He wanted to be far more to Britt than her friend. But if he toldher that, she’d react with pity and probably misery on his behalf. The admission would crack the rare dynamic they shared, and then they’d be forced to pretend the crack didn’t exist.
He wasn’t willing to do or say anything that might put their friendship at risk. Because even though their friendship was torture for him at times, it was also the best thing in his life.
———
Britt couldn’t get over her tugging, tingling sense of awe.
Zander was in her kitchen.Zander!
Her Zander.
To have him here felt both strange and familiar. Very familiar. Very strange.
“Thirty-eight percent milk chocolate with hazelnuts and cinnamon,” he said.
“Right again.”
She’d met him just days after they’d both started their freshman year at Merryweather High School. Back then, Zander had been as thin and defiant and mistrusting as a wounded animal.
His early life with his parents in a rough St. Louis neighborhood had never been a cakewalk. But things had begun to unravel beyond repair the year Zander was twelve, when his dad had gone to prison. Zander and his older brother, Daniel, had spent the next two years with their drug-addicted mom until the day their home and their “normal” had literally gone up in flames. It had taken Britt ages to pry the story of that day out of Zander.
Before the smoke had cleared, CPS had removed the boys from their mom’s care. Their custody had gone to their mom’s sister, Carolyn Pierce, and her husband, Frank. Zander had been carted to Washington, world-weary and withdrawn.
He’d made Britt work hard to earn his friendship, but almost nothing else she’d done had proven as worthwhile.
She watched him eat the puffed rice chocolate.
The fourteen-year-old boy she’d once known was long gone. He’d been replaced with this worldly, adult Zander, who was a roaring success and had nothing left to prove.
Earlier, when she’d been standing on Sweet Art’s porch, a clang had gone through her when she’d recognized the lean lines of his body, his dark hair, his introspective loner aura.
To her relief, Zander looked very much the same. His pale skin struck a distinct contrast with his hair, which verged on black. His jaw, cheekbones, and nose were all sharply defined. Straight eyebrows. Thick eyelashes. Zander had a romantic, slightly heartbreaking, usually serious face. He could pass as either a nineteenth-century poet or one of those harshly handsome vampires fromTwilight.
He was wearing clothes she remembered him wearing before he’d left—a gray T-shirt that saidAtariacross the front and his favorite pair of jeans. He hadn’t added to the sleeves of tattoos running down his arms.
Her intuition told her that something within himhadaltered, though. He’d traveled the globe alone for a year and a half. Anyone who’d experienced something like that would return home changed. Matured. More self-reliant. She shouldn’t be surprised and she shouldn’t mourn because he wasn’t precisely as he had been when he’d left.
Nor should she worry about the caution she could see in his ocean blue eyes. Given time, she’d be able to coax him to lower his shields.
For today, it was enough thathebelievedherto be exactly the same. That’s what he’d said when they’d been standing on the green.“You’re exactlythe same,”he’d told her, even though she wasn’t. Since he’d seen her last, she’d been scarred in ways he knew nothing about. Thank the Lord he hadn’t been able to tell.
“Thirty-eight percent milk chocolate,” he said, “with puffed rice, pecans, pistachios, and candied orange peel.”
“Nope. Puffed rice,almonds, pistachios, and candied orange peel.”
“Shoot. Now I have to get this Easter egg right, because I’m determined to retain the level of chocolate sous savant.” He popped it into his mouth. His eyes narrowed on her as he swallowed.“Twenty-nine percent white chocolate shell with a salted caramel ganache center.”
“The Easter egg was too easy.”
“It was nice of you to tee that one up for me.”
“It truly was. I’m surprised by my own generosity.”
“Every one of those chocolates was delicious, Britt.”
“Thank you.” She set his plate in the sink. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
