by Cleo Jones
Besides, it wasn’t like he was doomed to be alone or something. He had Audrey, and she wanted nothing more than for him to want her back. He had to stop wasting his time clinging to a possibility that no longer existed before he lost her for good. As difficult as it was, he had to find a way to let Zoë go for once and for all.
“Anyways, I’m at a show for Balenciaga and I have to go into hair and make up,” Audrey spoke up. In the background, someone could be heard calling out to her in a thick French accent. “Talk to you tonight?”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Nate said, eager to get off the phone with her. “Have a good show.”
As soon as Audrey hung up, Nate exhaled a shallow breath and fidgeted with the tiny velvet box in front of him, taking a moment to inspect the simple diamond ring that sat inside of it. Nate was no fool. He knew there were people who would call the ring an unusually rash purchase for him, especially given its steep price tag, but he didn’t see it that way. To him it was nothing more than a promise to the one woman he actually did stand a chance at having a future with.
When Nate’s phone rang for a second time, he stuffed the box back in his jacket pocket and answered it without looking to see who was calling.
“Nate?” Aniyah questioned as soon as he picked up. She sounded uncharacteristically nonchalant, which in her case, almost always meant that she was up to something.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Nate replied, shuffling around the paperwork on his desk to appear busy when he saw his boss saunter from his office en route to the break room.
“Oh, nothing,” Aniyah said just a little too quickly. “I was just calling to see if you were free tonight. I was thinking we could all get together like old times. It’s been awhile. Maybe a movie night at Zoë’s?”
Nate sighed inwardly. That didn’t seem like a very good idea to him, all things considered, but he didn’t have a good enough excuse on hand to say no. “Alright,” he replied, reaching up to rub a kink from his neck.
“Cool,” Aniyah said, completely glossing over his indifference. “How does 8:00 sound?”
“That works.”
Aniyah said something else Nate couldn’t quite hear and rushed to hang up before he could change his mind. As soon as he heard the line go silent, he groaned and rested his head on his desk.
It was going to be a long day.
Chapter thirteen
Zoë stretched out across the length of her sofa as a very old episode of some sitcom played on the television in front of her. There were a plethora of snacks and Blu-Ray’s spread out across her coffee table, and she’d spent the entire afternoon cleaning house in preparation of Nate and Aniyah’s arrival.
When Aniyah first brought up the movie night idea to Zoë, she had been hesitant to agree to it after the awkwardness that had ensued between her and Nate a few days prior. It seemed like an accident waiting to happen, but Aniyah seemed to be under the impression that a couple summer blockbusters and some junk food were all the remedy they needed to smooth things over.
Zoë sighed and looked down at her phone. For someone who was so adamant about this happening, Aniyah sure didn’t seem to care about being on time for it. At this point Zoë was pretty sure Nate would arrive before she did, and he was always at least 45 minutes late for everything.
Zoë perked up when she heard a knock. She approached her front door and stood on her tiptoes to squint through the peephole, exhaling a deep sigh when she saw Nate standing on the other side of it with a bag of Chinese food in hand.
“Hey,” Nate said when Zoë let him in, entering the kitchen without so much as looking her in the eye.
Zoë leaned against the island and gave him a slow once over. “Is this your idea of a peace offering?” she questioned as he pulled out each box of food, failing to contain a smirk.
“That depends,” Nate said, glancing up at her skeptically. “How’d I do?”
Zoë took hold of one of the boxes and peeled back the paper lapels to peak inside. “Pretty good,” she said, giving him a satisfied nod as she inhaled the sweet aroma of orange chicken. “You know me well.”
Zoë loaded two plates with all the fixings, handing one of them to Nate. When she was finally satisfied with her portion, she grabbed a bottle of Merlot from her wine rack and followed him into the living room.
“Aniyah's not here yet?” Nate questioned.
Zoë shook her head. As though on cue, her phone vibrated on the coffee table, signaling a text. “Speak of the devil,” she remarked, taking a bite of her food.
Zoë let out an exasperated sigh as soon as she read over the message. Aniyah couldn’t make it, but Zoë had a sneaking suspicion that she’d never really intended on coming to begin with. The writing was on the wall. She and Nate had been set up. The only thing that surprised Zoë was that she hadn’t seen it coming.
“Let me guess,” Nate spoke up. “She’s bailing.”
Zoë nodded and rolled her eyes, failing to contain her irritation. “Something about car trouble and Caleb not being home to drop her off.”
“Right,” Nate replied, scratching his jaw as the reality of the situation settled over him. “Well I guess it’s just you and me then,” he said after taking a moment to adjust to the idea. “No big deal, right?”
Zoë looked up from her phone, meeting his gaze for the first time since he’d arrived. “Yeah,” she said with a hint of apprehension. “No big deal…”
The next hour passed at a snail space.
“I can’t stand slasher movies,” Zoë remarked, attempting to make small talk despite how awkward she was feeling. “The women are always so damn stupid. Bitch, you’ve got a killer on the phone. Why the hell would you go and answer the front door? You never answer the front door!”
Nate chuckled but otherwise remained quiet. They were only about 20 minutes into the movie, but he was already bored out of his mind. While the cover had made it seem gruesome enough to be promising, the actual movie was anything but.
“I told you this was going to be trash,” Zoë said, continuing with her tirade. “There isn’t one A-list actor to be found in this. Hell, I don’t even see any B-listers. How did this make it into theaters?”
Nate smirked and leaned forward to pick up a romantic comedy he was sure would be more her speed.
Zoë scoffed as she surveyed his selection. “Sleepless in Seattle? Seriously?”
“Hey, you’re the one who owns it, not me,” Nate reasoned.
“Actually, I don’t,” Zoë clarified. “I borrowed all of these from Erica. She’s the cinephile in this family, not me. I'd much rather sit through this mess than spend two hours watching white people make eyes at each other.”
Nate couldn’t help but notice the way Zoë beamed every time she spoke about her younger sister. The level of pride she had in her was akin to that of a mother for her child. With almost 11 years between them, Zoë was about as close to a mother figure as Erica was going to get. Their own mother had long since spread her wings in search of greener pastures, fleeing north to live the high life in Atlantic City with little regard to the daughters she’d left behind.
That was 10 years ago. Neither Powell sister had heard from their mother since, and their father, being the dirty dog that he was, had wasted no time in remarrying a woman half his age. That left them with no one to depend on but each other.
Nate placed the movie back on the coffee table and pulled out his phone when he felt it vibrate in his pocket.
A text from Audrey lit up the screen.
Show went great. Can't wait to tell you about it. Call me when you’re free. X
Zoë eyed Nate closely for a second before speaking. “Let me guess…Audrey needs you to tell her a bedtime story?” she remarked in a juvenile manner, failing to disguise the animosity in her tone.
Nate rolled his eyes and focused on typing back his reply. Once he was done, he looked up and tensed when he saw Zoë staring at the ring box. It must have fallen out of his jacket pocket when he wasn�
��t paying attention. Hastily, he went to grab it up, but she was that much quicker.
Zoë flipped open the box and swallowed hard. Aniyah was wrong. Nate didn’t still have feelings for her. If she hadn’t known that before, she certainly did now. It was impossible for her not to when she was holding the proof in the palm of her hand.
“I guess congratulations are in order,” Zoë spoke up in a dry tone, keeping her expression emotionless as she flipped the box shut and handed it back over to Nate.
The sudden discomfort between them was palpable.
“I think I'm going to call it night,” Zoë spoke up after awhile, briefly looking Nate in the eyes. “I’m catering a party pretty early tomorrow. You wouldn’t mind showing yourself out, would you?”
Nate hesitated. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let them part ways on bad terms again. “Wait,” he called out to her.
Zoë turned to look at him as he approached where she was standing in the hall.
“I can’t leave,” Nate said, holding her gaze in the darkness. “Not until I know you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn't I be?” Zoë challenged.
Her nonchalance might have had Nate fooled if he didn’t know her as intimately as he did. “Zoë,” he said, taking another step towards her. “I can tell when something’s bothering you. Why don’t you just tell me what it is so that I don’t have to guess?”
“It’s nothing,” Zoë insisted, attempting to sidestep him. “Just drop it, would you?”
Nate shook his head and pulled her back. “You know I can’t do that,” he said, refusing to let the conversation die off that easily. “Just tell me what your problem is and I’ll go.”
Zoë narrowed her eyes at him. “My problem?” she challenged. “It’s you. You’re my problem. I just…I really don’t understand what you were expecting. I really don’t. Did you think I’d be happy for you? Happy that you’re about to make things official with a woman so beneath you it’s not even funny?”
Zoë’s voice trailed off into a whisper. She shook her head, falling silent as thick tears blurred her vision. This wasn’t her. She didn’t do well with vulnerability. Especially not when Nate was looking at her the way he was now.
Zoë took a moment to regain her composure before speaking again. “Because I can’t be,” she admitted. “And I know that isn’t fair, but I can’t help the way I feel anymore than you can. I’m in love with you. But you know what’s even more pitiful than that? The fact that I somehow managed to delude myself into thinking you loved me back.”
Zoë’s cheeks were streaked with mascara by the time she was finished speaking. She felt like a damn fool for letting her guard down, but it was really only a matter of time before the words she’d been keeping hostage came pouring out of her.
The only thing that surprised her was that it hadn’t happened sooner.
Chapter fourteen
Nate stared at Zoë at a loss for words before stepping forward to close the small gap of space that still existed between them. As his warm lips enclosed on hers, he felt an all too familiar yearning rush its way through him.
He needed her.
Zoë tensed up when Nate's tongue slipped past the boundaries of her lips into her mouth. It took every ounce of strength for her to pull away from him, and the desperate look he gave her when she finally did made her breath catch in her throat. “What are you doing?” she gasped, steadying her body against the door to her room as she attempted to slow her racing heart.
“I love you,” Nate said instead of answering. His words were just as jagged as his breath, but there was a certain degree of clarity behind them all the same. “I always have. I guess I just...I thought proposing to Audrey would help me move on the way it seemed like you had, but I realize how stupid that is now. It would never work. You’re not the type of woman a man just gets over.”
Zoë keep her gaze steadied on Nate’s face as she listened to him speak. When he fell silent and leaned forward to kiss her again, she grabbed hold of his t-shirt and kissed him back just as intensely before pulling him into her bedroom.
As the pair fumbled through the darkness and collapsed on Zoë's bed, their hesitation dissipated with every piece of clothing shed. They could feel guilty later. In this moment, they both felt as right as they had in quite some time. Their kissing started out tentative and guarded, as if they were both holding back a small part of themselves until they were sure the other was mutually invested, but it didn’t take long for it to become much more aggressive in nature.
Nate fought hard to control his urges, but his efforts proved futile when he felt Zoë's hand graze his erection. All that small action did was push him even closer to the edge.
“I’ll be right back,” Zoë spoke up with bated breath, struggling to regain control of her limbs long enough to pull away from him.
Nate nodded, turning onto his side to watch her naked form dart in the bathroom across the hall.
Zoë exhaled a deep breath and studied her reflection in the mirror for a moment before splashing a stream of cool water on her face to calm her nerves. When she was finally composed enough to return to her bedroom, she entered to find Nate studying the many photographs hanging above her desk.
It went without saying that he was in almost every one of them.
“Everything okay?” Nate questioned, pulling Zoë back down beside him on her bed.
Zoë nodded, reading between the lines. What he was really asking was whether or not she was on birth control. “I am,” she told him, biting down on her bottom lip. There was no easy way to frame what she needed to ask next, but she definitely wasn’t about to put herself at risk for the sake of avoiding a little awkwardness. “But do you have a rubber?”
Nate hesitated before reaching over her for his wallet, which was lying askew on the floor beside his jeans. He shuffled through it for a few seconds before sighing. “Damn,” he muttered, meeting eyes with her. “This would be the one time I don’t.”
“Oh,” Zoë said, rubbing her neck.
Great.
“But I’m always safe,” Nate reassured her. It wasn’t even a lie. She was the only woman he ever trusted enough not to use protection with. “And I get tested every few weeks just in case.”
Zoë gave him a relieved smile and wasted no time in resuming their kissing. The way his strong body felt against her own brought her back to a humid summer day shortly after her 16th birthday, when he’d first introduced her to what it felt like to engage in physical love. Now, as she became slowly reacquainted with all his go-to techniques, she was reminded yet again of why no other man ever seemed capable of measuring up.
Chapter fifteen
Nate's teasing was driving Zoë insane with desire. He took his time exploring every detail of her flesh, and when the warmth of his mouth became too much for her to bear, she took action by straddling his lap.
Nate groaned at the overwhelming gratification that came next. He cradled Zoë's hips as she rode him, studying her face as it contorted in pleasure in time with each stroke. Through trial and error, he’d learned how to tell when a woman was faking it, but Zoë’s expressions made it clear to him that she wasn't. She didn’t have to with him. Whenever they were together, the side effects of her pleasure came naturally.
Nate could feel Zoë’s inner walls clenching around his girth as her moans increased in pitch. With a few well-angled strokes and a cry of pleasure, she collapsed against his chest and shuddered into her release.
Nate spent the next few minutes kissing his way down Zoë’s dark flesh, which was glistening with tiny beads of sweat. When he was sure she could handle it, he took hold of her slender legs and positioned himself between them to enter her again.
Zoë assisted him by lifting her hips up off of the bed so that he could penetrate her more deeply. When his girth made contact with the soft pad of her g-spot, she let out a strained gasp and gripped hold of his buttocks as she studied his face.
Nate’s sandy hair fram
ed his jaw, accentuating chiseled features that twisted up in pleasure as he came. After taking a moment to regain control of his body, he laced his fingers through Zoë’s and proceeded to shower her with kisses until they were both too exhausted to continue.
The following morning, Zoë awoke in a haze and frowned when she looked over to find Nate’s naked form sprawled out against her own. She’d fully expected him to leave in the middle of the night. It was what he always did in the past, but somehow, this felt different. There was something permanent about it.
Zoë hesitated before reaching for her t-shirt, which was draped over a moving box on the ground. As soon as she caught sight of it, she was reminded of Evan and the very hasty agreement she’d made to move in with him. If she wasn’t sure about it before, she definitely wasn’t now. All last night had done was complicate things even further.
