Page 16 of A New Chapter

Chapter 9

Zack put his blinker on just before they reached Emma’s street, but she stopped him from turning there.

“Zack, I really don’t want to be alone right now. Do you have some more boxes I could help you unpack? I’d like to do something to distract myself from thoughts of you-know-who.”

“Wow, a friend who offers to help instead of waiting to be asked… impressive.”

His teasing brought a smile back to Emma’s tear-stained face. “What can I say, I’m a really good friend.”

“Ok, but I have to be honest with you. The only room I have left to unpack is my bedroom.”

Emma’s eyes widened with surprise. “Are you serious? Everything else is done?”

“Yep. I kicked butt this week, and Gracie helped too. I saved my room for last since it’s the least seen, and used, in the house.”

His meaning wasn’t lost on her. Emma’s bedroom hadn’t seen much action in quite some time either. Aside from the six months she’d been divorced, she and Mark hadn’t been intimate with each other for several months preceding that. In retrospect, it was easy to see that he had been pulling away from her little by little.

“I don’t mind helping. I just need to keep my hands busy…” Emma’s voice trailed off when she saw the grin on Zack’s scruffy face. “Oh geez, seriously?”

“Sorry. It’s a guy thing. I’ll be on my best behavior. I promise.”

Emma wasn’t so sure that she believed him, and in a private corner of her mind, she wanted him to misbehave. The hazards of having a gorgeous male friend, I guess.

Ten minutes later, they were in Zack’s bedroom, each armed with cleaning supplies and a cold beer. His bed was unmade, and a new bedding ensemble sat on the floor, still in the package. Boxes of clothes and books lined the walls, and the only furniture, besides the king-sized bed, was a chest of drawers. There was a large walk-in closet next to the master bathroom, and Emma assumed that was where most of his clothes would go. The beige walls were void of decoration, and the oversized window was bare of curtains. The window looked out on the treed backyard, so lack of privacy wasn’t an issue, but Emma couldn’t imagine not having any window covering.

“This room needs a woman’s touch,” Emma said, and then she immediately recognized her error.

Zack laughed gruffly and ran his hands through his thick, wavy hair. “You said it, not me.”

“I better just shut up and get to work,” Emma said and marched over to the window with the Windex and paper towels. She vigorously wiped the handprints off of the window while Zack began to put his clothes into the dresser drawers. They were silent for several minutes before he brought up the dreaded topic.

“So, are you still in love with him?”

Nothing like cutting right to the chase. “No,” Emma replied adamantly.

“We don’t have to talk about it, but based on your reaction today, I thought you might want to.”

Emma kept her back to him and concentrated extra hard on a stubborn spot on the window. “You want to hear something really sad? I don’t know that I was ever truly in love with Mark.”

“Really?”

“We dated throughout college, and the next logical step seemed to be marriage. I never stopped to question whether or not I really loved him. I just went through the motions. Sad, huh?”

Zack was silent for a moment, and Emma turned around to find him perched on the edge of the bed. “It was similar for me. Alicia and I looked really good on paper, but the reality of our relationship was a different story. I don’t think either one of us was ever truly happy.”

The window was more than clean at this point, so Emma set down the cleaning products and walked toward him. There were no chairs in the room, so she sat on the opposite end of the bed from Zack.

“Even though I might not have loved Mark the way I should have, I never planned on divorcing him. I made a commitment, and I fully intended to honor it. I was shocked when he decided not to.”

“I hear you. When Gracie was born, I figured that she would be the glue that kept Alicia and I together. We were a family; you know…”

Emma heard the unmistakable hitch in Zack’s voice, and her heart went out to him. She inched a little closer and laid her hand on his arm. “I’m sure that it was even harder for you to get divorced because of Gracie. I can’t imagine what that would have been like—for all of you.”

“Divorce sucks.” Zack said firmly, and Emma’s lips twitched at his childlike expression.

“I agree. All we can do now is move forward and try never to make the same mistakes again.”

“I don’t know about you, but marriage is the last thing on my radar right now. Hell, it’s hard to imagine having any relationship with a woman at this point.”