It’s subconsciously made for me when I quietly blurt out, "It's my husband and son."
"You're married?" His mouth drops down almost to his knees.
I shake my head in response.
I study his expression. I watch him as he sighs and leans forward again. One hand briefly rubs the back of his neck before returning to his knees. His hands clasp together and he looks like he’s figured it out. “You’re divorced.”
Except he’s so very, very wrong. I take a deep breath to tell him the truth. To tell him the words that took me six months to say out loud. I know nothing will prepare him for the words I’m about to say, so I don’t bother softening them.
"No. They're dead."
His entire body freezes. Tears bubble to the surface of my eyes as I bite my bottom lip in an effort to hold them back. No such luck. I wipe my cheek when I feel one escape while I completely avoid his gaze.
"What?"
"Please don't make me repeat it." I can’t look at him. I sniff my nose, wipe my eyes and once again try to stop tears from falling. I feel the weight shift on the couch and a hand on my lower arm.
"I'm so sorry, Nicole. I had no idea...God, I'm so sorry...I knew there was something.” His voice trails off when I snap my head in his direction.
“What?” Confusion covers every feature on my face.
Zack looks at me intensely. So seriously I can feel it from my toes to the tips of my fingers and I don’t understand how I can be so physically affected by another man when I just told him what happened to my family. “You’re sad…but too proud to show it. Your laugh doesn’t reach your eyes, ever. You sometimes seem scared, but then strong enough to fight through it. It’s impressive and amazing watching you.” He pauses and the hint of a smile reaches his lips, “And Mia may have mentioned she’d skin me alive if I hurt you. She said you’re in a pretty vulnerable place.”
I am briefly annoyed at the warning from Mia. She had to have known I wouldn’t like her saying anything about me. It’s a true warning though; she’d bring major physical harm to anyone who hurt someone she loves. But it’s not her warning that causes me to blush.
I can feel the crimson heat travel up my neck onto my cheeks. Zack has just admitted to watching me…closely. “You make me sound like a puzzle.”
He chuckles softly. Even in the stress of the moment and the little information I just shared, I like it. “Maybe you are, a little bit.”
I cock my head to the right. Silently thankful that he’s taken my mind off what we were talking about before. I wonder if it was his plan.
“What happens once you solve the puzzle?”
A devilish grin appears, playfulness in his eyes. “Frame it, hang it on my wall, and keep it forever?”
Forever. I swallow down the cough in my throat before I can do or say something idiotic to ruin this moment. I don’t even know how to take it. But I know I feel entirely too warm, hot, sitting next to this man who can so easily disarm me.
Zack has been able to put me at ease or make me feel tied up in knots with a single look ever since I met him. Right now, thinking of what I just told him, and how he’s looking at me with so much compassion and sorrow filling his eyes; I’m tied up in a thousand knots.
Zack looks back down at the picture and then up to me. “Can I ask what happened?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I stare at the picture. It was taken at my parent's lake. Mark and Andrew had just got back from fishing and were on the dock holding their catch. Andrew was still in his pajamas, and they had a look of one hundred percent pure innocent joy on their faces as they held the fish stringer full of the perch and sunfish in front of them. Mark is kneeling next to Andrew with his dorky fishing hat and swim shorts, one arm thrown over his son’s shoulder and the other holding an end of the stringer. He looks amazing and so proud.
I pick up the picture and caress the faces that I miss every day with all of my heart. I hold the photo reverently in my hands as if