Jade
Bile churns. My mouth salivates as my throat tightens preparing for the inevitable. This baby doesn’t like it when I’m upset. At. All.
Suddenly, the urge is too much. I spring to my feet, rushing to the bathroom, skid to the toilet, and hold on for dear life as I dry heave the empty contents of my stomach.
Zach’s right behind me, wetting a cloth and holding it on the back of my neck. He moves my hair and gently rubs my back in tender circles. And I hate it. I hate how he’s making me feel adored, even when I’m kneeling in front of another god.
“What can I get you?” he asks, his voice soft.
“A fast forward button to get this crazy baby out of me,” I croak and then my stomach contracts, forcing me to vomit.
As I catch my breath, I rest my head back on the wall beside the toilet feeling weak and exhausted. Zach slides down the wall and sits beside me. Right now, all I want is to be comforted and babied because I feel awful and I’m miserable. I lean over, laying my head on his knee. He stretches his legs out in front of him, coercing my head to settle in his lap.
He doesn’t say a word as he runs his fingers through my wet hair. Waves of nausea rise and fall as hot and cold sweats rumble over my skin. I breathe through it, closing my eyes and allowing his tender touch to ease me.
“Baby…” Zach’s voice sweeps into my mind.
Opening my eyes, I find myself in my bed wrapped under the covers.
Sympathy stretches Zach’s lips. “I made you something to eat.” His voice is quiet and caring.
“She up?” Freya says and then appears at the foot of my bed. “You feeling any better?”
“Like death,” I mumble and then slowly sit up. I brush away the sweaty hair stuck to the sides of my face and then run my hands down my cheeks and along my neck.
“I made you something to eat,” Zach repeats. “It’s not much but it’s something simple to put on your stomach.” He holds up a bowl of mashed potatoes.
Arching a brow, I blink up to him, dubious yet excited. “Did you make these, or did you open a container and plop them in the microwave?”
He tilts his head with a smug smirk.
I should’ve known better. “Of course you’d caress my soul with these.”
He blows out a chuckle.
“Is it true that all you wanted for your seventeenth birthday was a pot of his mashed potatoes?” Freya asks with amusement riding out on the words.
Embarrassment creeps up my neck and I hide my face. “Oh god…”
Zach cracks up. “Jade, you’re blushing.”
Playfully, I narrow my eyes at him. “You had to tell her?”
He gives me an impish shrug.
I roll my eyes, hiding my laugh. “You should try them. You’d fall in love with him too.” Quickly I realize my sucky choice of words. “I mean, his potatoes,” I fumble out. “You’ll fall in love with his potatoes.”
He kisses my forehead and leaves the room. I frown at Freya. “I hate he’s here.”
She arches her perfect eyebrow, doubting me. “Uh-huh. I’m sure it’s a hardship.” She rolls her eyes and ambles her ass back out of the door.
I despise he’s stirring up the feelings I don’t want to feel and filling me with hope. Zach doesn’t love well. It’s laced with hurt and heartache. After the smiles come the tears. I’m not interested in the pain…again. We’re like toothpaste and orange juice. Apart, we appeal, but together we don’t mix.
The moment I take a bite I moan. I haven’t had much to eat in a day and then coupled with it being Zach’s amazing mashed potatoes…it’s heaven in a bowl. He won’t tell me the secret of how he makes them, something about his grandmother teaching him her recipe when he was young.
He comes back in and sets a glass on the table beside my bed.
“You really should sell these.” I’ve told him this before.
“I’m not sure I’d enjoy mashing potatoes for a living,” he replies.
“I think you’d get rich the first year and then you could hire other people to mash them,” I say and then take another small bite.
He flashes a mega-dignified smirk. “I am rich. And no amount of mashed potatoes can make me walk away from my company. I’m happy with the payment of your smile.”
I don’t respond, taking a few more bites, and then decide I want another shower to wash away the nasty I feel. I gather my clothes as he watches, hawking my every move, and then he frowns when I refuse to let him in the bathroom. I need a break. A breather. He’s killing my strength.
“I think I’m good now,” I tell Zach as I step out of the bathroom. My stomach doesn’t feel as pissed although I feel weak. “I just want to go back to sleep. You can text me when you get home. I’ll text you back when I get up.” I’m desperate for him to leave.
“I’m going to borrow your shower,” he dismisses me and carries a small pile of clothes into the bathroom, leaving the door open.
It’s torture knowing he’s naked just on the other side of the wall. His sexy body shining from the water, his tattoo brighter, his muscles lickable. Images of soap running over his skin, around his dick, down his ass…He’s got to get the fuck out of here. I slam onto my side, ripping the covers over my shoulder, and nuzzle into my pillow, desperate to quit thinking about the exquisite specimen of a man, fantastically naked and handsome as ever in the other room.
The water turns off and I can hear the rustling of the towel as he dries off his body. After a few silent moments, the covers lift, and he snuggles my back into his chest.
I tense. “What are—”
“Please don’t fight me on this. Please,” he begs softly into the back of my hair.
All the lies I try filling myself up with don’t help the buzz of delight and I smile. “You know I’m a bed hog, right?”
“If you’re trying to discourage me, keep trying. I love it when you wake me up in the middle of the night by flopping your hand across my face.”
It makes me titter. “I don’t do that.”
The muscles in his arms tighten slightly. “You also snore.”
I gasp a giggle and try jerking up, but his grip doesn’t allow it. “I do not!”
He’s laughing behind me, but never responds. Soon the room falls quiet, all but my thoughts. “I’m sorry for being a bitch earlier. I don’t hate you’re here. I guess I resent you’re here out of obligation.”
“I’m here because I want to be.” His words are sweet.
“You’ve never been here before,” I counter.
He smooths my hair and then trails his fingers down my arm, lacing his fingers with mine. “You being pregnant gives me an easy way to stray away from all the boundaries we’ve laid. I’ve always wanted to be here and do this.”
“You have to stop saying sweet shit. You’ll fill me up with fake hope,” I whisper with the feelings of heartache and love ricocheting in my chest
“It’s not fake…” he kisses the back of my head. “Never has been. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I swallow my feelings and resort to my best weapon. “That’s a new one. Does it feel weird to tell a woman that?”
“Nice jab,” he says, squeezing my fingers slightly.
“Good night, Zach.”
“Good night.”
I’m hot. Really hot. My entire body broiling from the inside out. I’m pouring sweat. A hot and heavy hand rests on my hip. I open my eyes.
Zach’s features are softer, the lines on his forehead smoothed out. His lips are relaxed, his breath even. Stubble lines his jaw, over his chin, and disappears into the pillow chasing his cheek. It’s hard to imagine this is the same teenage boy who captured my heart all those years ago. I developed a crush the first day I saw him sitting on the couch, and it wasn’t long afterward, I fell in love with him. I knew I did when I’d see him in the crowd at every volleyball game, or when we would have splash contests in the pool, or when Noah would kiss me and I’d fantasize about it being Zach. Even when he broke my heart, I couldn’t help but keep loving him.
It hurt when he left for college and moved five hours away. He ripped his presence out of my life and left a gaping hole.
It hurt when he chose Tiffany over me, even though it was to prevent a war with Max. And when Max told me Zach was going to propose to Tiffany, it destroyed me. I was devastated. My heart was shattered. My life dulled and facing the day was grueling. Zach singlehandedly turned love into my poison.
Not long after Max told me that, the “happy” couple split up. I sat around waiting for his phone call, but it never came. Instead, I was shocked when I was face to face with a Tiffany replacement who wasn’t me.
He breaks my heart every time he utters the words that he loves me. Zach would never physically hurt me, but he’s very capable of breaking me. His love doesn’t come without hurt. I’ve seen the pain in the eyes of many women in the wake of heartache he’s caused…including mine. He’s got the ability to devastate…
Suddenly, his eyes flutter open and I’m staring into a sleepy set of hypnotizing dark brown eyes. A smile tics his lips slightly and he begins circling my hip with his thumb.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice scratchy.
“Yeah.”
“What are you thinking about?”
And the first question that pops up is something that I’ve often wondered but never asked. “Remember when we all went to that upscale art thing? Max, Megan, you, Breanna, Noah and me?”
Mischief flashes in his eyes as he arches a brow. Breanna was stunning, tall with a model-perfect body. Her blonde hair was ramrod straight, and she had these cat eyes that devoured and adored Zach. He met her not long after splitting up with Tiffany and whether he admits it or not, I know he was crazy about her. I thought she was too sweet and too good for him. And although he proudly had her wrapped in his arms, he couldn’t stop stealing glances at me.
“Did you buy that painting?” I ask.
He chuckles under his breath. “The one you swore was a couple holding each other in the rain, but it was really just a bunch of colors swirled on the canvas?”
“I can’t believe you couldn’t see them.”
“I enjoyed watching you try to act it out,” he says.
“I told Dad about it and he gave me some money to buy it, but when I went back, it was gone. Did you buy it?”
“Why are you awake and thinking about something that happened years ago?”
I don’t answer, afraid he’ll hear the truth in my lie. “You know you caused a really ugly scene between Noah and me?”
His face lights up. “I did?”
“He told me he scuffed you up in the bathroom because he had already warned you earlier that night to keep your eyes to yourself.”
A laugh rumbles from his chest and he closes his eyes briefly. “He warped his truth to you. He didn’t scuff me up. More like puffed his chest out. The football douchebag thought he was something else with his little muscles flexing. He was crazy about you,” he trails off, tucking an errant strand of hair behind my ear and adjusting his head on the pillow. “Poor kid had no clue that I surpassed his level of crazy for you years before he came into the picture.”
“We’ve got a lot of past,” I say quietly.
“We’ve got a lot of future too,” he says.
I run my fingers over the hard stubble along his jawline. “I’m sorry for being a bitch. I’m overwhelmed. I’m pregnant, my brother hates me and you, and…” I swallow gathering myself. “Too much of you. I need time away to get back on track.”
He grins as if he understands my silent plea. “I love when you’re here but am grateful for when you leave.” He rolls to his back and tugs me into his side where I rest my head on his hard muscle. His heartbeat is solid, humming steadily. “Don’t worry about Max. He can’t stay mad at you.”
“I know, but what about your friendship?”
“I’ll figure it out. He has to calm down first.”
“Why didn’t you fight him back?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a second. “I told you I deserved it. He had the right to demolish me.”
I lift to my elbow and kiss his cheek. “That says a lot about you.”
His smile is sad. “I wish one day you’d see it.”
There’s nothing I can say to that, so I rest my head back on his chest and run my hand over his abs. His chest rises and falls with each breath, the lullaby of his heartbeat comforting me and pulling me back into sleep.