Dancing Away With My Heart (Wishful 12)

br />

But as the silence drew out, he sensed he wasn’t the only one feeling vulnerable. What did she see when she looked at this? And suddenly he had to know, even if it eroded some of the carefully rebuilt parameters of their friendship.

“What were you thinking about in that moment?”

Lexi was quiet so long, he thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer.

“It was during Jace’s speech, when he was talking about the little moments that change everything.” Her voice was low and thick with some unnamed emotion. “I was wondering how things would have turned out if we hadn’t met out at Hope Springs that summer before high school. If we’d still have ended up friends. Or…”

“Or?” he prompted.

She shrugged, eyes dropping from the screen. “Doesn’t matter.”

But it did matter. Zach was certain of it. “Or what, Lex?”

She still didn’t look at him, and he fought the urge to reach out and cup her cheek, to tip her face toward his so he could see what was in her eyes. If he was wrong, that would tip his hand and destroy the fragile balance they’d re-established. But he couldn’t stay silent, couldn’t just let it go.

“If we’d have ended up friends or something else?”

Other than the subtle quickening of her breath, Lexi stayed utterly still. Like a trapped animal that thought if it didn’t move, it would be safe from the threat. Zach hardly dared to breathe. He didn’t want to scare her. Didn’t want to be categorized as a threat. But maybe these new feelings he’d developed were a threat—to their friendship, at least. To the status quo of what they’d always been. But he’d been thinking so much about that something else, and he didn’t know how to turn that off.

Please. Please just give me the slightest sign that you feel something, too.

He started to reach out, to lay a hand over hers, but the bell from out front jangled. Lexi jerked as if she’d been hit with an electric shock, her chair shooting across the room to bump against the wall. Away from him. It sliced him, that panicked retreat.

Zach supposed that was answer enough.

Quashing his disappointment, he put away the thousand questions he wanted to ask and went to be a responsible business owner.

Chapter 6

Lexi stayed where she was, heart hammering.

He knew. Oh Dios, he knew. Or at the very least suspected.

She shouldn’t have said anything. Or she should’ve made something up to put him off. But she’d been so struck by the shot, by the look on her own face. Because no one but Zach could have taken that picture. And she’d wondered, for the briefest of moments, whether he felt something, too.

A braver woman would have faced him. Would have put the question right on out there, just to let the pressure of not knowing dissipate. But once it was voiced, there was no taking it back. An axe blade hovered over the thin barrier between keeping things as they’d always been and possible disaster. If it fell, who knew where the pieces would land?

Lexi wasn’t brave. Not when it came to him. So she’d said nothing and now…and now someone had given her a blessed reprieve from having to face this. Maybe she could put it off. Buy herself another day. Maybe he’d drop it, at least until she had some kind of an answer that would preserve the friendship she valued so much.

When she was certain her face wasn’t on fire and she had a reasonable handle on her emotions, she followed low voices out front.

“Holy shit, dude.” Zach’s exclamation caused a hitch in her step.

Eli sat in one of the chairs in the reception area, a little black box open on the table between them to reveal a diamond ring winking in the light.

Lexi went brows up and mustered up some snark. “Well, this is unexpected. I hope you and Zach will be very happy together.”

Eli snorted. “It’s for Jessie. Now that Jace’s wedding is over, I can ask her without distracting from his big day.”

“Wow. That’s great, man. But why didn’t you just tell us all at guys’ night?” Zach asked.

“Because I want to hire the two of you to shoot the proposal as it happens. She’s not gonna be expecting it, and I know she’d love to have that moment immortalized.”

Surprised and touched by his thoughtfulness and sentimentality, Lexi moved to join them. “I’ve done a few of those kinds of shoots in Texas. It’s a lot of fun. There’s an element of being a spy, trying to blend in with the crowd so as not to draw attention to the camera. But that’d be harder to pull off here since she knows both of us.”

“Not if you’re both supposed to be there anyway. I’m going to propose at the reunion.”