“Freaked out about what, though?” She eyed me cautiously.
“Just… everything. And I was tired of everyone keeping things from me. Look, whatever. I’m getting past it. But to you, I’m really sorry.”
“Will you tell me what happened eventually?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t about to make promises I didn’t know I could keep. “Maybe. But I do promise not to treat you like that again.”
“Apology accepted.” She hugged me tightly before we returned to the rest of the group.
Her boyfriend, Ian, was funny and smart and seemed like an overall decent guy. And even though he came from a more affluent part of town, he didn’t act like he was better than us. He fit.
I hoped that he and Maddie would last because I thought he’d be good to her.
Rhian and Porter bantered back and forth. He’d make a comment, she’d have a comeback. Zac… he pretty much became my shadow. He’d casually drop an arm over my shoulder to whisper something in my ear that could have been said out loud but he’d wanted it just between us.
I knew. I knew that the answers to all those questions about how we’d work didn’t matter. I wanted this life. I wanted him. I just needed to put a few things in order to make that happen. But I’d make it happen even if it meant sacrifices.
The first thing I did Monday morning was put in a call to the East Branch board of education. For a couple of reasons. I wanted to see if they had openings for student teaching second semester. Yes, I’d have to work it with school since they did the placement but I thought that would work out. Secondly, I wanted to see what the job outlook was. The superintendent seemed surprised by my requests.
She was new, she said, and was trying to make big changes in her second year with East Branch. Said she’d love to have me. That anyone who wanted to come here even with other, perhaps flashier, prospects was someone that East Branch wanted.
Since my advisor worked the summer sessions, I sent off an email explaining my requests. I wasn’t slated to do the student teaching until second semester, right before graduation, but still, I’d be back in Each Branch.
Much to my surprise, she got right back to me and said it shouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t like East Branch was a hot commodity among the teaching students.
Best of all, Rhian was with me every step of the way.
She understood why I didn’t jump Zac the night before at his house. I wanted to have a plan because once we were back together, being apart was going to be that much harder. However, once I had as much done as I could, we went down to Joe’s, where Zac and Porter would both still be working.
“I could just wait until he gets home,” I said as she pulled her car into the parking lot.
“Uh… no. The guy has been flapping in the wind, Laney. Time to woman up and put him out of his misery. Porter said he’s been worried about you going back to school without things being settled between the two of you.”
“Worried about what?” I let the ‘Porter said’ portion go for now.
“That you’ll leave and never look back.”
“I wouldn’t do that to him.”
“Then make sure he knows it.”
I would. We went through the door but only Porter and Joe were behind the counter. Porter was helping a customer while Joe was just chatting with someone even I recognized as a regular.
“Laney Douglas. I heard you were back in town.” The old guy wrapped me in a big bear hug. He smelled like grease, but he had as long as I’d known him.
“Not for too much longer,” Zac said as he leaned against the door jamb leading to the stock room.
“Well, she’ll just have to come back again soon then.” Joe looked from Zac to me and then back again, then stepped away from me like he knew something was about to go down.
“What’s up?” Zac asked, not coming any closer.
Porter finished up with his customer which only left the regular Joe went back to talking to. But Porter leaned his arms on the counter with Rhian in front of him. He whispered something to her, but she sharply shushed him. Suddenly, I was the best thing on TV.
“Actually, I needed to talk to you,” I told him.
He folded his arms over his chest and waited. But I took as many steps toward him as I could. Until the counter stopped me from going any closer.
“I made some arrangements today. I should be able to do my student teaching here next semester and the superintendent thinks there’ll be an opening for me next fall. Assuming I don’t suck at it, anyway.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, I still have to go back to school, but I’ll be living here second semester. Maybe have to go back once in a while to meet with my advisor. ‘Course, I’ll need to buy a new bed because I don’t have one anymore.” Rhian gave me a hard shove from behind causing me to stumble into the counter. Woops. I’d gotten off-track.
“I thought you weren’t sure you wanted to come back here anymore.”
“I was mad and hurt. I had a lot to take in and I sort of melted down. I’m really sorry about that. But you… ” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a split second, and put the fact that there were four other people in the room out of my mind. “You’re my dream, Zac. And you’ve been my fucking fantasy since I was fourteen years old.” I hadn’t planned on using his words back to him, but they fit. I couldn’t come up with a better way to say it myself.
His face changed from the surprise of me saying I wanted to stay to something else entirely. He came around the counter in two long strides, wrapped his arms around my waist, and lifted me to his height before pulling my face to his.
The kiss began soft and gently with an undercurrent of wanting something more. Until that undercurrent began to surface, and he set me back on the ground.
“I’m taking a break,” he said without looking away from me. He wrapped my hand in his and pulled me through the back of the store until we were out the door and alone. Without a word, his lips descended back onto mine. This time, he devoured me. His tongue reached mine with a groan, his teeth nipped at my bottom lip. When it was time to come up for air, Zac rested his forehead against mine. “I can take the rest of the day off.”
“You don’t need to do that.” I laughed breathlessly.
“I think my body needs me to do it.” He laughed into my neck before dropping a gentle kiss against my collarbone. “For real, though, what does this mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean, but I was hoping we’d be together. Like really together—not seeing other people. Having an insane amount of sex. Maybe some it dirty. The whole thing.”
“Thank fuck.” He sighed in relief. “I fucking love you, Laney. The thought of not being with you… ” He started shaking his head, like he couldn’t bear to finish that sentence.
“You love me?” I smiled up at him. “That works for me because I love you.”
He pulled me up to his height again, holding the back of my head like he thought I might get away. The fact was, I wasn’t going to run again. I was with him right where I wanted to be.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, making it easier for him to hold on. He walked us back until I was against the building for support so his hands could rest at my waist. There he kissed my breath away.
Then as if he suddenly remembered where we were, he pulled back, letting my feet rest back on the ground. My knees were so shaky, I almost fell. It hadn’t been that long since we’d been together yet it felt like a lifetime.
In the end, I talked him into finishing his day and meeting up after. I wanted a little extra time to get ready. We still had a lot to talk about, but I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a lot of talking that night.
We walked slowly back in to where I’d left Rhian. She had this little self-satisfied grin on her face. As if she’d had something to do with Zac’s arm wrapped around my shoulder right then.
“So, I take it we’re all hanging out tonight,” Porter said with th
at same grin.
“Ah, negatory, my friend.” Zac made Porter snort with his answer. I think we all knew what was on his mind.
“Sorry, Zac.” Rhian gave him a cheeky grin, looking anything but sorry. “I have to leave in the morning, so you couldn’t possibly expect me to go my last night here without my best friend.”
“Seriously?” He looked over to me.
“It would be kind of rude,” I said. He groaned and something swelled up inside me. A sort of prideful feeling in my chest that he was desperate to have me alone. “We do have until Friday when Dylan comes over.”
This time, he sighed because he knew I was right.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Two hours later, the four of us were in my living room eating pizza when Rhian suggested we play a little get-to-know-you game. I didn’t want to because that could’ve led to conversations I didn’t want to have in front of Porter and Rhian. But also, there were things in Zac’s history that I didn’t want the details of.
“Come on, Laney. Remember Flip, Sip, or Strip sophomore year?” Rhian asked.
“Nope. No memory.” I remembered perfectly but didn’t really want her to talk about it.
“You have to. You were left in just your—” She finally glanced up to see my bulging eyes and the hard set of Zac’s jaw. Nobody wanted to hear that story. Except maybe Porter. “Or maybe we should just watch a movie.”
“How about you two watch a movie and Laney and I leave?” Zac suggested.
“You know,” Rhian said, shaking her head. “I’m surprised you lasted this long. Get the fuck out of here.”
Zac had me on my feet and half out the door before she finished her sentence. My protests went ignored. I wasn’t protesting going with him. I wanted that. But leaving Rhian with Porter felt wrong even if she was alright with it.
“So she was messing with me?” he asked as he slowed his walk on the way to his house.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Sorry. It was Rhian’s test. If you were willing to give up alone time with me on our first night back together to make us happy, then you’d get her seal of approval.”
“Did I need that?” he asked as he unlocked his front door.
“No.” I laughed. “It makes things easier, though.”
Zac brought me over to the couch, dropped down, then pulled me beside him so that my legs draped across his.
“Being alone with you wasn’t about sex,” he said quietly. One of my eyebrows lifted. “I mean yes, I want you probably more than I did before.”
“How’s that?”
“Now I know what I’m missing.” Men made no sense. “But, honestly, Laney, I want us to talk about things. What I don’t want is you moving here just for me. The whole reason we kept the fact that Maddie was pregnant from you was so that you’d live your dream instead of running back here to help.”
“Did you not hear a word I said at Joe’s? You’re my dream, Zac. Besides, I already told you I wanted to teach somewhere like this even before I came back. That was always the plan.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Zac.” I sighed again, shaking my head. “You’re not getting rid of me now.”
“More like you’re not getting rid of me.”
The talking stopped after that. Instead, we used our mouths to post a claim on each other. His hand slid to my neck, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss, but then he quickly pulled away. A squeak of protest escaped my lips.
“I just want to get you to my bed,” he whispered against my cheek before pulling me off the couch and leading me to his room.
Zac’s room was almost the same as it had been when were teenagers. He wasn’t the guy to have trophies’ covering every inch of space or memorabilia from his favorite sports team. It had been minimal then and it was minimal now. Although I did spot something new on his dresser.
“When did you put this in a frame?” I asked, grabbing the picture of him and me at the pond the summer before I moved. The infamous picture he’d told me about. I thought he’d been messing with me that he still had it. Or that he’d ever actually used it the way he’d said. But there it was.
“Last week.” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, swept my hair to the side, and began trailing kisses up and down my neck. Man, he was good at making me melt. “I thought that when you left this time, I might never see you again. You were so angry. I needed to see you and this was what I had.”
“We could update it, you know.”
“Oh, we will. Need some new spank bank material.”
“Why?” I asked. “When I’m right here.”
Zac took the frame from my hands and dropped it back on the dresser before meeting his lips with mine. There was nothing soft about this kiss. His hands fisted in my hair as he moved us backward until my legs hit the bed.
I fell onto the mattress, then crab-crawled so that I could lie on the pillows. He followed, stalking me like I was the only thing he knew existed in the world. His hands pushed the hem of my shirt up until I lifted my arms so he could remove it completely. A quick tug on the back of his and that was gone, too.
We removed all of our clothes one by one, slowly, so his lips could savor any newly-exposed skin and my hands could memorize every single twist and turn of his toned body. When he finally sunk into me, we both released a sigh of relief. He moved against me and I tried to keep up. His hands seemed to be everywhere all at once until my entire world exploded against him. His followed soon after.
Zac wrapped me in his strong arms and I’d never felt safer in my life.
Chapter Thirty
When I entered my house the next morning, all I could do was pray that I wouldn’t be greeted by Porter’s naked ass on my couch. Since the beds were gone and I was buying a new one, the only place sex could happen for them was the couch or Rhian’s air mattress. Both of which were in my living room.
Thankfully, my retinas were spared the burning and all I found was Rhian curled up under a blanket. She hadn’t gotten the air mattress out probably because she knew I wouldn’t be coming home until morning.
“Hey, sleepyhead, wake up,” I said, giving her a push with my foot. Rhian had always been a light sleeper and she opened her eyes as soon as I touched her. She yawned and stretched before sitting up.
“Walk of shame?” she said sleepily. “I’m shocked.”
“No, you’re not.” I laughed. It wasn’t the first time I’d spent the night with a guy. It wasn’t the first I’d spent with Zac. “Get up. We’re going out for breakfast.”
“I don’t want to be a third wheel. I have to get moving anyway.”
“You’re not a third wheel. You’re a fourth. Porter is going, too,” I explained. She let herself take a moment for a huge stretch but then got up and grabbed her overnight bag. “Hey, did anything happen on that couch that would cause me to have to burn it or have an exorcism or anything?” I asked.
“Ha ha. No. We talked for a little while then he went home,” she said. “Porter’s a flirt but remember, I don’t hookup with friends.”
“Sure. Of course I remember,” I said, not fully believing that she’d stand by the rule. “They’re going into work late, so get your butt moving.”
In rare Rhian fashion, she only took ten minutes to get ready but still emerged from the bathroom looking like she’d spent hours carefully choosing her clothes and doing her hair. Sometimes I hated her.
Rhian and I met Porter and Zac at the little neighborhood family restaurant named Big Daddy’s. We placed our food order along with our drink order because we were low on time. Zac folded my hand into his under the table, threading our fingers together.
“So, a week until you leave, Laney?” Porter asked.
“About that,” I told him. It was a week and a half but he was close enough. “Back to the grind.”
“Three hours away?” He smirked.
I narrowed my eyes at him. I loved the guy, but he could stir up trouble like nobody I’d ever seen.
; “Only three hours, Porter.” I threw my spoon, hitting him right in the forehead. He groaned and rubbed the injured area. When he moved his hand there was a nice red spot. I hoped it would bruise.
“What’s your point?” Zac sighed gruffly. He knew Porter even better than I did, but everyone knew he had something on his mind.
“Just wondering how often she’s going to come back to visit. I mean if I’m the one who’s going to have to pick your sorry ass up off the floor, then I think I should know.” His words were followed by a grunt as Zac kicked him in the shin under the table. “I meant listen to him wax poetic and shit.”
“Don’t worry about it, Porter,” I told him. “He can call me whenever he feels lonely and I’ll take care of him.”
“Or there’s always the bikini picture.” Rhian giggled through her contribution to the conversation.
“You told her about that?” Zac grimaced.
“She’s my best friend. I tell her everything. But it’s cute. Don’t be embarrassed.”
“Yeah, if you only knew some of Laney’s most embarrassing—” That sentence could not be finished.
“Next topic,” I said.
Thankfully, the waitress was an added interruption, then everyone focused on their food.
Except Zac. He leaned into my ear so no one else would hear him.
“Are you going to finish that sentence for me?”
“No,” I said loudly. Rolling my eyes, I added, “Rhian was just kidding anyway.”
“You know I have a solution to your little problem of living apart if you’d care to listen,” Rhian said with a mouthful of pancake.
“We’re all ears.”
“Well, why don’t you just move in with me?” she asked. “You won’t have to deal with the dorm. You’ll have that sweet dorm money to come home on Thursday mornings, then come back to school Sunday night. You only have classes Monday thru Wednesday and my apartment is already paid for. It’s perfect.” She took another bite of pancake. “Unless of course, pretty boy over here doesn’t let you study when you’re around him. Then you’d have to stay at school longer.”
Last Good Thing (The Fallout Series Book 1) Page 19
