Dancing Away With My Heart (Wishful 12)

That was when it sank in exactly how deeply and truly he’d screwed up with the woman he loved. The woman he’d maybe always loved but had been too stupid to see it.

Lexi was going to run and not let him anywhere near her to fix it. And she didn’t have the burden of a show of friendship to maintain this time. She could and would go back to Texas and cut herself off, for good.

“Oh, God. Oh, shit. Fuck. How can I possibly fix this?” Shoving both hands into his hair, he paced a tight circle. “This is bad. This is so damned bad.”

Leo stepped into his path, gripping him hard by the shoulders. “Pull yourself together, dude. Yeah, this shit is bad, but it’s gonna be okay.”

Zach lifted his head. “How?”

Leo grinned. “Because I have a plan. And it doesn’t involve elephants.”

Chapter 8

When Lexi had made her dramatic, mortified proclamation last night, she hadn’t considered exactly how that would impact work. There were more jobs on the books than just finishing up with the wedding shots. Like it or not, she’d made a commitment to Zach that involved other people—his clients—and that meant she actually had to interact with him. Whatever her personal humiliation, she wouldn’t do anything to endanger his business. That wasn’t who she was. So she would put on her big girl panties and do the right thing. Maybe after another cup of coffee to fortify herself.

But the additional caffeine did nothing to stem the creeping dread as the morning ticked by and she tried to decide what to wear to armor up for seeing him. How could she even look him in the face after last night? She didn’t think she could bear to see the shattered pieces of their friendship. To know that, in the end, she’d done that to them. She’d hurt him with her lashing out. In the moment, she’d wanted him to feel as raw and wounded as she had all this time. But getting it all out there, venting her spleen, hadn’t been as cathartic as she’d imagined. She didn’t feel free or relieved. She just felt miserable.

Her phone pinged. Grateful for any excuse to put off going into the studio, Lexi grabbed it, going still when she saw the text was from Zach. Anxiety curdled in her gut as she opened it.

Zach: I’ve set up cloud access to the studio calendar. Your shoots for the week and all the relevant details can be accessed through this link.

The next text was the calendar link.

Lexi waited for another five minutes, but he didn’t say anything else.

It seemed she was off the hook for having to see him. He’d just given her the perfect way to avoid him for the rest of her stay in Wishful.

It should have been a relief. There’d be no dreaded second confrontation or awkward dancing around things she didn’t want to talk about. But it was cold comfort.

He didn’t want to see her either.

That hurt,

more than she’d imagined it might. Maybe because she’d never imagined a scenario where Zach didn’t want to see her. That had been the one constant in all the years they’d known each other. He’d always, always wanted to see her, even when she’d been standoffish and distant.

This was so much worse.

It felt wrong to leave things like they were. But she took the reprieve, hoping she’d manage to find some way to say…something to him once they’d both calmed down.

In the five days that followed, the opportunity never presented itself. There’d been no co-shoots scheduled. As the week rolled on, she dropped into the studio several times, thinking to rip the bandaid off. Zach was never there. Not for the newborn shoot. Not for the senior portraits. Not even when she turned in the shots for Hank and Lorna van Buren’s fortieth anniversary. He was, it seemed, as determined to avoid her now as she had been since high school. Had it hurt him this much when she’d done it? When he didn’t know the why of it?

She hadn’t realized, until the second day passed and she’d heard nothing, that deep down she’d still believed that somehow it would all be okay. She’d let go of that hope a few hours ago and started packing. The town where hope sprang eternal was no place for the likes of her.

Lexi caught herself staring at the pile of folded clothes next to her suitcase, wondering how much time she’d lost to just standing there, doing nothing. She been doing that a lot lately.

Thank God she headed back to Austin tomorrow. Her mother was on the mend and officially off crutches, so her reason for being in Wishful was coming to an end. She’d be slinking out of town like the coward she was, without seeing the rest of her friends. She had no idea what Zach might have told them, and it hadn’t seemed worth the risk of facing him again to go to the reunion tonight for the chance to say goodbye. That felt just as shitty as the rest of this situation. But surely, once she got back home, to her own studio, to her routine, she’d stop feeling this hole in her gut.

“Phone, mija!”

Who would call me here?

Abandoning her packing, she met her mother in the hall to take the handset. “Hello?”

“Lexi? Oh, thank God you’re still here. It’s Eli.” He sounded rattled. Eli Hamilton was never rattled.

Tensing, she curled her fingers tighter around the receiver. “What’s wrong?” A low throb of what might have been bass underscored the momentary silence.

“Zach’s not coming and I don’t have a photographer for the proposal.”