was far from her comfort zone. She slowly faded into silence and texted Hannah instead.
Even though she’d dropped Zach into this with no warning or explanation, he was handling it way better than Rae. He held court with the increasingly tipsy authors as if there was nothing else he’d rather do. But while they all cackled over some joke or other, he turned subtly away and focused on her.
God, she wished he wouldn’t focus on her.
He put a warm, reassuring hand on the small of her back and leaned across the gap between their bar stools. “Are you okay?”
Rae sat ramrod straight and took a healthy gulp of wine. “I’m fine,” she bit out, sounding like a pissy teenager. Her phone vibrated in her hand.
Hannah: Duke’s good. You want pics?
Rae: OMG yes please.
“You don’t seem fine,” Zach said as she typed. His hand moved in slow, soothing circles over her back, even though they sat at an angle where no-one could see. As if he just wanted to touch her.
Maybe he does.
She squashed the pesky voice of optimism in her mind—honestly, who knew she still possessed that?—and clung to her bad mood with all the strength she could muster. “If you’re trying to say I look like shit,” she muttered, “just say it.” Her moment of glamour last night had not been recreated today. Her mouth was bare, her outfit simple, her naptime braid frizzy and falling loose.
Without warning, Zach caught her face in his hand. She almost dropped her phone. She kept a good grip on the wine, though; wine was her precious now. With strong, sure fingers, he tilted her head until they made eye contact. His gaze was an unexpected storm, so intense she imagined lightning shattering his pupils. Carefully, clearly, he told her: “You look beautiful.”
She forced herself to take a deep breath. Of course, that breath came with a lungful of his intoxicating scent, so it was less calming than it should be. She imagined his pheromones like vaporous warriors, armed and vicious, attacking her common sense with alarmingly sexy battle cries.
She was officially bonkers, and it was definitely his fault.
“If something’s bothering you,” he said, “you need to tell me.”
“Why?”
“So I can fix it.” He caught her hand and raised it to his lips. Her heart broke.
Her voice barely above a whisper, she told him, “You can’t fix this.”
“Then I want to be miserable with you.” He turned his barstool toward hers by some long-legged magic, separating them from the group of authors they’d come in with. A few shot her amused, knowing looks before returning to their conversation. Zach caught the back of Rae’s chair and dragged it closer, until they were practically on top of each other, her legs caged between his.
Her phone vibrated, and she bit her lip.
“Hannah?” he asked.
“She has Duke pictures.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
Rae’s lips quirked into a smile, her first real one of the night. She opened the message and they bent over the phone, chuckling together at an action shot of Duke running through Nate’s massive garden, his tongue flapping in the breeze and his legs pointing in different directions. He seemed to be chasing a squidgy pink ball. Judging by his trajectory, he’d missed catching it by a thousand feet and possibly faceplanted the grass, too.
“That dog was not made for athletic pursuits,” Zach said, amusement twinkling through his words.
Rae snorted. “He’s a gentleman of gravitas. He’s dignified like his mother.”
“Yeah,” Zach said dryly. “Dignified.”
“Watch your tone,” she sniffed, and then froze, because she’d teased him. She’d teased, she’d smiled, and she’d forgotten, for a second, that she was upset. Because of him. Even though she was literally upset because of him.
Why did he have to be the one? The one who did this to her?
He must have noticed she was feeling pensive again, because his own smile faded. “Do you miss him?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not what’s bothering you,” Zach said with unnerving certainty, as if he had a direct line into her head.
She wanted to hate him for being this way, for understanding her—but she couldn’t, because knowing him was a gift. Her sigh released the last of her resentment and frustration. If she could see them, they would look like cherry blossoms swirling away in the wind, slowly disintegrating. Maybe she couldn’t act on her emotions, but there was no use fighting them inside her own head. She adored this man, and that wouldn’t go away.