Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Zac
Tabitha said very little on the drive out to Castle Rock, but the tension coming off of her spoke volumes. She’d rather be anywhere else or with anyone other than Zac. But until the end of the day she was stuck with his ass and would just have to deal with it.
And he would have to do his best to keep his hands to himself.
Better than his usual best, anyway.
He’d spent the bulk of last night trying to convince himself that their romantic interlude had been a bad idea all through painting the nursery with Todd, the trip to the barber, and while lying in bed until his noisy brain decided to shut the hell up.
The logic was there: He wanted his friends’ respect and playing the part of the group ho wasn’t exactly putting him on Jon’s most reliable list. Beyond that, Tabitha was on assignment.
For her job as a journalist. For a magazine that happened to be doing a pretty extensive article on Off the Beaten Adventures.
They had history, sure, but whatever false start to a young romance had happened in the past, he had to consider the future. Both of their futures.
Zac glanced over at his passenger. She sat so quietly in her seat that he could have forgotten she was even there. That was a lie. The sweet scent of her coconut shampoo and classic sunscreen practically screamed at him to notice.
“I promise I won’t bite,” he assured her as she pressed herself against the passenger side door, with her long legs crossed so tightly away from him that there was no way she was comfortable in that position.
She shifted at his comment, her little black shorts hiking farther up her thigh.
It took every ounce of strength Zac had to pretend he didn’t notice.
“I know,” she snarked.
“Then why does it look like you’re about to tuck and roll out the door?”
She scoffed and shook her head, and Zac wondered if it was at him directly or because she imagined the ridiculousness of such an escape. She uncrossed her legs—those mile-long legs—and settled into her seat.
“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” Zac offered.
“No. Uh-uh. Nope.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t want to talk about it?
” Zac teased because he had to get her to mellow out.
Partially because tension like that would make for a long and grueling excursion, but mostly for safety.
The climbing ahead of them wasn’t some rinky-dink indoor sesh.
The multi-pitch would be hours of ascending the face of a rock wall, belaying each other, setting solid anchors, and assessing risks.
Miscommunication was out of the question.
“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
Personal or article related? I’m an open book. ”
She seemed to mull that over for a bit, chewing on her lip the way she does when she sorts out her words. His tabby cat never blurted out her thoughts. She always organized them with the same meticulousness she used with everything else.
She’s not your tabby cat.
Zac shouldn’t have to keep reminding himself of that, but apparently, he wasn’t the quickest learner.
“When did you start working at OtB?” she finally asked, cautiously, almost with a skepticism that proclaimed a conversation wouldn’t ease the tension.
“Officially?” Good, this was safe, neutral territory. “The spring break after I turned eighteen. Robert—that’s Jon and Frankie’s dad—set me up to lead a group of Girl Scouts with a lethal addiction to collecting wilderness badges.”
“You couldn’t manage a couple of little girls?” Tabitha’s eyes twinkled the way Zac liked so much.
“Hey. Those little chicks were cutthroat. And there were twelve of them, thank you very much. It was supposed to be a chill stroll through the woods but quickly careened out of control.”
“I need examples,” she demanded with a hint of glee.
Yes. This was exactly what Zac wanted. Get her to shake off the tension and calm a bit.
“You mean between the aggressive competition to identify plants or how they demanded I pretend to be injured so they could splint all of my limbs?”
“I'm picturing a real life Gulliver’s Travels.”
“You wouldn't be far off. But the icing on the cake was when three of them scurried off into the trees. I made the rest stick together in a circle to ‘be on the lookout for cougars’ while I went off in search of the runaways. Guess what they were doing when I found them. Go on guess.”
Tabitha couldn’t hold back a giggle. “Building shelter? Fishing?”
“Worse. They were trying to build a campfire by rubbing two sticks together.”
“No.” A hand flew to her face.
“Yes, and I got there just in time. I swear there was smoke starting to float up from their wood stack.”
“Wow. You gotta applaud their persistence.”
Zac barked out a laugh. “Doubt you’d be saying that if they’d started a forest fire.”
“Probably not.”
“But the good thing about having a bunch of chaotic minions as my first solo lead was that everything from there on out felt like a walk in the forest, even when it wasn’t.”
Zac loved his job. Work didn’t feel like work when he led an excursion.
Not that he’d have much else to compare it to.
He’d never been employed anywhere else and had no aspiration of doing so.
The idea of spending nine-to-five in a cubicle, wearing a tie, and regularly smelling Susan from HR’s egg salad sandwich sounded like a fate worse than death.
“What was your unofficial first time working at Off the Beaten?” Tabitha asked. At some point, she’d turned toward him and tucked a foot under her, the picture of comfort and calm. Perfect.
“When Jonathan and I hit fifteen, we begged his folks to give us odd jobs to make a little money. Janet—she’s our office manager and cranky as hell—fought tooth and nail until Patty—that’s Jon’s mom—insisted we’d be fine to do some filing.”
“And how did that go?” Tabitha asked.
“We created double the work for Janet, who had to undo the disaster we’d made,” Zac shared sheepishly, remembering how put out the office manager had been that day. He knew she’d never cared much for him, but that event truly solidified her distaste.
“That’s rough.”
Zac nodded then decided to turn the tables. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I have no clue what you’ve been up to for the last decade and a half.”
“You could have.”
Ouch.
Her words were sharp in tone and meaning alike. It was a punch she didn’t feel the need to pull because it was true. He’d been the one to leave.
“Tabitha, I—”
“Forget it. That slipped out.”
The truck bumped down the dirt road as they neared the little parking area. All the while silence hung heavily in the cab, practically suffocating Zac while his mind raced about mistakes he’d made recently and so many years ago.
God, he was a fuck up.
Never knowing when to value something enough to take it seriously. He’d screwed up countless times and any minute the people in his life—people he loved and considered family—would start dropping like flies.
“Zac?” Tabitha’s tentative voice lilted through his self deprecation.
“Yes?” He parked the truck and turned off the ignition before turning to face her.
She chewed on her lip, formulating just the right structure for her words again. “I really need today to go well.”
Zac shifted nearer to her and reached out a hand to place on hers but rethought the gesture and pulled back. Instead, he grabbed the keys and pocketed them. And as he pushed open his door he responded with a heavy, “You have my word.”