19. She said, “You can talk to me.”
19
She said, “You can talk to me.”
Eden
Apartment 15C loomed at the end of the corridor.
The carpet smothered the comforting clickety-click of my heels, so it was my heart pounding the beat as I dragged my feet to the door. I glanced at my phone to read Zach’s message for the tenth time.
Zach
How about a night in? I’ll pamper you like a princess. We can get to know each other again. No pressure.
Except there was pressure.
Not from Zach. He was a gentleman. He only popped a kiss on my cheek after whispering to ask for my permission, and even though I didn’t always say yes, he never grumbled, and it only made the next kiss all the sweeter. But tonight wasn’t neutral territory. We weren’t meeting at a bar or treading the familiar boards of the coffee shop. The door at the end of the corridor was Zach’s apartment. His bed was inside, and I’d tumbled in his immaculately tucked Egyptian cotton sheets enough times to know it was worth diving back in.
My phone buzzed.
What was the point of checking? I knew it was Andie giving more of the ‘helpful’ advice she’d lumped on me at brunch about not rushing things.
I frowned at the screen.
Andie
Keep your vulva out of the conversation tonight.
Talking solves problems, not sexual intercourse.
I glared at my phone before stuffing it back in my bag and kept walking. Andie was trying to help. She was. And she wasn’t…wrong. I made no secret about enjoying sex. A man hammering between my thighs as he yanked my hair and made me beg to come—heaven. But I’d bawled my way through enough therapy sessions to confront the fact there were times I used sex to avoid real intimacy.
Pound my pussy but stay the fuck out of my heart. Use me tonight because your use-by date is tomorrow. I decided. I held the power.
Not with Zach.
Sex with him had always been different. Our first weekend in bed together had been heaven, but not the kind fuelled by the short-lived lust of chasing my orgasm. My shy sweetheart was an unexpected surprise. He was intense. Insatiable. He had the naughtiest little potty mouth when he fully let go, but he would kiss me so very softly as the rest of him did unspeakable things. When Zach was in control, sex was an intoxicating mix of rough but tender.
I was in trouble.
I gulped in a deep breath and raised my hand to knock, but the door swung open before my knuckles hit the wood.
There was no sign of Zach’s thoughtful scowl. His warmth hit me in two waves—the hug sweeping me off my feet and the kiss on my forehead. I snuck my nose into the soft cotton of his T-shirt and sniffed the familiar soap and cologne. My heart fluttered. I’d missed his smell on my pillow.
“You’re here.” He murmured the words almost in disbelief.
“I believe you promised to pamper me like a princess,” I teased.
“Oh, I’m going to pamper the pants right off you.” The skin under Zach’s glasses flushed a deep pink. “I—I didn’t mean it like… you know .”
Laughing, I kicked off my shoes and watched with amusement when Zach neatly lined them up beside his. I followed him inside.
Speaking of pants coming off…
I snuck a peek at Zach. Jeans and a simple striped T-shirt. Eh. Nothing special. But hot damn, even if he were wearing a sack, he’d be a fine example of a man. He had a presence, a quiet but powerful masculinity. Those shoulders. I sighed. And that booty…
“Eden.” A scowl turned over Zach’s shoulder. “Stop looking at my butt.” He had the nerve to wink.
“As if I was.” The squeak in my voice betrayed me. “Stop being so obsessed with yourself.”
My gaze drifted around the apartment. I’d never missed this place. The bitter memories of being on my own—wondering where Zach was—still stained the sterile white walls. A shudder skated over my skin, but I shook off the feeling. I closed my eyes, focusing on our fresh start and all the delicious smells floating in the kitchen.
“Bread…and herbs…and something sweet in the oven,” I murmured. “Maybe a hint of coffee.”
Zach laughed. “You’ve basically guessed my whole menu.” When I popped my eyes open, he was leaning over the marble countertop, watching me with a smile as he tumbled a pile of tomatoes onto his chopping board. “I’m cooking Italian.”
“That’s my favourite!” I stowed my bag and wandered over, searching for an apron, hovering over his board, ready to help. “What can I do?”
“I’m supposed to be pampering you, remember?” He pointed at the uncorked bottle of white wine—the bougie kind I liked—and the empty glass waiting on the edge of the kitchen counter. “For you. Take a seat and talk to me about your day. I’ll keep going with this.”
I scooted my li’l booty onto the stool. Pouring the wine, I paused for a moment, letting a familiar feeling sink into my bones. This was nice. Cosy. Zach and I had shared a few dinners like this in our early days. I’d cooked. He’d cooked. We’d talked about nothing much important, and dinner had often gotten singed around the edges when we’d been distracted by an overheated kissing session. A flicker of warmth tinged my cheeks. Was that how tonight would end?
Ping.
I clunked down the wine bottle, my eyes shifting to where Zach had tossed his phone on the counter.
He wasn’t interested in the slightest. He ignored it, focusing on the ingredients in front of him. “So, what did you get up to today?” His knife hit the board in smooth, steady strokes.
“Not much,” I said. “Sometimes, you need a lazy Saturday. We opted for brunch and pedicures.”
“Cute.” His eyebrow lifted. “Even Andie?”
“ Especially Andie. Don’t let her tomboy aesthetic fool you. In some ways, she’s as high-maintenance as the rest of us. What’d you get up to?”
Ping.
Zach ignored the new message and kept chopping. “Went into the office.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m behind on a few files.” The smile he attempted was strained. “My boss isn’t exactly happy about it.” He couldn’t turn away quick enough to avoid the rest of that conversation. He fussed with the knobs on the oven instead.
Ping.
What the f—
Ping.
Paranoia clawed at my skin. I needed to trust Zach to make our relationship work, but my fingers itched to snatch the phone.
Zach skewered a toothpick into whatever he was baking in the oven. “Dee, can you please see who’s ruining our night?” he asked absently.
“Oh, um…” A nervous laugh. “I respect your privacy.” A total lie. I snuck another sideways look at his phone. I’d kill to know who kept messaging him.
He snorted. “The passcode is eight five three zero. I’m giving you full authority to tell whoever it is to buzz off.”
I picked up the phone, the thump of adrenaline in my veins making my hand shake. I took a deep breath. Typed in the passcode. Opened the messages. Let my beady little eyes read all the terrible words. Except…
My smile stretched wider the more I read. The never-ending stream of messages was from Zach’s mum.
Mum
Is Eden there yet?
Did you choose something nice to wear?
Don’t serve my future daughter-in-law an underbaked loaf of bread.
Remember, no soggy bottoms!
“All good?” Zach’s hands were stuffed in white oven mitts, and he held a bread pan. Before I could even get through a full nod, a new message popped up.
Mum
Don’t let that no-neck rugby goon get his baguette in her oven before you do!
My eyes bulged. Shock burst the laughter out of me.
Zach’s eyebrow rose.
“Your”—I swiped a tear from my lashes—“mum.”
His face turned whiter than the oven mitts. “Oh, God.” The pan clattered onto the stovetop, and he scrambled to strip off the mitts before racing to my side and grabbing the phone. His eyes darted over the screen. “No.” His skin turned scarlet. “Oh no. Y-You read this?”
“Every last word.”
“So, ah—” Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and forced a smile. “Yeah, that’s Mum for you.” He messed around with the buttons on his phone. “Okay, the phone’s off. I vote we forget any of that ever happened.”
“Sorry, no can do. I need to report back to Maree about the status of the soggy bottom. However”—I grinned—“I could be swayed to spare her the details of where your baguette does—or does not—end up by the end of this evening.”
Zach grunted. “I appreciate your generosity. What are your terms?”
I nodded at the discarded bread pan. “What type of bread did you make?”
“Sourdough.”
If he hadn’t ducked his head so quickly, he would’ve seen the enormous smile overtaking my face.
“That’s my favourite,” I said.
He nodded. He knew. He wanted to prove things would be different this time. It was working. My heart was diving in loop-de-loops, giddy, ready to pack up my new apartment and move right back in with him. Too bad the cynical side of me wasn’t convinced. It was easy enough for Zach to spoil me with a nice meal. The greater challenge for him—both of us, really—was how we handled when life smashed us with bigger issues than a few awkward messages or choosing what bread to bake.
I bumped his shoulder with mine. “Consider me swayed.”
Zach beamed a smile. His cheeks still a dark pink, he directed his shyness into sliding the glass of wine along the countertop to me and returning to his salad prep. Off he went, chopping his tomatoes, dicing the onion, and moving on to a piece of celery. I tipped back a sip of wine and peeked at him over the rim of the glass. The sweet tingle did nothing compared to the zing shooting through me as I drooled over Zach’s muscular forearm at work. I reached out and traced my fingertip along the corded muscle. It wasn’t my fault. His sexy forearm begged me to do it.
Zach sucked in a sharp breath. The knife paused, and a cautious glance turned from the corner of his eye.
Gorgeous.
My tongue darted over my bottom lip as I let my hand wander a little higher to his bicep. “It’s a crime you were born so sexy.”
His laugh was nervous. “I wasn’t born looking like this.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “I shot up like a bean sprout. I don’t think I had a pinch of fat on me until I was at least twenty…despite my mother’s best efforts to fill me out.”
“Where’d you get all these yummy muscles then?”
“The same way everyone else does.” He tried to steady his breathing as my finger explored all the pretty veins that patterned his skin. “Working out.”
Huh? “You go to the gym?” Since when? “Not just for herb deliveries?”
Zach laughed. “I go a couple of times a week on my lunch break. Well… used to. Work has been nuts lately, so I’ve skipped most of my sessions. I should try getting back in the habit. Maybe I will after the announcement.”
“You lift weights?”
He snorted. That was a no. “Boxing, mostly. Punching something helps blow off some of the frustration when there’s drama around the office.” His smile pinched. “It’s just a dumb thing the therapist recommended.”
“You…” A rock lodged in my throat. Therapist? This was news. Big news. I’d shared so much with him, spilt my guts, and he hadn’t said a word. “You see a therapist?”
The knife clattered to the chopping board. Zach’s head bowed, his hand plunging into his hair.
“Hey . It’s okay.” I wrapped my arm around his waist and encouraged him to snuggle closer. “You can talk to me.”
“I don’t see the therapist anymore,” he said. “It was a few years ago. I, um… I tried to…” His body slumped into me, his weight pressing me into the counter. “Chris made me see someone after Mum got sick.”
I never thought much about my mother. Memories of her were misty. Maybe a smile or the faint smell of a freshly baked cake, but I could have imagined that because the one photo I’d seen had been the two of us on my second birthday. But I knew what it was like to lose my mother. I understood the gut punch that left you hollow. I knew why Zach took those big breaths to fill up the space gnawing inside him. I knew.
“Zach, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s hard to talk about. I can think about it.” He tapped his temple. “But if I try to make the words come out, it—it doesn’t always—”
“Shh.” I feathered my fingers into his hair, gently stroking his head, my own pulse calming as some of the tension seeped from his muscles. “You don’t need to say more. Your mum’s okay now, right?”
He nodded. “She’s in remission.”
Cancer. Holy hell. “Are you okay?”
“You’re here. I’m okay.”
I was there, but what should I do to show him I was there in moments like this? The right words, the right actions—I had no idea what they were. No one had taught me. I did the only thing I knew. Falling back into old habits, I arched on my tiptoes to capture his lips. Short and sweet kisses melted into long and luxurious.
Zach knew the steps to our old dance, too.
Ragged, uneven breaths jumped in his chest. He pulled back. Dark eyes intense, mouth not quite smiling, he snagged the belt of my dress and tugged me across the room. Strong arms lifted me. Goosebumps prickled my skin when cold wood stuck to my thighs as I awkwardly bumped onto the dining table.
“Eden.” A stubbly cheek pressed to mine. “Let me make you feel good.” His big palm crept up my thigh. Stopped. Squeezed.
A promise, if I said yes.
I wanted to, but…
Should I?