Chapter Three
Zack
Sunday
Urgh, shit!
My leg was stiff as I turned on my side to wake up in the morning. The dull ache radiated through my calf, right up to my hip, instantly putting me in a bad mood. I knew that I needed to get into the shower to help ease some of the agony, but the idea of walking from my bed into the bathroom felt like climbing a mountain. It was out of reach, too far away.
Still, I was going to have to if I didn’t want the black cloud to swallow me up whole.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered as I put some weight on it. “Fuck, why?”
Nope, I couldn’t think of the why, I had to get in the shower. I hobbled over to the bathroom and turned the shower on. The sound of the water racing and pattering on the shower floor while I waited for it to heat up irritated me. I felt it banging into my brain as if it was trying to develop into a headache on purpose.
Things eased off once I got into the water and the heat from it eased some of the tension in my muscles. I needed to get it to a position where it was comfortable enough to walk on with ease, then I had to go for a walk. My physical therapist was always on me to keep working in my muscle. She said it was important to relax, but also vital to move it. I got the impression that she didn’t really believe me when I told her that I was doing my best – but to be fair, more often than not she was right.
Today I would, though; today I was going to be good.
I got out of the shower and dragged some sweatpants up over my legs and a tee shirt over my head. That was agonizing and tiring, but determination flooded me. Once upon a time, I was one of the fittest men on the planet. I could overcome this – I had to.
Right, Zack, I told myself determinedly as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My dark hair was messier and longer than it used to be when I was a Seal, and my freckles were more prominent for some reason, but aside from all of that, I was still the same person. Just go for a little walk; really, how hard can that be?
But as I turned to make my way towards my front door and the pain flew through my body, I was reminded of just how challenging it was. Everything was harder these days.
I pushed the door open and slammed the elevator button, but when it didn’t immediately light up, I knew it was on the fritz again. It wouldn’t be long until it was fixed, the building manager was pretty good like that, but today, I would have to tackle the stairs. I wasn’t much in the mood for it, but I didn’t have any choice.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I felt my knee give way just as I heard the clicking sound of another door opening. I was distracted, not thinking properly, and that made my leg cave. The floor started hurtling towards me, but before I connected with it properly, a pair of arms wrapped around mine to hold me up. The person catching me wasn’t strong enough to fully hold me up, but it was enough to stop me from crashing right down. “Oh, thanks.”
My eyes moved upwards along the body, and my blood ran ice cold. It was her – the red head. I didn’t help her because I was afraid of looking weak, and now I’d gone and done just that – and now it was even worse because I felt completely helpless.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, concern filling her voice. “Are you hurt?”
A blush filled my cheeks, this was so fucking embarrassing. I hated that the first woman I actually found attractive in a very long time was seeing me in such a vulnerable fashion. It wasn’t me at all.
“Yep, I’m fine,” I snapped back.
“Why did you fall?” a small voice called out from behind me. I didn’t even need to turn to know that it must have been the kid. She saw it, as well, which somehow made it worse. I turned to look at the girl and plastered a fake smile on my face. “I didn’t mean to,” I chuckled thickly. “Just one of those things.”
“I’m Meghan,” she announced proudly. “We moved here yesterday.”
I know, I thought, suddenly really ashamed of myself. I didn’t acknowledge it, though. I wanted to brush right over it. “I’m Zack.”
“I’m Olivia,” her beautiful mom joined in, causing me to stare at her. The funny thing was that close up, she was even more stunning. Her eyes were big and round, her smile was sweet, her skin looked soft enough to touch…and damn, I wanted to touch her. She made me crave that human touch all over again. “Nice to meet you.”
She was being very kind since I was such an asshole when I saw her moving in. Clearly, she was giving me a second chance, so when she extended her hand to me I took it and shook it. As fission of excitement raced through my body as our skin connected, and judging by the way her eyes opened wider, she felt it too.
I had no idea what that meant.
“You need to be a bit more careful,” Olivia announced in a teacher-style warning. “Your leg must be weak, you shouldn’t push it.”
With that, all the good feeling zapped from my body and I felt like shit. I fucking hated being this weak, pathetic person, and to have the one person I’d liked since the accident see right through me just reminded me of who I was. I was a man. I was supposed to be the fucking strong one. I didn’t need this bullshit. Plus, I despised being told what to do.
“Thanks for your vast medical knowledge,” I replied pissily. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
With that I brushed past her and continued on my journey down the stairs. I did tread more carefully, but that was only because I didn’t want the hassle of falling again. I didn’t want Olivia to see that she was right.
A burning hot rage bubbled in my heart and didn’t cool at all until the cool fresh air from the outside world filled them. It was only then that I realized I wasn’t really angry at Olivia – I was actually angry at myself. I hated the slow speed of my progress. It filled me with rage to know that my life would never be the same again. I felt silly, breezing through life with nothing, no aim, no goal, no nothing.
I glanced back up at the building and bit down on my bottom lip, but there was no point in going back in there. I needed to keep on walking, instead. At least now I had a destination in mind. Vi’s Café: my favorite place to get coffee. Plus, it helped that it was near the subway station, which was why I went there a lot.
I got my coffee quickly and grabbed a newspaper off the counter to read as I drank. I wasn’t much in the mood for small talk today, and since I was a regular at Vi’s, most people knew me well enough to just come and sit with me without being invited to do so. Usually that was okay, but today I just wasn’t feeling it.
But fate wasn’t on my side. I couldn’t get away from chatter today, however hard I tried. No sooner had I taken my seat and turned to the first page, than a familiar voice rang through my brain.
“You’re so predictable,” Lark joked. “You have to be the easiest person in the world to find.”
“You know I have my routines now,” I quipped without looking up from the page. I wasn’t reading, I just didn’t want Lark to know that he’d gotten to me. “I have to do certain things to keep myself going.” I hated how depressing that sounded – it almost made me want to race back home to bed, to block out the world completely.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I risked looking upwards as he fell into silence. As soon as he saw me, he gave me a bright grin. “Did you want some cake to go with your coffee?”
I glanced towards the counter to see all kinds of delicious-looking treats calling my name. My mouth watered desperately, and my stomach growled. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Lark leapt up and tugged his wallet out of his pocket. “I’ll get it.”
I gave him a confused look. Why the hell would Lark want to pay for the cake when I could more than afford it? He knew as well as I did that I had more money that I knew what to do with. “Why would you do that? You know I have it.”
He shrugged and smirked. “Just because you have the money, doesn’t mean you have to pay all the time. You are allowed to save it, you know.”
“I’m sure some cake won’t break the bank.”
“No, and it won’t for me, either, so just let me get it.”
As Lark walked up to the counter, I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t think I’d be able to spend all the money I had in my life time even if I was actually trying, so I wasn’t sure why he was being so weird about it. I didn’t spend much, so it wasn’t like worrying about saving was the top of my priority list…
“What are you thinking about?” Lark asked as he placed the cake down in front of me. “You look like you’re putting the world to rights.”
I didn’t want to tell him my actual train of thought because I couldn’t be bothered to get into an argument with him, so instead, I decided to tell him about Olivia. “I met my new neighbor today.”
“The hot one with a kid?”
“Yeah. She’s called Olivia. It was an awful meeting, actually. My leg gave way, and I fell right onto her.”
“Ooh, sexy.” He wiggled his eyebrows as he taunted me. “That’s a bit meet cute, like in the movies.”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all, it was horrible. So embarrassing.” I shook my head in dismay at the memory. “And then she tried to give me some bullshit medical advice…”
Luckily before I could get into too much of a rant about things, Lark’s cell phone blasted out and distracted him from me. “Oh sorry, it’s work. I have to take this.”
As he left the room, I sucked in a few deep breaths of air to calm me down, and as I did, the memory faded somewhat. It didn’t matter too much, Olivia obviously hated me now and nothing was going to change that. I needed to forget all about it – and her. Yeah, maybe I found her attractive, but surely, that would stop now that I knew she was a bossy know-it-all? I thought.
“Sorry, Zack.” All of a sudden, Lark broke into my train of thought. “I have to go. I have a competition in Vegas that’s just come up. I need to prepare for it, but I’ll see you soon okay?”
“Yep sure.” Perfect, my quiet coffee on a Sunday morning, just how I wanted it. “I’ll see you later. Good luck with everything!” I waved him off and opened up my newspaper, getting back to the story on the very first page, finally enjoying the exact way that I’d wanted this visit to Vi’s to go.