The Hope That Starts

by Heidi Hutchinson

  There was nothing to be done for Sway and Harrison's conversation. It wasn't the first time she had found out that she wasn't exactly the most welcome guest to the party. She was a nerd. She had been raised by nerds. Standing out as being a little weird or peculiar was her normal.

  When she had been in seventh grade, she'd had her first real experience with bullies. Braya Horing had made fun of her in front of her art class. She had started with her hair, moved onto her clothes (paint stained overalls and an I Heart Freddie Mercury tee), and had wrapped the whole thing up by making the entire class laugh at Zelda's snaggletooth. Middle schoolers could be so cruel.

  She'd gone home that day in tears. Her mom had made her nuggets with syrup while Zelda cried about needing braces and a trip to the Gap.

  That night, when her dad got home, he had listened to the story with fatherly concern. Then he had told Zelda a story she had never heard before.

  “Do you know how I met your mother?” he asked, a soft smile lighting his features as he looked over Zelda's shoulder to where her mother stood behind her.

  “No.”

  George Fitzpatrick's smile grew and his eyes danced. “We met at her sister's wedding. I had never seen anyone so elegant and breathtaking—”

  “He means weird,” Lola interrupted as she joined them on the couch. “I got in trouble during the rehearsal because I thought it would be funny to carry the offering plate down the aisle. The pastor was not amused.”

  “I thought it was hilarious,” George grinned. He returned his attention back to his daughter. “During the reception, I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was amazing. We danced, we laughed, we danced some more. When the bride and groom were just heading out, my favorite song of all time started to play.” He looked at Zelda pointedly.

  “Oh, God,” she said, slightly horrified. It was a song that got played a lot in their house. Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now.' Her father knew all of the words and would get quite theatrical whenever it came on. No matter where they were, elevators, department stores, restaurants, etc. He was like a man possessed.

  George nodded. “Yep. And I lip-sync serenaded the groom.”

  Zelda looked back and forth between her mother and father. Finally settling on her mom, she asked, “Weren't you embarrassed?”

  Lola laughed. “Not at all. That was the exact moment I fell in love with him.”

  George took Zelda's hands then and looked into her eyes sternly. “Don't ever be ashamed of who you are. Be exactly who you are. Be unapologetically you. No, not everyone is going to celebrate that with you. Some people will try to hurt you and tear you down, that can't be helped. In fact, that'll happen no matter what. So you might as well be exactly who you're supposed to be, and forget the ugly things people say.” He squeezed her hands and took a deep breath. “You're a treasure. You're fantastic just how you are, snaggletooth included. If you do that, if you never apologize for being the strong, beautiful, unique girl you are, the love you find will be the best kind there is. Because it'll be rooted deep in truth.”

  “Truth and weirdness,” her mother added. Zelda laughed at her mom who shrugged. “I'm not joking. If you can't be weird, it's just not worth it.”

  Zelda had gone back to school the next day, reassured by her parents' advice. It wasn't so much what they had said. It was what they had said, combined with what she saw in them. They walked the walk. Those two people loved each other. And they were crazy weird sometimes.

  Zelda capped the mascara, a smile on her lips. No, it didn't feel good that Harrison was upset that he'd had to hang out with her earlier. But it couldn't be helped at that point. One thing her parents had taught her, and taught her well, was not to worry about the things that you couldn't change. Like who you were.

  She slipped her make-up bag onto the narrow shelf of her bunk and unfolded her legs, stepping into the small walkway. Harrison said they were going out, so she had dressed for such. Tighter than usual jeans, navy blue halter top with some beading on the bodice. It was one of her dressier tops and she looked good in it. Especially when she paired it with her gray leather jacket and black motorcycle boots.

  Descending the steps with heavy thuds from her boots, she alerted them to her presence. At least Harrison had the decency to look guilty for his comments. He faced the other way and ran a hand through his tousled curls. Sway gave her a cheeky grin.

  “Look at you,” he said with a wink. “Hottest girl in Daytona.”

  Even though it was a bald-faced lie, she appreciated the compliment.

  “Where's Lara?” she asked.

  Sway lifted an eyebrow. “Meeting us at the club. She wanted to get ready first.”

  Zelda was pleased. She liked Lara. Not that she was naïve enough to think that Lara and Sway were going get married and have fat babies, but it was reassuring to know Sway wasn't a complete cad.

  “Let me put on a nicer shirt and we'll head out,” Sway said, hustling up the steps.

  That left Zelda and Harrison alone. He was turned to face the front of the bus, giving her his back, his head bent toward his phone. Texting.

  He'd changed as well. His curls were still slightly damp from his recent shower. Broad shoulder muscles stretched out his black tee, and his backside fit nicely into his dark-washed denim. Adding to the package, he wore a pair of brown leather lace up boots, circa 1920. He was definitely a good-looking man.

  He slid his phone into his back pocket and she watched the movement. So fixated was she on his rear end, she hardly noticed that he had turned to face her.

  Her eyes rose to meet his and she smiled politely. Except their eyes didn't meet, because Harrison was staring in the vicinity of her torso. He swallowed hard and his eyes slowly traveled up the length of her before finding her eyes.

  “You look nice,” he said roughly.

  “You're quite the sensation yourself,” she replied with a silly curtsy. She was rewarded with a smile. Perhaps his reactions to Sway had less to do with Zelda and more to do with whomever he'd been texting all day.

  As if on cue, his phone chirped.

  Harrison slowly sucked in his bottom lip and bit down, his gaze not moving from Zelda's face. She felt her face heat up.

  “Your phone made a noise,” she reminded him softly.

  His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Hm?”

  “Your phone?” She frowned.

  “Right,” he said, hand reaching back to get the phone from its pocket. He didn't look at it.

  “Maybe you should check it,” she whispered. Why was she whispering?

  Harrison took a step forward, probably to hear her more clearly. His empty hand came up and moved one of her wild curls out of her face.

  “What if it's important?” she asked. Was there a voice lower than a whisper? Because if there was, that's what she was using.

  “Doubt it,” he responded in kind. The tip of his forefinger found the end of her nose and touched it as light as a breath. “I should have woken you up sooner, your nose is a little red. Sorry about that.”

  “Don't worry about it,” she said. It still burned in her, the name Sway had uttered minutes before. Kiley. No doubt the girl who had claim to the man in front of her. It had been hard enough to know he was taken, but to have a name that went along with it... It tasted bad, like vinegar and spoiled milk.

  A loud clap caused her body to jolt. Harrison's eyes lifted to look behind her at the source of the sound while he took a backwards step. Sway's cologne hit her senses just a second before his arm slid along her shoulders. She looked up into his bright eyes with a smile.

  “Let's go, sugar plum.”

  ***

  “Did I interrupt the nerd mating ritual earlier?” Sway asked, drawing Harrison's attention back to the bassist briefly.

  “Hm? Oh, no.” Harrison shook his head absently, not really registering the question he'd just answered.

  His eyes scanned the bowling alley again, finding Lara's fiery mane easily, Zelda at her side as they glanc
ed through the karaoke book.

  It had been a weird afternoon. Kiley had been texting him most of the day, conjuring images of the last time they had been together and putting Harrison's thoughts in a fog. With Zelda nearby making goofy jokes and giving that gloriously crooked smile, he was torn between two worlds. He didn't feel that he belonged in either one.

  His phone chirped again and he sighed involuntarily.

  “Shit, is that Kiley again?” Sway asked, nodding at Harrison's phone.

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she know about Zelda?” Sway asked curiously, checking the distance of the girls.

  Harrison shook his head. “There's nothing to know.”

  “She doesn't text you all day, it's out of her normal,” Sway observed, trying to look vaguely disinterested. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sway prided himself on being an expert in female “normals.”

  “She's been in meetings all day,” Harrison explained, even though he agreed that it wasn't normal.

  “Okay,” Sway replied.

  Harrison glared at his friend. “Would you stop?”

  Sway's eyes widened in innocence. “What? I didn't say anything.” His gaze went past Harrison's shoulder and he added quickly, “Except to remind you not to put Baby in a corner.”

  “So who is up for a twosome?” Zelda's excited question grabbed Harrison's attention before he could respond to Sway's last comment.

  “What did you sign us up for, Zeldy?” Sway asked, with a wink at Lara.

  “Two solos and a duet,” she said, her cheeks bright pink. “I really want to do the duet, I just need to know who wants to be my partner.”

  “Would you like to be her partner, Harrison?” Sway asked licentiously.

  Harrison ignored him. “Which song is it?”

  She raised her eyebrows and her eyes flashed with a dare. “Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran's 'Everything Has Changed—'”

  “You are such a nerd,” Sway said before barking with laughter.

  Zelda looked affronted, her mouth falling open in adorable protest. “Hey! First of all, don't make fun of Taylor Swift, she's my homegirl. Secondly, Lara picked the song.” She smiled sweetly at Lara, whose face was dangerously close to the color of her hair.

  Harrison took a quick second to congratulate himself. While Sway thought he knew everything there was to know about women, he hadn't picked up on the fact that Lara may have fallen just a little bit in love. Zelda was taking one for the team—the Girl Team—agreeing to sing the song that Lara wanted Sway to hear.

  “I'll do it,” Harrison said, cutting through Sway's insensitive laughter. Zelda smiled at him thankfully and they exchanged a look of understanding.

  The group moved closer to the stage, taking over a recently abandoned table. The singers making the rounds were mostly drunk, but no less vigorous in their theatrics as they sang their hearts out. The girls clapped and sang along, offering as much moral support as two unknowns in the audience could.

  Sway went up and sang a variation of Billy Idol's “Rebel Yell.” Lara took her turn with the emotionally safe “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett. Zelda acted like a crazy fangirl and Lara rocked out. Harrison had to hand it to Sway, he always could find amazing women.

  When Zelda and Harrison's turn came, she bounded up to the stage, grabbing both microphones excitedly. She thrust one in his direction.

  “I've never done this before,” she confessed with a huge smile.

  The girl was a paradox. Who gets excited about doing something that would be completely terrifying to the rest of the world?

  “You know the song, right?” he asked cautiously.

  She nodded. “Of course. I wasn't lying when I said T-Swifty was my homegirl.”

  He chuckled under his breath. “What's the plan here? We sing the song and hope that Sway isn't too thick to know it's for him?”

  Her face lost expression. “What?” she asked quietly.

  “This is for Lara and Sway, right?” he asked as he checked to see that the mic was on.

  Zelda's smile returned but it had dimmed. “Yes, yes, of course. I just didn't know you had picked up on that.” She swallowed. “Do you know the song?”

  Harrison shrugged. “I'll manage.”

  And manage he did. But just barely.

  The song was lovely, he'd never really paid attention to the lyrics until they were on the screen in front of them and Zelda's clear strong voice was singing them out into the small, excited crowd. Apparently her antics and cheering during everyone else's attempts had earned her her own fan base.

  Harrison had to put on his performer pants to sing this one. What if it wasn't Sway that was being thick? What if—no, he wasn't going to go there.

  Her voice was clear as starlight, though. The kind of voice that could make a musician, or a man, yearn for more. More than just one song together.

  The audience built into his fantasy that they made an excellent team. They had to have noticed how they shined together. They were lighting up the room.

  ***

  “Will you be calling her, at least?” Zelda asked Sway as they got ready for bed that night.

  She had already washed her face, changed her clothes, and brushed her teeth. Sway was coming from the bathroom in his pajama pants sans shirt, while Harrison was taking his turn.

  She straightened her sheets and untucked the bottom portion. The feeling of having her feet trapped while she slept was truly awful.

  “I always call them,” Sway answered, hoisting himself onto his bunk and letting his legs hang down as he watched her preparations. “I'm not the cold unfeeling asshole you think I am.”

  Zelda straightened her spine and faced him, crossing her arms over her chest. The walkway was small, so they were fairly close to one another even though his hunched-over frame was three feet above hers.

  “I don't think those things about you, Sway,” she said seriously.

  “I know,” he said, shrugging as his light blue eyes skated over her face and then past her shoulder. “I was just... saying.”

  Zelda tilted her head slightly as she watched him. His emotions were carefully hidden behind his comedic façade, but he was too tired to really keep it up in that moment. If she pushed, she could probably get past one or two barriers and find out what was really going on behind those secretive stormy eyes.

  But that felt like an invasion of privacy she wasn't qualified to handle. It was one thing to be there when someone was willing to talk, it was another thing entirely to interfere where you didn't belong.

  She decided to let him have his secrets and simply said, “I liked her.”

  His eyes snapped back to hers. “You like everyone,” he countered quietly.

  She only shrugged, then turned to check for her phone. If she didn't set the alarm, she would never wake up in time. They had had the kind of day where she knew she would sleep like the dead. Alarm was imperative.

  Sway climbed into his bunk and kept talking. “I sure had fun with you today, nerd girl.”

  “Have you seen my phone?” she asked, not finding it on her shelf or in her camera bag.

  “I think I saw it on the table downstairs,” he answered around a yawn.

  She hurried down the steps to retrieve it.

  The interior of the bus was dark, dimly lit with only the running lights along the walkways and the lining of the cabin walls. She had almost reached the table when she ran smack into a hard body and hands grasped her upper arms. A startled squeal escaped, but Harrison's grunt of surprise calmed her.

  “Sorry, I didn't see you,” she apologized, her heart hammering in her chest.

  He let go of her with one hand and flicked the light on above the sink beside them so she could see him better. He was very shirtless. And his usual blend of gorgeous and wonderful and warm. Unfortunately, he could also see her better and she was in her pajamas, which consisted of yoga pants that she had converted into shorts and a gray tank top screen printed with “Starfleet Academy”
across the chest.

  “No worries.” He still hadn't let go of her arm and she wanted to check and see if that section of her skin had actually caught on fire, it felt so hot. But that would mean looking away from those eyes. Those eyes that were fixed on hers.

  Today had held many small moments just like this one. Moments that seemed so much more than they probably were.

  “TARDIS moments,” she whispered out loud without meaning to. His eyes sharpened on her face.

  “What's a TARDIS moment?” he asked, watching her mouth, his voice a low rumble that she felt all the way to her bare feet.

  “It's bigger on the inside,” she explained, though she didn't know how, as her breath was completely gone.

  His eyes closed as he slowly bit his bottom lip.

  Okay, so Harrison O'Neil could actually up the sexy factor by a good ten points without even trying.

  His eyes opened and they trailed over her face like a touch. Her heart rate increased exponentially.

  She almost jumped when his fingers touched the pendant hanging around her neck. “You never take this off,” he commented.

  “I'd lose it. I lose everything,” she said, that strange tone coming back. The one that was somehow lower than a whisper.

  “What's it mean?” he asked, holding it delicately in his large hand. Somewhere along the way, the hand that had been on her upper arm had slid to rest comfortably on her waist. It moved a bit higher, his fingers pressing in and pulling her fractionally closer to him. Her hands grabbed his tight biceps to help her balance; her eyes dropped to his bare chest, tracing over the curves and lines. She blushed and raised her eyes back to his, hoping he didn't notice how she had just totally checked him out.

  “It's a Celtic Warrior shield. It's supposed to remind me to be brave and know that I'm unconditionally loved.”

  His eyes slid from the pendant to her eyes and then to her mouth. She felt her breathing change as her pulse increased. Which she didn't think was possible until it happened.

  “My parents gave it to me when I was sixteen,” she continued, God knew why. Harrison seemed to move closer without moving at all. Or maybe she was moving, floating perhaps. That was a thing, right?