She needed to see her boyfriend. She needed to hear him reassure her that they were definitely solid, that they were going to be together a long time, and they were going to take PR classes together to learn how to deal with nosy paps that Rachel didn’t even know had been following them around! Did he know? He had to know!
Most of all, Rachel needed him to give her a big kiss before she could get back to work.
She entered the bar, currently busy and bustling with the lunch rush. For all Rachel knew, there was a photographer in their midst.
It was difficult to find Zack at first, and Rachel began to wonder if she had picked the wrong bar out of God knew how many they had been to. With her heavy bag weighing her down, she pushed between groups of friends and business meetings taken out of the office. Finally, she heard the familiar sound of Zack guffawing at someone’s joke.
Because he wasn’t alone.
Rachel didn’t recognize the other woman at first. Not until she turned her bubbly blond head and flashed her pearly white veneers in Rachel’s direction.
I’ve seen her here before. That night she and Zack came here to get drunk and pick out dates for each other.
The woman reached out and placed a flirtatious hand on Zack’s leg, her giggles worth all the fake gold on her fingers and around her neck.
Zack took way, way too long to shake her off. About five seconds too long.
“I would love to model for you sometime, Zack.” She crossed one leg over the other and did nothing when her skirt continued to ride up her thighs. “I bet it’s an exciting experience.”
Hell. No.
“The fuck is going on here?”
Both Zack and his blond bimbo stopped laughing. I can’t believe it. He actually told me where he was so I would see this? Rachel scoffed in disgust.
Zack was the only one not panicking. “Rachel! There you are! What’s going on?”
“I should be asking you the same thing!”
“Who’s this?” Another thing Rachel should be asking first! “Do you know her, Zack?”
“I’m his girlfriend!”
Rachel blurted that out before Zack had the chance to answer on his own behalf. The blonde looked to Zack for confirmation.
“Bailey, meet Rachel. Rachel, meet Bailey. It’s because of you we know each other.”
“I can see that.” Rachel’s throat was dry. Who did this drop-dead gorgeous woman think she was, feeding into Rachel’s insecurities and making her want to fling herself out the window?
And making her have flashbacks to one of the worst days of her life?
“Oh my God…” she couldn’t believe this. What if that bastard she once dated was right?
“Men are dogs, Rach. All of us. Don’t trust any of us. Stick with women, if you’ve got the choice. Don’t ever date another man again. We’re not worth it.”
“You okay, hon?”
Hon? Hon? “No.” Rachel looked between this woman, already laying her claim on playboy Zack, and the man himself, who looked so blissfully ignorant that she would either kiss him or slap him.
We should’ve stayed friends.
“Rachel!”
That was the last thing she heard as she fled the bar, her brain full of the kind of junk that made a woman decide terrible, terrible things.
***
Her phone was off. Her apartment locked up tight. Her computer only on work-related websites, for all the good it did her.
Zack had tried to contact her all afternoon and evening. He showed up to her door around dinnertime, and only left when she threatened to call the police. A notecard was slipped beneath her door, but she refused to read it.
It wasn’t her trust that was shattered, per se. When she finally calmed down, Rachel rationalized that it wasn’t what she thought at first.
That wasn’t the problem, though.
Even if Zack remained true for the rest of their days as boyfriend and girlfriend, that didn’t stop the mental gymnastics always leaping about in Rachel’s broken brain.
How could she be in a relationship when she was always haunted by the shit some other man said to her years ago? Maybe Zack had finally moved on from what Sadie did to him. Rachel would never move on from Mr. Dumps During Sex.
She smacked her head against her desk. Her email dinged with a new message.
It wasn’t Zack, amazingly enough. Does he even know my email address? They were connected via phone and one of his private Facebook accounts, but not email.
“Thank you for your interest in returning to Happy Kids’ Park. This is Daisuke Aoyama, head of staffing for the Chubu Region…”
So, Daisuke had gone from teacher to management, huh? Good for him. Rachel had only worked with him once before, when she covered for a foreign teacher who had called out sick from his usual school. At least she knew this guy, even if he probably didn’t remember her.
“We still have openings and could fast track you through the approval and training process, depending on whatever timeline works for you. Please respond if you are still interested in a one-year contract.”
Rachel got up and went to her tiny kitchen, where she poured herself more hot water from the kettle and slapped a fresh teabag into her mug. I should be in bed with Zack right now. He had promised to order takeout for them that night and watch whatever movie she wanted. She had planned to jump his bones halfway through chow mein and beef and broccoli.
That was before her insecurities came crashing into her once again.
Zack thought he had them? She was a train wreck! What made her think she could possibly be in a healthy relationship now? Let alone with a guy like him?
What a joke!
Even though she loved him. Even though the thought of running away was both life-changing and heartbreaking.
Rachel sipped her tea and finally turned on her phone. There were about fifty texts and voice mails from Zack.
“What the hell is going on? You don’t think I’m already cheating on you, do you? I bumped into her! She said hello! What, did you want me to be rude?”
Sure. He had happened to bump into a woman he slept with while also seeing Rachel. They may have been open at the time, but…
Damnit! Was that a sign, or what?
The last time Rachel felt like this, she packed up her bags and moved to the city. She had been drowning in depression and the realization that her mother had dementia and would never be the same again. Had she regretted it? She was financially unstable for a long while, but when she looked at how far she had come…
A call came through. Zack’s name was plastered on her phone screen.
Rachel turned it off again. She couldn’t think. She needed peace. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to explain herself and the crap in her mind.
Fuck it.
She planted her ass down in her computer chair and reread Daisuke’s email. A minute later, she hit REPLY.
Chapter 31
“Where the hell is she?”
Parvati leaped where she stood behind the counter at Opal’s. I don’t care if I scare the piss out of her. Zack slapped another hand down on the counter. Behind him, customers whispered to one another. Somebody got out their cell phone. “Where’s Rachel?”
It had been two agonizing weeks since Zack last saw Rachel. At first, she texted him that she needed some space for a few days. She kept in touch daily, and while Zack hated knowing something was wrong, he appreciated the check-ins. “You don’t want to be around me anyway,” she lamented on Tuesday. “I’m on my period. Might as well send me to the Period Tent like they had in the Bible or whatever.”
Zack didn’t care if she bled tar. He wanted to see her. He needed to see her. For the first time in years, he had a woman that made him want to get up in the morning and create his own artistic world – after he got done making love to her, anyway.
After a week, however, he heavily insinuated that they needed to meet. In the flesh. Didn’t even have to be alone, although Zack graciously offered to come over to her place and bring whatever she wanted. He would haul a professional Italian chef to her tiny apartment and force him to make Rachel all the carbs she could consume.
Seth had told him that some women were like that. Uncle Roy had shrugged and gone back to cleaning his deck. Meanwhile, Rachel continued to ignore most of his messages, including the updates about his art and what he wanted to do when they saw each other again.
Then she disappeared. Fell off the radar. Stopped responding.
Zack was a tad worried.
The kicker was when he pounded on her door only to have the neighbor pop her head out and say, “Knock it off! She’s not there! She moved out two days ago! Asshole!”
Moved out? Rachel?
Where the hell was she! What the fuck was going on!
“Tell. Me. Where. She. Is.”
Parvati shook her head. “I don’t know…”
“You don’t know where your own best friend is? Bullshit!”
“Yes, police? I’m at Opal’s Café and there’s a man…”
Parvati held her hand up to the woman on the phone. “She’s at the airport!”
The café fell silent. Anyone who hadn’t already been enthralled by what was going on now took out their earbuds and gawked at the scene. “The airport,” Zack said back to her. “She’s at the airport.”
“Y… yes. She’s going to Japan. She got a job there.”
“What?”
“She’s going back to her old job at the English school. She took a six-month contract. Or a year contract. I can’t remember!”