“Victoria,” he says my name and just the way he says it, it gets me in the middle of my chest.
“It’s fine, Zane,” I reply. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I’m starting to walk out when he grabs my hand. “Victoria, can we talk about it?” he says softly, and I close my eyes for a second.
“There is nothing to talk about, Zane.” I look over at him. “You’re right, it’s not a good time.” His hand falls from mine. “I’ll talk to you later,” I repeat and walk out the door.
I get into my SUV and pull out of his driveway. The tears escape as soon as his house is in my rearview mirror. My phone rings and I see it’s him. I want so much to send it to voicemail, but my finger hits accept. “Hey,” I answer, trying not to sound upset.
“Victoria,” he says my name softly, “we need to talk about this.”
“There is nothing to talk about, Zane. We’ll keep it to ourselves. Everything stays status quo.”
“But you’re upset.”
“I am,” I admit to him, “but it’s fine. We’ll talk when you come back from the road.” He doesn’t say anything. “I’m at Jaxon’s,” I say, pulling into the driveway. “I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” he replies, and I hit disconnect. I get out and head up to the door, ringing the doorbell before walking into the house.
“Hello, hello,” I call out, my voice trying to sound chipper as I walk into the living room and see Jaxon on the couch with Jagger playing by his feet. “There he is, the love of my life.” I hold out my hands and he runs to them. I bend to kiss his head before sitting on the floor.
I watch Jagger play, not saying a word, my eyes in a trance. “What’s up with you?” Jaxon asks. “You look sad.” I shrug. “Did you and your guy have a fight?”
“Sort of. I don’t think it’s going to work out with him.”
“Is that why you didn’t introduce him to us?” he asks me, the worry on his face now.
“I wanted to get to know him a bit before I just introduced him to my family,” I defend myself.
“You should get Ariella to fix you up with someone,” Jaxon suggests, and I shake my head.
“I think I’m sort of in love with the guy,” I confess, and he gasps. I’m even shocked I’m admitting this to him. “I’m just trying to figure things out.”
“If he hurts you,” Jaxon declares, “I’m going to find out who he is.” I chuckle.
“Thanks for having my back,” I tell him and take a deep inhale.
“Always,” he assures me. “I’ll always have your back.” I don’t say anything else to him. We spend the day at the park, and that night when I get home, there is the bouquet of flowers we were going to buy at the market.
A note on top.
Wanted you to have these.
Z.
I walk into the house and put the flowers in water and, for the first time in a month, I go to bed without calling him.
twenty-nine
Zane
The plane lands and I turn airplane mode off and wait for the messages to come through.
I see emails start to come in and then some texts, names pop up and I hope like fuck one is Victoria. But she hasn’t sent me anything. I texted her yesterday, but she told me she was going home with a massive migraine, so I didn’t want to bother her.
This morning, I sent her a text, asking her how she was feeling, and she didn’t answer me. I look down at the phone and pull up the text thread anyway, pushing away the worry starting to unspool in my chest.
Me:
