28

THE FLICKER OF THE GYM LIGHTS caught me off guard. Practice was over already? That couldn’t be right. I swallowed a laugh, realizing that I’d lost track of the time —again —as I’d worked with my middles.

Wait a minute. My middles? This was Sydney’s team. These were Sydney’s girls. I’d agreed to be a backup assistant coach —nothing more. I’d help out at practices sometimes as a favor to my former coach. Come to games when I could.

And yes, there was a part of me that was excited about being involved in volleyball again.

“Thanks, Coach.” Katelyn ran past me as she dumped a ball in the rolling mesh bucket cart. “It was fun tonight.”

Coach? “You had a great practice tonight. If you want to come about a half hour early next time, we can work on your hitting.”

A grin lit her face. “That’d be great!”

“Okay. You can get my number from Sydney if there’s a problem.”

“Thanks.”

Jody stopped beside me. “Coach Sydney was your coach, too, right?”

“Yeah, when I was in high school.” I tossed a ball over the net. “My sister and I both played on varsity.”

“Did you play in college?”

“No.”

“Neither of you? Why not? I thought Coach said you were good.”

It was a straight-up question. Jody didn’t know how complicated the answer was. Of course, I could keep my answer straight-up, too. “Pepper —my twin sister —was killed in a snowmobile accident during spring break when we were juniors in high school.”

“Oh. Wow.”

This was almost like the start of tryouts, where everyone knew what was going to happen —volleyball —but didn’t know the order of the specific drills. I was an adult. I knew how to have a basic conversation with other people, but I avoided talking about Pepper, about her death, for this very reason. Straight-up answer or not, telling someone your sister was dead made them uncomfortable.

Time to move the conversation on to a better topic. “Anyway, after that, I didn’t want to play volleyball anymore. I own a party-planning business with a college friend.”

Parents were trickling into the gym to pick up their daughters. The girls sat along the left side of the court, changing into warmer clothes and checking their phones. One dad lingered just inside the door, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Wait. That wasn’t a dad. That was Zach.

He waved as we made eye contact. I offered a small wave back, my initial surprise blending with a sense of pleasure mingled with awkwardness.

Maybe my agreement to meet him for coffee after practice when he’d called late last week was a mistake.

But we were just meeting for coffee. Nothing more. I wasn’t even sure why I’d said yes when he’d followed up on the suggestion he’d made on Christmas Day.

“Is that your boyfriend, Coach?” Chandler tossed the question my way.

“What? No. No, that’s . . . He’s a friend.”

“He’s cute.”

“Sure, if you say so.” And that sounded adolescent. “Thanks for your help taking the nets down.”

Sydney and I chatted for a few minutes about the practice. “Is that guy waiting for you?”

“Yes. He’s a friend. We’re going to have coffee. You want to meet him?”

“Absolutely. Just a friend, huh?”

“Yes.” I stopped with a couple of feet between us. “Hey, Zach. Sorry to keep you waiting. Um, this is Sydney. She owns Club Brio.”

“Hi, Zach.”

“And Zach is my . . . I mean . . .” Why was I stumbling over this?

Zach shook hands with Sydney. “Zach Gaines. Payton and I knew each other in high school. I came to a couple of her games back then.”

There. Why hadn’t I just said that? We knew each other in high school. Of course Zach and I were barely friends in high school. And we were casual friends now. Nothing more, nothing less.

A small cross hung against Zach’s T-shirt. Another reason there would be no “more” for Zach and me. I didn’t know much about being a Christian, but I knew enough to realize I wasn’t the kind of woman he was looking for. That would be someone like Kelsey.

He wasn’t the kind of guy I was looking for, either.

I wasn’t looking at all.

Which made it easy to decline Zach’s offer to ride together over to the coffee shop. To friend-zone him and pay for my own coffee and begin dumping in sugars as I asked how his Christmas was.

“Monterey is beautiful. But I was glad to get back home to the cabin.”

“And Laz?” I refused to mention Kelsey.

“Of course.”

“And a few days was enough time with your parents?” Even as I asked, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d overstepped a boundary.

“It works best for all of us. We’re still trying to find our way with each other. They’re still not sure what to make of the new me.” His smile was brief. “Besides, my parents’ holiday tradition is to head to England for New Year’s.”

“You weren’t lonely, up in the cabin all by yourself?”

“Nope. There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude.” Zach still hadn’t taken a drink of his coffee. “I spent a lot of my years looking for the next party. Filling my hours with people and noise and alcohol and drugs. I couldn’t hear myself think and I didn’t know who I was. The truth is, back then I didn’t want to be alone. Christmas Day was the best one I’ve had with my parents in years, but I wouldn’t say it was comfortable. Not yet. Being in the cabin by myself? I enjoyed every minute . . . and the fact that I was okay with that shows how much I’ve changed.”

“You were one of the kids I always envied in high school.”

“What?”

I couldn’t blame the guy for being confused by such a sudden change of topic.

“You were Zach Gaines. The guy with all the friends. You broke all those athletic records —”

“And you were Payton Thatcher, one half of the too-cool Thatcher twins.”

“The lesser half.” Had I just said that out loud?

“Come on, Payton.” If Zach had been drinking his coffee, he just might have spewed it on me. “You really believe that?”

“Yes. Pepper was the better athlete. Pepper was more outgoing. Pepper was —”

“Well, you can’t say she was prettier.”

“No, I can’t. Because we looked exactly alike.”

How did we get from talking about Zach’s Christmas to talking about who was prettier in high school —Pepper or me? The truth was, Zach wasn’t that confident teen athlete anymore —and most likely he’d struggled with insecurities back then just like me and every other kid in our high school.

Zach rubbed his right forearm through the material of his long-sleeved T-shirt. Was the guy nervous? Or had he hurt himself somehow? It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to be curious about Zach Gaines.

Keep it simple. Keep it safe.

Zach shifted, reaching for his coat, retrieving something from the pocket. “This is for you.” He placed a small square package wrapped in bright-blue Christmas paper and topped with a gold bow on the table between us.

“What’s this?”

“Just a little something . . .”

“A Christmas present?”

Zach laughed, nudging the present across the table to me. “You, Miss Thatcher, are quite astute. Yes, it’s a Christmas present. You going to open it?”

Yes, I was going to open it. Once I got over the fact that Zach had given me a gift.

“Thank you.”

“You haven’t even seen what it is yet.”

Zach wasn’t one of those people who took malicious pleasure in over-taping gifts. Within seconds, I held a small wooden box, tracing the elegant lines with my fingertips. The polished wood glowed varied shades of browns and yellows.

“You made this, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“It’s beautiful, Zach.”

“Thank you.”

Such an unexpected gift —not like something you receive from a family member who is supposed to get you something, maybe even a repeat of the same-old-same-old thing they get you every year for your birthday. Like a candle in a scent you don’t like. Or bath salts you regift. Or a book —and you don’t read sci-fi.

Zach had made this. Maybe had even thought of me as he did. And it was one of a kind.

I turned the box over and found ZG intersected with a small cross.

“Is this how you sign your work?”

“Yes.”

“Distinctive . . . and meaningful.” My skin heated. “I’m sorry I don’t have something for you —”

“It’s a gift, Payton —and you get to keep it even if you didn’t get me anything.” Zach’s smile accompanied with a soft chuckle eased my desire to apologize again. “You said you had a good Christmas?”

“It was different.”

“Different, but not good?”

How was I going to explain all this to Zach? “I hoped that telling my family the truth about what happened the night Pepper died would change things.”

“And it hasn’t?”

“It has . . .” My voice trailed off. “I think I mentioned that my oldest sister didn’t understand . . .”

“I remember you saying something like that when we talked on Christmas Day.”

“We had a huge argument out in front of my parents’ house.” I pressed my lips together, unable to admit I’d slapped Johanna.

Zach had the strength to not look shocked. “Why?”

I twisted a strand of hair, tucking it behind my ear. “I found out something that explains why things are like they are. I was an emotional mess after Pepper died. Johanna read my journals.”

“Doesn’t that break some sort of sister code?”

“Johanna may not have gone about it in the right way, but I think it was her way of being the big sister, of watching out for me. Of stopping another disaster. She had to be upset over what she read. I —I was suicidal for some months.” At the admission, I stared down at the table. “I don’t know if I would have actually done anything . . . but I wrote about it a lot. Wanted to be dead. Couldn’t imagine being alive without Pepper.”

“Understandable.” Zach covered my hand with his. “You had to be heartbroken.”

“I was.” I shook my head, refusing to be pulled back into the memories. “Johanna told my parents —not the details, she said, but that she was worried about me. She’s eight years older than me, and she recommended professional help. My parents sent me to an inpatient facility for teens.”

“Did they talk to you about it before?”

“No. That was the worst part. I came home the last day of school to find my suitcase packed. They told me I was going. No discussion. Nothing.”

“Not to defend your sister, but she probably did what she thought was best —”

“Johanna always does what she thinks is best. And what she thinks is always right.” My hand tensed beneath Zach’s. “After my confession to the family, Johanna wanted to know if I was going to be honest about everything —about the fact that I was going to kill myself back then.”

“But you said you weren’t sure you would have gone through with it. . . .”

“It didn’t matter. And then I lost my temper and slapped her . . . and we didn’t talk for weeks . . .”

“I’m so sorry, Payton. I understand strained family relationships.”

“Well, believe it or not, there’s a bit of a happy ending to this sad tale.”

“I’m listening.”

Zach didn’t have to say that. He’d been listening to me all along.

“I wrote an apology to Johanna. Put it in her Christmas gift —but she didn’t say anything until a few days ago when I received flowers at my office —and a note from my sister.”

“Johanna apologized?”

“As best she could. She said she never meant to hurt me and that she hoped we could put this all behind us.”

“That’s pretty amazing, Payton.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“You’re pretty amazing, too.” Zach squeezed my hand.

I waved away his words, even as they snuck into a thirsty part of my heart. “I failed my family —”

“Stop.” Zach’s voice was firm. “You told the truth. After all these years, you told the truth —and things are changing.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Healing relationships take time —and it’s not just up to you to make it happen. Believe me, I know.”

Zach’s skin was rough against mine, his fingertips calloused. His touch was so unexpected. But he didn’t want more from me, did he? Friends could . . . touch one another this way and still be friends, right? For just a second I fought the desire to turn my hand up so that our hands met, palm to palm. To appreciate the tenderness Zach offered.

But instead I slid my hand away.