Just Friends

A beautiful brunette sitting in a café.

A beautiful day shining through the window.

A beautiful summer waiting to unfold.

Zack was wrapped in a tender warmth the day he first saw Rachel Taylor. Tender enough to open the world of love to him again. The man he was at twenty was not necessarily the same man at thirty.

Besides, maybe it would be good for his art if he embraced that emotional side of himself again… the good emotions. Because even though the art he created in the wake of Sadie’s betrayal was some of the best his instructors claimed to have ever seen, it was not who he still wanted to be ten years later.

Listen to me… I’m not even thirty yet, and I’m talking like this! He had been hanging around Seth for way too long.

“I know what it feels like to have your heart utterly broken like that. I know what it feels like to have the person you love destroy your ability to trust people. It’s awful. It changes who you are and how you view the world, and it takes a few years to bounce back. But you can’t dwell on it every day.”

“I don’t, really. But I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately.”

“Because you see that dickweasel around?”

Zack snorted, unable to suppress the smile threatening to cut through his gruff demeanor. “No. Because you make me think of Sadie.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way. If anything, it’s good. I want to treat you the way I used to treat her. I haven’t felt that way about someone since… well, since her.”

Rachel propped herself up on her elbows, fingers combing through her tangled, sweaty hair. We need to shower before going to sleep. God, I hope we get to shower… Showering with Rachel had been fun before they got serious. Zack had a feeling it was about to get even better. “You keep buttering me up to ask me something, don’t you?”

“Ah, damn.” Zack slung his arm across his face. “Why do I have to do all the work? This is so patriarchal. Thought you were a cool and hip feminist, Rachel Taylor.”

“Just do it already.”

“Careful. All this begging you’ve been doing tonight is going to go to my head.”

“Who’s being patriarchal now?”

Zack peeked through his spreading fingers to make sure she was smiling. “Fine.” He matched her stance, elbow digging into his bed as he pushed himself up and came this close to her lips once more. God give me the strength to hold back from kissing her like she so desperately deserves. “Rachel Taylor, will you be my girlfriend?”

She grinned as if it were her birthday. That’s right, baby, I’m the only present you’ll ever need. Zack couldn’t help but grin back at her. “How badly do you want me to be your girlfriend?”

“Badly.”

“No dating other women? No fooling around behind my back? You and me for as long as we can go?”

“I don’t ask a woman to be my girlfriend unless I can foresee us going for a long time.” Zack wouldn’t say the F word. Not… forever. It was too soon to say that. He may be open to a serious relationship again, but he still needed to protect his heart in other ways. This was the man who had elaborate plans to propose to Sadie on graduation day – he was making those plans while they were still sophomores.

Rachel buried her face in the pillow, composing herself before she was able to look at him with a straight countenance. “Okay. I’ll let you be my boyfriend.”

“That is a helluva way to put that.”

“On one condition.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“You have to promise that, should you want to break up with me one day, you don’t do it in the middle of sex.”

“In what crackpot of a universe would I want to stop having sex with you, let alone once we got started?”

She shrugged. “It’s happened before.”

“And it’s never going to happen again.”

“You promise?”

Zack slowly rolled on top of her, giving Rachel plenty of time to push him away if she wasn’t in the mood. Instead, she easily fell onto her back and allowed him to loom over her like the primal shadow of their collective pasts. It’s only forward from here. Her and me. It’s going to be amazing.

“I promise. I love you so much that I can’t fathom wanting to hurt you in any way.”

He lowered his lips to kiss her. Rachel placed one finger on his mouth and said, “I could never hurt you, either.”

She didn’t have to explain. They both knew. It was something Zack needed to hear before he could fully give his heart to any woman again. Yes, even to Rachel.

But once those words were said, everything was fair game. Especially when she said, “I love you too.”

They made love once more before Rachel rolled over and fell asleep. Zack remained wrapped around her for a few minutes. Eventually, the call of nature pulled him out of bed and into the other room.

When he returned, the moonlight from his bedroom window shined so illustriously on Rachel’s skin and hair that Zack couldn’t move from where he stood in the bathroom doorway.

It was the same angelic image he saw the first time his eyes fell upon Rachel Taylor in that brightly lit café. Only now she was stripped bare and in the most vulnerable state a human can embrace.

He pulled on a pair of clean boxers and grabbed his drawing pad from his bedroom lightbox. Quietly, he perched on a chair next to the window, careful to not awaken Rachel as he slowly pulled back the curtains, letting more moonlight in.

The blankets covered the lower half of her body, except for her foot poking out from the bottom. Her back, and the glorious curve it created from hip to neck, was where his eyes continued to look. Not even the soft swish of her long hair as it settled on his pillow was enough to draw his attention away from her body.

Zack wouldn’t be able to sleep until he caught this moment for posterity. A camera wouldn’t do. The only thing that could accurately capture the essence that was Rachel in his bed was a sharpened pencil on drawing paper.

One day, art students would study the differences between that first sketch and this one. “Here, we can see the flutter of a man’s heart… and here we can see where those flutters transformed into the steady beats of love.”

In that moment, Zack knew he had found the one he was destined to love.

Chapter 29

Zack knew he was pushing boundaries when he asked Rachel to join him and a few others on the Priss & Moan the next day. He fully expected her to decline and suggest they do something else later when he returned to shore.

Naturally, he did not expect her to agree to go out on the open water on his small yacht.

It was a triple date by the time everyone arrived. Okay, perhaps not a date, since Zack preferred to not have impure, scarring thoughts about Uncle Roy and Aunt Lorelei, but it was easiest to think of it that way when Seth brought his girlfriend. Zack didn’t think anything of Judith’s presence since it was far from the first time she had taken a ride on the Priss & Moan. But Rachel had to double-take while yanking on Zack’s sleeve. Someone had forgotten a key fact – and it wasn’t that boats go on water.

“Hi!” Judith lowered her sunglasses, her flirty white and red romper blowing in the marina breeze. “Look at you two! Dare you to tell us that this isn’t all hot and bothered now.”

“Uh… hi.”

Zack slung his arm around Rachel’s shoulders, careful to keep her away from the dock’s edge. There was a reason Rachel hadn’t once let go of her boyfriend’s shirt the moment they arrived. “Morning, Judith. Enjoying your weekend?”

“Not as much as you two are.”

“I’d like to re-introduce you to my girlfriend, Rachel.”

“So you finally admit it?”

“It became official last night.”

Seth approached, a day bag slung over his shoulder and his other hand reaching for Judith’s. “You finally got your shit sorted out?”

Rachel continued to gawk. Oh. Right. “I did mention that Judith is dating two guys at once, right?” Zack muttered into her ear.

“You may have mentioned that, but I forgot.”

Judith didn’t pretend to ignore them. “A tough gig, but someone has to deal with him.” Her accusatory finger landed against Seth’s chest. “Is your uncle here? Because I love him.”

“My uncle and the aunt he found.”

“Ooh! I wanna meet her!”

“You’ll love her, Jude.”

She ran ahead, leaving Seth with her purse as she scuttled up the ladder. The romper dutifully prevented anyone from seeing the goods that cost most men thousands a night.

“So what’s this?” Seth gestured to the scene before him. “Do I get a wedding invite?”

“Funny you should say that, because we decided to make it official after the wedding we went to yesterday.”

“Aww.”

Rachel lightly punched Zack in the side. “You’re making it sound like we were drowning in wedding feels.”

“I mean… it contributed.”

Seth gave them a curt nod before following his girlfriend up the ladder. Laughter and squeals of excitement announced that Judith had found Lorelei. The party was starting without Zack and his new girlfriend.

“You gonna be okay?” He squeezed Rachel’s hand.