Chapter 19
Jordan
“Is it okay if we skip tonight?” Zinnia placed her shoes in the entryway closet. “I’m really tired and Grace is freaking out. I need to call— Jordan.”
He hugged her again for what had to be the hundredth time that day. As tightly as he could, still unconvinced that she was real and safe and home. It felt like every time he blinked, he flashed back to that moment when she was gone and everyone else had forgotten about her.
She rubbed his back and asked, “What’s the matter? Talk to me, please.”
When he looked at her, she seemed seconds away from smiling. She’d worn that same bemused expression all night.
“I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
She cackled. “You can stop now.”
What if he never heard that sound again? Or saw her smile? Or listened to one of her wildly exaggerated stories?
“Thank you, but that’s enough.” She gently untangled herself from him.
“Are you okay?” Shock could be delayed by hours, sometimes days. He wasn’t in any kind of rush to see her break down but how was she so calm?
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He shrugged, feeling out of his mind. “Maybe because of the massive security breach and attack.”
“Is there a reason why you’re keeping this prank going? We don’t do that in here, remember?”
“Prank?” He watched her walk toward the kitchen. “What are you talking about?”
She paused in the doorway, throwing a disbelieving look over her shoulder. “Jordan, I’m not in the mood for whatever you’re doing, okay? Cut it out.”
“Prank?” He stared after her, mouth hanging open and without a single thought passing between his ears. Everything around him felt…blurry. Dreamlike. The past six hours had all been nothing but vivid scenes invented by his sleeping imagination because how was this real life? His life?
By the time he recovered enough to join her in the kitchen, she had the makings of a fruit salad well underway. She’d gathered all her favorites, which reminded him that she wanted to go berry picking before they went home.
Zinnia had always felt so real to him—a tangible whirlwind of light and energy.
If he looked away for a single second, he’d miss something new about her, like the way she hummed made-up songs whenever she concentrated.
Or found the nearest window and watched the sky when she was bored.
The way she was constantly in motion, even while sitting—crossing her legs, wiggling her foot, tapping her thighs, leaning in until she was lying on him to share something on her phone.
Her existence grounded him in a way very few things did.
Jordan stood next to her and softly asked, “You think today was a prank?”
“Of course it was.” She popped a grape in her mouth and began listing her evidence—the timing, the camera pod behavior, the size of the crowd outside the store, the suspicious evacuation plan, the lack of weapons, how some people seemed excited under the veneer of concern, the way production ignored her afterward when she didn’t react the way they’d hoped, how fast it hit the media as a last resort…
Hearing her reasoning laid out like that, he understood how she’d arrived at her very wrong conclusion.
“Can we—” He paused, closing his eyes and exhaling to stay calm. “Before you call Grace, can we talk?”
Once she finished making her salad, they sat together at the circular kitchen table, knee to knee. She pushed the bowl closer to him and handed him a fork.
“Thanks,” he said, setting it down. “I want you to listen to me, okay? And I’m gonna need you to believe what I tell you.”
“All right.”
“That attack was real. As far as we know, Robert Lazarus has been actively stalking Lulie for eight months. She has a restraining order against him, but stalking laws barely exist. Most law enforcement won’t step in until harm is actually done like today.
He knew everything—where she’d be and who’d be there.
He hired those two men as a distraction to overwhelm security because he knew the employee break room was the secondary plan if immediate evacuation wasn’t possible. ”
“Because the security guards had the car keys.” She suddenly pushed the bowl away. “How did he know all that?”
“Months of planning and searching for the right people willing to name their price. An employee confessed to revealing Lulie’s schedule to her cousin, who then was paid by Lazarus for the information. Our security is still weeding out the internal leak.”
“No.” She began shaking her head. “No. He didn’t even have a weapon. He was just…there.”
“He probably thought he wouldn’t need one. There were two more men waiting in the utility hall that got away. The police think they planned to take her to a second location.” Jordan met her increasingly distraught eyes. “Zinnia, you really did save Lulie’s life.”
“Oh my god.” She covered her face and immediately folded in half, laying her head on the table.
“It’s okay. You’re both safe now.” He rubbed across her shaking shoulders. “Lulie’s been through a lot, and she’ll get through this too. And I know we didn’t warn you about this, but we never thought—” His voice broke, and he had to stop to catch his breath.
Marrying him had put her life in danger. He brought her here.
Zinnia let out a high-pitched whine as she raised her head. He thought she’d been crying, but no—
“I can’t believe I tried to go easy on that bastard!”
“Easy? You knocked him unconscious.”
“I should’ve broken his jaw! Or at least knocked some teeth loose!” But her anger quickly extinguished into a wail. “I’m so bad at this and I’m tired of trying.”
Jordan’s blood ran cold as her words hit him.
She shook her head. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t belong here.”
“That’s not true.” His throat was tight, voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “You do because…I do. We’re in this together. We—”
“You’re one of them and they’ve made it crystal fucking clear, time and again, that I’m not. Those people don’t give two shits about me!”
“That’s not true. They didn’t mean—”
“Do you know why security told me I had to ride back by myself? Because I wasn’t allowed in the car with your mom and your sister.” She abruptly stood up. “I can’t do this. I have to call Grace.”
Zinnia
Anger always showed up first, locking and barricading the door. No other emotions allowed. But somehow, they managed to slither in anyway.
Zinnia called her friends, who were now side by side on her phone’s screen. She was lying on the bed and holding them close to her face.
“Hold on,” Fiona said. “Let me get this straight: you were nearly assaulted, and you’re mad at yourself?”
She was embarrassed by how loud and wrong she’d been. Thank Jesus she waited to tell Jordan her theory in private. Production would’ve loved watching her make a fool of herself.
“None of this is your fault,” Grace said. “They’re the ones who put you in this fucked-up situation where you have to question everything.”
“You’re a hero, Z.”
She wasn’t. She’d been scared.
“You thought the whole thing was fake and protected Lulie anyway,” Fiona said. “Do you honestly think most people would’ve done that?”
Most people weren’t half as gullible as she was.
“Being kind, wanting to trust people, doesn’t make you stupid,” Grace said. “I don’t know why you think that about yourself, but you need to stop. Because no one else thinks that about you.”
“You don’t see yourself clearly,” Fiona said. “Sometimes I swear it’s like you can’t for some reason.”
Zinnia needed this—to hear Fiona’s optimistically gentle chiding and Grace’s no-nonsense affirmations. Her friends showed her it was okay to feel and process, helped her truly understand what it meant to be alive. To exist as a person in her complex entirety.
She was an artist with a mean impatient streak, who gave people more chances than they deserved because she had all this love to give and was fundamentally incompatible with loneliness.
“They’re going to treat you differently now,” Grace said. “They have to play nice or else it’ll make them look bad. Ungrateful. I’m pretty sure Damon doesn’t have any malicious intentions. I can’t call it on the others.”
Fiona bumped Grace’s shoulder with a meaningful look.
“Neither does the other one. He’s fine.” Grace looked away.
“Jordan cares about you, Z. He messaged me as soon as the news broke because he wanted to make sure we didn’t panic too. You should try talking to him again.”
She didn’t know that.
Five minutes after hanging up, all the defensive walls Zinnia had built came crumbling down. Homesickness hit her like a wrecking ball.
She missed her friends being down the hall. She missed her bed. And her pillows. And her cramped, organized room.
Listening to music as she prepared, packed, and shipped hundreds of Find Your Zin orders every Monday and Thursday. Popping ibuprofen to get ahead of the hand cramps from writing so many personal thank-you notes.
The clean smell of her favorite laundry detergent—she used to sit in the living room every Sunday afternoon with a giant pile of their laundry and a brand-new audiobook.
She even missed the passive-aggressive neighborhood squabbles and walking into work before dawn. Those moments of quiet before clocking in, clacking keys, and grumbling, perky voices.
She missed her entire life—the one she’d originally wanted to share with a partner.
With Jordan.
Zinnia wrapped her blankets tighter around herself as she listened to the sound of his footsteps in the hall. She squeezed her eyes closed and prayed for sleep to find her.
All she got were those neon geometric shapes that lived behind eyelids.
How was she supposed to tell him she wanted to go home? She didn’t want to leave him, and she couldn’t ask him to leave with her. He wanted to be with his family.
Thinking about Jordan felt as safe as thinking about her parents and about Grace and Fiona. He was her family…but there was also a new feeling, something growing and eager to find the sun.
Dark, soulful jazz music floated into her room.