Twenty Years Later

Zoey

I raced down the stairs and grabbed my purse from the table. I was almost out the door when I heard my dad yell my name.

“Zoey, stop!”

“Yeah, Dad?” I smiled as I turned and looked at him.

He tapped his cheek with his finger.

“Sorry.” I ran over to where he was standing and gave him a kiss.

“Be careful and tell Holly I said hi.”

“Always am, and I will.”

I flew out the door, running late as usual, to pick up my best friend Holly for a day trip to New York City. As I climbed into my Jeep Grand Cherokee, my other dad pulled up.

“Where are you off to?” he asked with a smile.

“I’m picking up Holly and we’re going to do some shopping in the city.”

“Ah. Tell her I said hi and be careful.”

I rolled my eyes with a smile. “Always am, and I will.”

“Love you, Zoey.”

“Love you too, Dad. I’ll see you tonight.”

I pulled up to Holly’s house where she stood in the driveway, looking at her watch.

“It’s about time, Zoe,” she spoke as she climbed into the car and shut the door.

“Sorry. I was on the phone talking to Brendan as I was getting ready.”

“What’s going on with you two anyway?” she asked as she chomped on her gum. “I thought you were on a break?”

“We are, but he thinks he wants to get back together.” I rolled my eyes.

“He thinks? He actually said that? What did you say?”

“I told him that he needs his space, and if it was meant to be, then it would be in due time.”

“Good answer.” She grinned. “You aren’t really into him that much anyway. Are you?”

I shrugged. “I wanted to be, but I just don’t feel that connection.”

“Well, all I can say is if you aren’t feeling it after eight months, it’s never going to be there.”

Holly Stanfield had been my best friend since my parents moved to Greenwich, Connecticut when I was five years old. She was the only person who knew my real story. We were soul sisters who told each other everything. We were inseparable. Her parents knew a different version of my life. The version of John and Scott, my fathers, who adopted me when I was a baby after I was found on the stairs of the church they attended. That was the story we had stuck with since I was five years old because if the media found out who I really was, the chaos would start all over again. I trusted her. She never told a soul and I knew she never would. She was a beautiful girl who stood five foot five, slender build, long wavy auburn hair and eyes that looked like emeralds.

While she attended beauty school, I was at the University of Connecticut getting my bachelor’s degree in nursing with a specialty in hospice care. Since it was a two-hour drive from where I lived, I stayed on campus during the week and came home every weekend. I completed my bachelor’s degree in less than four years, taking on several extra classes during the summer months. The one thing I loved about my job was the traveling aspect of it. I didn’t work out of a facility or hospital. My patients who required hospice care preferred to do it in the privacy of their home. Most of the time, I lived with them when their life expectancy was as little as two weeks, with the exception of Charles, a fifty-year-old man who was dying from lung cancer and lived four weeks longer than the doctors expected. The way people found me was on a site called HospiceCareforYou.com. I had a profile, background check, and my list of experiences. Since I was only twenty-five, some thought I was way too young with not enough experience to care for their loved ones, until they met me.

“So now that Mr. Patterson passed away, what’s your next job?” Holly asked as we walked down Fifth Avenue and did some window shopping.

“I don’t have one yet, but I’m not worried. Someone will message me soon.” I smiled.

“With the money you make from those families, you can afford not to take care of a few patients for a while.”

“True, but you know I don’t like to go too long without working. There are patients out there that need me.”

“I don’t know how you do it, Zoey.” She hooked her arm around me. “I need coffee.”

“Me too.” I smiled. “There’s a Starbucks right around the corner.”

As we entered through the doors to one of my favorite coffee shops, we were both surprised there wasn’t a line.

“May I help you?” the blonde barista asked as we walked up to the counter.

“Two Grande Americanos, please.”

“I’ll go get us a table,” Holly spoke.

“Anything else?” the barista asked.

My eyes diverted over to where the muffins sat behind the glass.

“One chocolate chip muffin.” I grinned.

“Coming right up.”

I grabbed my muffin from the counter and patiently waited for our Americanos to be made.

“Two Grande Americanos for Zoey.” The cute guy with the short brown hair behind the counter smiled.

“Thank you.” I smiled back.

I grabbed the coffees and took them over to the table where Holly sat. Pulling the muffin from the bag, I set it in the middle of the table for the two of us to share. We sipped our coffee, picked at the muffin, and we laughed at a funny video our friend Morris sent Holly.

“Could the two of you take your laughter outside? I’m on a phone call,” an incredibly attractive but rude man sitting at the table next to us spoke.

We both stared at him in disbelief that he had the nerve to tell us that in a public place. Actually, it was Holly giving him the dirty look. My eyes were fixated on how handsome he was.

“Dude, this is a public place. Maybe you should take your phone call outside,” Holly snapped at him.

He looked at me with his sapphire blue eyes and I gulped at his cold gaze. He hung up the phone, got up from his seat, and stood in front of our table.

“This may be a public place, but it’s not a child’s playground,” he spoke in an authoritative tone.

I couldn’t help but admire his almost perfectly symmetrical face with a hint of scruff that graced his jawline. He turned around and I watched him walk away and out of the coffee shop. He stood approximately six foot two with brown hair that was in a classic taper cut with the top just long enough to run a comb through. His build looked hard and lean and the black designer suit he wore was tailored to perfection. He was almost perfect, except for the darkness that resided inside him, something I picked up on the moment he spoke to us.

“What a dick!” Holly laughed.

My eyes never left the doorway of the shop as Holly snapped her fingers at me to quickly bring me back to reality.

“Zoey, what the hell?”

“What?” I looked at her.

“Oh my God, don’t tell me you thought he was hot.” She laughed.

I picked up my coffee cup and took a sip from it.

“He was cute. You can’t deny that,” I spoke.

“Doesn’t matter. He was rude and the type of person who thinks they own the world. I can’t stand people like him.”