The Perfect Indulgence (5 page)

Aw, crap.

“Zac.” He kept walking.
“Zac.”

His lumbering form turned back.

She hurried over. “Hey.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, no, I just...” She gestured lamely. “I guess I changed my mind about hanging out.”

“Okay.” Again, he didn’t sound either glad or upset. She
should
take lessons. He was that good.

She fell into step beside him as they walked toward the cliff face. “Does anything ever upset you?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I was wondering that.”

“Ha. Yes, of course things upset me sometimes.”

“Has anything ever upset you around me, or do you just never show it? Because I’ve never seen you—”

“Chris.” He stopped walking. “Can we start with ‘How was your evening? How are things going? What have you been up to for the past few months?’”

“Okay.” She stared up at him, wishing she could see his face better. “How was your evening?”

He chuckled and kept walking. “Fine, thanks. Luke and I went running, then we had dinner, watched some TV, got hungry again and brought more food down here.”

“How is he doing?”

Zac sat on one side of a blanket spread at the bottom of the cliff, leaving her plenty of room to join him. “He’s okay, considering he changed coasts and is starting his life over. Are you hungry?”

“Actually, yes.” She dropped down next to him. She was starving. There had been little at the bar that wasn’t loaded with cheese or deep-fried or both. “What do you have? Man food, I bet. Cheetos and beef jerky?”

“C’mon, this is California. We brought sushi, papaya and fair-trade chocolate.”

“No way.” Her stomach growled viciously. Thank goodness the waves were loud enough to cover the sound. “Do I have to high-five you and call you ‘dude’ to eat it?”

“If you want.” He lit a small lantern that threw a warm circle of light onto the sand and their blanket. “But how about you tell me about your evening instead?”

“I went out with Gus.”

“Yeah?” Zac’s body hitched as he leaned toward the cooler, but his voice stayed even, so she couldn’t tell if he’d reacted or not. “How was that?”

“It was okay.”

“Not great?” He handed her a take-out container with a few remaining pieces of a sushi roll. “Spicy tuna.”

“Yum, thanks. We went out to play pool.”

“Really.” He was smirking. “I seem to remember you telling him pretty pointedly last October that pool was not on your list of things you like to do.”

“That was then.” She picked up a piece of sushi. “I’m open to more experiences now. I’m glad I went.”

Zac put a container of cubed papaya on the blanket between them. “You seeing him again?”

A big bite of really wonderful spicy tuna roll gave her the chance to think before she answered. On the one hand, her dating life wasn’t really any of his business. On the other, it was a perfectly normal question. If a woman had asked her, she wouldn’t have blinked.

But Zac was definitely not a woman. “I thought we were catching each other up on our evenings and the past few months.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what have you been up to the past few months?” She grabbed another piece of tuna roll. Sheer heaven.

“Let’s see.” He relaxed down onto his side, supporting his head on his palm. “Before I left, I finished my master’s thesis, defended it and passed.”

“Hey, congratulations.” Chris was taken aback. Before he left? He hadn’t mentioned it to her. You’d think he would have been bursting with the news. “What was your thesis about?”

“Introducing clean water systems in isolated areas. I can go into a
whole
lot of detail if you want. It’d take, oh, say, about an hour. Minimum.”

“Maybe another time?”

He grinned and stole a piece of papaya. “Then I finished my doctorate program applications and was about to schedule a vacation to Costa Rica when I got the call that Luke had been arrested. He’d gotten into a fight with a kid from another school over something really important, like whose hockey team was tougher.”

Chris winced. “Boys.”

“Yeah, but I don’t cut him any slack for that. He’s twenty-one—he knows better than to be a hothead idiot. Plus he’d been on a drinking binge. So stupid. So that took a while to sort out. We all agreed he needed a break from UConn, where he wasn’t doing that well anyway, and a break from his usual life, and a break from my dad, who means well but isn’t cut out to parent a lost kid.”

Chris nodded sympathetically, feeling strangely lit up. She didn’t think Zac had ever said that many sentences to her at once, and she was pretty sure he’d never shared that much about his life before. Maybe she hadn’t given him the opportunity? “That’s a lot to cope with.”

“Nah. He’s family. He got a bad deal growing up. My mom died when he was really young. Pretty much a baby.”

“Oh, my God, I’m sorry. That must have been devastating.” Chris pressed her lips together, aching inside. A bad deal, he’d called it? Typical Zac understatement, undoubtedly representing a hell of a lot of pain, and not only Luke’s.

“So Luke is here now. As soon as he finds a job, I hope he’ll settle, maybe go back to school at some point if he can get in anywhere around here. But he needs to do some growing up first.”

“He’s still pretty young.”

Zac didn’t respond, which surprised her until it hit her that if his mom died when he was a teenager, he’d undoubtedly had to grow up a lot quicker than Luke.

Her heart started a slow sympathy melt.

No. She was not going to allow herself to get soft on Zac. It was really late at night—or really early in the morning—and she was exhausted and therefore a little giddy and vulnerable, and he was an undeniably large, warm, sexy presence beside her in the cool air on the deserted beach, spilling out his heart in a way he never had before.

Breathe in, breathe out.

“Now tell me how
your
last few months have been.”

“Oh.” She speared another of the sweet, juicy papaya pieces, wishing the fruit was this fresh and flavorful back east. “I’ve had a really great time.”

“Guys been asking you out every hour on the hour?”

“No! That was really weird.” She laughed, feeling herself blush in the darkness. “Most of the time I was feeling my way through changes at Slow Pour.”

“I like what you did. You got rid of some of the clutter without sacrificing the comfort or quirky feel of the place.”

“Thanks.” She was surprised he’d noticed, though given how well he could read her feelings, she probably shouldn’t be. That was so different from the men she knew. Her father could probably pick up on a hint of sadness if one of the three women in his family was writhing and sobbing on the floor at his feet, but other than that... “And I took a few weeks of classes at the Peace, Love and Joy Center, trying to unblock myself, surrender to a deeper consciousness, and become freer and less stressed.”

“Ah.”

She frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Me?”
He sat up to unwrap a bar of chocolate and broke off a row. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you think I’m spouting New Age crap.”

“No.” He handed her the squares of chocolate. “I think the idea that you have to fix something about you is crap.”

“I’m not trying to fix anything—I’m uncovering the real me. You must think it’s possible to change or you wouldn’t have brought Luke here.”

“Luke is trying to change his perspective and his circumstances. Not who he is.”

Chris bristled. “I’m not even sure who I am. The real me has been blocked my whole life, and I’m only just getting at her. You can’t claim to know her and what she needs better than I do.”

“No, of course not.”

Chris struggled to relax. Darn it, Zac had gotten to her
again
. “All I know is that I have felt charged up and mildly panicked my whole life, and now I feel I can be free of that. How can that be wrong?”

“It’s not. I’m sorry, Chris. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. If this program is making life better for you, that’s a good thing.”

Chris waited, a piece of chocolate held so close to her mouth that her salivary glands activated. Was he really as sincere as he sounded, or was he making fun of her again?

He seemed calm.

Yeah, big surprise.

She ate the chocolate, feeling oddly cheated by his surrender, which was crazy. The last thing she needed was more arguing.

“Okay, so now we’ve discussed our evenings and what we’ve done for the past few months.” Zac shifted on the blanket. “I get to ask. Are you going to see Gus again? Are you going to have dinner with Bodie?”

Chris frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

“Jeez, Chris.” Zac exhaled impatiently. “Why do you
think
?”

Another one of those pesky thrills chased around her body. Was he saying he was interested? Jealous, maybe? Stop. At the center she’d identified this crazy-making habit of projecting her own thoughts onto other people and had sworn to avoid it, even if it meant putting herself in awkward or potentially vulnerable situations. From now on, communication had to be honest and clean, always. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Okay, I will.” He wrapped his arms around his knees. “Because Gus is interested only in surfing and himself and Bodie is interested only in surfing and himself, plus getting laid as often as possible. Gus will treat you like crap because he doesn’t know any better, and Bodie will treat you like crap because at heart he’s a misogynist.”

Chris straightened, annoyed by his response. He sounded like a big brother trying to keep his naive little sister from dating the school bad boy. “I’m not planning to marry either of them.”

“Good.” Her response clearly annoyed him, too. “You’ll get along fine, then.”

Chris retreated into silence, totally aggravated by the tension that had ruined the mood of their evening. And aggravated that she was aggravated because she’d spent so many months deliciously calm. Who cared what Zac thought of her love life? He was—

Stop again.
Another old pattern—coming up with an outraged defense to distract herself from the truth. Truth always needed admitting and facing, no matter how hard.

Okay. Truth time. Zac’s big-brother answer to her charged question had pricked her ego. Deep down she’d wanted him to say he was jealous of her dating other men. Because...

Because...

Because she was attracted to him.

The minute she admitted the truth, she felt the aggravation draining away, giving her a moment of relief before it was replaced by the almost worse panic of vulnerability.

Why hadn’t he stayed in Connecticut?

Okay. He’d asked his hard question, now she got to ask hers. “It’s my turn. Do you ever get upset? Behave badly? Go nuts over something?”

“Nah.” He sent her a grin. “I’m pretty even-keeled. Not a talent—I was born that way.”

“Yeah, not me.”

“No kidding.” His smile and the offer of more excellent chocolate took any insult out of the words.

“You wait.” She let the dark richness spread over her tongue. “By the time I go back to New York I’ll be just like you.”

“I hope not.”

She wrinkled her forehead. “Why?”

“Because I’m not gay.”

“What?”
Then what he meant hit her and she broke out in giggles. “That was terrible.”

“Yeah?” He got to his feet, towering over her in the darkness. “C’mon, I’ll walk you home.”

She scrambled to her feet. “No, no, you don’t need to do that.”

“Yes. I do.” He stared down at her, hands on his hips. “I need to make sure you get home safely.”

What could she say to that? She helped him pack up the picnic things and insisted on carrying the blanket.

They walked back to Eva’s house in comfortable silence. Then what had been a friendly stroll suddenly turned into what seemed like the awkward end of a first date.

Breathe, Chris. It’s only awkward in your head. Be in the moment.

“Thanks for walking with me.” She handed him the blanket, wishing it was broad daylight so she wouldn’t have to speak in such an intimate whisper. The stillness around them made her feel as if they were the only two people left in the world.

“You’re welcome. I hope...” He stood looking down at her. Chris started to take a defensive step back, then made herself stay put and listen to whatever else he was about to say without judgment or dread, trying to calm her hyper pulse. “I hope we can do this again.”

Her immediate panicked response was to say
absolutely not
. Because otherwise, well, something bad might happen.

Like...

Sigh. She’d take the middle road.

“You want to do what again?” She sent him a sly look. “Meet by chance on the beach at one in the morning?”

“Exactly, yes.”

“It could happen.” Chris forced a laugh, relieved that he hadn’t pressed further, and then, all of a sudden, she felt...disappointed.

Argh!
How was she supposed to follow her true inner voice if the little brat kept changing its mind?

Okay, truth time—she was disappointed. But as she’d realized earlier, it was late and dark and the air was cool and soft and smelled ocean wonderful. They were both tired, and having opened up to each other a little down on the beach, they’d created the prime conditions for feelings that might not hold up. Yes, Chris had promised herself to live in the moment, but that didn’t include doing something she knew she’d regret the next day.

“Good night, Zac.” Her voice came out husky and low in spite of her having made an effort to pitch it up high and hearty.

“Good night, Chris.”

Thank goodness he turned to go. Because being this close to the enticing outline of his solid masculine body, those feelings that might not hold up were becoming pretty strong. What’s more, they had apparently rooted her to the spot, because she stayed put, watching him walk away, feeling hollow and wistful.

Lord. This battle with herself was ridiculous. She knew what she needed to do: get back into the house right now and put him out of her mind.

Zac stopped. He placed the blanket and the cooler on the ground, stood absolutely still for a breath-holding second, then turned back abruptly and she was busted, caught staring hungrily after him. Luckily it was too dark for him to see her hunger, but he didn’t need X-ray glasses to notice she hadn’t moved.