4. Zach
4
ZACH
B lake?
I couldn’t move.
Blake Myer?
Air remained trapped in my lungs as I stared across the bar at her. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it was her .
The one I wasn’t ever supposed to want because she was my best friend’s little sister.
The one I shouldn’t have thought about all these years apart.
The one I wondered about more than I should’ve, curious which lucky bastard got the privilege of being hers.
Blake was off-limits. She always had been, but no matter how long ago Kevin’s death was, I would take the memories of our one night to the grave.
It was her freckled face that I saw in my mind’s eye on lonely nights in the barracks. It was her long, wavy hair I wanted to feel so soft in my grip again. And it was her beguiling green eyes I wanted to stare into until I felt that drowning sensation of potent attraction.
Time stopped still when she gazed at me, and running into her here showed that the phenomenon held true.
Her lips parted in a perfect O of shock as she stared at me, rendered just as speechless as I was. She skidded to a clumsy stop, and as she twisted her shoulders to brace the tray she carried, she lost her momentum.
Chaos ensued. The silver service flew up into the air, sending dishes and cutlery scattering through the air.
“Blake—” I stepped forward with the whisper of alarm, but too many people stood between us. Partiers here to celebrate Coach Parker. Other catering staff my grandma employed. Despite the commotion and loud clatter of noise as the plates fell and crashed to the floor, an abundance of help rushed forward.
“Blake! Oh, no!” A catering staff member hurried to her first, helping her to sit upright. With her crouching over and my grandma jogging up close with a broom and dustpan she’d grabbed from behind the bar, I had no chance to reach her.
I furrowed my brow, tucking back against the wall as she was surrounded. When I first thought about returning to town for the holidays, I didn’t incorporate any planning where she was concerned. Blake wasn’t supposed to be here. She'd never intended to stay in Vernford. The last time I saw her, the night after Kevin’s funeral when we sought comfort in each other through the grief, she’d told me about her goals. To move, to own a restaurant. To begin a cooking channel. To get out of the small town we’d both grown up in.
How is she still here?
Why?
For how long?
I raked my hand through my hair, confused at how I couldn’t know that Blake still lived in Vernford. More than that, how she worked for my grandma! Then again, our texts and calls were infrequent and brief. And Grandma Jenny never talked about her staff, not to the point that she’d be able to reveal she employed my best friend’s little sister, the one-night stand that never should’ve happened.
I didn’t regret that we shared that night, but in hindsight, which hit me the day after I left following Kevin’s funeral, I knew that grief was no excuse to sleep with my best friend’s sister.
“She sure grew up into one fine piece of ass…” a former classmate said. He elbowed my side as Blake got to her feet and slipped into the kitchen at the back. She moved too quickly, helped along by the younger caterer, for me to approach.
I frowned at him, not liking the sleazy smile he wore as he tracked her progress. I might have just gotten home, and I had been gone for many years, but I’d be damned if someone called Blake Myer a piece of ass.
“She—”
“But you and Kevin, man,” he said as I turned to give him my opinion about talking about Blake like that. “The best quarterback and wide receiver Vernford High ever had.”
He patted my back and slid back into the crowd, leaving me in the back near the shadows as I preferred. I’d left my antisocial tendencies long enough to come to this party. Staying in that big, empty house, surrounded by quiet, gnawed on my frayed nerves. When Grandma Jenny texted, I gave in to stop by here.
Grandma: I told Coach Parker that you’re home. He’d love to see his “favorite” player again.
I wasn’t sure if I qualified as his favorite. I was one among many quarterbacks over Coach Parker’s forty-year-long career. But I caved, thinking I’d stay only long enough to say hello and congrats to the old man.
I hadn’t counted on encountering Blake, though.
Before I lost the courage to subject myself to the people gathered here, all in high spirits and a good mood, I had to check on her. She’d fallen, and I had to make sure she wasn’t as messed up from seeing me as I was from spotting her. Awkwardness was due, but I couldn’t surrender to the cloying claustrophobia of being in a public setting for much longer.
Weaving through the people near the back of the bar, I aimed for the door she had escaped through. Standing around out here would only leave me susceptible to the standard platitudes of thanks for your service or Zach, glad to see you home . Checking on the one woman who’d never left my mind sounded like a better use of my time.
I pushed the door open, finding her just ahead. Swatting off bits of food that had fallen on her white blouse, she hung her head low and surveyed the damage.
“Unbelievable. Zach freaking West,” she mumbled. “Of all people…”
I felt the corner of my mouth tip up at her grumbling, entertained that we were in sync about the surprise. Before she’d look up to face me, I took the moment to really look her over. Tight braids pulled her long raven locks back, but it was her. Curvy, short, and damned sexy. If she lifted her face to peer at me, I bet those wide, green eyes would be just as beguiling as they were six years ago when I last saw her. They wouldn’t swim with tears. She wouldn’t be stricken with grief that cut at my heart.
As she jerked her head up, I saw her narrow her emerald eyes with another hit of surprise. A blush stole over her cheeks, and I wondered just how far that flush would spread. And if her smooth skin would still taste as sweet and delicate as I recalled.
“Blake.”
Her throat tightened as she forced a swallow. “Zach. Hi.” She flicked an errant strand of her black hair back, but with the gesture, a glob of food flew into the air.
“Hi.” I couldn’t stop staring, taking in every detail of this sweet woman. I tried to reconcile the new things I noticed now with the version I’d memorized from years ago. With each attempt at reminding myself that she was really here, in the flesh, at this moment, I failed to let that reality sink in.
“I didn’t know…” She shook her head, falling prey to getting sucked into this bubble of space that seemed only big enough for the two of us. Nothing else reached her. The loudness of the kitchen, the chatter of the party outside the swinging door. It all faded to my ears, and as she gazed at me, stuck on the sight of me, she demonstrated how the world fell to the side when we were within each other’s reach.
“I, um, I didn’t know you were coming back.”
I nodded, shoving my hands into my pockets. Nerves swirled in my gut, and this racing tempo of my heart bewildered me. Adrenaline was a familiar foe. I’d faced plenty of tense and dangerous situations in my life. I had survived treacherous days in combat. I’d endured countless tests to my stamina in my years in the military.
Facing Blake was another test altogether. Nothing in my life had ever prepared me for staring into the soulful eyes of the woman I’d told myself I couldn’t ever have. Kevin wouldn’t have approved—but he wasn’t here anymore. My need to be in the military kept me from any type of a long-term commitment with women—but I was no longer welcome in the military. All the miles of distance that separated me from Blake in Vernford held no significance. I had nowhere else to go, no place else to call home.
As unsettling as it was to feel lost and without a purpose, just existing without the sense of adventure of who I could be after my military career was over, sinking in the pull of Blake’s vulnerable gaze was more of a threat. The ground felt unsteady. My head swam. Dizziness cloaked me as I tried to accept that fate had thrust me into the same time and space as Blake’s. That somehow, regardless of the gap that parted us in life, we’d been thrust into this room, sharing the same air and locked in an identical lure of taking each other in.
“Yeah.” I licked my lips and rubbed the back of my neck. Discomfort snaked through me, but it wasn’t the familiar ache of muscular tension near the site of my surgeries. It was…
Fuck, this is terrible.
I had no clue what to say past hello. I wasn’t equipped with an explanation for why I was here now, and if I had to give anyone a heads up, I wouldn’t have thought of telling her. She wasn’t supposed to be here either, gone for bigger dreams outside this town.
I had nothing ready to say. No apologies for never contacting her when I couldn’t get her out of my mind. No checking in to see how she was doing or where she was. Nothing. We’d never been close, thanks to Kevin warning me that I couldn’t ever hook up with his baby sister, but still, after he’d died, it wouldn’t have killed me to make sure she was doing all right. I could’ve reached out after we fucked away our grief the night of his funeral.
“I, um…” She pointed at the tray that she’d set down. Just as impacted by the awkwardness hanging so heavily in the air between us, she reacted with a stiff retreat. “I should get back to cleaning that mess up…”
“Okay. Right.” I took one step back, then another. No farewell came to me. Not a single word. I was still stupefied and at a loss for being in her presence again. When my back touched the swinging door, easing it in the direction of the party, I exhaled a long breath and spun to get the hell out of there.
I didn’t get far. Escape was on my mind. I’d overstayed my stay, subjecting myself to too much company. I needed more space and time to decompress after seeing the last woman I’d held close.
Just… say something! More than a fucking hello. I stopped, shaking my head to turn back and power through this awkward tension. I hadn’t checked on her from that fall. I needed to make the most of this moment of seeing her again. I refused to get this tongue-tied and be a damn coward.
But as I pivoted, head down and frustrated with myself, I ran into an obstacle.
“Zach!” Reagan Francis lifted her arms in something that looked like a cheerleading pose she’d perfected years ago. It ended up as a segue into a hug as she lunged at me and wrapped me into an embrace. Stuck in her clutches, I was cut off from doubling back to speak with Blake again.
Shit. She was the last person I wanted to see.
“It is you, Zach! Oh, my God!” She squeezed me in a chokehold before rearing back to grin at me. “I thought I saw your face!” Giggling, reaching up to smooth her hand over my beard, she leaned in too close again. “I can’t believe you’re home!”
“Yeah.” I set her back, keeping her at arm’s length. “Me neither.”
How ironic. The last time I’d seen Reagan was at Kevin’s funeral six years ago—the same time I’d last seen Blake. But the surprise at reuniting with Vernford’s former cheerleading prom queen paled to the shock to the system that I experienced at spotting Blake again.
The one I was never supposed to want or miss.
Then or now.