“Have you told your uncle about this woman you can’t get enough of?”
Roy gave his nephew a pointed look. “What woman?”
“I take that as a no, then.”
Sighing, Zack leaned back in his seat and forgot that he had a drink still in need of imbibing. “I have a friend…”
“Bullshit,” Seth coughed into his cupped hand.
“…who I may be becoming more serious with. Except she’s not super gung-ho about having a relationship that goes beyond platonic.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Zack raised his eyebrows.
“Son, if Rachel doesn’t want to go out with you, cut the landlubber go.”
“You remembered her name?”
“I remember the name of every hydrophobic woman who passes out on my deck.”
Zack shook his head. “What did you think of her beyond that?”
“I didn’t get to know her very well when she was passed out.”
“She hasn’t returned my calls anyway. Not since we, uh…”
Roy continued to glare at him while drinking his beer.
“We had minor relations.”
“Son, you either raised the mast to plunder her treasure or not.”
Seth cracked up. Zack was left to blush, after swearing to himself that he would never.
“Masts were raised, but no treasures plundered, I’m afraid.”
“Oh. So she polished the fishing rod.”
Zack gave up.
They spent another half hour out at sea before Roy finally agreed to take them back to the docks. Seth claimed to have a dinner party that night, and Zack… well, Zack was willing to sleep in his uncle’s guest room in the depths of the ship if it meant putting off going back to the city, but what else could he do? All that would happen was looking at his phone and sighing over the lack of a response from Rachel. Someone was avoiding him again.
She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s at odds with herself. She doesn’t know her own worth. It didn’t matter how much Zack told himself what he already knew. At the end of the day, he would only be bothering Rachel. If she wanted to talk to him again, she would. But does it have to be so maddening to want someone this badly and have them blow you off… after… blowing…
God. No matter how he approached it, Zack kept coming back to how good it felt.
There was one thing that would take his mind off Rachel. Namely, his mother, who stood beside Priss & Moan, waiting for her family as they pulled up in Retirement Fund.
“Think I’ll stay up here, thanks,” Roy mumbled, arms slung over the steering wheel. “Rather not deal with Cruella de Ville. No offense, son.”
“None taken.” Eloise Feldman would never condone the skinning of puppies for fur coats, but it was no secret that her disdain for her brother-in-law ran deep. While Roy’s abdication of the Feldman throne meant Eloise became the matriarch of the steel dynasty, she often lamented what a terrible, terrible influence he was on her children, particularly to Zack. Isaiah had always been the more lax when it came to their youngest son’s pursuits and hobbies. Eloise was often convinced that her baby was running with an international piracy scheme and using his sordid “art” to smuggle other indecent things around the world. Please. Like I have the energy for that.
“Mom?” Zack was the first down the ladder. Seth remained on deck with Roy. “What are you doing here?” Eloise hated the marina. Not only did it remind her of her brother-in-law, but she swore it stank like rotten fish and was where women came to lose their morals. I’m often glad that a nanny mostly raised me by the time she popped me out. Young women may have come to the marina to lose their morals, but three-time mother Eloise chose her bridge club to throw back mimosas and gab about what the other rich women of the city were up to. (It didn’t help that Seth’s infamous neighbor Caroline Grant-Mathers – yes, the mother of Ian Mathers, because the city was much smaller than it seemed – was a member of that same bridge club and was the most notorious propagator of scandal in New England. Zack didn’t believe the rumors that she ran tabloid gossip mill The Daily Social, but he did believe she gave them more money than anyone else.)
“What is this?” Eloise, dressed in white linen pants, a navy-blue blouse that fluttered in the breeze, and a giant sun hat that threatened to flop off her head and into the water, pulled out her iPad from her woven tote bag and thrust it into her son’s hands. “Who is this girl?”
“Love you too, Mom.” Zack raised his sunglasses so he could see the LCD better in the sunlight. “You’re looking very concerned.”
“Who is she?”
Zack squinted before turning around and thrusting the iPad into the shadows before him. It took him a few seconds to make out a digital page from The Daily Social that showcased grainy photos of him and Rachel over the past few weeks. Their two dates in the park, and…
And her hopping on his motorcycle a few days ago. When they returned, Rachel had been quick to hop off the bike and give Zack his spare helmet back. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk about it.” Zack barely had time to turn off his bike before Rachel had run into her building and refused to answer his texts and calls.
“That’s my friend Rachel.”
“Friend? Friend?”
Zack couldn’t understand why his mother was freaking out about this. Zack was caught by the paps more than any other family member because he brought the most sex and drama. He often joked that the tabloids would go out of business if they didn’t catch him at a cabana party at least twice a month. The more bikini clad women grinding up against him, the better.
Even the marina, which had some of the best security thanks to patrols both on and off the water, wasn’t impervious to their super cameras and the women who were willing to spill the deets for a few hundred bucks.
Eloise should have been used to her son’s philandering ways. She may not have approved of them, but he didn’t keep it a secret, and for the most part his mother left him alone now that he was almost thirty and “a hopeless case.”
“You’re in three different scenarios with her,” Eloise pointed out. “When was the last time the paps caught you with the same girl twice, let alone three times?”
“She’s my friend, Mom. Guys and girls can be just friends, you know. We hang out. We talk art. It’s not a serious thing. It’s not even a…”
“Keep scrolling!”
Zack had to wake his mother’s iPad back up to finish scrolling. Didn’t know there were more pics… thought it was clickbait and comments…
Or it could be a pic of him and Rachel at the lake house. That was a grainy shot of them making out on the dock, dearest Rachel straddling her just a friend… oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Zack handed the iPad back to his mother. Above him, Seth leaned against Retirement Fund’s railing, laughing his ass off again.
“Your turn!”
Yes, because Heaven forbid Zack not join his best friend’s caught getting a blowjob by the paps club.
Chapter 18
All Rachel wanted to do was get some work done. For some stupid reason, she decided to check her email during one of her breaks. Because what was a better break from translating Japanese than reading dire English emails?
No, it wasn’t bills, for once.
It was a customized email from her former employer.
“Taylor-san, please reconsider our offer to reinstate your contract with The Happy Kids’ Park, which includes an increase in salary and more vacation days…”
Rachel clicked away from the browser. Two months ago, the English school she taught at in Japan had sent her an invitation to come back into their fold. They must be desperate for bodies. Rachel hated that she considered it for one moment. That job had been… well, it wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t something she was meant to do. For one, it required interacting with children, and that was not something she was good at. Honestly, it was a miracle anyone was willing to give her money to be around children.
But she needed the money. The bills were piling on. Rent was squeaking by with every paycheck. Eventually, she would be looking at an empty bank account and no hope of getting ahead again.
What was getting ahead, anyway?
Put your head down and remember what you told Zack about working hard now. Was this before or after she swallowed his manhood and…
“Crap!”
Half of Opal’s Café looked up at her outburst.
“Sorry…”
Parvati finished taking care of the last customer and decided it was time for her break. Or so Rachel figured, for her friend’s boss came out to man the counter while Parvati took off her apron and rounded the counter.
She pulled out the other chair at Rachel’s table and plopped down with a huff. She looked like her own older sister when she gave Rachel an eye like that.
“Spill.”
“What is there to spill?” Rachel put one of her dictionaries away so Parvati would have more room. “I was looking at my email.”
“Don’t care about that. Spill about Zack.”
Rachel grunted in disgust. “I’ve got nothing else to say about him.” She regretted how much she had told Parvati already. First thing I did when I got home the other day was take a nap and then call her. She may have let slip that something had happened at the lake house.