Zack sat in a chair across from Liam at a conference room table, his palms sweaty, fidgeting with his pen. Liam hadn’t said a word about him and April. It had been weeks since Liam had seen him coming out of April’s hotel room. Had the Olympian decided to stay out of it, or was he waiting for the right moment to strike? Outright hostility would be easier to take than this polite chill.
Zack had finished the bulk of the surveillance work. He wouldn’t call it that out loud, of course, but others had pointed out his methods were similar to a secret agent’s on a mission, quietly collecting data from the shadows, avoiding involvement, averting violent conflicts.
Now his work was mostly analysis and communication—the final report, which he could do from home on his laptop.
“Sylvester Minguez called me up the other day,” Liam said. Their corporate baggage—their coffee, phones, laptops, bagels, and notepads—cluttered the table between them.
Sylly, the businessman behind Mark’s success from the wedding, owned a start-up in New Jersey, and had shown some interest in Zack’s consulting talents.
Since Liam hadn’t asked him a direct question, he just nodded. He didn’t know if Liam had a problem with him landing new clients with his family’s help. Not to mention landing a girlfriend with it.
“I told him you were easy to work with,” Liam continued, “but that we hadn’t received your final report or implemented your ideas, so we couldn’t say yet how the whole thing was going to pan out.”
“I understand,” Zack said. “It’s too soon. He should call the other names I gave him. Clients from a few years ago.”
“I’m sure he will. Sounded like he would.”
The rush of satisfaction Zack should’ve had was tempered by the new complexity of his personal life.
New Jersey. And Sylly had mentioned June 1 as a start date, less than three weeks away. The job was perfect—high-tech, just like he wanted—but there was so little time. A few weeks of sleeping together wasn’t enough time to pressure April to commit to anything. She probably wanted to keep it light, exciting, fun. If he told her he was chucking his clients on the East Coast and staying in San Francisco to be with her, she’d think he was crazy. She might refuse to see him again.
How could he blame her? He was crazy. Love hit him all at once, like a meteor, a blizzard, a hurricane. Their relationship wasn’t strong enough to survive a direct hit from that kind of storm.
“I should have my final report to you and Bev a week early,” Zack told Liam. At least he could reassure him he had this assignment under control. “Since you didn’t want me to audit the financial side, I had a lot of extra time.”
“I noticed you spent a little time going over the books after all,” Liam said.
“I had to have some idea of what the company was up against. The numbers were pretty bad two years ago. It helps explain the morale, some of the tension.”
“The numbers still aren’t as great as we’d like,” Liam said.
“But you’re out of danger.”
“For now.”
“When you read my report, you’ll find a lot of ways you can keep the recovery on track,” Zack said. “The Annabelle Tucker publicity is great, but it won’t last forever.”
“She won’t last forever,” Liam said. “Not as a pop star. She’s going to Princeton in the fall, taking early retirement so she can become an oncologist, Bev said. We’re looking at other celebrities, but unfortunately, Bev didn’t babysit anyone else with the star power of Annabelle Tucker.”
“You know brand identity and marketing isn’t my specialty,” Zack said. “My report focuses on the internals—the management structure, morale, work flow, compensation, retention, training, all the other human issues.”
“Sounds good.” Liam picked up his coffee and leaned back in his chair, signaling they were done for now.
Zack wanted to mention the trouble April continued to have with Teegan but knew it would only make the situation worse. He shut his notebook and slipped it into his pocket, holding on to the pen—the one from the gas station, the one that April had admired months ago—as a prop. He’d become quite attached to the little thing.
As he rose to leave, Liam suddenly said, “One last thing—what kind of relationship do you have with my sister?”
Zack dropped the pen. Here we go. Clearing his throat, he leaned over to find his pen on the floor under the table. He bumped his head as he straightened, meeting Liam’s bland gaze with stars in his eyes.
“I’m not sure,” he answered finally.
Liam’s expression didn’t change. “But she knows you’re leaving?”
As much as he’d love to discuss his love life with his client, Zack felt that the close family relationship made such a pleasurable chat impossible. “I can’t discuss this,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sylly said he’d want you right away,” Liam said. “He wanted to know if you might be done early, like before Memorial Day.”
“I’ll be in San Francisco through May. I told him that.”
“Still, that’s only a few weeks away,” Liam said.
“I’ll have time to get your report done well before then, don’t worry.”
Standing up, Liam shut a four-inch binder with a loud smack. “It’s not the report I’m worried about.”
* * *
A week later, while he was getting ready for a date with April, Meg’s older sister, Sarah, pinged him for a video chat. He’d had the laptop open after a meeting with an old client in Boston; she must’ve seen he was online.
He put down his tie—he’d just decided that was a stupid idea, anyway, since April was hardly the tie type—and turned on the camera.
Sarah looked a lot like Meg, although she had been almost ten years older: straight brown hair in a bob, brown cardigan, pearl stud earrings. Unlike Meg, she held a toddler on her lap. “Look, Max, it’s Uncle Zack!”
“Hi, Max,” Zack said, waving. Max, her youngest, had just turned three.
“Max and I were wondering when you’ll be coming home,” Sarah said.
“Hummus!” Max shouted, pointing off camera.
“He misses me terribly, I see,” Zack said.
Sarah let him down, and he disappeared. “He does, but we just got back from the store.”
“Ah.”
“You look nice,” she said. “Going out?”
He froze. Sarah would know what a big deal it was, him going out with a woman. She’d been trying to set him up for over a year, aggressively, and he’d fought her off. “Uh…” He couldn’t think of one of those escape statements that wasn’t a lie but didn’t tell the truth, either.
His laptop was much too high-res, because she saw right through him. A smile lit up her tired face. “Zack, are you going on a date?”
He rubbed the corner of the laptop screen, tempted to snap it shut. He wished he weren’t such a terrible liar. “Yes.”
“Really?”
“Did Max like his hummus?” he peered into the blurry suburban kitchen behind Sarah’s head. Both she and her husband were lawyers, but they worked in local government, and their house was modest.
“What’s her name?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Of course you don’t, but you have to. Who else are you going to talk to about it?”
“I don’t want to talk about ‘it’ with anybody,” he said. “And it’s getting late, anyway. I should be going.”
“You can’t even tell me her name?” Sarah pouted. “It’s not like I know her, right?”
“You don’t know her.”
Sarah smiled. A bag of baby carrots in Max’s little fist appeared on screen.
“Open, Mommy,” Max said.
Never breaking eye contact with Zack, Sarah dug a hole in the plastic bag and returned it to the waiting chubby fingers. “Is this a first date, or have you known her a while?”
Zack glanced at the clock at the top
of the screen. He only had a few minutes before he had to leave to get April’s house by seven. “A little of both. Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to explain.”
“Lucky you.” But Sarah was still smiling. “I hope.”
He felt his neck get hot and hoped she couldn’t see it. “Thanks for calling,” he said. “Is Max still there? Tell him bye for me.”
“Tell me her name and I’ll let you go,” Sarah said.
“April.” He intentionally left off the last name. He didn’t think Sarah followed his clients that closely, but she was a lawyer and had an astonishing memory for detail.
Sarah put a hand on her chest. “April in April. How prophetic. Have a lovely time.” Then she raised her voice. “Max! Come say bye-bye to Uncle Zack!”
A huge hand, pink and blurry, waved in front of the camera, and then they all said their goodbyes for a second and third time before Zack hung up.
His heart was beating too hard. It was like the night years ago when he’d told his parents he couldn’t share their faith. He’d cut something, publicly, that he’d held to himself for too long. He wasn’t the same person he’d been and he couldn’t pretend that he was. But it was hard. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He wanted to be the man they wanted and needed, the one they’d loved.
Sarah had smiled, but the grief was there, looking over their shoulders, casting a shadow, reminding them of what could’ve been.
Poor Sarah. She’d loved Meg, her baby sister, so much. It killed him to remember the look on Sarah’s face when he’d told her it was over, her baby sister was gone.
As much as he’d loved his wife, her family’s grief had dwarfed his. He’d carried the guilt of that with him for years. There simply hadn’t been any time to love her as much as she’d deserved.
Zack rubbed his face and stood up, wishing Sarah had chosen a different moment to call. Now he was stuck in the past again. April was the fun, buoyant type—she deserved a guy who was as happy and lively as she was.
Could you fake that?
He checked himself one last time in the mirror and ran out the door.
Chapter 25
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I NEVER ate there before,” April said as she and Zack left the little Nepalese restaurant in Berkeley. The evening breeze blowing along Solano Avenue was refreshing after the rich, stuffy air of the restaurant—and an hour and a half of stilted conversation. During that time, Zack had said two dozen words at most, and only when the situation demanded it.
She paused and watched him walk ahead a few paces. Still not a word out of him. Until now, she’d given him the benefit of the doubt, thinking he might’ve been tight-lipped inside the crowded restaurant because they’d sat wedged between two other couples. But it looked like the problem was with him.
“We have ten minutes to make it to the theater,” he said, staring at his phone as he continued to walk away from her. “I hope that’s enough time to find parking.”
“Are you all right?” she called after him.
He looked up from his phone, saw she wasn’t next to him, and spun around. “Excuse me?”
“Are you all right?”
“Sure. Of course.” He gave her a tight smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Maybe you’d like to skip the movie. It’s okay with me if you do. I don’t want to sit there feeling like you’re suffering through it.” Or my company, she added silently to herself.
“I don’t understand. Don’t you want to see it?”
Apparently, he didn’t feel like being honest with her. She’d never been much of a therapist, drawing people out of themselves.
Yes, it was definitely better to call it a night. She was afraid she might pick a fight just to break apart that fortress of silence of his, and that wasn’t part of her Six Week Charm Offensive at all, now faltering in week four. “Actually, no. I think I’d like to go home,” she said. “Maybe we could get together later this week.”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“I mean if you’re up for it.”
He frowned. “What’s your problem?”
From the spark in his eyes, the first she’d seen all night, she realized he was hungering for an argument. Her ex-boyfriend had been like that most of the time, letting off steam by debating every little thing with her, no matter how trivial, and it had been fun for a while—ragingly great makeup sex—but exhausting and destructive. She wasn’t going to have that kind of relationship again. Not with Zack.
She looked up the street to where he’d parked his shared car, a yellow Mini this time, as bright as a buttercup. “Do you think you could drive me home?”
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” She smiled politely, but inside her chest was tight. Was it her table manners? The way she’d chatted with an old friend who’d happened to be seated near them?
Was he initiating his departure sequence?
When he didn’t move, she pivoted and started walking down the street, away from the car. “Never mind, I’ll catch a bus.” She chided herself inwardly for lacking patience with him, but she couldn’t bear to look at his unexpressive face another second. She waved at him over her shoulder, forcing a smile to show there were no hard feelings.
He didn’t move at first. Then he jogged after her. “April, hold it.”
She kept walking. “It’s no big deal,” she said. “It’s been a long day. Maybe we could have lunch tomorrow.”
He took her arm. “I’ll drive you home.” He sounded tired.
Maybe that’s all it was—a lack of sleep. He’d mentioned he’d been up late the night before and then was up early for a phone meeting with a client. He’d been having a lot of those, planning his business for the rest of the year. He didn’t hide the fact that they were all in the northeast, a fact that was causing her recurrent stomach cramps.
She slowed and looked at him.
“It’s the least I can do,” he said. “Come on.”
She stopped. It would take her forever to catch a bus and then transfer to another one that went up into the hills. And she didn’t want him to think she was angry at him and then start looking forward to babes in New York who weren’t so touchy. “All right. Thank you.”
They walked wordlessly to the car. She got in, biting her lip to stop herself from asking him questions about what was on his mind. If she was quiet and gave him a chance to talk, he’d open up on his own. Now that he knew it was important to her, he’d come up with some cursory explanation of whatever it was—trouble with a client, a failed investment, intestinal parasite, whatever—and she’d nod sympathetically. They’d part on friendly terms, she’d suggest lunch again tomorrow, and then instead of eating, they’d end up in bed at his place.
But he drove through the Berkeley city streets to Oakland and then up into the hills without a word.
She tried to remember if the dinner date had been her idea, if she’d pressured him into it. He was usually the one to initiate getting together—not because she was shy, God knew, but because he was so wonderfully eager. Maybe he was uncomfortable with her taking any initiative in the relationship. He did have an old-fashioned streak as wide as a ten-lane California freeway.
Well, if that was it, he’d have to get over it.
When he pulled into her driveway, she was thoroughly annoyed with herself for letting the date go on as long as it had. What the hell had happened to her pride? She was cowering in the passenger seat like a freshman cheerleader with the captain of the football team. If she sucked up any more, she’d swallow her lips.
To hell with it. If he wanted to talk, he’d talk. If he wanted to be with her, he’d find a way. She liked him, that hadn’t changed. She couldn’t control whatever strange brew of emotion and biochemicals was bubbling inside him.
She opened the door and put a foot out on the driveway. “Thank you for dinner and the ride.”
He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”
She climbed out and slammed
the door, turning her attention to the house with a sigh. Lights spilled out of the windows on the ground floor, warm and glowing, and her mother’s piano music faintly peppered the evening quiet. She’d snuck into the house after curfew many times when she was a teenager, never appreciating what she was running away from.
Older and wiser, older and wiser.
Next door, Liam and Bev’s house was also bright and stirring with life. Just the day before, Merry had eaten her first slice of watermelon—rind and all. The mess in her diaper a few hours later had been spectacular.
“Are you all right?” Zack asked.
She’d just been standing there like a zombie. He probably thought she wanted something from him. A good-night kiss would’ve been nice, but she’d gotten the message. “I’m great.” She waved, headed for path through the lavender. “Have a nice night.”
She heard the beep of his car alarm setting and his footsteps following. “I’ll see you to the door,” he said.
“Gentlemanly of you,” she muttered.
“Better late than never.”
She glanced at him as she pulled open the screen door. His eyes were fixed on hers, sad but intent.
“Is there—are you feeling—” She clamped her mouth shut. No. She wouldn’t pry. She would learn self-restraint if it killed her. The door swung open and she turned to him with a polite smile. “There. I’m in,” she said. “Thanks again.”
“How about dinner tomorrow?”
She studied his face, not understanding him at all. “Okay,” she said finally.
“My place?”
They couldn’t keep on having sex instead of talking. “Mine,” she said.
He nodded and then kissed her quickly before ushering her into the house and walking away.
* * *
April was so unbalanced by the bad date with Zack, she lingered in the kitchen with a cup of herbal tea, waiting for her mother to come by on her way to bed and keep her company for a few minutes.
Stool sprawled on his side at her feet, as motionless as roadkill. She sipped her chamomile tea, a small smile lifting the corner of her mouth, remembering the day she’d adopted him. He had unfortunate gustatory preferences, but he was worth it. She reached down and scratched his warm belly.
Not Quite Perfect (Oakland Hills Book 3) Page 23
