11. Blake
11
BLAKE
T onight’s party took longer than I thought it would. Amanda said it was fine, though. George was asleep, as I figured he would be, and she was hooked on finishing a movie, anyway. Still, I felt so bad for her. She should have a chance to go out and have fun like any other ordinary teenager, but she never wanted to let me or George down.
I yawned as I bundled up the last of the things in the van for Jenny to drive back to the kitchen. She yawned, too, pointing at the stack of containers. “Was that the last of them?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good. Then it’ll all fit in this van. You can head home.” She patted then rubbed my back. “Thanks for toughing it out all night.”
“I was just thinking that about Amanda, watching George.”
She grinned. “Nah, she loves that boy.”
Maybe because… he’s her nephew? I swallowed down the burn of that lie I kept hidden.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a fuller staff next time.”
I sure hoped so. Tiffany and Leo were out sick. Maggie, too. It was hard pulling off a party of this size, but with a short staff, it was even harder.
I watched Jenny pull out of the parking lot, then I went back into the venue hall to do one last, final double-check that we hadn’t forgotten anything. Something nagged me, like I was forgetting something, but I didn’t see anything anywhere. I headed out to the van, praying the power steering would cooperate. One turn of the key proved that it wouldn’t. Hell, the whole engine didn’t want to play along.
“Oh, come on…” I turned the key over and over again, cringing when the engine wouldn’t start.
After a few tries, I gave up and set my forehead to the steering wheel. I sighed, closing my eyes and wishing I didn’t have to walk. Jenny would already be on the other side of town. Sara was in the city, meeting up with some relatives. Amanda was at my house with George…
“Dammit.” I slammed the door shut and tightened my coat around myself. I’d been in such a hurry to get to the party on time that I hadn’t dressed overly warm for the weather. In fact, most of my things were drying on the radiator anyway. George and I spent the late afternoon building snowmen and my good boots, gloves, and hat were still icy wet. Now it was snowing again, harder than before to the point that the Christmas lights strung on all the houses and buildings were lit up from behind a blur.
Hugging myself and loathing my situation, I put one foot in front of the other and trudged on. Instead of dwelling on the sting of iciness in my toes and the numbness on my face, I mentally retraced my steps from the night and tried to figure out what I felt like I was forgetting. That turned into rehearsing my to-do list, which was always overwhelming. It distracted me, though, and it made me so zoned out that I was startled when a truck pulled up alongside me.
“Whoa!” I jumped back, jarred into the present moment from the splash of wetter snow and slush spraying up a bit near my feet.
The truck stopped, and the window rolled down. I swore I could feel the warmth from inside seeping out, and I resisted the lure of leaning toward it. I had to resist the idea of heat because it was Zach in the driver’s seat.
“Blake? I thought that was you.” He crouched over the steering wheel to face me more at my eye level from the tall truck. “What are you doing?”
I bit back a smirk, gesturing at my feet, then the sidewalk only slightly clear of the new layer of snow. “Walking home.”
“In this?” He faced forward, furrowing his brow. He’d always been so serious, unlike the goofball Kevin was. Like opposites, almost a Yin and Yang, they’d complemented each other as the best of friends, filling in for each other’s weaknesses.
“This doesn’t look like a good night to be walking home.”
“I, uh, didn’t plan to.”
“What happened?” He frowned as he turned to look back, as though he could pinpoint the problem and solve it pragmatically like the strategic military man he was. “Run out of gas?”
“No. Just…” I shivered as I looked down. “Other stuff the van needs.”
“Well, come on then.” He tipped his head to the side, inviting me to come closer. “Get in. I can give you a ride home.”
A ride? You want me to get in that truck and be near you? It sounded like a terrible idea. One I wouldn’t know how to handle. How to survive. So much of my gameplan where he was concerned fell one on simple fact—that I’d never have to see him again. That was no longer feasible. He was here, and if I turned down his offer for a ride that I really, really wanted or needed, I’d be actively avoiding him. Stupidly.
My toes were ice. The boots were drenched. My fingers were numb, and this coat would be wet halfway to my house.
“Um. Okay. Thanks.” I turned, trying not to look uncoordinated as I waded through the pile of snow that had been pushed to the edge of the curb from all the snowblowers and shovels. I slipped. My arms flung out as I corrected my balance. As I attempted to get to the truck, I damned my shoes and prayed I wouldn’t pull off a repeat of falling on my ass. Once was enough. I didn’t need him thinking I’d lost the ability to move like a normal, functional adult. Clumsiness was the theme of my actions, though. Between the snow, my cold hands and feet, and the awkwardness of wanting to look cool and collected in front of him, I failed.
I dropped into the snow twice, dunking my knee into the coldness. I gripped the door handle three times and my fingers failed to pull it. When I got the door open but slipped with my foot on the runner board, I closed the door by accident.
“Here, let me?—”
“No.” I held up a hand and opened the door again. I did not need him getting out to help me up and in. It was already hard enough to brace myself for spending time with him one-on-one like this. I couldn’t manage his getting out and physically assisting me. If he were to touch me…
Just be cool, dammit. My teenage crush had long since crumbled to dust. But the one-night stand we’d shared set me up for worse tension.
I didn’t know how to act around him, mostly because I counted on never being around him. I didn’t know what to say, primarily because I figured I wouldn’t have a chance to speak with him.
The moment I got into the passenger seat and closed the door, I exhaled a long breath. Letting the warmth of the truck’s cab seep into me, I willed my heart to slow down.
“Thanks,” I whispered, rubbing my hands on my thighs to get blood flowing through them normally again.
When he didn’t reply, I glanced over, tense. “What?”
He seemed to search my face for something, but he didn’t speak. Shaking his head, he seemed to shelve whatever was on his mind. “Lousy night to be out walking in shoes.”
I nodded, knowing he was trying to just make small talk, not scold me. Zach had never been the kind of guy to nag or belittle anyone. Just serious and observant. Closed-off. “Yeah, it is.”
Clearing my throat, I tried to sit up straight and look confident and unaffected by his presence in here. “So, thanks for the ride.” Fuck. I just said that.
“Working with Grandma Jenny tonight?” he asked, glancing at me and no doubt taking in the rumpled caterer uniform my coat didn’t fully cover. I hadn’t even taken the apron off.
“Yeah. Half the staff was out sick so it was a long night.” I shrugged, worrying that it could sound like I was complaining. I never liked to whine or complain. It was an old habit from my father’s worst drunken days. If Kev or I complained, he’d get so irrationally furious, calling us spoiled. “But we made it work. Jenny and I are a good team.”
“She mentioned people being off sick this week,” he said, nodding as he drove. “The season for it.”
“Yep.”
Silence followed. He didn’t even have the radio on, no doubt still as annoyed with Christmas music now as he was when he was a teen. He’d never qualified as a Scrooge, but he’d never been a fan of the season. Right now, though, I wished for a Ho, Ho, Ho , Jingle Bells , or Fa-La-La-La to break up this awkwardness.
Sitting with my former one-night stand wouldn’t be so bad. If only he wasn’t also my baby daddy…
“So… you work with Grandma Jenny catering…”
I nodded, wincing at how awkward he was too. We’d already established that, but I was just as much at a lack of knowing what to say as he was. “Yep. I like it.”
“Been working for her long?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s all that I’ve been doing for a few years.” I licked my lips, desperate for answers and summoning the courage to follow up with a related question. “Are you moving on to something else now? For work?”
He huffed. “I was medically discharged. My shoulder was screwed up in an accident during training and now I’m supposed to be a civilian.”
“Ah.” It was a paltry reply for a loaded statement from him. Being in the service was all he’d ever wanted to do or planned to do.
“I have no clue what I’m doing now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Telling him that I was sorry he was hurt would sound like pity. But I hated that he could seem this down and lost. I had a bleeding heart, a real empath, but I felt like it was smarter to remain distant and not stress how much I cared about his well-being. I hated for him to suffer, but it wasn’t my place to “fix” him.
“Jenny suggested I look for a job. So I’m not idle and bored, and yeah.” He shrugged. “She seems to think that having a job would give me a purpose, but after being gone from here for so long, I can’t see how I’d have any worthwhile purpose in Vernford.”
I turned to face his profile, saddened by how lost he had to feel. I swallowed, wishing I could know what to say.
“I’ll stay for the holidays and head out to find something else to do.”
“Oh.”
He glanced at me, but I couldn’t bear to make eye contact this time. The fact that he wanted to take off again so soon only proved how little he’d ever want to stay. To be in my life, even as former acquaintances…
“But I’ll be working part-time at the school until then,” he said, seeming in a rush to break up this stilted small talk. “Cole hired me for some maintenance stuff while Mr. Benson is off.”
“Oh.” So that’s why he was there. Sara hadn’t even known why he was there to report to me.
“I met your son, actually. George.”
I went still, freezing in place and worrying that he was still as good at reading people as he always used to be. I didn’t need him to notice my utter panic at his meeting his son.
“Nice boy.”
I had never been put on the spot quite like this, wishing a hole would open and I’d be swallowed up to avoid this conversation.
“He seems like a cool kid.”
“Thanks.” I strained not to react too quickly and jerkily. “He’s a good child.”
“I was, um, kind of surprised to hear that you’d had a kid,” he admitted. He cleared his throat and glanced at me, but I couldn’t face him.
“Oh. Um.” My heart raced as I frantically searched for words. “I was under the impression that your communication with Amanda and Jenny was infrequent and… sticking with the basic info…”
God, what am I saying? I was implying he wouldn’t have needed to know that I’d had a kid. In truth, he did. He really, really did, more than anyone else.
“Yeah. I didn’t do well with contacting them often.”
I nodded. That was also true, but it wasn’t an excuse I could hide behind. After Kevin’s funeral, Zach left without a word and gave me the cue that he wasn’t planning to speak to me again.
“I’m surprised he’s, uh, that you’re not… married.”
“No.” From shivering to sweating, I was a mess. I tensed and tried to look as normal as possible. “Never married. Never came close.”
“Huh. Who’s his…” He glanced at me again, as if he couldn’t force himself to come out and ask it. “Who’s his dad?”
Fuck. Me. He had to go there. He had to ask the one thing I dreaded.
He was asking in the clearest way possible. The only answer to that specific and direct question was you . But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The urge to keep the secret buried deep down was too strong.
I didn’t want to make this worse. He was already so clearly torn up about being discharged. About not having a direction or purpose. If he couldn’t want to stay in town for more than a month now, he wouldn’t want to after he learned that he had a kid, either. His wanderlust, his need to do bigger and more important things, would always rule.
Besides, I feared how much he’d hate me for never telling him and lying by omission. I mentally cringed at his reaction to the fact that I never took the initiative to contact him and tell him this huge news that he had a son.
“I…” I rubbed my brow, looking out the passenger window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh.” He sounded so disappointed, but not mad like he’d push it.
As I focused on not making eye contact, he drove past the post office. “Oh, crap.”
“What?”
I sighed and pointed. “I just realized what I forgot.”
“Huh?” He slowed for a stop sign on Main Street. Half the route was set up with barriers for the upcoming town holiday event.
“I kept thinking I had forgotten something, and seeing the post office reminded me. Jenny got a little package for me—a Christmas gift for George that I had sent to her so he wouldn’t find it. She gave it to me at the party since it had just come in and she knew I’d want to wrap it soon. But I set it on a shelf at the venue and I forgot it.”
“Oh. I can turn around.” He said it after he’d already begun to do just that, pulling a U-turn at the intersection without any other cars nearby.
“Really, you don’t have?—”
“It’s fine.”
I nodded, seeing that he wouldn’t have offered if he hadn’t wanted to. The ride back to the venue hall was quiet, but I wasn’t brave enough to attempt small talk again.
He pulled up at the rear entrance to the venue.
“I’ll just hop out and grab it. The doors should still be open.”
“Yeah. Looks like someone else is taking things in for something.” He leaned down to peer out my window, and as I turned toward him, I realized how close his head was to mine. His cologne hit my nose. His heat, so inviting and solid, teased me. Inches parted us, and it was too risky of a position for me to dwell in.
“Yeah, there’s another party tomorrow night.” I hurried to open the door and escape, but in my haste, I slipped on the runner board.
“Oh, shit.” This time, he didn’t stay in the truck. As I fell into a pile of snow, cushioned but embarrassed, he darted around to help me up.
“I swear, I’m not usually this clumsy,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “Fooled me.” His hand gripped mine securely and he hoisted me up. He overestimated how much force was necessary, though. Yanking me up so quickly, with too much power, he forced me to lurch into him.
We both stumbled back on the sidewalk, but before I could relish the firm feel of being in his hold, his hard body like a wall to anchor me, he chuckled and stopped us from falling together.
“Whoa,” he whispered, glancing up. Then he grimaced. “Not again.”
“Not again is right. I can’t stay on my feet around you,” I joked lightly.
Then the words registered and another furious blush burned my skin. Oh, my God. I didn’t need him to assume I was thinking of how else he’d gotten me off my feet—and underneath him on a bed.
“No. It’s—” He groaned, not releasing me as he scowled in the direction of the parking lot.
Reagan carried a box, but upon noticing us, she beamed at him and approached.
“Not her. Again ,” he muttered, holding me closer.