It was a Thursday afternoon when Zander’s life and plans changed without him even knowing it. Like love often does, it wandered into Zander’s life and catapulted him into a different direction on a random, dreary day without any warning.
The bells to the pizza shop jingled as the blonde walked in. She was legs, legs, legs, and a whole lot of confidence, her short shorts and tight shirt showing off enough of her to catch Zander’s attention.
“Hi,” she said warmly, smiling at him, and in that instant, he was magnetized to her. Her voice was a sinuous siren calling to him as her green eyes pierced into his.
“Hi,” he replied, awkwardly, a theater guy suddenly at a loss for words. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, actually. So I’m new in town, and I’m looking for the high school. I’m supposed to be there to register in a half hour, but I have no clue where it is. I’ve driven back and forth like a hundred times, and I can’t seem to find it. I feel like such an idiot. Do you know where it is?”
Zander smiled as the blonde animatedly talked with her hands. “You’re not an idiot. It’s actually kind of a pain to find. It’s tucked back on Charter Street, but you have to go to the end of Wilson Street and then make a slight right at the end. It’s kind of buried back in the woods. You can’t see it from the road.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I felt like such an idiot. I’m Sheila, by the way. Sheila Carlisle.”
“Zander Riley,” he said, smiling. “Where did you move from?”
“Ohio. Dad got transferred. Go figure. It’s my freaking senior year, and I’m stuck moving to a new town and all. Anyway, thank you so much.”
“Can I get you something to eat before you go? On the house? I was just about to take my break. Maybe I could fill you in on some of the school stuff. You know, the inside scoop.” It was true that Zander needed a break. It just technically wasn’t scheduled for another hour. It was a sleepy day, though, at Joe’s Pizza, and he wasn’t about to let this girl get away without learning more about her.
He was typically shy when it came to girls and relationships, spending his time with his theater friends. Most of them were hardly interested in starting a romance with the somewhat nerdy guy in the drama club, especially when his brother, Ian, was so much better with the ladies. When it came to the Rileys, there was one of them getting dates and one left in the wings.
But today, Ian wasn’t there to overshadow him, and he wasn’t about to let the gorgeous Sheila Carlisle slip away. He’d never been so entranced by a girl before. Not that he didn’t notice the hot girls at school—he wasn’t blind, after all. But this was different. She was different.
“I’d like that,” she said, and Zander got some plates of pizza ready, gave her a cup to get soda, and quickly joined her at a corner booth.
They spent the next twenty minutes chatting about Sheila’s life back home in Ohio, her plans for after high school, and a little bit about Zander. He’d admitted to her he was a bit of a theater geek, and she smiled.
“That’s cool. I could never do something like that,” she said, and for once Zander didn’t feel judged or like the uncool brother. He felt like Sheila’s smile was genuine. He thought that when she got up to leave and gave him her number with encouragement to call her sometime soon, she meant it.
And she did. Because over the next year, there was hardly a time when you would find Sheila without Zander or vice versa. They grew together over pizza, kissing underneath the bleachers at football games, a few romantic dates, and a whole lot of laughter. She was his first love, and he was convinced she’d be his only love.
So when graduation came and Sheila looked at him with those green eyes he couldn’t say no to, he knew he was in trouble.
He knew without a doubt that all the money he’d saved for the school in New York would be going somewhere else, as was his life.
Still, he convinced himself it was worth it. When he doubted if he was making the right decision, he would think back to that sleepy Thursday and how Sheila Carlisle had brightened his world just by walking through the door. He thought back to the magnetism he felt toward her, to the genuineness in her smile. And he convinced himself that it was her love that would fulfill him, not a career or being on stage. He didn’t need to be in the spotlight or have an entire audience on their feet. He just needed to be her spotlight, her focus. That was all it would take for him to be truly happy.
Or so he thought. It was a cruel world, after all, and sometimes first loves aren’t always forgiving, genuine, or forever. Sometimes they’re just a cruel fantasy, as Zander would find out when Sheila Carlisle shattered his entire world a couple of years later.
But he didn’t know that then. He couldn’t have known. He was a seventeen-year-old who had never been kissed, who had never known love, and who had never suspected that sometimes appearances really were deceiving.
* * *
Flashing back to the present, Zander looked around the bar, seeing a whole lot of Sheilas parading around, trying to catch every man’s eye.
He wasn’t the same, naïve seventeen-year-old he’d been when she strolled in. He had learned so much about life and a little about love. Most of all, he’d learned that people changed. People lied. People, especially those you loved, couldn’t always be trusted.
He didn’t blame his seventeen-year-old self or even his twenty-year-old self. At the time, he’d simply been blinded by the feelings raging in his heart, by the connection he had, and by the vision of a future he thought he wanted.
Sheila put his life on a fast track U-turn to a completely different future than he saw for himself. She changed him slowly, cautiously, without him realizing what was happening. Because of that day, he would do what he promised he never would—he would let love dictate where his life went. More than that, he was completely okay with that, his infatuation with the girl who loved hot sauce on everything and wore mismatched socks telling him that love was more important than anything. The feeling he had when he was with her became addictive, something he needed more than he needed his acting or his love for theater.
If only he had known how she would wreck his dreams and threaten to take away his passion, he would’ve run far away that summer day when he was seventeen. Or he would have let her walk right back out the door, off to registration and whatever the year would hold for her. He would have shut down his heart to the girl with the perfect smile, knowing the woman she would become would wreak havoc on the life he had planned and shatter his heart in the process.
But he didn’t know. He couldn’t have known.
He did now, though. He knew how love turned out. He couldn’t change the past, but he could be more careful in the future. Even though his heart was healing, slowly getting closer to a maybe with love, he knew because of Sheila there would always be hesitation. He knew a yes to love wouldn’t be easy. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe being more careful was what he needed now.
And maybe it would take just the right person to turn the maybe into a yes.
Zander’s thoughts were a whirling mess of memories, regrets, and fears, but in the midst of all of that, one truth bubbled to the surface.
Rachel Winters. The girl from Broadway. There was something about her that magnetized him, just like that day. It was a scary thought, but somehow, he also wasn’t afraid of her. Somehow, he sensed she wasn’t Sheila Carlisle, not even close. And somehow, he sensed his heart would be safer with her—not safe completely, but safer. And that was a pretty big insight, especially considering he was only one beer in and not at all drunk.
As he was getting ready to order another drink, his phone buzzed. If he were a man who believed in fate and signs, he would call it just that. But Zander Riley didn’t believe in much he couldn’t see with his own eyes or prove with rational thought. He was a cautious man these days, so he simply brushed the thoughts aside and answered the phone.
And even though he might not openly admit it, he did acknowledge to himself that when he saw the
name Rachel on his screen, he felt his heart crack just a little bit more.
He wondered if this would be another one of those moments when, years later when he looked back, he would wish he hadn’t hit Answer.
Chapter 9
Rachel
Rachel sat with her phone in hand, staring at the number in her contacts list, the name both foreign and familiar.
This was a horrific idea, a no-going-back kind of mistake. What was she thinking? Sure, she’d been feeling lonely and worthless, still trapped in the apartment, still a week out from her appointment that would hopefully clear her from this imprisonment she was living with. She was still a week away from hopefully being back on stage, picking right where she left off and climbing the ladder to the dream she had of being in the true spotlight on the stage.
There was no reason to call him. It’s not like there was something between them. Zander had stopped by to check on her, and he’d called the next day just to see if she needed anything. The roses had been a kind gesture, and the electricity she felt around him was just her mind playing games with her. There was nothing growing between them. Zander was just a nice guy who wanted to make sure she was okay, nothing more. They’d been tossed together through odd circumstances, but that didn’t mean there was anything more substantial there.
It had been less than a week, in fact, since she met the man who was usurping her thoughts. So why was she risking ruining all of that now for a little bit of companionship? Why was she sitting here ready to dial a number she knew she shouldn’t? Why was she sitting here trying to make excuses to call him? And worse yet, why was she so desperate to see him, she was going to do something she swore she wouldn’t—reach out to a man, one she barely knew in the scheme of things.
But she did know him, she argued with herself. He was this kind and sweet guy, rocking the hot nerdy vibe. He was a theater lover who understood what it was like to crave being on stage. She wondered what he would look like up there, what kind of actor he was. Did he come to life like she did under the spotlights? Did the nerdy vibe translate into the same kind of character, or did he become someone completely different up there?
And more than all of her theatrical musings, she wondered what it would feel like to have those strong hands touching her face, pulling her in, planting his lips on hers.
She rolled her eyes at her own ridiculous lust. Apparently she’d watched way too many romances this week. She needed to get a grip. Or maybe she needed a No Brides Club intervention—not that she’d admit to them this moment of weakness.
Over and over, she stared at the number until she had it memorized, telling herself she shouldn’t do this. She thought about how she was standing on a dangerous precipice, one she couldn’t return to if she took this step.
Because she knew if she saw him again, if she got to know him even more, it would spell disaster for her promise to herself, to the No Brides Club, and to her career.
From the moment she saw Zander Riley, her heart and head told her to watch out for that one—yet right now, as her fingers made the final decision for her and called the number, her heart was telling her to stop being so cautious.
He picked up, and she realized she hadn’t planned what to say.
“Uh, hi, hello? Zander? It’s me, Rachel,” she said, fumbling over her words.
“Hey, good to hear from you. Is everything okay?” he asked, sounding worried. She could hear a lot of music and noise in the background. It sounded like he was at a party.
Great. She was right. He’d just given her this number to be nice. He hadn’t expected to hear from her again, and now she was interrupting his Friday night. How was she getting out of this one now?
“Oh, yeah. I’m great. I was just calling….” And she froze. Why would she be calling if not to see him again? She lost her courage now, backing down, telling herself she’d been an idiot. Still, she had to cover, and she was out of practice with men.
“I was just calling to thank you again for the flowers,” she finished, wincing at the lameness of her words. To thank him again? Days later? On a Friday night? Wow, for being an actress she certainly was terrible at thinking on her feet.
“Oh, you’re welcome,” he replied, clearly not buying it.
“So anyway, I’m sure you’re busy. I can let you go. Don’t want to keep you,” she said a bit too exuberantly, even to her ears.
“Rachel, wait,” he said right before she was ready to pull the phone away. Rachel’s heartbeat sped up.
“Yeah?”
“Listen, well, I was thinking. I’m sure you’re probably going stir crazy and there’s this place I’ve been wanting to try. It’s an Italian restaurant that just opened. Do you like Italian? Anyway, I was wondering if you might want to go, you know, just to get out a little bit. It’s not far, so you won’t have to really walk that much. Or I could get a wheelchair to push you. Or, well, I could even bring the food to you? Anyway….”
Rachel smiled. He was talking a mile a minute and clearly nervous. It was charming in a way that confidence in a man wasn’t to Rachel. She liked that he was humble and a little nervous and clearly not perfect at this whole—whatever this was—either.
“I’d love that. And I’d love to get out of here. I’m better with my crutches now, so I’ll manage.” The words had slipped out before she could stop them or think about them, but she was glad they had. She was tired of sitting here, doing nothing, and Italian sounded great. And she wouldn’t mind seeing Zander again, chatting theater and everything else with him. He was a nice guy. There was nothing wrong with a friendly dinner, right? Because that’s clearly all this was.
“Awesome, Rachel. I’ll see you at seven? Does that work?”
“Well, my schedule is pretty crazy these days, but I think I can pencil you in,” she teased, the smile spreading on her face hurting her cheeks.
“See you tomorrow then.”
“Okay, sounds like a plan.” She pulled the phone away, clicked it, and fell back on the sofa where she’d been sitting.
She stared at the ceiling, thinking about how she should be stressing out and feeling guilty for what she was doing. No good could come of this, she knew. She was opening herself up for disaster.
Still, as she thought about what she would wear tomorrow and how good it would be to get out of her apartment with Zander, she couldn’t feel anything but weightless.
And that, she knew, couldn’t be a good sign—then again, maybe it could. Maybe it was time to let go of Seth and all of the craziness and just live a little bit. Maybe Zander could be the one to show her the way.
Or, then again, maybe this was all going to end in broken pieces, the whole way around.
* * *
Getting ready for a not-date-that-sort-of-seemed-like-a-date wasn’t an easy task for a woman with two good ankles, so Rachel found the task especially daunting Saturday night. She wormed her way into several different dresses, trying to find one that looked nice but not too nice, was ideal for the warm New York City evening, and would have the lowest chance of causing her to fall on her face on her crutches. She settled on an orange, off the shoulder dress that was knee-length and a breezy material. She layered on a few necklaces and bangles, pulled her hair into a side swept ponytail, and anxiously sat on the sofa, waiting for him to arrive.
She wasn’t sure if she should have the television on or off. Should she make it look like she was swept up in a flurry of activity when he came? Did it seem desperate if she were just sitting here, twiddling her thumbs?
And why was she even doing this is in the first place? Did alleviating her loneliness for a night out really outweigh the risks? She could just hear Georgie or Julie or any of the No Brides Club if they caught wind of this. Although the group had been rocked by new relationships and some of the members were straying from their adamant stance against love, she knew many of them still hadn’t been struck by cupid’s arrow.
And those members, well, they’d tell her she was making a mistak
e.
And she probably was.
But when the doorbell rang, she found herself startled with a smile, a smile she told herself to wipe off her face.
She hobbled to the door and reminded herself to breathe, that it wasn’t a big deal. But when she flung the door open and took in the sight of Zander Riley once more, she knew it was a big deal after all.
He was wearing dark wash jeans, a blue button-up shirt, and a black suit jacket. He looked like he was dressed for a date. In truth, though, the man could wear just about anything—or nothing—and look perfect, Rachel knew. His easy mannerisms and very subtle confidence allowed him to wear anything with a sexiness Rachel couldn’t deny, no matter how much she wanted to tell herself it wasn’t true.
He extended the contents of his hands to her. Where roses would have been if this were really a date—an important distinction Rachel was quick to note—a stack of magazines sat instead.
“The lady at Rite Aid assured me these would be perfect. I know nothing about women’s magazines, just to be clear. But I thought these would come in handy for your last week of R & R.” He flashed her the perfect grin she’d already come to like too much.
“Thanks,” she replied, beaming at the thoughtfulness, looking down at a brand-new magazines she would definitely appreciate this week. “Let me just grab my bag.”
“I can get it,” he offered, but she shook her head.
“I’m good. Just a second.” She took the magazines from him and precariously hobbled to the counter, stacking them carefully. She stretched for her clutch, managed not to fall, and called it a win. She was sure it wasn’t the most graceful maneuver she’d ever pulled off, but it would just have to do.
No Time for Promises (The No Brides Club Book 3) Page 6
