13. Zara
ZARA
The irritating noise of my alarm clock echoes off the bathroom tiles, and I startle awake.
The bath water temperature has dramatically cooled, and goose bumps prickle my skin. Exhaustion still drapes my body like a soggy blanket, partly due to my inability to sleep through the night lately.
My shoulders and hips and the base of my spine twinge, reminding me why I keep waking up and have trouble falling asleep.
Maybe I need a new mattress.
Groaning, I push to my feet. Only to groan again as my muscles protest the movement. Cold water streams down my body, making things worse.
Shivering, I grab my towel and quickly get ready, dressing in the black silk pantsuit I wore for less than an hour last night. I then put the same effort into my appearance as I did for my date. Only, this time I’m not doing it for a man to appreciate.
I’m doing it for myself.
Doing it so my friends don’t notice my fatigue.
I’m only running a few minutes late by the time I arrive at Garrett’s house. I gather up the groceries I bought after work and walk to his front door. I don’t bother ringing his doorbell. Garrett leaves the door unlocked when he knows I’m coming over.
I step inside the home that was decorated with a bachelor in mind.
The rich brown colors are like creamy hot chocolate on a cold winter day, with splashes of bright color scattered throughout the space.
Color mostly in the form of the framed landscape photos on the hallway and living room walls.
Photos of the local mountains and Windermere Lake.
Photos taken by Kim, my sister-in-law. They’re a nod to Garrett’s love of nature.
“Hey, Golden Girl.” Garrett walks toward me, a towel wrapped low on his hips. “I thought I heard the door.” Water droplets trickle down his muscular body, and my mouth goes desert dry.
I’ve seen Garrett shirtless plenty of times, but like a sunset, his chiseled chest doesn’t grow any less spectacular each time I see it.
The scattering of shrapnel scars on his side does nothing to mar the perfection.
They beckon me to kiss them, to let him know I’m glad they didn’t steal him from me.
A handful of tattoos decorate his fine body. Beautiful tattoos that also pay homage to his love of nature. My favorite is the scripted words along his side: “Courage is found in unlikely places.”
The quote is from Lord of the Rings , a book we read together when we were teens.
Garrett stops in front of me, close enough to watch a droplet succumb to gravity and caress his lightly tanned skin. Lucky droplet .
I force my eyes to find his, but his gaze isn’t on my face. It’s on the soft mounds of flesh peeking above my cami’s plunging neckline.
A smug smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. I’m tempted to adjust the top, pulling it down an inch, to flash more of my skin. To remind him that I am all woman.
His eyes linger on my breasts for a fraction of a second more, then slide down my body. Under the stroke of his gaze, my body heats, my breath stumbles, and my heart rate tumbles out in a rapid pitta-patter-pitta-patter .
Why does he have to have this effect on me ?
Garrett clears his throat, and his eyes move up to mine. Any hint of what he might have been thinking is gone. “New outfit?”
I nod, unable to find my voice with him standing there in nothing but a towel. I’m pretty sure my brain cells are fried from this whole interaction.
“It looks nice.” He slowly reaches toward the opening of my shirt, then seems to catch himself and drops his hand to his side.
“Thank you.” The words push past my dry mouth, my voice catching-my-breath husky.
“Let me get changed first. Then we need to talk.”
His spell on me breaks, and those three dreaded words pound in my head on an echo.
Need to talk?
He smiles, as if trying to lessen the impact of his words, but the sadness in his tone, missing a moment ago, snuffs out all hope of that. I knew he wanted to tell me something. I just didn’t realize it wouldn’t be something good.
We’re not dating, so at least I don’t have to worry he’s dumping me.
I’m not looking at a repeat of what happened with Joseph. Heck, whatever it is Garrett wants to tell me, I have a feeling it has nothing to do with my ex-boyfriend. Perhaps it has something to do with his book that releases in September. Or his most recent book deal.
Lord, I hope it has nothing to do with his parents—like one of them is sick.
I lift the cloth bags I’m carrying. “I’ll put these things away for now. I didn’t have a chance to whip up anything. I’ll do that after we talk.”
I walk past him and put the bags on the counter.
I stroke the cool granite surface, wishing for the hundredth time my kitchen looked like this.
The room is both beautiful and a masterpiece, like the mountains Garrett loves to hike and climb.
This room is meant to be cooked in every night, to be loved and respected.
The endless counter and storage space are a cook’s wet dream.
Storage space that makes my small kitchen look so sad and inadequate.
While I wait for Garrett to get changed, I organize the food supplies I brought with me. We’ve got two hours until everyone shows up. Plenty of time for me to make the guacamole and tapas.
I don’t hear Garrett come into the kitchen as much as sense him.
The fresh outdoors scent he wears so well wraps me in a loving embrace.
Nope, I don’t imagine him—now that I’m single again—hugging me from behind.
I definitely don’t imagine him kissing the side of my neck.
And I absolutely don’t imagine him humming his satisfaction on my skin.
It’s been more than fifteen years since he fell in love with one of my friends. Aren’t I supposed to be over him by now?
Correction, I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him to begin with. I knew it was a mistake the second my feelings for him altered their trajectory. I hadn’t wanted to risk our friendship. And yet, I still fell.
I turn, the curve of my spine against the counter grounding me. It’s not the teasing Garrett whose eyes are locked with mine. It’s the sad Garrett. The his-heart-has-been-ripped-out-of-his-chest Garrett.
And it’s suddenly as if the ground is shifting under my feet. That brief moment just prior to an earthquake, when birds and animals get the spine-tingling sense to take cover. That brief moment before the surrounding world crumples and nothing is the same again.
“Are you gonna tell me now what’s going on? And why you wanna talk to me before everyone else gets here?” My voice comes out strong, the opposite of the shaking of the foundation inside me.
“Let’s go sit down.” He points to the large sectional couch, and a thousand moths go berserk in my belly. I don’t think he could make me any more nervous than this.
Garrett sits next to me and releases a never-ending breath, his gaze on his long, strong fingers resting on his thighs. The jeans he changed into lightly hug the hard contours of his leg muscles.
I wait for him to collect his thoughts, to speak, to break my world apart. Because that’s exactly what I sense will happen. Whatever he has to tell me will impact me in ways both of us have yet to realize. I just can’t imagine what it could be.
And that’s making me more lip-biting, leg-bouncing, thought-spiraling jittery .
I can’t even wipe my sweat-slickened palms against my silk pants. The fabric won’t appreciate it.
With each tick of the mantel clock, my unease grows steadily thicker, denser.
“I’m not sure how to tell you this…”
I wait for the rest of what he wants to tell me, but the words seem to fail him. I lean forward and lace our fingers together.
He holds my hand securely in his. “There was…there was a mall shooting last week. In North Carolina. Kenda was at the mall.”
The pain in his eyes tells me everything I need to know. I jerk my hand from his, as if that’s all it will take for him to yank back the words and tell me he made a mistake. He meant someone else.
No, no, no. It’s not true. She can’t be dead. Not Kenda . She was going to make a difference in the world. Bring awareness to the injustices marginalized women face.
How…how can she be dead? Where’s the justice in that?
Random memories replay in my mind. Memories of Kenda and I pulling all-nighters and studying for our exams together. Of dancing at nightclubs and borrowing each other’s clothes. Of talking late into the night about all kinds of things.
Of sharing our secrets, other than my biggest secret of all.
The one dealing with Garrett—of how we had both fallen for him.
A harsh sob builds in my chest, and my lungs burn from within—a flash fire ready to devastate me. Ready to burn my world to a crisp.
Garrett gathers me in his arms. I rest my forehead on his shoulder, and the dam crumples under the weight of my tears. Of all the things that cycled through my mind as to why he’d wanted to talk to me, Kenda’s death hadn’t been one of them.
Why? Why? Why? Why would anyone shoot her?
Everything I’m feeling—the loss of a friend, the exhaustion, the constant ache in my muscles and joints—pours out of me and onto Garrett’s shoulder in body-shaking sobs. He rubs soothing circles on the base of my spine, but it’s not enough to slow the tears.
All I can do is cry and cry and cry, the broken dam unfixable.
It’s only when there are no more tears left, when the sobbing has lulled to a watery hiccup, when shame and guilt and dismay turn to lead in my belly—because he’s consoling me even though she was once the love of his life—it’s only then, after all those things, I finally sit up.
A damp patch stains his T-shirt, a combination of tears and streaked mascara.
Sniffing, I trace my finger over the black smears on the light-gray cotton, as if that’s all it will take to make them vanish. As if that will bring Kenda back to life and make everything right in the world. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a mess of your T-shirt.”