Chapter 14 #2
“Listen,” she says, and angles her head down, eyes bouncing from side to side.
“Okay now.” I push her arm playfully.
“I hear it,” Zachary says.
Huh? He hears it. I still don’t know what they’re…
Oh. There it is. The tiny echo of a thousand raindrops falling from the sky and pelting the forest below, somewhere out there.
It’s gentle at first, in the distance, but it’s getting louder, growing.
It begins to crescendo. One second it’s just a faint noise, the next the first drop splats on my nose, and then another. I twitch as if I hadn’t expected it.
“Rain,” Kaity says the obvious.
“Maybe we should—” Zach ducks when the entire forest lights up in an explosion of white. I fling my hand up. In a second, my eyes take in a hundred trees that were just moments ago veiled in endless black. Then comes the booming clap. The entire earth quakes, and I scream.
“Shit!” I shout, and then as if on command, the clouds unleash a deluge. “Wet! Wet! Wet!”
“Let’s go,” Kaitlynn yells.
I don’t have to think. I’m on my feet immediately.
“Come on!” Zachary yells at me. His voice sounds distant, drowned out by the sudden clamor of the rain.
It’s no longer a single drop here or there.
It’s everywhere, like the floor of Valhalla dropped away and let loose all its oceans.
Again the entirety of night disappears into bright white, and for a brief moment, everything is frozen in time, flashed in brilliant light.
Zachary stands in front of me, hand outstretched while Kaitlynn fades out of sight down the trail.
For the tiniest of seconds, I debate it.
It’s a moment that drags on like the booming echo of thunder from far away.
His fingers are appealing to me. His mouth moving with words I’m not hearing.
My teeth clamp tight and my arms jump forward before my mind can make a call.
Okay, guess I’m doing this. His fingers wrap around my palm and he pulls as darkness takes over again.
Surprisingly, I don’t trip.
All that should be going through my mind is getting to Zachary’s truck and getting out of this rain to somewhere dry.
That’s all, but my mind is split between the way my pants are starting to cling to my knees and how warm his hand still is.
It jumps from the chill of icy water pelting my hair and slithering through my curls to the warmth from his lips.
Between glimpses of the deluge around us to smoky gray eyes that belong to the wrong person each time lightning strikes.
In another flash, we’re back to the truck, flinging the doors open and practically throwing ourselves inside. When I open my eyes and actual thoughts start to overtake the adrenaline, my first is that his seats are leather.
“Your seats!” I yell, and lift my soaked rear.
“Who cares,” Zach says, letting his head fall against the headrest and blowing out a big breath. His cheeks expand and his lips flap. It’s actually sort of funny, but I look away.
“You sure?” I ask.
“He’s sure.” Kaitlynn leans forward.
“I—” I’m about to say I wasn’t asking her. It’s his truck, not hers, but he interrupts.
“It’s okay. I seriously don’t care,” he says. “I can just let it air out later. As long as we’re not stuck in that.”
He points out the windshield. I can’t see a thing.
It’s not just dark, the window is blurred by sheets of water.
Yeah, definitely don’t want to be in that anymore.
Zachary’s hand lies on the center console next to me.
My attention snags between it and Kaitlynn.
She’s eyeing me down, grinning. I think she did see that.
“Ready to have a hot ass?” Zachary asks, and I twitch at the statement.
“Uh…excuse me?” I ask.
“Your seat, doofus.” Kaitlynn leans back and crosses her arms, fully content with herself.
“Oh, sweet,” I save, sort of. “Nothing like toasty buns.”
“I agree.” Zachary grins at me and laughs.
What was that supposed to mean?
“All right, let’s get back.”
* * *
The heat from the truck vents feels like heaven. It dries my face and has already started in on my damp clothes, but the downpour isn’t done with me yet. It’s waiting for me to get out, just like the weird silence broken only by the rain pelting the roof.
It’s just Zach and me sitting—uncomfortably mushy on his leather seats, I might add—in my driveway with his engine rumbling.
We dropped Kaitlynn off at her house down our little gravel road.
I got a real quick reminder how much she talks the moment she closed the door behind her and Zach started to my place. It got so uncomfortably quiet.
If one of us doesn’t say something soon I’m going to jump into the freezing rain—it’s literally sleet—before I can’t handle it anymore.
And I’m too cold for that. I can anticipate the chill, the way it makes me shiver.
I only got the feeling back to my fingers like ten minutes ago, but I think we are both stuck on the same thing.
The kiss. The kiss that didn’t happen, but for sure did too. I don’t want to bring it up though.
“The campsite was nice.” Zachary glances at me, but he’s quick to look away. His eyes set on the window where all you can see is rain and the distorted glow of my porch light.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“Huh?”
“Yeah,” I say like a normal person.
My yard is lit up by a flash of white, followed almost immediately by a boom of thunder. I can feel its rumble through the truck. Calm it down, Thor. I’ll say something.
“Oh, okay. Yeah.” He nods and swallows, smacking his lips quietly.
With Kaitlynn in the back seat, it was easier.
I didn’t have the opportunity to say much with her craning over the center console, talking about the Keeping Up with the Kardashians reruns from this week, how her miniature Schnoodle won’t stop peeing when he gets excited, and something her science club friends—which she’s only part of because she heard they might go to the Alcatraz Museum for a trip this year—said about Henry Cavill not being gorgeous.
Zach and I both gave her shocked looks on that last bit.
It was enough to distract from the thing running through my head the entire time that felt like it would make me explode inside.
Now, though, it’s quiet. Unbearably, suffocatingly quiet.
And why does his truck’s center console have to be small?
He’s so close, too close. In one night I’ve managed to cheat on my make-believe boyfriend with his brother twice.
Kissing and holding hands are cheating, right?
Of course they are. Obviously. Shit, I want to kiss him again…
but I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t want to. I like Hayden.
I know Hayden, or well, I know him better.
Okay, maybe I don’t anymore, but that’s not the point.
His family thinks I do. But does this boy sitting across from me still think that?
One moment he acts like he believes me, and the next he’s eyeing me with suspicion or leaning in for a kiss. This is so frustrating and confusing.
I close my eyes and focus on the notes playing on the truck’s rooftop from the raindrops.
It usually calms me, so I listen and grasp my necklace.
There’s a moment it works, so I put my hand on the door handle, but I can’t get myself to pull it.
The rain. The cold. Wet. I don’t want all of that again.
The taut cord lacing from my chest to Zach’s.
The need to look at him. It’s all in my head.
That’s right, Kenzie. It’s just my head.
“Uh…” I mumble, trying to break the silence and get myself to move. I shift toward the door and Zach finally speaks up.
“You can sit awhile.” His voice is small, almost a coo, and I hate him for it. Be abrupt. Tell me to get out. Please! “Maybe the rain will pass soon.”
The rain never passes soon when you want it to.
If I stay put until it’s over, I could be here until four in the morning, and I won’t be able to keep my sanity if I have to sit in here with him for hours.
Also, I have to open at work tomorrow. That means I have to be up by seven o’clock. I’ve really got to get going.
Then again, it could stop before the minute is over. Who knows? Maybe Odin or Freyja, but not me. Actually, Freyja, please don’t get involved here. I need Odin’s wisdom right now.
“Maybe,” I agree, and make a popping noise with my mouth. Why? I don’t know. It just felt like it made more sense than the weirdness right now. “Actually, I think I’m just going to go.”
“Mack!” he nearly shouts, his entire body twisting to face me.
The truck shakes and I scream. My hand flings from the door handle and slaps the seat.
“Going to kill me doing that!” I say.
“Sorry, sorry. Uh…I…” Zachary apologizes, but starts laughing while I’m getting myself back together. “You are so jittery.”
“And?” I tilt my head.
“Nothing. You just are. You hiding something?” he asks.
Gods, if you only knew. It helps though. My chest isn’t as tight now. I still feel like I’m wearing a corset, but it’s better. I glance at him, unable to do much more than that. He’s looking my way confidently. How?
“No!” I bite.
“Sure.” He drags it out suggestively, and I let my mouth drop into a big O and finally face him. Zach’s hands go up. “My bad!”
A laugh jumps from my lips and I can’t stop a smile from spreading. His eyes look like a puppy dog’s, but there he goes giggling again. You are making this so difficult! Be stupid. Make me want to leave!
“Obvi,” I grumble, but I know what I need to do. I put my hand on the door handle. “I have to work in the morning. I need to go.”
“Oh, okay.” Zachary nods, his head low. “Don’t get too wet.”
“Sure.” I shrug and go to shove the door open. Gods, I don’t want to get wet and cold again!
“Thanks for showing me that scary house,” Zachary spouts before I can get out.
“Yeah,” I say, not letting go of the handle. “Sure. It’s cool.”
“Yeah. Cool.” Zachary grins and grunt-laughs, but he doesn’t break eye contact.
“Cool,” I repeat. This is so awkward. Here we are, cooling it away. Just the two of us. “I gotta go.”
“Yeah, no, it’s late,” Zachary says a little too quickly.
I delay. Him leaning in to kiss me in the dark plays in slow motion behind my eyes.
He’s so close I can feel his heat, then my eyes close and it happens.
I know that’s what’s going through his head right now, it has to be, but I’m not going to be the one who brings it back up.
I can’t. I won’t. I can’t decide whether I’d rather let it disappear into a faint bygone memory or if selfishly I want to keep it untainted in my head.
“Bye,” I say, hoping he’ll tell me to stop and reel me around in his arms to kiss me again. But no! I can’t let him, and he doesn’t.
“Bye,” he says.
I swallow the knot of nothingness in my throat and shove the door open.
The gurgling and rat-a-tat of the downpour rushes inside with a gust of wind as I slide out and my feet plop onto the wet rocks.
Before I can second-guess myself, I take off into the freezing pellets.
They smack my face, melting on impact and pouring over my shoulders as I rush across the yard and up the front porch steps.
At the landing I stop under the small overhang and look back.
His headlights are shining harshly, seeming to wobble under the falling sleet.
I can barely see his truck until a brilliant streak of lightning illuminates everything.
I duck as thunder claps over the mountains and Zachary’s truck starts to back up.
I swear I can feel him moving farther away from me, like a piece of me is rolling away.
And why? Because I gave in to whatever it was brewing inside my chest back there, and I kissed him.
What have I done?