Damn it.
Why did he come back?
Everything was fine. Everything was normal. I’d gotten used to not hiding or looking over my shoulder and being mellow all the time and not plotting mayhem and murder. I’d gotten used to my curvy body and how my thighs jiggle when I walk.
The only reason I took this job was because I thought he wasn’t coming back.
I know people said that he went to go to Oxford University like every other Prince in their family. But I never believed it.
Zach hated school. He was so much of a rulebreaker and a rebel that it’s laughable to even think that he’d walk in his ancestors’ footsteps.
Not to mention the way he left. So abruptly. Kind of like in the dead of night. He didn’t even graduate high school.
I knew that when he left, he didn’t go to Oxford and he wasn’t planning on coming back.
But I guess I was wrong about one of those things.
He is back.
After the dramatic fiasco in the ballroom, a couple of staff members escorted me out. Tina helped me clean up the wound and told me to take it easy. I’d been rattled all day and something was bound to happen. I don’t think Mrs. S would be as forgiving, though.
But I can’t think of that right now. I can’t think of what tomorrow will bring now that Zach knows I’m here, at The Pleiades.
They put me on kitchen duty after I so thoroughly embarrassed myself. It’s hot and sticky in there – I don’t know how Maggie does it – and I need a little break.
So I step outside through the service entrance and try to just breathe.
The night air isn’t much better and my uniform for the event, white blouse and tight black skirt, clings to my sweaty body but I don’t care. Anything is better than being cooped up in that kitchen.
I toe off my two-inch-heeled Mary Janes and unravel my braid, followed by the top two buttons of my blouse. I fan the fabric, trying to get some air going, and lean against the wall, closing my eyes.
“Are you okay?”
The rumbly voice makes me jump.
“Jesus. Fuck,” I almost shriek.
At first, I don’t see anything other than the dark outline of bushes and trees in the distance. But then I notice a cloud of smoke and whip myself in the direction it’s coming from.
Him.
Zach is leaning against the brick wall, his foot propped up. A cigarette hangs from his lips and he doesn’t have his jacket on, leaving him in his dark t-shirt that shows off his bulging biceps.
Oh jeez.
He isn’t even flexing them and they look menacing.
“You scared the fuck out of me,” I accuse.
An intricate-looking Victorian lantern lends enough light that I can see him. His face is turned toward me and I can’t escape the sheer grandness of his features. Sharp and cutting with a square jaw and high cheekbones, complete with dark velvet hair.
“I can see that,” he comments.
Then his corded chest swells out like a giant wave as he takes in a drag before sending the smoke out in the night.
“So are you?” he asks, looking at me again.
I creep closer to the wall and take a small step back, away from him. “Am I what?”
My only concern is to get out of here. I’d be turning back and running. But experience has taught me to never leave my back exposed and open. So I keep walking backward, slowly.
“Are you okay?”
My bare feet get caught up in my abandoned Mary Janes but I catch myself from stumbling. “What?”
In typical fashion, he remains silent and smoking. And staring.
That’s what Zach does: he stares. Like his eyes are a microscope and I’m a bug or an interesting specimen that he wants to study. That he’s been wanting to study for years or squash under his boots.
“Did you just…” I squint at him. “Ask me if I’m okay?”
“Sounds like it.”
Three years.
I’m seeing him after three fucking years and this is what he asks me.
After everything, after all the pranks and the things he’s put me through, is he really asking me that? Like I’m some kind of a stranger that he happened to find on the street, and now he’s enquiring about the fucking weather.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you asking?”
His eyes go to where my injured hand is, fisted against the wall. My cut starts to throb. I feel the gash heating up, as if all my blood is rushing to it just because he mentioned it.
That’s when I remember that he touched me.
I can’t believe he touched me.
At that moment, I was so shocked that I couldn’t register anything about the touch. But now I remember that his skin was warm – somehow, warmer than anyone else’s. And it was rough and scrape-y, his palm. As if he has more fate lines than anyone else I know.
He motions with his chin. “That needs a bandage.”
I open my sweaty, heated fist. “It’s fine.”
“It was a deep cut.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d like what?”
“For it to be a deep cut.”
Again, he doesn’t say anything to that, simply keeps his eyes on me.
Over the years, I’ve learned that this is his intimidation tactic. Going all quiet and intense so the other person is forced to fill the silence.
I’m not falling for it.
I’m not falling for anything he’s planned. I would think that even this meeting was a set-up, if I hadn’t spontaneously thought of stepping out.
He’s done this before, actually. His minions locked me inside Mr. Philips’, our history teacher, office after giving me a fake message that he was waiting for me. I was stuck inside that room for two whole hours until the cleaning crew came in and unlocked the door.
Asshole.
“Are you aware that you’re walking backward?” he asks at last, turning toward me, propped against the wall on his arm.
I realize that he’s right. I have been walking backward. “What’s it to you?”
“You can’t do that.”
I scoff. “Yeah? Why? Are you going to stop me?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, but if you keep going then the potted plant behind you will.”
My eyes go wide, and I come to a jerky halt.
He’s right.
There are potted plants flanking both sides of the service entrance and I feel the brush of the leaves against my back. If I’d kept going, I would’ve stumbled into them or maybe even fallen.
“I knew that,” I lie.
“Sure,” he says with an amused voice that gets my back up; it’s an old reflex.
There’s something about him, you know. Some quality, some kind of provocation that lights my skin on fire.
“I didn’t need you to tell me that,” I insist.
“Got it,” he replies flippantly.
Even though I take offense at his tone, I decide to stay quiet. I promise myself that I won’t say anything.
I don’t. For about six seconds. Then, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Back in this town. Back in my life. Back in my fucking head.
“Getting fresh air.”
“Right. And you had to pick this spot?”
“Yes.”
Then he has the nerve to twitch those cancer-breathing lips before taking another drag and tilting his face up. A growl surges up in my throat but it’s cut short by what he says next.
“I forgot that you could see the stars up here,” he murmurs.
His voice almost sounds like a low, satisfied sigh. Like the sight of stars is something he hasn’t had in a long time.
While he seems at peace, his words are playing havoc on my body.
They halt my breath and make my heart race. They awaken the butterflies.
I remember the falling star from last night. I remember the wish I made, and now, he’s here. A potential danger to everything I’ve been working toward for the past few months.
“And you couldn’t see the stars where you came from?” I ask.
Zach looks away from the sky and at me. “No.”
Monosyllabic answers.
Great.
They’re designed to stoke curiosity. Rationally, I’m aware of that. Irrationally, I’m wondering about his whereabouts for the past three years.
“Ooo-kay.” I nod, hardly believing him. “Where did you go off to again?”
Silently, he studies me. “Why? Did you miss me?”
“Oh yeah, definitely. Like I miss getting shot in the head.”
Zach smirks, his black eyes glittering. “You know, I wasn’t real sure about coming back. But if it makes you happy, then I’m all for it.”
“Sarcasm.” I raise my eyebrows. “Gotta love it.”
“I aim to please,” he says, making the goose bumps wake up on my flesh.
I ignore that and get to the real question that’s been nagging me all day. I don’t care where he went, all I care about is why he came back and when he’s going to go away again.
“Why did you come back?”
I’d think my question got lost in the wind with the way he remains silent. But that’s another special thing about our town with a line. Even the air is dead. Nothing moves, just like him. His face is blank. Expressionless. But there’s something in his eyes, his stare.
It’s burning, like that cigarette trapped between his lips.
Then, that stare moves. His lashes flicker as he takes in the loose curls of my hair. I have an urge to reach up and touch them, but I resist it. I fist the fabric of my skirt to keep my hands occupied.
“Still blue, huh?”
I raise my chin. “Always.”
His lips twitch as he repeats on a whisper, “Always.”
I don’t know why he’s looking at my hair like that, with such intensity. Maybe he’s thinking up something mean to say. Whatever the reason, he doesn’t stop and when his lashes dip, I forget about the question I asked him.
What were we even talking about?