What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) (16 page)

My smile faded as I remembered the sound of Zack’s fist crunching against the Mohawk man’s jaw yesterday, and the way that same man had crumpled and hit the muddy dirt of that backyard. The young men swilling beer and watching the show, paying Zack for his brutal entertainment.

Was this really a person that I could ever imagine having a normal life with me?

I was clearly delusional, pretending he was someone else. Just because he was good in bed and cooked a mean steak didn’t make him marriage material.

I shook my head, reminded myself that this was all temporary, and then exited the bathroom.

Zack already had the table set and the food was out and waiting for me.

Next to my plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and wheat toast, was a glass of orange juice. Beside that, a steaming mug of coffee.

“Full service dining room here,” he said, pulling the chair back for me.

I grinned, nodding. “You guessed right on how I like my eggs,” I said.

“I don’t guess,” he said, walking around to his seat and sitting, picking up a fork and digging into his food with gusto.

“So you just knew the way I like my eggs prepared?”

He shrugged. “I can read you like a book, Caeli.”

“Sure you can,” I said, but something about the way he said it felt true, which made me alternately nervous but also kind of satisfied. I liked that he thought about what I wanted and liked, and that he wanted to please me—seemingly.

“Wow, the eggs are fantastic,” I said, shocked at how good something so simple could taste. “Maybe you should be a chef instead of knocking people out for a living.”

Zack chewed and chewed, then took a sip of coffee from his mug. He was clean-shaven and wearing a black t-shirt that showed off his muscular form perfectly.

“Someone needs to knock people out for a living,” he said, sitting back and sipping from his mug again as his green eyes watched me intently.

“Are you serious? You think you’re performing a public service by beating up strangers for money?” I laughed and shook my head as I picked up a piece of buttery toast and ate it.

“I am being serious,” he replied. He put the mug down and leaned forward. “People have been watching men fight since the beginning of human history. The Romans had coliseums where they watched people fight to the death—“

“And that’s a good thing?”

“It’s just a thing.”

“So you’re like a modern day gladiator,” I said, not buying it for even a second.

“I’m just doing what I’m good at, and people seem to like it. Besides, it pays the bills and that’s pretty necessary too.”

“You could get hurt badly someday,” I said.

“I could.” He didn’t seem too bothered by the idea.

“Have you ever lost a fight?”

He thought for a long moment. “Not that kind of fight, I haven’t.”

“What kind of fight did you lose?”

He started eating some bacon and then drank more coffee, stretching his back so that his shirt rode up in front, revealing his taught stomach. “I’ll tell you what fight I lost recently—the fight to stay awake last night. I was out like a light,” he said. “Did you sleep good?”

Nice subject change
, I thought, but decided to let the matter drop. It was none of my business, he’d made that clear.

Which only told me what I already suspected—that Zack was never going to look at me as anything but a cheap lay, someone to fuck. Not someone he could tell his secrets too, someone he could trust and spend months or years of his life with.

“I did sleep well,” I said, continuing to eat the meal he’d cooked me. It was impressive how good every bit of it tasted, even the coffee. As I ate, I looked across at this enigmatic, mysterious man sitting there with his movie star good looks and sexiness, his brilliant green eyes.

He was there but not there—real but not real.

How could I have slept with him? Did we really do all those things to each other? Now in the light of day it all seemed completely unreal, imagined.

I missed his arms around me, holding me tightly in the darkness and warmth.

Just as we were finishing the meal, I was going to bring up the fact that I needed to leave at some point. I couldn’t really stay at his apartment, I had no plan and no purpose.

The thing to do was go back to my parents, tail between my legs, apologize and then beg my uncle for my job back at his restaurant.

As I sat there considering my future, which seemed to unfortunately look all too much like my recent past, I opened my mouth to speak just as a knock came at the apartment door.

Zack turned to me with a deadly serious expression on his face. He put a finger over his lips and shook his head, making sure I knew not to speak or make a sound.

Suddenly, my heart was racing.

Why did he not want to answer the door? What was he afraid of?

And if he was afraid of whoever was at the door knowing he was home—then how bad might it really be?

The knock came again, louder and more insistent this time. After a pause, a deep voice penetrated from outside in the hallway. “Zack, it’s Lance. I know you’re there. Answer the door.”

But Zack didn’t move a muscle. He sat there, still, his eyes now focused into the distance as he waited.

My heart raced faster, my mouth dry. I wondered if he owed someone money, or if he’d done something even more illegal than simply fighting.

“Zack, you can’t run from this forever. You need to fucking man up and let me in, sit down and talk to me. I mean it. I’m not going away, and you’re not going to ever get rid of me until you have the balls to look me in the eye.”

Zack shook his head but said nothing.

More time passed.

“You hear me, Zack? I’m not going away, I’ll be back again, and one way or another you’re going to have to deal with what happened!”

Not long after that, there was one last, loud bang on the door that made me jump almost out of my chair. But then there were footsteps audibly retreating away, down the hall, down the stairs outside the building.

Zack got up and walked to the window and looked out and down, presumably to make sure that “Lance”—whoever that even was—was really leaving. After a moment, he turned around and came back to the table and grabbed his plate. “Are you still working on that?” he asked, pointing to my plate. His tone sounded as if nothing had even happened.

“Ummm…yeah, I’m done, I guess.”

“Want a warm up on that coffee?” he said, as he walked away carrying the plates.

“No, I’m good, thanks,” I said, getting up and following him to the kitchen. “So…who was that at the door just now?” I asked.

Zack paused for a split second before putting the plates in the sink. “Nobody,” he said, his tone making it clear there would be no discussion.

“I get it, none of my business,” I said, sighing.

He turned and gave me a strange look. Folded his arms. “Do you think it should be your business?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just feel like you’ve asked me to stay with you and it’s kind of scary to feel like someone might come busting through the door and…god only knows what would happen.”

Zack smirked. “It’s not that kind of thing,” he said.

“Okay, so what kind of thing is it?”

“The kind of thing that doesn’t even need to be talked about,” he said. “Someone from my past who needs to let shit go.”

“It all seems very mysterious,” I said.

“It’s not mysterious, it just doesn’t interest me,” Zack said. He walked past me, brushing against my body lightly as he walked back towards the table and grabbed the glasses to bring to the sink.

I stood where I was. “Maybe that’s how you’re going to feel about me pretty soon,” I said.

He gave me a puzzled glance as he passed by yet again. Now he was at the sink, running the water. “I don’t know what that means, Caeli.”

Him saying my name still sent pleasant shivers up and down my spine, but I ignored it. “It means that you seem quite good at walking away from people.”

“You don’t know anything about who or what I walk away from.” He rinsed a plate and glanced at me. “We could both make snap judgments based on very little information, but only one of us is actually doing that.”

It occurred to me that not only was Zack Wild sexy and gorgeous and dangerous with his fists—but also with his words as well. He was no dummy, and his intelligence and quick wit caught me a bit by surprise.

“I don’t want to make snap judgments, but you refuse to tell me anything.”

“I tell you what you need to know.”

I laughed hollowly. “Which is not very much, apparently.”

He continued washing dishes. “We just met.”

“Exactly. And yet we’ve already had sex. Clearly that was a mistake,” I said, feeling my emotions rise as I felt him treating me like I mattered less to him than the dishes in his sink.

“Don’t pretend you regret it,” he said.

“Maybe I do,” I said softly.

“Then you don’t ever have to do it again,” he said simply.

I glared at him, feeling my stomach clench. “You’re mean,” I said.

His jaw tensed as he glanced over to me. “And you’re pushy.”

“And you’re scared.” As I said the words, I realized they were true.

He smiled but his eyes flashed. “Scared of what?”

“Scared of being real, afraid of revealing any real part of who you are.”

“I’m not the one who works some job where they treat me like shit, and then lives in an apartment my Dad walks into whenever he wants and talks to me like I’m a child,” Zack said. “That sounds like someone who’s scared to me.”

“You’re so cruel,” I whispered. “And I don’t think I want to be around you anymore,” I said.

I waited for him to say something, anything. He just stood there, his green eyes flat and cool.

Fine. This needed to end, and now it has.

I turned around and walked away from him then, surprised at just how badly it hurt inside to realize that it really was ending so quickly. Of course, I’d known that this would be a fleeting, passing encounter—everything about Zack made that all too apparent.

But this was just…such a pitiful finale.

I felt like I wanted to burst into tears but kept it inside as I left his apartment. I wanted for him to chase after me, call my name—I knew that I would happily come back if he asked me to, despite my bravado.

The truth was that my feelings had been hurt when he’d shown such little willingness to tell me even a shred of detail about his life. But nevertheless, I didn’t want to lose him so quickly, and if he’d come after me I would have stopped my progress for the exit.

But he didn’t come, and so I didn’t stop walking, just slowed long enough to take my purse with me.

Soon, I was out in the street, and alone.

Z
ACK

I
t’s
time to let her go
.

My entire body went rigid with revolt as she walked away from me, and I wanted nothing more than to go after her, take her in my arms, tell her everything would be okay.

Tell her that I’d explain everything, let her in completely, because she deserved it.

Except I knew that was never going to happen, because my life was finished and the last thing I would do was drag someone like Caeli down into the abyss with me.

I heard the door slam and I felt like I wanted to puke.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The pain in my gut and chest was intense, almost enough to cut off my breath. If I’d known that I was going to catch real feelings for this girl, I never would’ve gone near her. Not that I had been able to stop in any case.

But this was better. She was walking away from me, and I knew that she was right to do so.

I had been a bastard when she’d merely been asking normal questions like the intelligent girl she was. And I’d brushed her questions and concerns aside because I knew that I could never open that door again.

My entire life had become about forgetting exactly the things she wanted to know. Maybe the thing with Caeli and I could have gone on a bit longer if that idiot Lance hadn’t shown up at my door mouthing off.

When would they all stop chasing me, stop haunting me?

In the distance, I heard explosions and gunfire, and I closed my eyes, swaying a little on my feet.

I could smell the smell again.

I could taste and smell the acrid scent of smoke and flame and charred flesh in the air.
The smell and taste of death.

The body parts on the ground.

Pieces of my friends around me, strewn about like garbage.

“Fuck this.” I opened my eyes and blinked. Hot rage raced up and down my spine and I walked to the bathroom, stripped down, got into the shower and put the water on ice cold. I stood beneath it, shouting, as the pain of the cold water overwhelmed, for just a moment, the cold loss of everything I’d ever held dear.

I got out of the shower, soaking wet, no towel, and walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a six pack and sat down at the kitchen table, cracked my first brew.

It was morning.

I didn’t give a flying fuck.

If you’re falling in love with that girl, soldier, than you’ve truly malfunctioned.

No, Sir. This soldier has taken care of the situation.

I downed the first beer in short order.

After the second and third beers, my head was a little fuzzier. After the fourth and fifth, I was pleasantly buzzed and the image of Caeli Powers was slightly fading in my mind’s eye, which was just what I was after.

When I finished my sixth beer, I got up, wobbling ever so slightly. I walked to the fridge and grabbed another six pack. After I pulled the beer out of the case, I slammed the door shut, and it bounced back open from the force of it. I slammed the door again and again and then I punched the refrigerator so hard that the entire thing shook.

“You stupid fuck,” I said, and I could hear the slur of my words.

I stumbled out of the kitchen, moved to the couch and began consuming more beer.

The anger coursing through my body wasn’t something I could deal with. I wished I’ve never laid eyes on that girl, wished I’d never seen her.