Cocky Choices: Zoe Cocker (Cocker Brothers #30)

9. Zoe

NINE

Zoe

I step into my small studio apartment and hang my keys on an iron hook by the door, faint scent of pumpkin-vanilla lingering in the air from the candle I blew out before leaving. The single room is tidy and overflowing with plants, a mixture of pots on surfaces, hanging from hooks, pinned and traveling up walls. Soon they’ll all be transported to…where?

Where will we live?

Walking to my kitchen counter to set Ralphie’s carrier down — I leave the backpack at my shop for unexpected errand runs — I glance around thinking of the decision I’ve just made. I’m not going to be here much longer.

Ralphie grumbles, “Meow,” as I unzip the carrier and twist my body to allow him to jump to the floor without using my legs like a fireman’s pole again. He lands with grace and heads over to his favorite windowsill to leap upon where he can watch the world fly by outside.

Rubbing one of the scratches he embedded into my thigh, I sigh and lift his carrier to be put away underneath a small accent table by my front door. As I cross to it, photographs magnetically attached to the refrigerator catch my attention, side-tracking me. So many wonderful memories I gaze at while holding the forgotten carrier. My brothers, Nicholas, Wyatt and Nathan and I at Six Flags amusement park, screaming on the roller coaster. Dad and Mom with their arms around me at my high school graduation, all three of my brothers photo-bombing with goofy, eyes-crossed faces that made me have to get this print made. Mom and Dad wanted to take the picture without my brothers, showing me special attention since it was my celebration. But they wouldn’t let the prank potential go!

My gaze lands on the string of photo-booth pictures of me and Ryder, taken at the mall in Buckhead, Atlanta — four adorable images of us goofing around. A sinking feeling hits my gut as I think of all of the years I spent wishing we were more than friends. It felt like we got close to crossing the line, but then we never did.

I smile at the collection of photographs of me and my cousins, almost all taken at House Three — what Ryder nicknamed the apartment that Lexi, Samantha, and I shared. My favorite of them is this picture of Lexi holding up the cake she burnt with Sam and I holding each a charcoaled piece of it, pretending we’re about to eat them. And Sally Ashes, the other cat we shared. I took Ralphie, who was always in my room there, anyway. Sam got Sally, but shares her with Lexi whenever the need for furry lovin’s is required. The only one of us not taken at House Three is from one of our infamous Cocker Family BBQ’s where the whole family is present, milling about in the background while Lexi, Samantha, and I pose for the shot with huge smiles on our faces.

Last, my gaze falls upon a photograph of me and my team taken at Florist Shop, about two weeks after I hired Tom to replace a delivery guy who’d moved back to Wisconsin. The smiling faces of Perry and Amelia hold my attention for a split second until Tom arrests my focus and I lean in to admire his lopsided smile. He’s got his arm around me in this shot, the other one holding up a Peace sign, eyes warm and genuine, his smile easy and real.

“I almost asked you out today, Tom. What would have happened if you’d have said yes before I got that phone call? Would I have turned down the proposal?” Tom’s smile remains unwavering, the photo a snapshot of the past without indication of anything but a memory. “Guess I’ll never know,” I whisper, straightening up to say, “My favorite people in the world, you’re all here on my refrigerator. I’ve gathered you all here to tell you something amazing. I just got engaged!” Silence. My gaze jumps from picture to picture, loved one to loved one, until under my breath, I sigh, “How will I tell you about this? What will you all think about what I’ve agreed to?”

Filling up my watering can I mutter, “Hi Mom and Dad! I’m engaged. No, you’ve never met him. I just met him myself,” and head over to water a Spider Plant, Boston Fern, pausing when I get to the Mother-In-Law’s Tongue, its name inspiring me to add, “I don’t know what his parents are like. I haven’t had a chance to meet them yet. Barely met him! Popular, I’m guessing? Five-hundred guests for a retirement dinner isn’t something to sneeze at.” One after the other, all of my plants get some love while I continue on, “Where did that saying come from, I wonder. Something to sneeze at. Is it so good that it makes you sneeze? Odd.” Refilling and heading to my vines I lift an eyebrow. “Caleb Astor III. His name is like something from a fairytale. I guess that will be my name soon, too. Hello Mr. Rubber Tree, nice to meet you. My name is Zoe Bennet.” I jolt, spilling water on the floor as I cry out, “I mean, Astor! Zoe Astor !”

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I adjust my shocked focus away from my flub to an incoming text from Lexi.

Dinner at The Vortex? House Three reunited! No husbands!

It would normally make me smile that they made time for just me, probably because last they saw me I was crushed by Ryder’s girlfriend acquisition. But there can be no smile tonight, not with this tremendously earth-shattering news hovering and untold!

I type a quick reply.

I’ll be there in twenty.

How am I going to do this? Should I wait until after Mom and Dad to tell them? “Oh Ralphie, what should I do? This is such a huge reveal! Do you even know what ‘reveal’ means? It’s a TA-DA! Surprise! I just got engaged!” He glances over from the windowsill, eyelids hooded like You’re on your own, Zoe. I mutter, “Thanks,” heading for my closet. “What do I wear on a special night like this?”

After a quick change into something nice but not too nice that it gives my secret away before I’m ready to — a soft blue dress that hugs my body and flows to the ground — I grab my bag and head out, the weight of my news heavy in my heart.

The walk to The Vortex is short. Very short. Which I love and will miss. But while I’d normally take a moment to admire tables displaying handmade jewelry, graphic T-shirts, dream-catchers, and various other offerings by artists who stand by in hopes of a sale, I’m far too wound up to tonight.

As I turn the corner, the skull-head comes into view, an entrance I’ve walked through too many times to count, but this time is different. I’m not single Zoe anymore. I have a fiancé. A future husband. Someone who I’ll have to text when I’m on my way home. One who doesn’t use meow as his only means of communicating verbally.

One hopes.

Smiling at my inner joke I hold my head high and stroll inside, searching the bar on the right, first. They’re not there. With my heart thumping in suspense, I look left into the dining area and see Lexi waving at me, hair worn in its natural curly state which she never used to do before she met her husband. “Zoe! Over here!”

Samantha is smiling and waving in the table beside her, dead-center of the room, her blonde hair worn free and long down her back. I notice they’re both dressed more casually than I am, in jeans and halters, jackets behind them over their chairs.

“Zoe! You’re early. Good, I’m starving!” Samantha exclaims, rising to pull me into a tight embrace.

I hug Lexi next, just as tightly, before I sit down and attempt to get comfortable while she says, “You won’t believe the things we saw today. Man I love our city! Atlanta! Nothing like it. There was this street performer who was juggling fire!”

Samantha interjects, brown eyes wide with excitement, “And then he dropped one into his suitcase. Poof! flames!”

Lexi grins, “He had a fire extinguisher.”

I laugh, and the tension in my shoulders eases as they recount their adventures. Since I’m normally the quiet one, it’s perfectly normal for them to dominate the conversation and I never mind letting them. I enjoy listening. We devour burgers, fries and milkshakes, sharing two sides of plantains as they talk about the trendy cafes, art installations in the park, and quirky shops they stumbled upon, reaching past the two days since I’ve seen them last into all they’ve seen over the previous month, each story traveling to another naturally. Their enthusiasm is infectious, but nothing they can say tonight will make me, even for a moment, forget the news I’m not sure if I should share.

“Do you guys want dessert?”

Lexi answers for all of us, “Not tonight, thanks, MaryBeth.”

“Come on…deep fried cheesecake?” our favorite server presses with a devilish smile.

Slurping the last of a dreamy chocolate milkshake — I know it’s dreamy because I ordered one, too — Lexi looks up from under ginger eyebrows. “These are our dessert. Everything in moderation, right?”

MaryBeth shrugs, “I’ll get the check,” and heads off, leaving Samantha to switch the attention to me. “So, Zoe, what’s happened in your world since we saw you last? You’ve barely said a word.”

“I’ve just been listening to you guys,” I smile, shifting my weight.

Lexi rolls her eyes. “Ugh, I hogged the conversation again, didn’t I? I’m trying to get better about that.” She reaches over, picks up a fry, thinks better of it and drops it back onto the nearly empty plate. “So what has been happening in your world?”

I bite my lip. “Not much.”

They stare at me, and Samantha cocks her head. “Why don’t I believe you?”

Because the opposite is true! But I feel like I should tell my parents first. My brothers, I’m not excited about telling. I definitely want Sam and Lexi to know before them. I’ll need backup! But Mom and Dad? They should hear it from me first.

Lexi leans in. “What’s up, Zoe.”

“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

“Is this about Ryder?”

“No!” I laugh, waving that idea away. “I’ve let that go.” Under my breath I add, “In a big way.”

The more aggressive of the two by far, Lexi smacks the table and demands, “How?”

Samantha is more gentle. “Zoe, we can tell something’s happened. You look…weird.”

“I am weird.”

“This is a different kind of weird.”

Lexi grabs the focus back to her. “Zoe Cocker! Did you do what I did?!”

They look at me as all three of us remember the night she met her husband and how crazily that all went down. “No, I definitely did not do what you did. But I did something big!”

“What?! What did you do?!” People have turned their heads to look at us, but Lexi hasn’t noticed. She’s even forgotten we’re in public because her volume doesn’t lower in the slightest as she exclaims, “Are you no longer a virgin?!”

I jump out of my seat and race from the restaurant, pushing through a group of ten customers who are waiting to be seated, “Let me out!” before I explode through the entrance’s skull-head door.