by Lucy Lennox
Jake must have seen them too because he quickly jogged over to me and grabbed my elbow, pulling me behind him so he could approach the person wrapped in too many layers to recognize. Hat, scarf, and earmuffs all conspired to keep us in suspense until I realized I knew someone with those earmuffs.
“Zoey?” I cried, racing ahead of Jake to confirm it was my best friend on the doorstep.
Her head came up, eyes wide and nose pink from the cold. As soon as she saw me, she burst into tears.
As soon as I reached her, I grabbed her up in my arms and pulled her in close.
“What the hell happened, Zo-Zo? What’s wrong?”
I felt Jake come behind me and grab my keys out of my coat pocket to open the cabin. As he passed me, he squeezed my shoulder in support, and I realized how grateful I was to have him there. If something was wrong with my best friend, Jake was the best guy to have around. He was smart and levelheaded and always good in a crisis.
Once he opened the cabin door, he turned on the lights and let Boo out for a potty break while I brought Zoey and her overstuffed duffel bag into the warmth of the main room and helped her out of her warm gear.
“Why didn’t you call me? We almost left for Denver. You would have been here all night,” I said. I was babbling, I knew, but the thought that we’d almost gone out of town for the evening made me realize how close I’d come to missing her arrival. And if she was upset…
Wait.
I did a double take as she removed her coat. Jake met my eyes from where he stood by the door. We both turned back to stare at my gorgeous best friend.
My gorgeous, very pregnant, best friend.
Chapter 20
Jake
It looked like Oz’s eyes were going to pop right out of his head. I moved closer to him and slid my arm around his waist in hopes my touch might help soothe him.
“What the fuck?” he croaked.
With tears still streaming down her gorgeous face, Zoey plucked off her hat, letting loose a halo of dark, corkscrew curls all over her head. She had dark skin and mesmerizing green eyes, set off even more by the shine and redness from her tears.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Zoey?” I offered, reaching out to guide her over to the sofa.
Oz seemed to be in shock and had grabbed onto my hand with a death grip. After settling Zoey in a comfortable spot, I nudged Oz down beside her and leaned in to brush a kiss across his cheek.
“She needs a hug, sweetheart. The words can wait,” I murmured into his ear before lighting the fire and disappearing into the kitchen.
I busied myself making hot chocolate, since I wasn’t sure if she’d be drinking coffee or not. After finding a tray to carry everything on, I made my way back into the main room and set it down on the coffee table.
Both of them were snuggled together on the sofa and teary-eyed, but I could sense a shift in the mood. Boo had claimed a spot on Zoey’s lap.
“You’ll stay here, with me,” Oz said with burgeoning excitement. “We’ll take you to see Doc Sharma and find out everything we need to know about baby shit. My new friend, Frieda, has just been through all of this, and I’m sure she can help us.”
I handed them each a mug of hot chocolate before grabbing my own and sitting on the floor between Oz’s legs and the growing fire. Oz’s hand reached down into my hair while he spoke excitedly to his friend. I wasn’t sure he realized what he was doing until Zoey cleared her throat and tilted her head toward me.
“Are you going to officially introduce me to your friend?”
Despite looking exhausted, Zoey’s eyes softened when she noticed Oz playing with my hair.
“Oh!” Oz said, sitting up straight. “Sorry. Zo, this is Jake. Jake, this is my best friend, Zoey.”
Even though we’d “met” over FaceTime before, I reached out a hand to her for a shake. She took mine and squeezed.
“Thank you for looking after this goofball for me,” she said with a sincere smile. “I know how high maintenance he can be, but—”
Oz pretended to elbow her in the side and pout. “Am not.”
“Are too,” she teased. I could tell right away that the two of them were close as could be, and it made me feel such gratitude that Oz had someone who loved him the way Zoey clearly did.
“Sorry, Oz, but I’m going to have to agree with Zoey on this,” I said. “One word: Kiehl’s.”
Zoey barked out a laugh loud enough to make Boo jump in her lap. “Oh my god, he already knows you so well. You can’t go anywhere without a tube of the stuff somewhere on your person.”
“So I like my lip balm. Sue me,” he grumbled before narrowing his eyes at me. “And FYI, I don’t hear anyone complaining about chapped lips around here.”
I winked at him and squeezed his leg in reassurance. “I’m not complaining. I love your soft lips.”
“Aww,” Zoey cooed. “Dr. Feelgood’s getting lucky tonight.”
I felt my face heat up and tilted my forehead against Oz’s knee to hide it.
“Dr. Feelgood gets lucky every night,” Oz responded. “But tonight’s about you, Zo-Zo-Bug. Talk to me. Tell me what happened with Paolo.”
I glanced up at her to see if I should leave the room. “Babe, I can go back over to my place if…”
Oz’s fingers threaded into my hair again as he looked at Zoey with a quirked brow.
“It’s okay. You’re just going to tell him everything later anyway, so he might as well stay,” Zoey said with a weak smile. “It’s just embarrassing more than anything else,” she said directly to me.
“How far along are you?” I asked gently.
Her eyes flicked to Oz before settling back on me with a guilty expression in them. “Six months.”
“Six months?” Oz was up and out of his seat, pacing back and forth in front of the fire and waving his arms wildly. “Six months and you didn’t tell me? What the hell? How did I… where was I that I didn’t notice?”
It was like he was in his own little world–one made up of half self-castigation and half disbelief.
I ignored his theatrics and turned to face her more fully. “Have you seen a doctor?”
She nodded. “After I missed my second cycle, I got a home test. Paolo didn’t believe me when I told him, so he made me go to a doctor. They said I was three months already.”
Oz stopped pacing and stared at her, completely crestfallen. “You’ve kept this from me all this time? Why? I would have stayed, or come home early. I would have helped you.”
Zoey’s tears started again, and it set off Oz’s as well. I stood up to gather him into my arms, which was a good thing, since as soon as he was in my embrace, Zoey said something that made Oz slump completely against me.
“Can’t you see that’s why I couldn’t tell you? This is your dream, Oz.”
Oz’s warm tears slid onto the skin of my neck, and I reached my hand up to cup the back of his head. I leaned down to press a kiss into his hair, inhaling the familiar scent of his fancy shampoo.
“She just wanted the best for you, Oz,” I said into his hair. “You would have done the same for her, and we all know it. What’s done is done. The question now is, what’s next?”
Oz squeezed me one last time before pulling back and returning to Zoey on the sofa. He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her.
“Jake’s right. Let’s talk about what’s next. I’m so glad you came here, sweetie. How did you leave things with Paolo?”
Instead of sitting back down with them, I excused myself to the kitchen while they talked so I could start making something for dinner while the two friends got caught up.
It turned out that Paolo was the jackass piece of shit Oz had described to me several days before. He’d never liked Paolo and couldn’t believe Zoey hadn’t kicked him to the curb long before now. We were sitting around Oz’s small kitchen table finishing a simple veggie pasta dish when she finally spilled the details of what had happened.
“You remember how
he said he was taking me to Pennsylvania to meet his family a month ago?”
Oz glanced at me briefly, then nodded over a bite of his food. “That’s why you were gone when I came back from Milan and left for Haven. You said it went fine.”
She looked down at her dinner and shook her head. “No. Not fine. That’s what I told you because I was so embarrassed. He actually took me to Jersey to his friend Roddy’s place. Roddy works the front desk at an abortion clinic.”
I felt my jaw tighten and glanced at Oz. He’d gone so pale, I actually reached out for his arm in case he passed out and slid out of his chair.
“The hell?” Oz growled in a low voice. I’d never heard such a sound come out of him before. “He was going to pressure you to get rid of it without even talking to you about it?”
Zoey’s chin trembled, but she held herself together. Tough cookie.
“Obviously I didn’t do it, Ozzie. I told them both to fuck off. And then I took the bus back to the city and swore I was never going to speak to him again. By the time I got back, you’d already come and gone. I think he did it that way on purpose. He wanted to make sure I couldn’t go running to you when I left him.”
Oz reached out to squeeze her hand before speaking. “Because he’s a goddamned manipulative coward.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Then what happened?”
I could tell he was trying very hard to hold it together–to not lose his shit in front of his best friend again.
She looked down again. This time she was rubbing her small, round belly the way pregnant women did without realizing what they were doing. I could tell she already felt protective of the life she was carrying.
“The usual stupid crap. He came crawling back all sad and sorry, and I fell for it.” She sighed and then let out a sad chuckle. “It took him about two weeks before he started in on me again about terminating the pregnancy. That’s when I finally realized I was on my own.”
“What made you decide to come to Haven?” I asked.
Big mistake.
Because Zoey burst into tears all over again.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” Oz asked as he stood up so he could hug her.
“I lost my job,” she said between sobs. “I had it all together, you know? I was gonna do the single mom thing and you’d be cool Uncle Oz, and I’d keep working and maybe go back to school while raising the kid and it was just gonna all work out and then…” She paused to suck in a breath, and I jumped up to grab a box of tissues from a side table and plopped them down on the table in front of her. She snatched one up. “And then my boss called me into his office and said they had to let me go because the company was going bankrupt…” She blew loudly into the tissue and Oz handed her several more. “It was a shitty job, you know, but it was all I had.”
“It’s not all you have,” Oz said almost angrily as he wrapped his arms around her. “You and your baby have me. I am going to be cool Uncle Oz and you’re going to come stay here with me, and when we get back to New York you’re going to move into my place with me and your kid is going to be the coolest, best-dressed kid ever. And he’s gonna have his kick-ass mom to thank for that.”
“And his Uncle Oz,” Zoey said between sniffles.
Oz kissed her temple. “And his Uncle Oz.”
Oz met my eyes over her head, and I felt my gut plunge because I knew what he was thinking.
The same thing I was.
There would be no Uncle Jake in Zoey’s kid’s life.
I forced myself to focus on Zoey as I reached across the table to take her hand. “Oz is right, honey. You’re going to stay here and let us take care of you until it’s time for you guys to go home.”
Oz looked at me with his heart in his eyes but didn’t say anything.
After all, what could he say? What could either of us say? This was the most we could give one another.
Oz returned to his seat and we resumed our meal. I heard a soft whine and looked down to see Boo sitting by my foot. I reached down to pick her up and fed her one of the little pieces of noodle I had left on my plate. “There’s no dairy in it,” I told her. She yipped and licked my nose.
“Did Oz ever tell you the story about how he got her?” Zoey asked softly. I looked up to see both Oz and her watching me.
“No. I assumed he dognapped her from some diva starlet or something. Stole someone’s doggie purse and didn’t realize it had a half-hairy piranha in it.”
Zoey’s face lit up in a grin and she winked at Oz. “No, although that would make a damned good story.”
Oz looked up and narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t need to tell the long version, Zo-Zo.” He turned to me with a slight flush to his face. “The short version is that I agreed to take her off another model’s hands. End of story.”
Zoey met my eyes. “Not end of story. The model in question, an ass named Jacko, was cruel to her. He’d brag about leaving her unattended for days on end, locked in a bathroom with multiple bowls of food and water, since he was too cheap to hire a pet sitter when he traveled for work. She’d have to poop and pee in the tiny room on newspaper until he came back. The fucker didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.”
Zoey’s hand came out to brush through Oz’s hair as she smiled at him with affection. “But when Ozzie-Bear found out about it, he begged the guy to let him take care of her. Jacko thought it was a joke. Then he thought it was a game. He kept telling Oz no until finally Oz offered him money.”
“Zo…” Oz said softly, glancing over at me with… I wasn’t sure. Embarrassment? “He doesn’t need to hear about this.”
Zoey reached out and scratched Boo under the chin. “Oz ended up having to pay the guy six thousand dollars to get him to give her up.”
Oz closed his eyes and dropped his head. I got out of my seat and, with Boo in my hands, knelt down next to his. I kissed Boo’s crazy mane before handing her to him and then looked into Oz’s baby blue eyes and cupped his face.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all. You’re one of the kindest, most loving men I’ve ever met, and Boo is so very lucky to have you as her daddy.”
I leaned in briefly to kiss his sweet mouth and then forced myself to return to my seat instead of carrying him off to bed like I wanted. I tried my best to listen to Oz and Zoey talk through their plans, but when most of it revolved around what they’d do when they got back to New York, I had to tune them out because it just hurt too fucking bad to think about where I’d be when that time came.
Not that it really mattered.
Because without Oz, no place I ended up in would ever be home anyway.
Chapter 21
OZ
The way Jake looked at me after hearing Boo’s story set my heart on fucking fire. And my dick. As inappropriate as it was under the Zoey circumstances, I couldn’t stop thinking about getting Jake naked behind closed doors.
I must not have been very subtle about it, because after about fifteen minutes of trying to talk about her moving into my apartment back in New York, my best friend suddenly raised her arms and put on a hugely dramatic yawn and stretch routine.
“Holy cow, am I bushed,” she said with a wink in my direction as she stood up from the table. “Do you have an extra pillow and blanket for the sofa?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Jake beat me to it. “No way. You’re taking the bed. Doctor’s orders.”
“Agreed,” I added. “I’ll take the sofa and Jake can…”
I tried to hold back my sigh when I realized what that meant. “And Jake can sleep at his place.”
We must have looked pretty pathetic because Zoey started laughing so hard tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. “No way. Isn’t Jake’s cabin that one right there?” She pointed through the window to where the moonlight was barely enough to show a reflection on his darkened cabin’s windows. “Why don’t you two sleep over there and just come back in the morning? I’ll let you cook me breakfast.”
I glanced at Jake with an
apologetic look before turning back to my best friend. “I don’t want to leave you alone tonight, sweetie. I’ll stay here with you.”
Zoey crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Ozias, you will not treat me like an invalid. You are as far away from me in that cabin as you’d be if we were on opposite ends of a fancy hotel suite, for god’s sake. Think of Jake’s place as a different wing of the same house. It’s right there. If I need you, I’ll just call or tromp over there and bang on the damned door.”
I looked at Jake with uncertainty.
“She’s right, Oz,” he said from where he was sitting across from her. “If anything, her story tonight should prove to you how strong and independent she is. She could probably use a little time to herself after such a long day of travel.”
Zoey beamed. I could see how important it was to her to be treated with respect instead of being coddled all the time. There would be times she’d inevitably want or need the coddling, I was sure, but this wasn’t one of those times.
“Okay. But keep your phone next to you, and I’ll do the same.”
“Deal,” she said, leaning in for a big hug.
We quickly worked to get the dishes done before helping her get settled. I even let her talk me into leaving Boo with her to keep her company. When Jake and I trudged through the snow to his place, I could have sworn he was even more upset about it than I was.
“Do you think she’ll remember to let Boo out one last time?” he asked.
“Yes, but we just let her out, so she’ll be fine.”
“Did you tell her to change out the sweater if it gets damp from the snow?” he asked, unlocking the front door to his cabin.
“She knows,” I said, turning to search his face for any sign Jake was just messing with me.
Once we got into the cabin and turned on a light, I saw the worry lines on his forehead.
