Lauren blinked her heavy eyelids. She’d fallen asleep on the couch, and the lamp on the end table cast a dim glow in the living room. “Zach?”
“Do you need medicine or something?” he asked.
Her hand rose to the pain in her arm. The fall. The hospital. Zach’s protective instincts putting on a show. It all came back to her in an instant.
She sat up on the couch and rubbed her eyes. “They gave me medicine at the hospital.”
“Is it time for another dose?”
She reached for her phone on the end table. “It’s two in the morning.”
And Zach was still at her house. She’d fallen asleep watching TV, but Zach didn’t look like he’d just woken up.
Zach pushed his hand through his hair. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Oh no. The exhaustion, pain, and Zach’s sweetness were swirling together, leaving her emotions raw and thin. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m fine.”
He left the room without a word. Lauren squirmed in her seat. She’d hoped to go on a date and push the nagging feelings for Zach to the back of her mind, but now he was taking care of her. How was she supposed to ignore him when he was being so nice?
Zach returned with a glass of water and set it on the end table beside her. “How are you feeling?”
There it was again. The man who’d lived his entire life chasing his own desires was focusing all of his attention on her. “I’m fine. Really.” She chuckled. “You warned me that dating was dangerous.”
Instead of the smile she’d expected, Zach’s features remained unreadable as he sat on the couch beside her, closer than usual. “I don’t want to be right about that when you’re determined to go out with someone.”
The hurt in his voice gripped her in the chest. She’d meant to keep distance between them, but maybe she’d discouraged him by living her life as if something special wasn’t growing between them. She wasn’t ready to give in to that pull, but maybe datingwhile Zach was still figuring things out showed him she didn’t believe in him.
Lauren swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on the date. I knew it wasn’t going to work out, and I was trying to force it.”
There were other things in her life she was trying to force, but she was learning to push slowly. Having Zach around made her realize how much trauma she’d repressed without dealing with it. Telling herself she was over it only left the wounds open.
She was in her thirties and nothing in her life was settled. She had a job but not a career. She had a house but no one to share it with. She had a desire to help people through difficult times, but she couldn’t get over her own hurdles.
She turned to face Zach on the couch. “Did you ever think you’d be here?”
“What, in your house? Absolutely not.”
“That’s not what I mean. How old are you?”
“Thirty-two last I checked.”
“I always thought by now I’d be working at a job I loved and coming home to a loving family in the afternoon. I thought I’d be making dinner for four with a dog at my feet.” Lauren rested her eyes. “I feel like a failure.”
Zach shrugged. “I thought I’d be dead before thirty.”
She sat up straighter, pulling at the stitches in her arm. “What? That’s so morbid.”
“It’s the truth. My dad didn’t make it past thirty-seven, and I thought I’d be like him. Except, I didn’t want to wait that long. He was miserable for years before he did himself in.”
She couldn’t breathe. His dad had overdosed on who knows what drug, and Zach believed that was his fate? A ghost of grief hit her without warning. He was fine, sitting right in front of her, but he thought his life was disposable.
She’d wanted him to trust her, and there was something about the quiet hours past midnight that gave secrets free rein. They slipped through the bars of their prison and slid into the room with them. Now that they were out, what were they supposed to do with them?
He’d given her a weapon. Not something to use against him, but a tool she could use to help him. She could fight his battles beside him now that she knew what they were up against.
“Zach, why would you think your life isn’t important?”
“Because it’s not. I haven’t done a single good thing. All I’m good for is making others miserable.”
