Bad Boy Blues(74)

Zach’s standing at the threshold of the kitchen, staring at me with accusing eyes.

***

It feels like a night for wearing my mom’s nightie.

After it got ruined, Maggie tried to clean it for me. She was partially successful. The stains dulled out but I can still make out the huge outline of it on my chest, just under the lace. I decided to fold it neatly and stow it away so it doesn’t get damaged any further.

But tonight, I’m alone and sad and I want something comforting with me.

Zach didn’t show up for our meeting this evening and I’m so angry.

So jealous.

I keep seeing him with Leslie and I’m filled with so many irrational emotions. Emotions only he can invoke in me.

God, that guy has always stripped away my sanity and left me a mass of craziness and passion.

Just thinking about him with her is making me want to cry again like I’m still in high school or something. I’ve been crying ever since I got inside the door after work and so I decide to find some ice cream. Tina and I, we keep it stocked.

I fish it out of the freezer, find a spoon in the drawer and go to my room. But as soon as I enter, I spy someone outside my window.

Putting aside the ice cream carton, I rush to it and see the flashes of the same elbow and thighs and shoulder.

Zach. He’s rounding the corner, probably making his way to the back door of the cottage.

Sighing sharply, I move away from the window, shove my feet in my leather boots and run to the door, throwing it open before he gets there and marching outside.

He comes to a stop when he sees me.

Even though I’m a few feet away from him, I can still hear his harsh breaths. They are agitated and making his chest look infinite times bigger and broader.

Under his dark gaze, I walk up to him. “What are you doing here?”

He takes me in, his eyes moving as fast as his breaths and now, also my heart. What he finds on my features doesn’t make him happy. In fact, it makes him downright pissed off.

“I told you,” he growls.

“What?”

“I told you I’d make you cry. I told you that I’d keep doing it.”

Anger rises inside me like a wave. I’ve been crying for this douchebag all evening and this is what he has to say to me?

“So?”

“So you can’t fault me for that. You don’t get to pout about it,” he bites out.

“Pout about it?” My nails are digging into my palms. “Fuck you, Zach, okay? Fuck. You. Yeah, you told me. You told me that you’d make me cry and like an idiot, I didn’t listen. But I’m finally listening. Are you happy now? Proud of yourself? Go home.”

Zach steps closer to me and my heart takes an extra beat when his smell hits my nose. The night is hot as always but the heat coming off his tight body is like an inferno, and my pores sweat just by his nearness.

He drags in a long breath, his nostrils flaring. “I never lied to you. I never promised you anything. You’ve seen me at my worst, Blue. I’ve showed you my worst self. And when you begged me to kiss you, I told you that you were mine. And still, you let him touch you. You let him put his mouth on you.”

His anger is as powerful as his body and I sway slightly from it. It makes me feel guilty and at the same time, it makes butterflies in my stomach wake up.

Damn it.

How does he always do that? How does he control every single thing about me?

“He’s my friend,” I say with gritted teeth. “I didn’t let him do anything. He was being nice. And you’re one to talk. You couldn’t stop flirting with Leslie this morning. You didn’t even touch your freaking custard.”

Ugh.

I can hear myself being all peevish and childish but I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop this jealousy.

Another step closer and we’re practically nose to nose. Or more like my face to his chest since he’s so much taller than me.

“I want you to do something for me,” he rasps.

“I’m sorry?”

“I want you to run.”

Something in his tone, in the mean lines of his face makes me swallow. “W-what?”

“I want you to turn around and run. As fast as you can.” He pauses to pull in another breath. “The way I’m feeling right now. The way I’m twisted up. I don’t…”

There’s hardly any space between us but still, I move closer to him. I’ve never seen him like this. All agitated and riddled with angst. Every breath, every word that comes out of his mouth is so tortured, so laden with harrowing things that all the instincts I possess make me want to comfort him.

Take away his pain, even though he’s hurting me too.

“You don’t what?”

Zach’s eyes are swirling with a predatory glint. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Oh, Jesus Christ.

I can’t even say, you won’t hurt me. Because I know he can. Not physically, no. Emotionally, yes.

He can hurt me. He did hurt me this morning.

As I watch him now, I realize how capable he is of destroying me. And I’m not talking about bullying or the past.

I’m talking about right now.

I’m talking about the way I feel for him. The way I disregard the rules of my job, the way he makes me proud when he reads, the way my heart swells when he’s with Art, the way he makes my skin sing when he touches it.