I just couldn’t think about them. I know that sounds awful.”
He shook his head. “There are lots of people who will help you. I know it’s hard to ask, but you have to. Promise you’ll call me—or someone else—if this happens again. You don’t have to do it all alone.”
She nodded and blew her nose.
“Will you really be okay tomorrow morning?”
“I think so. I’ll call my mom if I’m not,” she said, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “How was your night away with your…friend?”
“Oh.” He folded up the paper. “It was good, but it’s not going to work out between us. You know me.”
Tracey frowned. She glanced toward the window before turning back to Zach. “When I met you—the night I met Darren—you were talking loudly about the waitress’s tits.”
“Sounds like me,” he muttered.
“I think you tried to burp a little song too. You were wasted. Darren pretended he wasn’t such good friends with you when we started dating.”
“Can’t blame him.”
“But I liked you better once I got to know you, and I certainly didn’t object to you being his best man. You’ve also improved with age.”
“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure how else to respond.
“And I—we, actually—have long thought you would like to settle down but just hadn’t met the right person.”
“We,” he repeated faintly.
“But there was something else, too. For some reason, you didn’t think you could do it.” She paused. “You know how Darren used to tease you about getting married? And how he’d throw you the lamest bachelor party ever?”
“All the time.”
“He was hoping you’d snap and tell him why you didn’t think you could get married. I guess this is what passes for deep male bonding sometimes.”
Zach laughed a little at that.
“I’m just saying,” Tracey continued, “I think you might be the only one who still believes you can’t be in a relationship. Of course I did believe that at one point, but it was a very long time ago. I see you with my kids now, and I can’t help but think you want that, no matter what you might say.”
“I think about your kids a lot.”
“I know.” She smiled weakly at him, and he thought she expected him to say something else, but he was so drained he just couldn’t manage.
“I should get going,” he said finally.
She nodded. “I’ve got something for you. Wait a moment.”
She left the room and came back a minute later with an envelope marked pictures for Zach and an alumni magazine from their university.
“You know I get these too,” he said, taking the magazine.
“I know, but I’m almost positive you don’t look at them.”
“This is true.” He flipped to the page with a sticky note, curious.
“She had a baby,” Tracey said softly. “She’s married.”
She being Sheri.
He smiled and closed the magazine, a strange sense of peace washing over him. “I wanted to be like you and Darren. But I couldn’t.”
“Not with her.”
Zach hesitated before repeating, “Not with her.” He said the words quietly, testing them out, unsure if they were true.
He said goodbye to Tracey and walked out to his car in the lightly falling snow.
When he got home, he opened the envelope. The pictures were mostly old ones that Darren’s parents had taken when they were kids. He stuck one on the fridge, and, too exhausted to punch anything, curled up on the couch.
»»•««
On Monday evening, Zach came home from the gym and saw his skates by the door. But he didn’t need to see the skates to remind him of Elise. He was thinking about her constantly. A long workout certainly hadn’t been enough to banish her from his mind. And when he looked at his skates, he thought of the day they’d met, how he’d been annoyed when someone else stepped onto the ice and disturbed his solitude.
Little had he known the effect she would have on his life.
He didn’t put the skates away. He walked into the kitchen to have a snack after his grueling workout, and he saw the photo on the fridge of him and Darren when they were perhaps eleven or twelve, playing road hockey. And then he sat down at the table with a plate of peanut butter and crackers, and he saw the alumni magazine, which he hadn’t bothered to put away last night, either. Again he flipped to the page with birth announcements, ran his finger over the picture of Sheri’s pudgy-faced daughter. Sheri had very much wanted to have children. Three of them, if possible. That’s what she’d told him, back in the days when he was planning his future with a woman he’d never quite loved.
As he stared at the picture, he realized that although Sheri had taken their breakup badly, she was the one who’d moved on. Zach hadn’t quite managed it. The painful ending to their relationship had been an excuse to never try again. To say that love just wasn’t for him.
And for years he’d never had reason to challenge that assumption.
Until Elise.
He read through the other commitment and birth announcements, most for people he didn’t know.
Maybe I could have that, too.
But the thought still freaked him out a little. It was just so different from how he’d seen himself for so long.
He could use a friend right now. He could use Darren.
Sure, their friendship might not have been filled with deep conversations, but he knew he could have talked to Darren about anything.
Zach resisted the urge to go to the basement and beat the shit out of his punching bag, like he’d usually do. He realized he was grieving, and he was finally okay with that.
It hurt so much because he had been close to someone. Someone other than his parents. He might have cut himself off from romantic relationships for nearly a decade, but he’d still had a close friendship. And he cared for Darren’s family, and he was good with his kids. He hated that he was the one taking Maddie and Ethan swimming because their father wasn’t there, but he was doing the best he could.
He walked back to the fridge and slipped the photo out from under the magnet, and for the first time in a long time—probably since that picture was taken, in fact—he cried.
Tomorrow morning, he would take out the list his mom had given him and make a few calls.
Chapter Thirteen
Every day that week, Zach saw his skates by the door when he went to work in the morning and when he came home in the evening. On Friday morning, he picked them up, planning to put them away in the basement. But then he thought of Elise on the canal, smiling, with snowflakes in her hair. She lit him up inside, even when she was touching him with hands that were fucking freezing from being outside on a cold winter’s day.
He couldn’t bear to put the skates away, because then it would feel like it was over. And when he imagined never seeing her again, he felt a painful ache in his chest. He dropped the skates and sat down on the bench by the door as a realization washed over him.
He loved Elise.
He was capable of love, and he loved her.
And if she would have him, he could be with her. He didn’t need to hold himself back from relationships. True, he hadn’t been the most successful with relationships in the past, but it was different with Elise.
He loved her.
Zach left the skates by the door and went to work, but he didn’t feel the same as usual. His world was expanding to include something he’d never thought possible before.
At five o’clock, he was just getting ready to leave when Rupi came into his office.
“Do you need anything else today, boss?” she as
ked.
He shook his head. “Go enjoy your weekend.”
She put her hand on the door to leave, and then she turned back to him and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t try to set you up with anyone else again. I got the message.”
“I’m sorry for freaking out on you last time. I actually…I don’t need anyone to set me up. Because I’ve already found someone.”
“Oh?” Rupi brightened. “Tell me on Monday. I’m sure she’s wonderful.”
“She is.”
“I would stay to pepper you with questions, but I’ve got a date of my own, and I need to get ready.”
He said goodbye to Rupi and finished packing up. He was a touch nervous about what he was going to do tomorrow, but he knew with absolute certainty that this was what he wanted.
»»•««
Elise did not have much interest in bikes at the moment. It was also hard to care about any of the technical specs when she couldn’t even ride one. So far she had embarrassed herself by saying she wanted “a blue or purple one” and asking whether you could put training wheels on an adult bike. She would just let Corey and his friend figure it out.
It was Zach who kept distracting her. She thought about him all the time. Saw bikes and thought of him teaching her how to ride one in the nearby high school parking lot, kissing her after every little success.
She had trouble falling asleep at night, inevitably remembering how it felt to be cuddled up in bed with him. The joy as he eased into her body and then thrust deep within. His roughness, his gentleness. She recalled every detail of the night they’d spent together, and sometimes she wondered how the hell she’d get over him. Silly—a man she’d been with for one night. Perhaps she wasn’t cut out for all this relationship stuff.
No. Someone will love you. You’ll see.
Still, she couldn’t help but hope that person would be Zach. Couldn’t help but hope he’d change his mind, though it seemed unlikely.
“You okay?” Brit asked, coming up behind Elise. “I didn’t know U-locks were so fascinating. You’ve been standing here for ten minutes.”
Oh. Had she?
“We could come back another day,” Brit said.
“No. I want to do this. It was kind of you to set it up.”
Brit put her arm over Elise’s shoulder. “I knew this would happen eventually.”
“What?”
“You distraught over a guy.”
“Ten years late,” Elise muttered.
“Well, I assume you’re pickier than I am,” Brit said. “You want to go out for dinner after we finish here?”
“Sure.” Elise forced herself to smile.
Twenty minutes later, Corey and Brit paid for a bike with a frame that graded from blue to violet while Elise studied the water bottles. Water bottles were somewhat more interesting than locks, but thinking about Zach was more interesting than either one.
And speaking of Zach…
He was calling her right now.
Elise’s heart kicked up a notch. Hands trembling, she answered her phone.
“Hello?”
“Elise, do you want to go skating? Preferably right now. As soon as you can make it to the rink.”
Apparently all her hopes hadn’t been for nothing.
“I’d love to,” she said. “Give me an hour.”
Grinning far too much, she walked over to her brother and sister.
“I take it you can’t do dinner now,” Brit said dryly.
Elise shook her head, and her smile faded a bit as she worried that maybe she was getting ahead of herself here. Perhaps he didn’t want to be with her the way she wanted him. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a week, and he’d let her walk away after she’d declared her love for him.
Well, there was only one way to find out.
»»•««
He was waiting for her on a bench outside, his skates on the ground, an envelope beside him. She walked over to him, her heart beating rapidly. What would he say?
When she sat down beside Zach, he folded his arms around her and held her tightly. And that told her everything. She hadn’t been sure she would ever see him again, and now he was holding her like he never wanted to let her go. She squeezed him back, joy blooming in her chest.
They stayed in that embrace for a long time, and then he leaned back and brushed the stray strands of hair back from her face.
“I do feel the same way, Elise,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I love you.”
The words she feared no one would ever say to her…he was speaking them with such sincerity.
“I love you,” he said again, “and I’m going to be the better guy you deserve.”
“You already—”
He put a finger to her lips. “I’m going to be the guy you believe I am. I’m sorry I wasn’t willing to give us a chance last weekend. But I am now—nothing would make me happier.”
This was not the sort of thing that happened to Elise. Men didn’t declare their love for her and look at her like she was the center of their universe. But it was utterly real, and she did deserve it. They both deserved it, this beautiful thing between them.
At first he’d just been the hot guy who was teaching her how to skate. But now he was so much more.
Zach picked up the envelope and handed it to her.
“It’s a promise,” he said simply.
Inside was a reservation to stay at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa the following February. This man, who had told her that he didn’t do relationships, that nothing between them could last, that he would throw her away… This man was promising to be with her in a year. It meant so much.
“You’re sure?” she said.
“Very sure.”
“Now you have to let me say you’re sweet and romantic.”
He kissed her forehead. “You can say that about me, and I’ll make sure it continues to be true.” He pulled her close and whispered, “Thank you for believing I can do this.”
She pressed her lips to his, savoring the feel of his mouth against hers, how wonderful it was. She was looking forward to doing this for a long time to come.
“Shall we skate?” he asked.
“You really want to skate now?”
“And take you out for dinner. Proper date and all.” He smiled, and that smile made her insides turn to mush.
“Why don’t we save skating until tomorrow?” she said, grinning up at him. “After all, Sunday morning is when we usually go to the rink.”
They walked away from the ice, hand in hand.
Epilogue
It was nine o’clock at night, and Zach and Elise were skating on the Rideau Canal. Zach had promised her this weekend a year ago, and now he was prepared to promise her much more. The ring box felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket, if anything could feel like it was burning in such cold weather. He was going to do it soon, while they were out on the canal. Any minute now.
They skated along in silence for a little while longer. She was a much better skater now. He’d tried to teach her to skate backward a couple weeks ago, but she hadn’t mastered that yet. But in time, he was sure she would. She could ride a bike, and although saying she could swim was a bit of a stretch, she was getting there.
“I need to learn so I can teach my children,” she’d said a few weeks back. They were planning their future together, and he was looking forward to it. He only wished Darren could be there to stand up at the altar with him.
Darren, tragically, was gone, but Zach wasn’t, and he planned to make the most of it. And that included marrying the woman he loved.
Of course, to do that, he first had to propose.
Elise sped away from him, laughing. She looked back, her face illuminated in the lamplight, so very beautiful. And that smile—all for him.
He caught up with her, took her hand, and stopped. She lifted her face to his for a kiss, but he didn’t kiss her, not yet. He dropped to one knee, her hand still in his.
“Oh, Zach.�
� She put her other hand to her mouth. “Yes. Of course I will.”
“You know I have a ring and lots of things to say,” he said, fumbling with the box in his pocket. “I’m very proper.”
“Ha.” She was probably thinking of what had happened when they’d arrived at the hotel that afternoon. “I wanted you to be able to do all that without being nervous.”
“I wasn’t nervous,” he said. “I knew what you’d say. Your feelings for me are far from secret.”
“How could I keep them secret?”
She was so radiant and she was his.
All the things he’d planned to say escaped his mind. He could only manage to open the box and say, “Elise, will you be my wife?” And when she said yes—again—he kissed her, his heart filled with joy at the thought of being with her for always.
About the Author
Laura studied engineering, worked in mineral exploration, and now writes contemporary romance. She lives in Toronto with her husband.
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