33
Dear Zach
Dear Zach,
I’d like to visit you and May right after Christmas. But I wanted to make sure it was okay with you. Being with me this fall couldn’t have been easy, so I just wanted to check that you’re ready to see me. If you’d rather I reschedule for another time, just let May know, and I promise I’ll understand.
Love,
Lark
34
Lark
Zach wasn’t the only one who had trouble with his Christmas shopping.
Now that I’d made a plan to visit the Shipleys, I hit the stores, looking for gifts. I got May some of our favorite overpriced lip glosses from a crowded shop on Newbury Street.
It was another sign I was feeling better—my zeal to shop outweighed my new dislike of crowds.
Choosing a gift for Zach should have been easy, since he didn’t own much. But I struggled anyway, not wanting to choose something so personal that it seemed laden with expectation.
I eventually made my choices, then went home to wrap gifts. It was the evening of the twenty-third. There were still three days until I’d visit Vermont, but I was in a holiday mood, damn it. If I’d learned nothing else this year, it was that levity was fragile and should be enjoyed.
On the radio I found a Christmassy a cappella concert. I spread out my wrapping paper and purchases on the dining table, since my parents were headed out to a party for the evening.
“Are you sure you won’t come with us?” my mother asked, hovering.
“I’m sure! This is fun.” I didn’t feel like making small talk with their friends from the law school.
“What will you eat?” she worried.
“I’ll order something from the ramen place.”
My mother—God bless her—brought me the menu and the phone. So I ordered while she waited, just to make her happy. Finally, they left.
I’d bought two things for Zach. One was a real gift, and one was…a gesture of sorts. Only Zach’s main present would be wrapped.
He’d told me that he hadn’t had Christmas as a child, and so I put a lot of effort into making the package beautiful. The gift went into a green box with red tissue. I wrapped it in candy-cane paper and tied a white bow around it.
The doorbell rang just as I wrote his name on a sparkly gift tag in the shape of a polar bear. Take that, Martha Stewart.
Humming along with the radio, I went to the door to retrieve my food order. When the delivery man handed over the bag, I tipped him fifty percent, because this was the holidays. He thanked me with a nice smile, which I easily returned. Look at me getting into the holiday spirit. Go me!
As I stepped back to close the door, my gaze snagged on a tall figure pacing slowly down the street, a scrap of paper in hand, studying the house numbers. The streetlights glinted off the most golden strands of his hair and illuminated a familiar set of broad shoulders swinging as he walked.
Still, I didn’t trust my eyes until he was only one house away. Even then, it felt premature to call out his name. I must be mistaken. “Zach?”
He stopped, his chin lifting quickly in my direction. Then he smiled.
We just stared at each other, until I finally snapped out of it. “Omigod!” I squealed. Even though I wasn’t wearing shoes, I set my dinner down in the open doorway and ran down the four steps, onto the short brick walkway that connected our row house with the sidewalk.
He opened his arms just before impact. I launched myself onto him, grabbing him into a tight hug. Then I found myself leaving the ground. “You have bare feet,” he laughed into my hair. “Come on.” He carried me toward the house and up the stairs. Over his shoulder I saw a passerby giving me a frown. Just jealous, probably.
“How did you get here?” I asked, but then didn’t wait for an answer. “You feel amazing.” His hair tickled my cheek, and the strength of his broad body against mine did fizzy things to my stomach.
He set me down in the entrance to my home. “I just couldn’t wait,” he said quietly. When I stepped back, I found serious blue eyes regarding me. “I tried to imagine you coming for dinner—getting out of your car and being dragged into the dining room with a dozen other people. I’d have to sit there for two hours before I had a moment alone with you.” His big hands landed on my shoulders. “So I borrowed May’s car and drove down here, hoping you were free to go out for a cup of coffee with me or something. It wasn’t good planning, but I just couldn’t wait.”
I tugged him further inside, nudged my dinner out of the way and shut the door. “My social calendar is remarkably free at the moment,” I teased. Then I put a hand on his muscular arm, because he was so close to me and I couldn’t resist touching him. “But I always have time for you, Zach. No joke.”
His face softened. “Didn’t know if you’d want to stay friends. This hasn’t been your happiest year.”
“But you’re the happiest thing in it.” I scooped up the noodle bag and took his hand. “Come with me to the kitchen. Want to split some ramen noodles with me?”
“You eat. I already had supper.”
“Okay. Christmas cookies, then?”
“Well, sure.” But our progress was halted in the narrow hallway to my parents’ kitchen, because Zach stopped to look at a bunch of framed pictures on the wall. “This you?” he asked.
Funny, I walked by these photos every day without seeing them. “Oh yeah. It’s the Only Child shrine.”
“Wow.” He was studying a shot of me at age four. I was wearing a tutu and ballet slippers. “Cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Good thing they got that picture. I was interested in ballet for about seven seconds. Then never again. I wanted skydiving lessons, and I wanted to go with the scouting troop to explore caves in Kentucky. My parents didn’t get the girly girl they were hoping for.”
He put a hand to my hair and smoothed it down. “You’re perfect, Wild Child. Just like seeing what you looked like before I met you. That’s all.”
In our kitchen, Zach looked around and then whistled.
“I know,” I said. “My mom is really house proud.” Her kitchen spared no expense. There was the trophy range—an Aga—and the SubZero. There was a marble baking counter for rolling out dough and a backsplash made of imported tile that gleamed like jewels under the expensive lighting.
“Pretty impressive.”
“Yeah. At least she cooks. Some of her friends have the same gear and order in every night. Like I just did. Are you sure you won’t have some of this?”
He shook his head, just smiling at me.
“Then sit.”
I took his jacket. Then I made him a little plate of my mother’s Christmas cookies and brewed him an espresso in Dad’s Illy machine.
While I ate my soup, we perched on stools and had the requisite preliminary conversation. He said I was looking healthier, and I agreed. I told him I’d heard about his flu, and he said it was all gone now. Neither of us was really focused on the conversation, though. We were too busy staring into each other’s eyes.
I couldn’t quite get over his presence in my kitchen. His flannel shirt brightened up the house. The curve of his smile was more lively and fascinating than anything I’d seen for weeks.
Everything was better when Zach was in the same room.
At one point I realized a full minute had gone by with nobody saying anything. We were all about the hot gazes and shy grins.
“Can I tell you I’m sorry now?” I blurted out. “Really, really sorry.”
His smile faded. “Don’t be sorry. I’m a big boy. I regret nothing.”
“I regret a few things,” I admitted. “I didn’t walk into your life so much as I sort of splattered into it—a hot mess, ready to blow. You deserved better, even if I was doing the best I could at the time.” That last bit would make my therapist proud.
He shook his head slowly. “You have nothing to apologize for. Like I told you last time I saw you—sometimes we can’t control that stuff.”
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“I know. But I still wanted to tell you how much I appreciate all you did for me.” His blue-eyed gaze fell to the crumbs on the plate, and I realized how my use of the past tense might sound to him. Like a dismissal. “If you wouldn’t be opposed, I’d like to make it up to you.”
He swallowed hard, lifting his chin. “You don’t owe me anything.”
I slid off my stool and moved closer, putting my chin on his shoulder. He smelled woodsy, like Vermont, and so familiar it made my eyes sting. “Everything that happened to me almost seems worth it when you’re sitting in my kitchen. Because I love you, Zach.”
He went completely still in my arms.
“You’re so much more than part of a bad memory. I love you, and even if my life is kind of a mess right now, I still want you in it.”
When he inhaled, I felt its shakiness. And when his arms came around me, they wrapped tightly. “Say it again,” he whispered.
I turned my head to kiss his cheekbone. “I want you in my life.”
“No, the other part.”
“I love you?”
He nodded against my cheek, his stubble rough against my chin. “You’re the first one to ever say those words to me.”
Now it was my turn to freeze in astonishment. “Really?”
“Oh yeah.”
I thought it through and realized it was possible. He hadn’t told me much of his childhood, except that it was crowded and impersonal. “Then I’m honored,” I whispered. “Except I’m sure there are more people who love you.” The Abrahams and the Shipleys, for instance. “Maybe they just haven’t said so out loud.” They probably didn’t realize what it would mean to him to hear it.
“Maybe,” he said lightly. “Sure like hearing it from you, though.” He took another deep breath and let it out slowly while hugging me to his body. I kissed his throat and he made a low, happy sound.
“Thank you for driving to Boston tonight. I missed the heck out of you.”
He chuckled. “It was hard to wait. Every day I thought, ‘Not today. She’ll tell you when she’s ready.’ And then I got your note saying you wanted to see me, and suddenly I couldn’t wait another minute. I asked to borrow May’s car, and she didn’t even ask why.”
I pressed my lips to the underside of his jaw, and he smelled so good. So familiar. So Zach. I kissed his cheek. Then his ear. I dropped little kisses into his hairline. They said, Thank you for coming, my love. I rubbed his neck with my palm, and it said, You’re so special to me.
Zach lifted his gaze to mine. The kiss he gave me was slow, the way you’d play a carol slowly the first time through, because it’s been a while since you’d heard the melody.
But this was a song I knew well. I made a hungry little noise of approval and softened my lips beneath his. With a groan, he cupped the back of my head and deepened our rapidly escalating kiss.
It said, Show me to your bedroom.
We made out like teenagers. His tongue stroked mine, and I panted into his mouth. He tasted like espresso and hunger. It was completely intoxicating. The weeks I’d spent away from Zach had made me forget how much natural chemistry we shared—how well the heartbeat rhythm of our kisses were in synch, and how much heat we threw off together.
We were just like a bundle of fireplace starters I’d contemplated in a shop in Back Bay. Guaranteed For a Fast Blaze.
“Unngh,” I moaned into his mouth, and he laughed.
I’d forgotten how easy this was between us—how right. I could stop fretting now that I’d seduced Zach as a means of forgetting my pain. The reason I’d ripped off his clothes was that we wanted each other. Like, yesterday. I skimmed my fingertips over his shirt and downward, until they traced the waistband of his jeans.
He caught my questing hand and broke our kiss. “Time out,” he said with a smile. “I need to cool down.”
That was the opposite of what I wanted. “Or,” I suggested, “you could come upstairs with me.”
“Well…” He chuckled. “Are you home alone?”
“Yes, thankfully.” I tugged his hand until he got up off the stool. “Follow me.” I led him to the foot of the stairs. “Climb up to the third floor. My room is straight ahead at the top of the second set of stairs. I’ll be there in two seconds. I have to grab something.”
He lifted a questioning eyebrow.
“It’s a little surprise. Just trust me.”
Zach kissed me on the nose, then climbed the stairs.
35
Zach
Lark had not made a secret of the fact that her parents had money. But I wasn’t really prepared for the extravagance of her family home. When I’d walked down her street, I’d realized I was completely out of my element. The houses weren’t enormous—they were packed too closely together for that. But each one was more ornate and historical than the last, and each appeared to have been primed and polished to a high sheen.
The inside was utterly glamorous. Lark’s parents had kept the antique plasterwork and the fine wooden details. The staircase I climbed had a gleaming dark wood banister, and I saw art on every wall. The first landing branched off toward a couple of darkened bedrooms and a dimly lit library—the kind with books to the ceiling and a rolling ladder attached to the wall.
Wow.
I kept climbing. The third floor had sloping ceilings. Straight ahead I found Lark’s room. The bed was another antique, an iron-framed number with a white cloud of a comforter on top. There was a big-screen computer on the desk, and more floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I headed over to inspect their titles. She had all the Harry Potters prominently displayed, along with novels of every style and color, and two shelves of travel books. Most of these were dog-eared. I ran my hand along the spines, marveling at all the places she’d been. Spain, Italy, France, England. Mexico. Japan. Australia.
We were not an obvious match, Lark and I.
But I forgot to worry about that a minute later when she arrived in the doorway looking a little breathless. “Sorry. There was something I had to do.”
“Okay?”
Lark switched off the overhead light, leaving a low, beaded lamp by her bed to cast a rippled glow on the slanting wall. “Come here,” she said, patting the bed. “Every night when I go to sleep, I wish you were here with me.”
Hearing that just lit me up. “I may have thought the same thing once or twice,” I said with a smile. “Or, you know, every single night.” I sat down beside her.
She turned and scrambled onto my lap, straddling me. “Take off my sweater,” she demanded.
“If you insist.” I kissed her, smiling. Then I put my hands under the soft sweater she wore. My fingers found her velvety skin, and I had to kiss her again. As our mouths melted together I had a rather unfamiliar thought. I’m so lucky.
Slowly I pushed her sweater higher, my fingertips skimming her soft curves. She dipped her chin and I lifted the sweater over her head. Then my breath caught in my throat, because she was wearing a shimmering red satin bra in a sexy design. It cupped her in a mouthwatering way, lifting her breasts as if they were on offer to me.
I groaned, my palms cupping her, my thumbs stroking over the swells. Leaning down, I had to kiss the valley between her breasts, and the skin was even softer than I remembered.
Lark slid off my knees, standing up. She unbuttoned her jeans and dropped them to the floor.
I almost swallowed my tongue when a matching pair of tiny red panties appeared, clinging to her perfect hips. “Damn,” I swore. “You’re killing me.”
She kicked her jeans away and stepped toward me, going to work on the buttons of my shirt. “It’s a little surprise I had planned. Didn’t think I’d need it until I visited in Vermont. I just did a hasty change in my dining room.” She laughed.
I put my hands on her waist, because I had to touch her. “You don’t have to wear anything special for me. I think you’re perfect in anything.”
She kissed the patch of ski
n she’d exposed on my chest, then finished removing my shirt. “I know it’s not important. But it’s something I did to show you I was thinking about you. And that when I push you down on the bed—” She gave me a little shove, and I fell back, grinning. “—that it’s with intention. It’s not because I had a bad dream, or you had a good one. Or because I need the escape. This—” She indicated the lingerie. “—was a little gift to let me say that.”
“Then I accept.”
She put a hand on my fly, and all the blood left my brain. “You still have too many clothes on.”
“That’s your fault, I think.”
Her eyes widened at my boldness. “I think you’re right. I’d better fix that.”
If she said any more after that, I didn’t hear it. I was too busy watching the only woman I’d ever really wanted remove the rest of my clothing. When she was finished, I was naked on the bed, and she was wearing only the red lingerie. “Come here,” I rasped, my fingers itching to touch her.
When she fell into my arms, I rolled, lying her out on the bed. Then I began to methodically kiss her everywhere, starting at the tender place underneath her ear, and wandering slowly down her sleek form. Every time we’d been together, it was always a fantasy come to life. I worshipped every inch of her skin, humming my pleasure.
Every brush of my mouth against her skin made me more ready to combust. With both thumbs, I traced the outline of red lace which barely concealed her breasts. Then I traced the same line with my tongue.
“Yesss…” Lark hissed, and I smiled on my way down to kiss her soft belly, the curve of her hip. I took my time, teasing my way across the line of her panties, then down even further, placing wet kisses into the junctures of her thighs. “More,” Lark demanded, reaching a hand down to push away the scrap of red fabric.
I caught her hand and pinned it to the bed. “Patience.” I chuckled. I needed time to appreciate her body. I’d been waiting for this moment for too long. Lark squirmed suggestively, and so I pinned her thighs in place with my elbows. With painstaking deliberation, I continued my slow journey into the V of her legs, kissing my way across the satin, and taking a moment to inhale the sweet, musky scent of her desire.