Yeah. That something.
I lost my mind. I shouldn’t have done that. I… Rachel wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed, but she was disappointed in herself. It did her absolutely no good to be sucking off men she crushed on. There’s a thought I never guessed I’d have. Even though it had been great. Even though she never heard a man make those kinds of sounds or come as hard as Zack had.
Even though she had never let a man come inside her mouth before. I wonder if he could tell…
Rachel tapped her pen against her binder. “I haven’t talked to him since then.”
“What? Why? Is he not talking to you?”
Quite the opposite. Zack had sent her a new flurry of texts and voicemails, politely – and sometimes desperately – asking her to talk to him. After the first couple of days, he finally let up. Got a clue. Shut up. I’ve driven him away. Rachel only had herself and her fickle heart to blame.
More like her hormones, but whatever.
“I’m not in the mood to talk about it. I’ve got way too much on my mind besides him, anyway.” Money. Mom. Work. Money.
“It’s not always what you’re in the mood for.”
Rachel jerked up. That had not been Parvati’s biting voice. That had been…
Shit! Why did she think she would be left alone at Opal’s? She and Zack had met at Opal’s!
And there he was, standing in those blasted cargo shorts and a fitted T-shirt that turned every head in the room as if Rachel had sworn again.
“I, uh…” Parvati got up and pulled her chair out, eyes never leaving Zack’s lean physique. “I better get back to work.” She mouthed Good luck! to Rachel before pulling her apron back on and returning to the counter. She made sure to keep one eye on the scene quietly smoldering in a corner of an empty café.
Rachel didn’t tell Zack to leave. She had a feeling he wouldn’t listen to her, anyway.
“Why haven’t you returned my messages?” Zack didn’t bother to order anything. His only focus was on Rachel from the moment he walked through the door. Isn’t this what it was like the first time we met? Wait… they had been in each other’s presence before that, too. The man had been so into her at first glance that he drew a quick portrait of her while he ate his lemon square and drank his latte. I still have it somewhere. Every time she came across it when rearranging the clutter in her apartment, Rachel lost more of her breath. “I get that you wanted a little space after…” He briefly looked away and cleared his throat. I hate being a captive audience. Oh my God. “But it’s been days, Rachel. I’m dying here. Just say something. Even if I totally offended you. Let me know. I can’t stand this…”
On another day, in another life, in another galaxy, Rachel would have found his carefully controlled distress adorable. Even flattering. Wasn’t this supposed to be a dream come true? A man begging her for attention and communication? A man like Zack Feldman? A man who had wanted her from the moment they met? I thought I was just a nameless lay to him. But now that I know I wouldn’t be… The whole reason she made that vow of celibacy was because she needed a break from one-night stands and possibly harmful sexual practices.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re… sorry.”
Rachel kneaded her fingers into a knot. The way she gently rocked back and forth reminded her of when her mother once grilled her about her future. “All right, but what are you going to do? Where are you going to live? What job are you going to do?” As if she could answer any of that back then. She could barely answer it now!
“I’ve been avoiding you,” Rachel said, “because I was too embarrassed to admit that I think I fucked up by doing that with you.”
“I see.” The grunt bursting from his throat betrayed how okay he was with that truth. “Well, I don’t regret it. Does that bother you too?”
Sort of. Why couldn’t they come to a mutual agreement that they shouldn’t be fooling around like that? Rachel was of the school of thought that said oral sex was still sex, damnit. And she didn’t even let him give her anything back in return! Did she think she didn’t deserve anything? Did she chicken out? Was she afraid to expose that part of her body to him?
Yes, to all of that.
“I get that I’m on Rachel time here,” Zack continued, any trace of que sera washed off his face. While it was good to know that he could be deadly serious about things, Rachel didn’t need it directed at her right now, “but I can’t wait around forever. I need to know that these lines of communication are open. Even as friends, whatever the hell that means now.”
Rachel closed her binder and forced her hands to still in her lap. “You’re right. I’ve been yanking you around. But to be fair, you haven’t been pushing me away when things get heavy.”
“Didn’t realize it was my job to make sure we didn’t fall into bed together. Because I don’t think of it as a bad thing at all.”
“What? Dating?”
He shot her that familiar, comforting grin she had come to adore. “Yes, Rachel. Dating. That’s it.” Laughter rang through the café. Parvati looked up from the cold case. I’m gonna have to go over this with her later. Rachel couldn’t wait. “Never mind the reason we met was because I sat in this exact chair and asked you to go out with me.”
She shyly smiled back at him. “I remember.”
“And you told me no, because you weren’t interested in dating. We had to be friends.”
“And you agreed to that, I seem to recall. Or were you only agreeing because you wanted to get into my pants?”
Zack shrugged. “Does it matter? ‘Cause I still wanna get into your pants.”
He said that so candidly, so confidently that Rachel didn’t know how to respond. If she responded as seriously, he could play his bluff and embarrass her. If she completely wrote him off, she might as well be ending everything right here, right now.
“I mean, you got into mine.”
Rachel was too embarrassed to look at him again, especially with that bright grin boring a perverted hole into her brain. You’re ridiculous, Zack. What other man would get a hummer like the one she gave him and still be this playful after she ran away – again? It either meant that he didn’t think that much about it…
…or it was all he could think about.
“So what are we going to do, Rachel Taylor?” He folded his hands on the table and leaned in toward her as if they were about to broker a deal in his family’s company. “We gonna be the best of platonic friends, content to date other people? Or are we gonna make a go of this?”
Rachel’s chest tightened. “Don’t suppose there’s a way we could do both?”
“Wow.” Zack looked away, shaking his head. “This is the role reversal from hell. Here I am, asking you to go out with me, and you wanna keep it casual.” He wagged a sarcastic finger beneath her nose. “You want the best of both worlds without any of the responsibility… huh? Typical man.”
“You would know.”
“Yes, I would,. And I know that you’re one of the first women I’ve ever met that fucks me up like this.”
“Fucks you up how, exactly?”
“Do you know who I think about every day?” He smiled into the side of his hand, like he was giving a boy’s first love confession. “Who I can’t shut up about? Who I’m tearing myself up over because I went from thinking she’s the muse I need right now to only caring if she’ll speak to me again? ‘Cause you get one guess.”
Rachel wanted to say yes, yes she would go out with him. They would do it all. Sleepovers (this time with sex,) fun dinners, hanging out with each other’s friends, more movies until their eyes bled, hanging out, making art and translating business forms all day… then she thought of the other shit. Like what kind of family he had, and what kind of family she had.
I have so much debt. What if he wanted to pay it off? What if he didn’t want to help me with it at all? Both were nightmare scenarios.
She didn’t know how to be rich, or at least fit in with rich people. Zack may not be the golden child of the rich and famous, but he at least knew how to fit in. Barring that, he could get away with a lot for being rich and charming. What did Rachel have? A bag of stale pretzels in her bag and a Japanese dictionary full of her frustrated notes.
“It’s not that I don’t wanna go out with you, Zack.” A couple came through the doors, loudly talking about what they wanted, how hot it was outside, and did the other see the way the 2003 Honda was parked by the meter? Rachel used their boisterous sounds as a cover for what she said next. “I’m not sure I can. I’m in a pretty emotional spot right now.”
“I get that.” He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “I only needed you to actually say it.”
“Really?”
“Damnit, Rachel, if you wanna take things slow and keep it all casual, I can do that. You think I can’t?”
On the contrary, Rachel was concerned he was a little too good at doing that. Wasn’t that one of her concerns to begin with?