When he finally looked over at me, there was coldness in his eyes, but it didn’t seem to be completely directed at me. “I never asked you to change who you are,” he said softly, and he looked incredibly hurt that I’d assumed that.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the guilt I felt for judging him and assuming he wanted me to change for him washed over me like a tidal wave. Nothing he’d done since I’d met him had given me any reason to believe he didn’t like me just as I was, so why was I being overly sensitive? I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question.
“I know you didn’t,” I said, looking down, the guilt eating away at me.
“And just because I own a Harley, have a few tattoos and one piercing, doesn’t mean I’m a ‘bad boy’,” he said, his eyes ablaze with conviction. “So if you figured you might go slumming this summer in an effort to try something new and reinvent yourself, I’m not your guy.”
My mouth dropped open. “No, Zack,” I said, shaking my head. “That wasn’t my intention. I never thought that.”
Zack didn’t respond to me at first, and I was afraid I’d really pissed him off. His jaw was set and his gaze was fixed on the rocks we’d climbed over to get to his spot. I wondered how much he wanted to get up and leave in that moment, and I really hoped he wouldn’t.
“Just so you know,” he said calmly, and it seemed like he was fighting to keep his emotions in check, “I haven’t been that kind of guy – a ‘bad boy’ as you put it – for a long time, and if you’d been paying attention tonight, you’d know that I was polite and cordial to those girls at the bar, but not once did I engage in any type of reciprocated flirtation. As you demanded, my mind was in one place, and a much as I appreciated what you were wearing, I would have been fine if you’d had on jeans and flip-flops.”
“I know, Zack. I’m sorry,” I said, after a few beats, looking over at him in an effort to gauge how mad he was.
“I like you, Emily,” he said, catching my gaze, the intensity in his eyes apparent. “I like you for you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“I know,” I said, looking down again as a new wave of guilt washed over me.
He leaned over and pulled me against him, taking me by surprise as his lips, hungry for mine, kissed me with more intensity than I’d ever felt from him. It was as if he was pouring all of his emotions into that moment and that kiss in an effort to show me exactly how he felt.
“Just do me a favor,” he said when he broke the kiss, his gaze burning a hole through me. “Don’t lose sight of who you are. Don’t do it.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure what he was getting at. His words were fierce and determined, and I didn’t know what was fueling them.
He shook his head a few times, as if frustrated with my level of comprehension. “Emily, I know you’re dealing with a lot and trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be, but just know that there’s nothing wrong with being a good person and doing the right things in life. Just from getting to know you these past few weeks, I can tell you that I like the person you are when you’re vulnerable and honest and not trying to force yourself into some mold. That girl is sweet and kind, and she’s a ‘good girl’. And I like her because of that.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me.
“No. Just hear me out. I get that you feel like you were stunted somehow, and you have to make up for all the times when you played it safe in life, and that’s okay, but don’t lose sight of who you truly are while you’re doing that.”
I shook my head. “Who I was, was boring and cautious and scared. I don’t want to be that person again. I want to be fun and take risks and not care so much. I want to be the girl I was tonight, who didn’t care what people thought about her, who had confidence and wasn’t constantly weighing the outcome of every decision she made. I was trying to be the girl you told me I should be.”
Zack leaned his head back against the rocks frustration. “The girl you were tonight was fun and brazen and sexy as hell, but it pisses me off that you were trying so hard to be her because you thought that’s what I wanted.”
“So you didn’t like it?” I questioned, confused and irritated by his conflicting statements.
“No, I loved it, because I thought it was an act. It was dress up. It was you having fun and letting go. If I thought for one second that you were doing it because you felt you had to change for me, I would have driven you straight home to change your clothes.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “I don’t know what you want from me!”
“I want you to be who you want to be. Stop trying so hard and just be happy! If you want to drink, drink, if you don’t, don’t. If you want to hole up in your room and read a book instead of going to a party, then own it. Have the confidence to be who you are, and allow others the courtesy of being who they are, without judgment. I think you’ll find that you’re a lot happier when you do that, but if you want to make your life more interesting, then do the right things to be more interesting. Because at the end of the day, you can’t change who you’ve been for twenty-one years overnight. And if you go to such extremes to try to do that, you’ll wake up one day even more lost that you were to begin with, and that’s not a fun place to be.”
He took a deep breath and looked at me, searching my eyes to see if I’d pulled anything away from his diatribe. I fingered his hair that was falling over his forehead. Looking down at me, his hair falling around his face, he looked so angelic. I touched his full lips, running my finger over them, tracing their perfection.
“Okay,” I said, nodding my head a few times.
It was like his words had hit me over the head, and I saw exactly what he was talking about. I’d been pushing and pulling myself in so many directions in an effort to find the right one that I was just walking in circles, never really reaching a destination. I was trying to be who I thought Chase thought I should be and Rachel and Molly and Zack, and it was exactly what I’d done my entire life, but what I should have realized was that everyone I was trying to emulate was an individual in their own right and couldn’t be duplicated. What I should have been doing was carving out who I wanted to be and what made me an individual.
Zack kissed me once, his lips pressing against mine, and then he smiled. It was as if he’d seen the lightbulb go off above my head. When he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against mine for a few beats as we both basked in the intimacy in being that close to each other.
“Zack, I don’t want you to think I’m stepping over my bounds here, but you sound like you’re speaking from experience,” I said, biting my lip and appraising him as he pulled away from me.
“I am,” he said. He seemed guarded all of a sudden as he looked up at me through his thick lashes. “I’m not proud of it, but there was a point in my life when I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have done and made some really stupid decisions that almost cost me everything. I realized too late that I was trying to be who I thought I wanted to be, and when I stepped back and looked at my life, I knew that wasn’t who I wanted to be in the long run.”
“Who do you want to be in the long run?” I asked, realizing he’d never really talked about the future. When he’d opened up a few nights earlier, it had all been about the past, and even then it seemed like he’d left out a few key details.
“Someone who my mom can be proud of,” he said simply.
“I think that’s sweet,” I told him.
“It’s the least I can do,” he said softly, his gaze dropping. “I disappointed her a lot, so I’m just glad I get the chance to show her that I really am a good person.”
“Zack, you are a good person,” I insisted, lifting his chin so he was looking at me.
He regarded me carefully, as if weighing how much he wanted to share. “I wasn’t. For a long time, I let a lot of shit go to my head, and I did a lot of things I wish I could take back. I thought I was invincible. Then I found out I wasn’t.”
He leane
d back and raked his hand back through his hair, and I waited for him to continue, hoping he would give me some insight into what he’d done and what had happened, but he didn’t say anything else. I was left to guess what sort of objectionable things he’d took refuge in.
He shook his head. “My mom found out about some of the things I was into, and she was pissed – really pissed, which was surprising, because my mom had always been so cool. She never cared about my bike or my tattoos like my dad did; she just wanted me to be happy. So I figured she’d be cool about the other stuff but she wasn’t. When she found out, she laid into me like she never had before, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was letting her down more. Then she told me her cancer was back.”
He shuddered, as if remembering the conversation.
My jaw dropped as multiple questions fought to come out of my mouth, but I held them in. As much as I felt inclined to ask for details, a part of me almost didn’t want to know, because if I thought about it, I could probably figure it out what exactly he’d been into. And truthfully, if he wasn’t that guy anymore, then I really didn’t need to know.
“That must have been a hard way to find out she was sick again.”
He nodded. “It was, but it also smacked me into reality, and she knew it. I quit everything right then and there – gave it all up. I knew what she was dealing with and what the next few months would hold, and there was no way I was going to add me to her list of things to worry about. She needed to focus on her treatments. She did not need to sit around wondering if one day she was going to get a phone call from a police officer letting her know her son was dead. I couldn’t do that to her.”
My head was spinning. The download of information he’d just given me was overwhelming, and I wasn’t sure how to process it all. Zack was watching me intensely, as if trying to gauge my reaction.
“Are you sure you don’t want to rethink things?” he asked, and I knew he was asking again if I wanted to take a chance on him.
He’d told me how he felt, so I knew he didn’t want me to walk away, but he also knew that with everything he’d just disclosed, walking away might be an appealing option for me. He was giving me an out if I wanted one.
I swallowed and leaned up on my elbows in an effort to get my bearings. He was so different than any other guy I’d ever dated, and I had a feeling he’d never dated someone like me before. He was skeptical, and honestly, he probably expected me to bail after everything he’d told me. So because of that, I wouldn’t do that to him.
“Is it true that you don’t date?” I asked, diverting the conversation.
“I’m here with you,” he said, and I could tell I’d caught him off-guard.
I laughed, but it came out a little forced. “If this is your definition of a date, then I feel sorry for the girls you go out with.”
“Well what would you call this then?” he asked, and his mouth curved up into his trademark smirk.
Despondent, sullen Zack disappeared and was replaced by the playful guy I’d been with most of the night. He was a master at flipping the switch on his emotions.
“I would call this having fun,” I said, teasingly. “Or at the very least, friends with benefits, but this is definitely not a date.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said as he leaned forward and kissed me, no doubt trying to distract me from my train of thought.
“So is this what you do with girls?” I asked, giving in to his kisses, but using my tremendous multi-tasking skills to get him to answer my original question.
“Not really,” he said, as he kissed his way to my ear. “What’s with the third degree?”
He whispered that before he nibbled on my ear, and I let my head drop back as remembered feelings from our time in the ocean hit me once again.
“Daphne told me I shouldn’t waste my time with you because you don’t date,” I said, just a little breathlessly.
“Oh yeah? Well Daphne needs to mind her own business,” he said, as he tugged at my towel. I let it fall to my waist as his lips moved lower over my breasts.
“I think she likes you,” I told him, my breath becoming shallower with each passing moment.
“I think I like you,” he said, looking up at me with those thick-lashed light brown eyes that made me lose my focus when I stared directly into them.
“Well, in that case, carry on,” I said, giving in to him once and for all, my burning questions forgotten.
Chapter Nineteen
That Friday, after doing everything I could to talk him into it, Zack invited me see him play his regular gig at Phil’s. I could tell he was nervous with me in the audience, but he tried to hide it as he sat me at a table right up front with a bucket of Coronas. After setting up his equipment, he had a few minutes before he had to go on, so he sat with me and had a few beers to calm his nerves.
He was in a good mood that night and had been for the past few days. We hadn’t talked about our night on the beach and the intense conversation we’d had, but I hadn’t forgotten any of what he’d said. I knew he had a dark past, but I also knew he was trying his hardest to keep it in the past. So I did what I could to bare that in mind and not dwell on the things about him that I couldn’t change.
“Do you like living here?” I asked him as I wedged a lime into my beer, put my thumb over the top and tipped it upside down.
He took a long swig of his beer, and I noticed he’d taken the ring out of his eyebrow again. I could guess why, looking around at the patrons of the bar who were waiting anxiously for him to play.
“I live at the beach,” he said, pulling my focus back to him “What’s not to like.”
It was obvious he was talking a good game. I could tell he was holding back, but I didn’t want to press the issue. Living on the island was a blessing and a curse for him, and I wondered how alone he felt when the place wasn’t bustling with the summer crowds and his family wasn’t visiting.
“Do you miss your friends?”
He shrugged, fingering the straw cowboy hat he’d tossed on the table in front of him. “I make it back to Durham from time to time, but I lost touch with a lot of people when I left. I mainly just hang out at Leo’s bar when I go back there now. That way I get to see some of my old friends when they come in.”
“Leo owns a bar?”
Zack nodded. “Yeah, it’s called Devil’s Hangout. Have you been?”
I shook my head. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever been there before.
“It’s a cool place. They have live music a lot. You should check it out when you’re back at school. Leo will give you free drinks,” he said, grinning widely at me.
“Do you ever play there when you visit?” I asked, coyly.
He smiled sheepishly at me. “I’ve been known to play there before. It might have even been where I first played live. I don’t know.”
God, he was cute when was being self-conscious. He rarely showed that side of himself, but when he did, it was incredibly endearing, and I just wanted to pinch his cheeks.
“Well, maybe I’ll go – if you’re playing that is.”
He started to stand up. “You might want to hold that thought until you’ve seen me play live,” he said, grinning at me as he placed the cowboy hat on his head. If it was possible, he looked even sexier than usual with his dimples popping.
Zack took his seat on the stool he’d set up behind the microphone, and all around us conversations stopped.
“Hey ya’ll. Welcome to Phil’s Tavern. I’m Zack Easton, and unfortunately for you, I’m the entertainment for the night.” That garnered a few chuckles from the audience and a few jabs I could tell were from other locals. I noticed he’d dialed up his accent just a bit. I was pretty sure I’d never heard him say ya’ll before. “I will be taking requests, and I’m not bashful about taking tips – especially if your tip is that I need to keep my day job, because you’re probably right.”
He snuck a glance at me, and I just
shook my head and grinned. He was too much.
“Freebird!” someone yelled from the audience.
“Stairway,” someone else yelled out.
“Sorry Mike, no Stairway tonight. And no Larry, I’m not playing Freebird. I told you that was a onetime deal on your birthday when I played it last month. You don’t tip well enough for me to do it again.”
From the audience, Larry and Mike laughed.
“We will, however, do a little bit later on in the night when you’re all nice and drunk that I like to call, ‘Stump the Singer’. That’s where I’ll challenge anyone in the audience to find a song I don’t know. If I don’t know it, well then you can pick any song you choose for me to sing, and yes, you can look me up on YouTube to see past videos where I delighted audiences with I’m a Little Teapot, complete with hand gestures, and Ice Ice Baby. However, I’ve been playing at this bar for over a year, and it’s only happened twice, so don’t get too excited.
I laughed out loud. Zack was hilarious. He was truly in his element, and so far gone was the sad guy who was afraid for his mom and haunted by a past he couldn’t change. He was completely at home on stage.
“You guys ready?” he asked, and the audience cheered in response. “Alright, let’s do this.”
Zack launched into a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival that the crowd loved, before playing other crowd favorites from bands like The Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, and Dire Straits. He played for an hour, keeping the crowd engaged the whole time, and when he announced he was going to take a short break, he was met with several ‘boos’. They loved him.
“No worries. I’ll be back, and just to be sure ya’ll have fun tonight, we’ll put out the request pail. Feel free to drop in any songs you’d like me to play, and I’m happy to do ‘em.”
With that he set his guitar down, set his hat on his stool, shook out his hair, and came back to my table. He leaned down to give me a deep kiss, earning several cheers from people who were nearby.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he said, breathlessly before settling into the seat across from me. I noticed his accent had returned to the light southern lilt he usually spoke with.
Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns) Page 21
