Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (The Crossroads Series)

by Melanie Shawn

  They’d filled the car ride with stories of their misspent youth. Some had been a little more than Zach had wanted to hear, but he figured, in a car full of women, that was bound to happen.

  It wasn’t all laughs though. Margie and Mabel had also asked his mom about her illness. Zach rarely ever heard her talk about it. He always believed the reason for that was because she didn’t want to discuss what was going on. Now he realized the reason might have been because he hadn’t asked her. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about what she was going through. That’s all he cared about. He had just never wanted to bring anything up that would upset her.

  But as he sat and listened to his mom tell Margie and Mabel things about how she’d felt at different stages of the disease, how she’d coped with it, and where she was at today with it, he made the decision that he would check in with her. That he would really see how she was doing, not just ask in a small-talk sort of way.

  “You have Reynolds coming up, right?” Chase, who was seated on the other side of Zach’s mom, asked.

  “Yep. Just a few more weeks.”

  “I wish I could be there. I saw you knock out Cruz in Atlantic City. It was one of the best fights I’ve ever seen,” Chase said sincerely.

  “Thanks.” Zach appreciated the compliment, but his mom looked like she was about to explode with pride.

  He had to give his mom credit for the fact that she was playing it pretty cool around Chase, when he knew that she probably wanted to scream and lose her mind.

  Zach still couldn’t believe that Margie and Mabel had completely lost interest in Chase after being here only a few minutes. They’d fawned over him and argued who was his biggest fan for a few minutes, but that only lasted until they met The Colonel, a.k.a. Grandpa J, and Chip Jones, who worked for Chase; Zach thought he’d heard him mention that he drove the tour bus. The looks on the two ladies’ faces when they’d laid eyes on the two distinguished gentlemen, reminded Zach of when the cartoon wolf sees a girl. Their eyes practically popped right out of their heads as they looked at the men like fresh meat.

  Zach glanced down the long table and saw that both women were seated on either side of the men—Mabel beside The Colonel and Margie beside Chip. Zach almost felt sorry for the guys. They were being kind, but they looked about as happy to be sitting there as a kid in a dentist chair.

  Jessie leaned towards him and whispered in his ear, “I think it’s going well. Mabel and Margie could not be more distracted.”

  “I almost feel sorry for The Colonel and Chip though,” Zach replied quietly, as he tried not to let the fact that feeling her breath against his neck, had sent his body into turbo-speed arousal, become evident on his face.

  He felt like he did a fairly good job of masking his reaction. Looking around the table, he found that no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. He’d had a ton of practice since, for the last four hours, they’d been pretending to be a couple and it had almost been more than Zach could handle.

  As the conversations flowed around the table while everyone ate, Zach realized how much he’d missed just talking to Jessie over the last few days. He hadn’t seen much of her at all this week. Once, they’d passed in the kitchen as he was heading up to take a shower and she was leaving for work, and that was it. Since they’d had their one-night-only event on Sunday night, they’d both been either avoiding each other or really busy. He knew which category his actions had fallen under. Avoidance.

  It wasn’t just that the sex had been the best sex of his life. Zach wasn’t even sure if it had been just sex. He had a feeling that what they had done was make love. That was part of it, but not all of it. What had kept him at the gym until one a.m. every night was what had happened after the mind-blowing sex.

  He’d stayed the entire night in Jessie’s bed, holding her close to him, and they’d spent most of the night talking. Talking about their childhoods, their fears, their successes. Zach might have only known Jessie a short time, but he knew that she didn’t open up to people easily, and as she talked about herself, her life, her dreams, he felt like she was letting him into a secret world that only she lived in.

  It wasn’t a one-way street either. Zach had told her things he’d never told another soul. He talked about his dad, his grandparents’ death, his mom’s health. He opened up about a lot, but he hadn’t told her about the fact that, from ages eighteen to twenty, before he’d been making any real money as a fighter, he’d been a stripper to pay for his mom’s medical bills. He didn’t know why he left that out. It wasn’t like he was ashamed of it. He just wasn’t exactly proud of it either.

  That night had been perfect. He realized now he just hadn’t wanted anything to come in and ruin that. It wasn’t like Jessie was his real girlfriend. If she were, of course he would tell her. She’d made it perfectly clear that the last thing she wanted was a relationship. That shouldn’t bother him. In fact, he’d gotten to spend the night with the sexiest woman he’d ever met with absolutely zero strings attached. He should be ecstatic. But he wasn’t.

  Spending the night with Jessie had had the exact opposite effect on him; instead of getting her out of his system or even taking the edge off, it had made him want her more. Need her more. Crave her more. He knew one thing for certain. After having been with Jessie, one time would never be enough. He wasn’t even sure if a million times would be. Maybe if it were just physical, he could get her out of his system, but she had managed to make her way into his heart, his soul, and there was no way that sex was going to remove someone from either of those places.

  Zach looked up as he heard a tinging sound. Alex stood at the end of the table and was tapping his fork against his glass. After everyone quieted down and he had their undivided attention, he said, “I just want to take a moment to thank you all for being here today. It’s a Sloan-family tradition to go around the table and say what you’re most thankful for this past year. Before I met Jamie and Joey, my answers were always different, anything from career, health, material things, to my family.”

  Looking down at his wife, Alex continued. “But since I was lucky enough to get hit over the head with a beam and open my eyes to see the angel that I know was put on this earth just for me, and then I got the bonus of meeting the coolest kid in the world, I know that, for the rest of my life, I will have the same answer whenever someone asks me what I’m most thankful for. Basically, I’m giving you fair warning of the fact that I will sound like a broken record from here on out.”

  There were a few chuckles before Alex continued. “Jamie, you and Joey are my whole life, and I thank God every day for bringing you both into my life. I love you.”

  Alex pulled his wife up into his arms and kissed her like he needed her more than his next breath. Which, Zach figured, he probably did.

  The table broke out into applause and whistles, and several people shouted out for them to get a room or pointed out that there were children present. As everyone went around the table saying what they were grateful for, Zach felt more authentic love between the couples than he’d witnessed in his entire life.

  When Jessie had been lying in his arms on Sunday night, she’d opened up to him about the fact that part of the reason she didn’t plan on getting married was that she didn’t believe in love. At least not the kind of happily-ever-after love people claimed to have. She told him that the most she could ever hope for is to find someone she got along with and also had hot sex with. And that she would consider entering into a legal partnership with someone like that, but it wasn’t something she was actively seeking.

  The cynical way she spoke about the subject of love led Zach to believe that either she must have been burned pretty badly in the relationship department or she’d never really seen a true example of what real love was. He asked her about her past relationships, and she seemed like she was telling the truth when she said that no breakup had ever hit her that hard. Now, looking around the room, he saw that there were more examples of true love in this six-hundr
ed-foot area than he’d ever known existed.

  Growing up, he’d seen his grandparents’ relationship and known that it was real. They had been more than just husband and wife—they’d been a team, each other’s best friend, and each other’s safe place. When things got stressful or tense, even as a kid, he remembered seeing them look to each other for strength.

  Zach might have been scared of love, but he definitely knew it existed.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong?” Jessie asked as she followed her sister into the back bedroom.

  Krista didn’t look back. She just kept walking in front of Jamie and Jessie at a clipped pace.

  Jessie had been in the kitchen helping Jamie, her mom, and several of the other ladies clean up when Krista had pulled both her and Jamie out of there and said that she needed to see them in the back.

  When they passed by the front room, Jessie had been happy to see that Anna looked like she was feeling more than just okay, she looked like she was having the time of her life. She seemed to be in a deep discussion with Chase’s mom and Katie’s aunt. Jessie had no idea what topic had the ladies so animated, but it must have been good because they were enthralled.

  Her sister had seemed so cryptic when she summoned both Jamie and her into the back, that Jessie was starting to get an uneasy feeling. Her first thought had been that someone was pregnant and they wanted to tell a smaller group before announcing it to the entire family. But Jessie didn’t think that was really plausible because she knew her family, and if someone were expecting, she thought they would have shared it when everyone was saying what they were grateful for.

  She felt a flutter low in her belly when she thought about what Zach had said. In her head, she knew that he said what he’d said only because he’d been putting on a show for Mabel and Margie, but her heart had not seemed to make that distinction. He hadn’t just said that he was thankful for meeting her, like she’d expected. He also said that he felt like the luckiest man alive that he got to spend each day getting to know her better, that she trusted him enough to let him see behind the curtain that she kept so safely guarded.

  There had been a chorus of ‘awws’ around the table, and she’d seen her parents exchanging a knowing look. Like they were thinking, This is it. Jessie has finally found the one. She wasn’t sure if everyone had just been playing along or if they had actually been under the delusion that this relationship had turned into something real. It wasn’t like she could set the record straight—at least not today with the M&M sisters here—but she made a mental note to call her parents tomorrow just to make sure they weren’t getting the wrong idea.

  It wasn’t like she had to come up with something to tell them. She could just relay the same thing that she’d been telling herself since Sunday night; she and Zach were not a real couple. Period. That was the fact, plain and simple.

  Jessie had been repeating that over and over again in a desperate attempt to file the Zach issue away in her mind under ‘resolved,’ but she had not managed to do so. Each time she tried, the little sucker popped back out with a new memory of how insanely amazing it felt when Zach touched her, how safe it had felt to fall asleep in his arms, or how easy it was for her to open up to him.

  In fact, all of those reasons were actually in the con column of starting a relationship with Zach. Because all of those things were out of Jessie’s control. Her feelings for Zach were out of her control. Jessie had to be in control.

  None of the things that drew her to him were what she needed. None of them meant that they should be together. She would remind herself of that and then file the little bugger back under ‘resolved.’

  Stepping into the back room that Alex and Jamie used for an office-slash-gym, she saw that there was quite a crowd gathered. All of her cousins’ wives—Amber, Katie, Sophie, and Chelle—were there as well as two of her sisters.

  “Sit down.” Krista’s tone was serious as she pointed to the cream-and-brown chair that sat beside the elliptical.

  “Is this an intervention?” Jessie joked as she stared at her sister, not moving towards the chair.

  “Kind of,” Krista answered like that should have been obvious.

  “Are you serious?”

  Krista had to be joking. Jessie had absolutely zero substance-abuse problems. She had a healthy diet. She did enjoy shopping, but she never overextended herself. And she was extremely organized. So this obviously wasn’t about alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, shopping addictions, or hoarding.

  What else did people call interventions for?

  “No, it’s not like that. It’s not an intervention.” Haley’s voice was a little too cheery and soothing for Jessie’s liking. “We just want to talk to you.”

  “About what?” Every eye in the place was focused on her, and Jessie was giving them all ten seconds to explain what she was doing here or she was bouncing out of there like she was Tigger. A quick glance to her side told her that Jamie looked just as confused as she felt.

  Haley’s eyes filled with concern as she sat up straighter on the loveseat she was sharing with Katie. “We’re worried about you.”

  That was it. Her Achilles’ heel. She hated to see her family upset, especially if it was because of her.

  Still having no idea what this was about, she took her place in the chair to hear them out. Since she knew that there was nothing in her life that should be concerning anyone, she was sure that she could easily put all their pretty little minds at ease.

  “What’s going on with you and Zach?” Krista asked, like Jessie was sitting across the table from her in an interrogation room in the police station.

  Nope. That was not something she would be discussing, especially in a room full of people.

  “Nothing.”

  “We think you’re falling for him,” Krista said as if their thoughts were cold, hard evidence that that was what was happening.

  “Well, you think wrong,” Jessie stated simply.

  “We also think you’re in denial,” Krista shot right back.

  “Again, you think wrong.”

  “You let him call you Jess.”

  Jessie had always had an issue with people calling her ‘Jess’. It just seemed lazy to her. How hard was it to say the ‘ee’ part? But from the first moment Zach had said it, she’d felt…special. Like he said it because he really knew her, not because he was trying too hard or being lazy.

  However, that was not the business of anyone in this room. Jessie would sit here all day if they wanted to talk to her because they were worried, but she was done.

  Katie, probably sensing that this not-an-intervention was going nowhere fast, spoke up. “Listen, we all saw how you two were together today. There is something going on between you two. I mean, other than the fact that you guys have obviously hooked up. He cares about you, and whether you want to admit it or not, you care about him.

  “We all know from experience that falling in love is scary, and I know I personally made huge mistakes by trying to deny what was right in front of my face. Luckily, we were all able to work things out, but we just wanted to tell you that, even if you don’t see it or are in denial, the truth is you and Zach are good together. He gets you.”

  Jessie immediately went into spin mode. Tell them just enough information so they felt like they were getting the whole story without actually telling them anything. “Listen, Zach is a great guy, and I’m sure that, even after we move out, we’ll keep in touch. And yes, we have a mutual attraction, but that’s it. What you saw today was just a show we were putting on for Mabel and Margie. Nothing more,” she told the girls. It was the same thing she’d been telling herself and planned to tell her parents.

  “Wow. Did you have that rehearsed?” Krista asked.

  A loud knock sounded at the door. Krista, who had apparently designated herself in charge of this not-an-intervention, yelled, “Come in.”

  “Hey. Sorry to interrupt,” Zach said to the room at large as he opened the door. Then, loo
king at Jessie, he said, “I just wanted to let you know that my mom is getting a little tired, so we’re going to head back to the city. Your dad said he’d drive you when you were ready.”

  “I’m ready now.” Jessie stood, more than a little relieved that Zach had come in and saved her. She felt bad that Anna wasn’t feeling well, but she was grateful for the escape.

  “No, really, you should stay. I can even come back and get you so your dad doesn’t have to drive late at night,” Zach generously offered. Jessie could tell that he really didn’t want her to miss out on her family get-together because of him.

  Too late. She was already going down the line, hugging everyone goodbye, which was ridiculous because she knew that they would all follow them to the door and she’d just have to hug them again, but this was stage one of a Sloan-family departure. It consisted of announcing you were leaving and the first rounds of hugs.

  As they made their way back towards the front door, she felt Zach’s hand rest on the small of her back. Just like that, all the tension, all the stress of the day, the week, her entire life, just melted away.

  He leaned down and whispered, “You okay?”

  Jessie turned her head to the side and lifted her eyes to meet his and the connection she felt filled her now tension-free body with calm and security. “I am now,” she answered honestly.

  The admission caused her chest to tighten, gripping her in fear. When had she become dependent on someone else to make her feel better? When had she not been able to get herself out of situations she didn’t want to be in? When had one look, one touch, begun to mean so much to her?

  Jessie knew the answer to that question. It was the moment Zach had walked down the steps of that basement. This was bad. Really bad.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Yoo hoo, handsome. What have you got there?” Zach heard Margie yell from her third-story window.

  It was December and he was dragging an eight-foot Douglas fir down the street. He didn’t think you had to be a genius to figure out what he was doing.