Bliss Series Boxed Set: The Whole Damn Harem (94 page)

Therefore, having an unexpected lull between cases late on Thursday night, I decide to send Zoe a text to organize our date for Saturday night. I’d sent a text to myself from her phone when I asked her out so that I could get in touch with her.

Noah:
Hey Zoe. Just wanted to confirm the scheduled repeat of our kiss for Saturday.

Zoe:
Um, who the fuck is this?

Noah:
The man of your dreams?

Zoe:
Or my nightmares. Who the hell is this?

Noah:
It’s Noah.

After a delay of about five minutes, she finally replies.

Zoe:
Oh, hey. You’re joking right?

Noah:
I was, but it wasn’t really funny. I apologize.

That’ll teach me for trying to be suave.

Zoe:
It’s okay. Just a bit weird for a message from an unknown number. I thought you were someone else.

Noah:
Sounds like there is a story there somewhere.

Zoe:
Ah yeah, but never mind. You still want to go out on Saturday then?

Noah:
Of course. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.

Zoe:
I kind of thought you were just asking to be nice.

Noah:
I never do anything I don’t want to do, Zoe. And I do want to see you on Saturday.

Noah:
I figure since our tongues have been in each other’s mouths, we owe it to ourselves to at least get to know one another.

Zoe:
Lol. Good point. So where were you thinking?

Noah:
Maybe a quiet drink and bite to eat somewhere? I promise not to overindulge.

Zoe:
You seem to be fun when you overindulge.

She’s flirting with me now. This is good. The wall inches down ever-so-slightly.

Noah:
I care to bet that we both are. But I was serious about getting to know you, Zoe.

Zoe:
That’s what I’m afraid of.

Noah:
I only bite when asked, I promise.

Zoe:
Right. So did you want to meet somewhere or . . .

Noah:
I’ll pick you up. I was raised to be a gentleman, after all.

Zoe:
A gentleman who kisses random women at weddings?

Noah:
Not my finest moment.

Zoe:
You sure you want to pick me up? You know who I’m living with, right?

Ah fuck. And all of a sudden, it clicks.

Noah:
I don’t fancy coming face to face with your brother’s fist again.

Zoe:
Yeah, not his best moment either, I assure you. How about I meet you somewhere?

Noah:
Okay. There’s a quiet bar that I thought would be great for meeting up at. I’ll text you the address.

Zoe:
Okey dokey.

Noah:
See you around seven p.m. then.

Noah:
And Zoe, I’m really looking forward to seeing you again.

And I am. There’s something refreshing about meeting someone new. Albeit closely related to a friend of mine, but there’s a clean slate.

If there is one thing I like about relationships, it’s the initial dating stage. Those first few dates where you’re getting to know each other. It’s fun to just talk to someone, to let it all hang out and learn about the other person.

Given my recent decision to look forward to the future, I’m now very much looking forward to getting inside the head of the intriguing Zoe Roberts.

And if I get a repeat of that kiss at the end of the date—especially if it’s even half as good as how she described—then it will be a good night all round.

∞
∞
∞

Zoe

Something about my text conversation with Noah has me feeling equal measures of excitement and trepidation.

The promise of Noah is the exciting part. Not his reputation, although if he’s as talented as he is reportedly endowed, then it will be—exciting that is. It’s the hint of a softer, more considerate side of him that I’m seeing. Confusing, slightly worrying, but intriguing, and as previously mentioned, a bit of a mind-fuck.

But that’s all in my own head. My own issues stem from what my ex-boyfriend has put me through in recent months.

I met Justin a few years ago when I went to get my first tattoo. I walked into the studio and Justin had some spare time before his next client. An hour and a lot of pain later, I walked out with a butterfly on my lower back and a date.

For the first year of our relationship, he was amazing. Attentive and caring, he seemed to worship the very ground I walked on but in a very endearing way. I was that young and dumb girl who thought the sun shined out of my boyfriend’s ass. So naïve, I took his very intense interest in my life as a surefire sign that I’d found the ‘one’ for me.

Despite being starry-eyed and well sexed—because he was rather good at that—I started to feel smothered by his attention. I talked about it with my mom, sharing my concerns, and was surprised to find that she had been worried about me for a while. Zander even suggested that I step back and try cooling things off between the two of us.

But Justin wouldn’t hear of it. He pretty much dismissed my concerns, saying that my family was trying to turn me against him. That was the last straw. My family and I have been through so much together that there is no way we would let someone come between us. Zander may have lived in Chicago while we lived in Indiana, but along with my mom and two sisters, Danika and Mia, we were very close.

I was twenty-three years old and I had a boyfriend wanting to spend every spare moment together, wanting to know where I was and who I was with. He’d even started checking my phone when I was out of the room. That isn’t a relationship worth keeping.

So I cut my losses and ended things with him.

To say he took it badly is an understatement.

The lunatic started waiting for me after class, parking outside my house at all hours, and let’s not talk about the constant calls and messages. I found out a few months ago that he’d hacked into my email account and had messaged some of my friends about me.

Zander and Kate had been encouraging me to come back to Chicago and live with them. I figured Zander would’ve been sick of having his sisters living with him considering they’d only just got rid of Mia, but he insisted. They even got Mac to find out whether there were any jobs going at the hospital. I was on the fence about it but as things started to escalate with Justin, a new start in my hometown started looking more and more attractive.

Then somehow, Justin found out I was moving away and he broke into my bedroom in the middle of the night to plead with me to stay with him. When I freaked out and asked him to leave, he threatened to hurt himself.

So after calling the cops and calming myself down, I got the fuck out of dodge, arriving on Zander’s doorstep the next night with two suitcases and a smile. Then I went a little crazy, new tattoo on my hip, new chocolate-brown hair color, and a new positive outlook on life.

That was a week before Mac and Daniel’s wedding, a week before the drunken kiss that ruined my lips for all other men.

Fast forward to now, and I have Noah texting me to make plans for a date on Saturday night. Despite what the nurses said the other day, I need to confirm that he is in fact single. He did leave the wedding with that uptight bitching blonde. But if he weren’t available, he wouldn’t have asked me out, surely.

He said that he wanted to get to know me, to show me the real him, but what if he’s just wanting to be friends as well? I get up off my bed and see my phone start flashing with an incoming call. It rings for what seems like ages until it stops, my voicemail obviously kicking in.

Staring at the now dark screen, I will it not to ring again. In my head I’m hoping it will stay dark, begging the screen to stay in sleep mode. As the seconds pass by and the follow up call doesn’t seem to be coming this time, my racing heartbeat starts to calm down.

This stupid shit is starting to get to me. I’m having to school my reactions to certain things when I’m around friends and family. When my phone vibrates in my pocket at work, I force myself to not flinch. When I receive an unmarked letter in the mail, I hide the slight tremor in my hands when Kate or Zander give it to me.

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m starting to lose my mind.

Noah has been somewhat of a welcome – if not surprising – distraction.

I need to talk the Noah situation through with someone. I’m a talker. I need to look at things from all angles out loud. Normally it’s Zander or Mia, sometimes my mom, and if all else fails, Danika. She is seventeen now, but still, what seventeen-year-old wants to hear about their older sister’s love life disasters? With all of those options unavailable to me, especially since Zander is likely to hunt Noah down for even breathing my air right now, my future sister-in-law, Kate, is my best bet.

“Kate, do you have a minute?” I ask as I walk into the living room and drop down on the couch beside her.

“Sure, babe. What’s up?” She spins her body around to face me, and frowns. “Wait—the look on your face tells me we need wine for this talk. Do we need wine? Because I’m pretty sure we’re all out now.” She winks at me, grinning as she tops up her glass from the now
empty
wine bottle from the coffee table.

“Good point.” I jump up and skip to the kitchen, returning with an empty wine glass, which I hold out to her.

Once she’s filled my glass, I lean back into the couch cushions and take a long sip of Kate’s new drink of choice, Moscato.

“So is this a man, work, or brother problem?” she starts off.

I burst out laughing. “Wow, you just dive right on in there, don’t you?”

“I’m not here to fuck spiders. We’re here to solve whatever problem has you stuck in your head, something that both Zan and I have noticed you haven’t been your normal crazy self this week. So out with it—door one, two, or three?”