Just a City Boy (Midnight Train Series) (13 page)

Chapter Twenty

I woke around noon, disoriented and in pain. Crap. I was supposed to keep on top of my med schedule to avoid this. I moaned and rolled onto my back. My left arm bumped a living breathing body. Ray? I gasped and sat up, the sheet slipping down to my belly.

It wasn’t Ray. It was Zack. He was fully clothed lying on top of the covers. His dark lashes fanned down above his whiskered cheeks. He was due for a shave, and looked good enough to eat with a side of bacon. He stirred, and I hustled out of bed to get my robe on and go take my medicine. I winced at every movement. Once in the kitchen, I glanced at the clock.

12:34!

“Craaaap…” I said and scrambled to get my phone out of my bag. I threw out lipsticks, napkins, the mace, ah my phone.

I punched numbers while cradling it awkwardly in my cast.

“Pete? Pete it’s Lauren. I’m sorry I’m late calling, but I won’t make it in today, I had an accident last night. No it’s my wrist. I’m uh, afraid I’m going to have to avoid working for, um, at least two weeks,” I stammered. Click. I knew it.

I plunked my phone on the counter with a huff.

“Loser,” I muttered.

I got a glass of water, but found it impossible to open the medicine bottle. I decided to take care of bathroom issues while I waited for Zack to get up. Thankfully, I managed it all with one hand. This was, however, going to be more difficult than a one-armed paper hanger in a drycleaners. I opened the bathroom door to see Zack standing there ready to knock.

“Good morning, Zack,” I said.

“Morning Lauren,” he answered. I saw his eyes dart to the V of my robe, then rush back to my face. At least he tried to not be obvious. He studied my face, and looked at my chest again.

I was getting a little uncomfortable with his scrutiny. He stepped a little closer and whispered.

“I’m sorry. You have a bruise…” and he actually started blushing. I looked down at my chest, and sure enough, Ray the Bastard had left bruising on my tender skin. I adjusted my robe to hide it from view, and turned my face a little so the unsightly bruise on my cheek was less noticeable. It made us both uncomfortable.

“Hey, I need help with the medicine bottle,” I said.

“Oh right,” he went and got it open for me.

I took it and started to make toast. Zack watched me for a minute.

“What?” I asked him.

“I’m trying to decide if I should do everything for you, or let you figure it out on your own,” he said with a smile.

I smiled real big at him. More points in his favor. I thought I might like to keep him around for a while.

“If I say I need help will you stay longer?” I asked him. I put slices of bread in the slots, filled the teapot and set it on the stove. Turned out I was pretty good with my left hand so far.

“I don’t know if I’ll believe it, Lauren. Looks like you’ve got a handle on things,” he said.

“It’s true,” I sighed. “I’m kind of like Wonder Woman.” I bustled around the kitchen, getting things ready for breakfast. Zack helped me open the bacon and cracked the eggs. I watched him.

“I could do that even though I have a cast if I knew how to crack eggs like that,” I said.

“Here,” he said and held an egg. “Tap it here, and then hold it like this and…” he split the shell beautifully and the egg dropped into the bowl. “Now you try,” he said.

I took an egg with my left hand, tapped it and tried to pry it open with just my thumb and pinky fingers, and the whole thing collapsed and landed in the bowl.

“Noooooo!” Zack pretended to yell in slow motion, and I started laughing. I tried to slide the shells out of the mixture, but every time I thought I had one, it slipped back into the egg. “Eh, just leave it. That’s what I do,” Zack said. He began mixing up the eggs with some salt, pepper and cheese.

“No you don’t,” I argued with him. “You don’t get the shells in it, I bet,” I said.

“Actually, today’s the first day I got it to work,” he said with a laugh, and I slugged him with my cast. We both yelled in pain, and I had to sit down. We laughed and Zack finished cooking for me.

I looked at him over my breakfast.

Today was the first time he seemed carefree. I let my eyes slip from feature to feature. His gray eyes with black specks were intense. His skin had olive undertones, and his thick brown hair just begged for fingers to run through it. Preferably mine, I thought to myself. He wore just his white T-shirt and jeans. His shoulders were broad and his biceps were etched. He even had muscular forearms. He was outstanding, for just a city boy.

“What can I do for you?” he asked me before taking a bite of eggs and toast.

I blushed a little.

“You seem…happier…today,” I said. “Less worried?” I couldn’t quite put a word to it.

He stopped chewing and sat back in his chair, thoughtful.

“This is weird, but being around you lessens my headaches,” he admitted.

I sat up straighter. “That’s right! You always have headaches,” I said. “Is that all?” I asked him.

He looked down at his clasped hands.

“Last night was the first night in a long time that I didn’t have any nightmares,” he said quietly.

I felt horrible.

“But you had to wake up to take care of me,” I said. My mouth turned down and my shoulders slumped.

He reached a hand across the table to take the fingers that poked out of my cast. His light touch sent tiny thrills up my arm and into my heart.

“Taking care of you is probably why I didn’t have to battle a nightmare of my own,” he said. Then he smiled at me, a genuine, no holds barred, even white teeth smile that could double as an orthodontist ad. He took my breath away.

“I should get dressed,” I whispered and left the table. All of a sudden I felt strangely vulnerable. It had nothing to do with me being in my robe and panties and nothing else. It was the open way he’d stared at me. He was so handsome and strong, and he was sitting at my kitchen table eating bacon and eggs like he belonged there, and it felt like he did.

But timing was everything, and I was confused. Everyone said, not only Mama, that a girl shouldn’t just get with a guy right after she broke up. Of course, I’d broken up with Ray a loooong time ago. I just felt kind of raw and bruised, emotionally.

In my room, I picked out a sports bra and yoga pants and a workout shirt. All stretchy, easy things to get on so I wouldn’t need help. I padded out to the kitchen where Zack was cleaning up.

“Wow, breakfast and you clean up too? You’re a keeper!” I said. My moment was over.

He looked over at me and frowned.

“Is something wrong?” I asked him.

“I’m just disappointed is all. I was hoping you’d need help with your bra again,” he said with a straight face.

“You!” I grabbed the nearest item, a hot pad, and threw it at him. Then I waved my cast at him. “I’ll bust you with this if you don’t behave!”

He laughed and I laughed and it was all perfect. Except I was down a job. I stared at my cast. What could I do one-handed? Thank goodness I could still sing.

“Zack, where do you live?” I blurted out.

His easy demeanor shifted to guarded.

“I’m staying at the hostel,” was all he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I told him. I picked at an old paint splotch on my table with a fingernail. “I’ve seen it, it’s not too bad. Has a lot of hipsters, though,” I smiled.

“Ha, yeah. Look, Lauren,” he started.

Oh boy, here it was coming. The excuses, the let’s be friends, the it’s not you it’s me speech…

“Will you let me explain a few things to you? Will you hear me out?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. I found another spot of paint, like a long ago craft project gone all to heck.

“You were right, of course. About the PTSD,” he said.

I nodded, looking at him and then away, trying to respect how difficult this was for him.

“I was diagnosed a couple years ago. Not long after I was honorably discharged,” he explained. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“It was a regular couple of tours, nothing special. My unit was between combat missions. I had some experience working on cars, so I worked on Humvees, mechanical stuff. That’s all I usually tell people. Maybe it shoots me in the foot, I don’t know. I can’t usually get past that, so then people are wondering why some Detroit native is scared of the dark. Did his big toe get run over by a Humvee when he was overseas?” he laughed humorlessly.

I nodded, not daring to blink or shift or itch or anything. I didn’t want to break the spell.

“My unit got deployed, headed for a combat mission that would require a lot of close combat, some real firefights. We were jazzed. We were going from barracks where I dinked around with socket wrenches and my buddies played Xbox, to an active incursion,” he said.

I watched him. His eyes were focused someplace in the past. I felt my own heart race in anticipation of what he was about to tell me. I wanted to go to him and hold him and pat his head, but I thought that was my little girl instinct kicking in, and I wanted to be a grown up about this. I wanted to do what Zack needed me to do.

He took a deep breath. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and clenched his fists. The muscles in his forearms bunched and twitched. I hoped he’d get on with his story or I would have to wipe drool off of my chin. Insensitive, I know because Mama accused me of it regularly.

“There was an IED before we even made it to our combat zone,” he forced out. “Do you know what IED stands for?” he asked me.

“Um, improvised explosive device?” I asked. I might be a bit on the ditzy side, but I did read the news sometimes. I wasn’t offended.

He seemed relieved he didn’t have to explain.

“Long story short, I haven’t been much of the same since then,” he said. He blew out a breath.

I had the distinct impression there was a lot more to the story, but I could tell he was in no position to keep going with it. By his own admission, he’d already told me more than most people got to hear. I was touched.

I stood up and walked to him. “Can I give you a hug?” I asked. I remembered just a few days ago asking him the same thing.

He nodded, staring at me with those beautiful gray eyes, and instead of holding his arms awkwardly to the side; he embraced me back as I squeezed him tight.

My theory about hugs was that different kinds had different purposes. There were your typical coming and going hugs, and the slightly more meaningful ‘haven’t seen you in too long’ hugs. There were parent/child hugs and husband/wife hugs and best friend hugs, of course. But I knew what Zack needed right now, and it was my special brand of ‘healing’ hug. My healing hugs sprung up from my toes and unfurled right about heart height. I let all my love and healing thoughts out between my arms and spread it outward to the recipient, and I just held him and imagined I was healing him. There wasn’t anything else I could do, but I sure could give a mean hug.

He held me right back, and we stood there holding each other and feeling peace envelop us. It was nice.

Then at some point, the hug shifted. I don’t know if it was him or me, but all of a sudden it felt like it had changed from a healing hug to a ‘let’s see how close we can get to each other before we’re climbing inside each other’s skin’ hug.

That was nice too.

He began rubbing my back in slow sensual strokes, and I felt like I could nuzzle the hollow between his neck and collarbone all day long. I drew in deep breaths of his unique smell, and before I knew it, I was kissing the skin above his shirt collar, and one of his hands had inched up to the nape of my neck, underneath my wild curls, and he was massaging the back of my head, holding me to his chest.

I leaned back and looked up at him.

He looked down at me, and I could see by the size of his pupils that he was interested in me. He looked at my lips, and I looked at his lips, and we went in for the kill.

Where last night’s kiss had been searching and tentative, today’s was all about power and conquest. I couldn’t tell who was claiming who, though.

Zack commanded the kiss by angling his head just so. I submitted, and opened my mouth again, and he breathed into me, saying my name, and nipping my lips with his teeth. He set me on fire, and then I was getting him back, pushing my mouth against his, and using my hands to hold his face where I wanted it, and we kept doing that, taking turns giving and taking until we were both breathless and wanting.

It had been so long, I was ready to drag him to my room like a feminist cave girl, but he held me firm with his strong arms.

“Lauren, I want you on so many levels,” he said.

“Me too,” I murmured and kissed his closed mouth again, trying to get him to open for me.

He laughed softly and pulled away.

“You will never believe this in million years, but I want more than a one-night stand,” he said.

I acted affronted.

“Zackory Daniels! What kind of a girl do you think I am? I was thinking one week, at the minimum,” I said with a smile.