14. Zach
14
ZACH
I wasn’t sure what the protocol for catering was, but when I asked Grandma Jenny what I should wear and when I should get there, she told me black slacks and a white button-down would do. I arrived a few minutes later than I thought I would since quite a few vehicles were transporting booth and tent parts downtown for the annual holiday affair. Back when I was a kid, Kevin and I would hang out by the ice hockey things they set up, then score whatever free candies and treats from the vendors lined up along Main Street. Now, from the looks of how many things were being taken in preparation, it seemed like it had evolved into something more like a festival.
The traffic didn’t hold me up for too long, and I got to the same venue hall I’d taken Blake back to last night for that package.
I wonder if she wrapped it?
What was it?
I didn’t know George, but I could tell that Rory had been way off the mark in describing the boy to be a sporty, tough guy.
Maybe he likes to read? Build things? Make art?
If there was one thing I regretted about my childhood, it would’ve been the lack of creativity or the freedom to create. My father was one of a long line of celebrated military men, a tough guy who didn’t think boys should bother with drawing or painting for the sake of having a hobby. Footballs over crayons. Action figures over stuffed animals. I loved my old man, and he never pushed any toxic mentality on me, but he obviously was stuck in the old-fashioned and generational habits of “boys being boys.”
I bet that’s changed about parenting now, though, right? I was clueless about how to raise kids. I’d never thought about it or having a family—how could I when I was always overseas and away? Deep in my heart, I hoped that the way I was raised would’ve equipped me to be a well-balanced adult to be able to not screw up another generation.
As I entered the rear doors to the venue hall, I sought out Blake. Before I’d look for my Grandma, I wanted to see Blake’s small smile and know she was near. I hadn’t volunteered to help tonight for my grandma. She would’ve asked if she really needed the help. I’d merely stepped up as a way to be able to spend more time with Blake and not Reagan.
I was getting more used to the idea that this Blake wasn’t the girl I used to know or the lover I shared one night with. She was a single mother now. It hardly mattered, because as I wove through the commotion of the kitchen and looked for her black hair braided back in a complicated twist and her green eyes so full of kindness and patience, I would like all versions of her.
Before I could put her too high on a pedestal, I spotted her laying out containers of food that would be served out. Without her acknowledging my presence yet, I was free to look my fill. Still petite and short, but those curves. Fuck me, she’d grown into a sexy figure that enticed me to reach out and grab on. Meat on her bones, she was no skinny stick figure—just the way I liked. I wanted a woman who’d stand up to take a pounding, like that one night she’d wanted to distract herself with me.
I recalled how I’d fisted her silky hair and brushed back the long waves when they got in her face. Raw, uninhibited. That was what I remembered of the mild-mannered woman. She’d come alive that night in my arms, as I made her cry out in ecstasy.
She turned, realizing I was checking her out, and just as suddenly as she’d pivoted to face me, she fumbled the large bowl in her hands.
“Uh-oh.” I darted forward to catch it, chuckling.
“I didn’t realize you were there,” she admitted, securing a firmer hold on the large bowl. Now that I could see her face, I admired the sweet blush and embarrassed smile. She kept pushing me away, maintaining her distance. It would’ve made me assume she wanted nothing to do with me at all, but those moments of being shy and embarrassed had me realizing I did still affect her.
“I told you I’d come to help tonight,” I reminded her.
“Hang your coat up over there, Zach,” Grandma Jenny said as she breezed through with a container of steaming food. “Blake’ll show you around for this gig. Just shadow her.”
Gladly. I hung up my coat and washed my hands, reporting to the woman I intended to stick with all through the night.
Blake huffed a weak laugh when I returned. She handed me plates to set out for portioning, and I fell into a pattern with her without needing to be told.
“And why are you helping tonight?” she asked.
I shrugged, smiling at her.
“Just to get out of a date with Reagan?” she guessed.
“Not only because of that,” I replied.
We got too busy arranging plates to really talk more, but I enjoyed the busyness, nonetheless. With her next to me, I got to see another side of her. The industrious and hard-working version of her, but also the sweetheart who would smile and coach the younger and newer part-timers. She’d make a good boss, and I assumed that trait bled into her parenting style. Her son wasn’t the bully in trouble, but instead the kid who’d stood up for another. She had to be doing something right.
“You just set them down and back up,” Blake said as we held the trays. She frowned, watching me. “Are you sure you’ve got it?”
I mocked a frown at her. “I think I can carry a plate or two.”
“But that’s five on a tray, and you said you had shoulder surgery.” She shook her head, reaching for the dishes to remove a couple. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
You stubborn sweetheart. She was only concerned about my health. “I’m fine, Blake. I can handle this. This isn’t too heavy.”
“Are you sure ?” she demanded with a stern look.
Yeah, she’s totally a good mom. I bet George wouldn’t talk back to that no-nonsense face. She was sometimes too quiet and timid, but she was firm when she needed to be. Even with me. And Reagan. I still hadn’t forgotten about her giving her hell at the school.
Hell, she could do anything and impress me. “Hey.”
She raised her brows in question as she got her trays ready. “What?”
“What happened to your plans to start a restaurant?”
She shrugged, not making eye contact again. “Plans change,” she said.
They did. I’d planned to be in the military for a lot longer, but I no longer had that option. I planned to travel the world and explore—through the service or on my own—and I doubted I could find the thrill to want to do so again.
I followed her out into the hall, and even though there were too many people for me to feel comfortable, I quickly learned to separate myself. The partiers and guests at the Francis’ company party weren’t people . They became things . Talking, drinking, laughing, and schmoozing things that ignored me completely. Being part of the catering staff lent me a sense of anonymity and I blended into the background. I didn’t have to worry about townsfolk or former classmates remarking that I was back from the army. I didn’t have to stress about well-wishers coming up and asking what happened. I was just there, in the background, and my social anxiety didn’t flare up.
Even if my grandma hadn’t told me to shadow Blake and do what she did, I would’ve stuck with her anyway. She seemed clumsier than usual, spilling a little gravy here or setting a basket of rolls down too quickly over there, letting one drop. Blake was a graceful woman, but all through the party, she suffered snafus.
I stuck with her, helping her and modeling what I needed to do after her, but throughout it all, she seemed to try her best to avoid me. To pretend I wasn’t there.
This was her job. This was work. I wasn’t expecting us to talk and just hang out. But I couldn’t shake this hunch that she was skittish around me.
Just because we slept together?
“You clean up nice,” Reagan said when I leaned over to get a plate from her specific table after the meal was over.
When her hand touched my ass, though, I edged away from her. Stop preying on me, for fuck’s sake.
Blake must have been watching, though, because her mouth hung open in shock as she overfilled a water glass. Ice cubes plunked to the tablecloth and liquid splashed down. “Oh! I’m sorry. I?—”
I used it as an excuse to go to her side of the table and wipe up the mess, smiling at the guest whose cup was overfilled.
She refused to make eye contact for a good few minutes afterward, and I hated the loss of her attention.
Then came Rory. He was seated at another table of Francis family members. At the head of the square table, covered in a glittery green cloth with a huge vase of poinsettias in the center, he was almost shielded from my view as I delivered dessert dishes to the guests on the opposite side of the table.
But I heard him all the same. He was a loudmouth. Everyone could hear him. All through the night, I’d heard him getting drunker and drunker, his words slurring. And each time he opened his mouth when Blake and I were at his table, it was the same shit.
“You belong with me, babe,” Rory said. He reached out his arm to snake it around her waist and drag her closer to his side. She flinched at the manhandling, trying not to lose her grip on the tray in her hand.
I’d have to be blind to miss how uncomfortable she was with his touch. Her face pinched. Uneasiness shone in her eyes. Lines formed on her brow as she frowned and tried to get away.
“Rory, stop.”
He didn’t. He raised his other arm to try to land her in his lap instead. “Oh, come on. Jenny won’t care if you take a break for a second.”
“Rory. Stop.”
“I just miss you, babe. You’re being cruel to play hard to get like this. This break has gone on too long.”
“It’s not a break. I broke up with you.”
Rory rolled his eyes, not letting her go. “You said you were having second thoughts.”
She shook her head. “Not about you. You took my words out of context.”
“You’re—”
I clamped my hand on his shoulder, digging my fingers in to pry him back. As he moved, I wedged between him and Blake, acting as though I’d had to reach this way over the table to get a little salad plate.
He glared up at me for intervening, but I didn’t give a shit.
Try again, fucker. And see what happens.
Blake scurried back to the kitchen, and when I found her there, following her as soon as she stepped away from Rory’s table, I watched as her practiced, polite, public smile fell into a natural scowl. “God, he’s such a creep.”
“That won’t happen again,” I told her.
She shot me a skeptical look. “No?”
“You heard my grandma.” I stepped up close and looked down into her vulnerable emerald gaze. “She told me to shadow you. If I see him do so much as make you frown, I’ll make him knock it off.”
So many questions lingered. Why she’d dated him in the first place? How they’d gotten together or how long they were a couple? What it took to make her dump him? But all of those details would have to be discussed later. Because against my better judgment, I was vested. I was concerned.
I’d been missing something like a direction in my life, but now I had an inkling of one. However I could help Blake be comfortable and not harassed, I would step up to the challenge. That could be my purpose tonight.
Rory didn’t try anything until later in the party. More guests were dancing than eating the remnants of their meals or desserts, but there were still so many plates to take back to the kitchen. I lost sight of Blake for a moment, stacking up more dishes on a tray, but on the trip to the kitchen, I spotted Rory caging her in against the wall. She squirmed, shoving at his chest to push him back as he talked to her.
“You can quit this stupid little job and just live with me?—”
I yanked him back. “This isn’t a stupid little job.” I set him back another foot. “And it doesn’t look like she wants to be in the same room with you, let alone live with you.”
He growled, straightening out his sleeves. “Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me what?—”
I got into his face, glaring down at the loudmouth. “I am telling you to back off. That’s all that matters.”
“Oh, or else? Huh? You warning me?” He scoffed, smirking like I was a fool to stand up to him or stand up for her.
“Yeah.” I lowered to grip the front of his shirt. “Or else,” I growled.
Blake tugged at the back of my shirt, urging me to retreat with her. I did, certain that the scared but angry expression Rory wore meant he’d heard me loud and clear.
“You can’t just…” Blake shook her head.
“Too bad. I did. Fuck him for making you uncomfortable like that.”
She barked a weak but instant laugh. “Oh, so I should tell Reagan off for making you uncomfortable too? Groping your ass like that!”
I shrugged. I had no problem telling Reagan no. But I was amused that she’d offer tit-for-tat like that and want to have my back.
We shifted into a cleanup mode as the party wound down, and as more guests left, some of the catering staff did too. Leo, another catering employee, headed up the cleanup and my grandma left. Without the music on and with the hall emptying out, Blake and I finally had some quiet to talk as we worked.
“Thanks, though.” She cleared her throat, like she’d been rehearsing how to stay this and bottling it in for a while. “Thanks for standing up for me like that with him. I’ve never liked confrontations?—”
“I remember,” I teased.
She nodded, smiling shyly. “But with Rory, I need to have a firmer stance with him.”
“You’re not interested in him?”
“No. I don’t think I ever really was in the beginning. He was just so persistent. And I was worried I was making too many excuses to never date. I hadn’t since George was born, and I didn’t really care to go through the dating ordeal.” She shrugged, piling plates in the kitchen. “But I thought I was being too reluctant and agreed to one date with him. That turned into a few more, and then a five-month-long ‘relationship’ started.”
“What made you break up with him?”
“He was just too pushy. George hates him. Okay, hate is a strong word, but I could tell he didn’t like him or wouldn’t warm up to him. He was a big part of why I didn’t date for the first four years of his life. I was a mother. He was my priority. I didn’t have time or energy or the desire to look for a man, but I knew that if and when I would, I’d need to find someone I liked and who my son would like.”
“That makes sense.”
“And when I started to notice how George didn’t seem to like him, I’d backed up a bit from Rory. Which made him pushier, and that urged me to step back even more. I decided I didn’t have time for the headache he gave me, and I ended it.”
“But you’ve had second thoughts?” I asked as we put things into containers for the van.
“No.” She shook her head, and another errant strand of her raven locks fell loose. “I said I had second thoughts about dating at all, and he misconstrued the whole conversation to insist I was trying to tell him I had second thoughts about breaking up with him.”
I grunted. “I’m not surprised someone like him would misinterpret words to his advantage.”
“Yeah. So, thanks,” she repeated. “I keep hoping he’ll just give up sooner than later. If I ignore him and not give in to his requests to ‘talk it out’ then he’ll quit.”
That sounded too lax for me, but I couldn’t assume she’d want to delegate me as her protector.
Within the hour, we finished tidying up the last loose ends in the kitchen. Leo smiled as he slapped a dish rag over his shoulder. In his other hand, he held up a bottle of whiskey. “Old Mr. Francis gifted the catering staff this. Want a shot?”
I shrugged and glanced at Blake.
“Well, I’m not driving. I need to call an Uber, so I guess I could.”
An Uber? No, you’re not. I’d drive her and save her the hassle.
“Zach?”
I nodded. One shot wouldn’t impact a huge guy like me. Besides, Leo poured small ones. We clinked our glasses and drank them. “Good work, guys,” Blake said.
“Hey, whatever happened to those rumors about you buying out the company from Jen?” Leo asked.
Blake sighed. “Oh, that’s just a rumor. There’s no truth to it.”
“But what if there was?” the younger guy said as he smoothed his hair back in his ponytail. “You already act like her right-hand woman in charge.”
Blake smiled as she tugged her coat on and got her phone out. We both got ready to exit too.
“But I’m not. And buying out Jenny would require funds I don’t really have right now.” She shrugged. “Plus, I love working for her—with her.”
We stepped out, telling each other good night. Blake tapped on her phone as we headed into the parking lot. Leo would take the van back to Grandma Jenny’s kitchen, but I intended to steer Blake toward my truck.
Before that could happen, Reagan strode up. Like a bad case of déjà vu, she aimed for me, her coat open and flapping so I could see the full effect of her red dress clinging to her body.
“Hey, sexy,” she purred. “How about I take you home tonight?”
She had no shame. No censor. No chance.
“No.” I reached out for Blake’s hand, surprised when she flinched but didn’t let go. “I’m taking her home.”