by Kait Nolan
“Phone, mija!”
Who would call me here?
Abandoning her packing, she met her mother in the hall to take the handset. “Hello?”
“Lexi? Oh, thank God you’re still here. It’s Eli.” He sounded rattled. Eli Hamilton was never rattled.
Tensing, she curled her fingers tighter around the receiver. “What’s wrong?” A low throb of what might have been bass underscored the momentary silence.
“Zach’s not coming and I don’t have a photographer for the proposal.”
Disbelief was quickly chased by worry. Zach should have been at the reunion. “What the hell? Why?”
“I don’t know why. But I’m up shit creek here, Lexi.” Eli rolled on, talking about plans for the shoot, but Lexi didn’t really hear him.
This didn’t sound like Zach. At all. He didn’t bail on friends. She interrupted Eli’s detailed recitation of what they’d set up. “Did you actually talk to him? This is not some situation where he just didn’t show and might be dead in a ditch somewhere?” A myriad of scenarios ran through her mind, each one more gruesome than the last.
“I just got off the phone with him. He’s fine. Well, I mean, there’s been something wrong all week, and damned if I know what it is, but he’s not pinned under his truck or anything. All I know is he says he’s not coming, and he’s on my shit list for life, and I need your help.”
Letting go of the anxiety that had gripped her system at the idea that Zach was hurt or in trouble, Lexi let out a slow breath. “I don’t—”
“I know. I know you don’t want to come, but I’m desperate. I’m in the damned bathroom to make this call. I’m begging you, please come. Please do the shoot so we have better than crappy cell phone pictures to remember this by for the rest of our lives.”
She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose, as if that would somehow stop the headache that spiked behind her eyes at the idea of doing this. If possible, she wanted to go to the reunion even less now than she did before. But Eli and Jessie were her friends. And this was probably her fault.
Lexi took a bracing breath. “Okay. I’ll do it. What, exactly, is the plan?”
She was already moving to gather gear as he talked, describing positioning and the pre-arranged signal he’d set up with Zach. By the time he’d finished, she had her camera bag packed.
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
“Thanks, Lexi. We owe you.” The relief in Eli’s voice was palpable.
“Be there as soon as I can.” Tossing the cordless phone on her bed, she shouldered her bag.
Leandra appeared in the doorway. “Where are you going?”
“To the reunion, apparently.”
Her mother’s eyes brightened and she clapped her hands together. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t get rid of the dress?”
“I’m not wearing the dress.” As soon as she said it, Leandra’s face fell, and Lexi felt like a jerk. Wanting to soften the blow, she added, “This is work, not play. I’m not staying.”
Her mother’s expression turned mulish. “You’ll stick out like a sore thumb if you don’t. Everyone else will be dressed up.”
She’d prefer to be all in black to blend into dark corners and avoid notice, but her mother made a good point. If she did catch anyone’s attention, she’d have less to explain if she wore the proper attire. And at least she’d get to wear the dress once, even if it was while working. It would make her mom happy.
Dropping the bag, she headed for the closet. “How fast can you do my hair?”
Zach was going to sweat through his tux. He tugged at his bowtie, wishing he could breathe. Nerves skittered down his spine as he kept watch on the door to the high school gym. No Lexi. Just as there’d been no Lexi for the past half hour. Despite Eli’s assurances that she’d promised to come, Zach wasn’t at all sure she’d show. And if she did, would she be wearing the dress? Half his plan hinged on Mama Morales refusing to let her out of the house without it. God love the woman for being on his side. He’d taken a risk calling her up and asking for her help. But Lexi’s mom was, at heart, a romantic and had spent years expecting something more to happen between him and Lexi. Evidently, he was the last one to get on board. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
Staying away and giving her space this week had damn near killed him. He’d wanted to talk to her, to apologize again, to hash all this shit out until everything was right again. But rushing in and opening his mouth had gotten him into this mess, and Leo had insisted this plan was solid. If it wasn’t he might just have to lie down in the driveway behind Lexi’s car to keep her from leaving town and pray she didn’t decide to run him over.
He fidgeted in his dress shoes, thinking Lexi had a point about formalwear. Comfortable it was not.
All around him, people talked and laughed and danced. The gym was decked out in all the cheesetastic glory of their Fairy Tale themed prom from a decade ago. Crepe paper streamers and twinkle lights criss-crossed the room. In one corner, a Cinderella’s coach picture station had been set up. The biggest difference from then and now was that the punch tonight was spiked on purpose.
He tried to remember what that night with Isabelle had been like and couldn’t. It had just been another night. Not bad, not good, not memorable. She was here somewhere with her husband. They hadn’t shared more than a smile and a few words of conversation.
What would it have been like if he’d brought Lexi? He should have brought her back then. He’d have remembered everything, down to the way she’d done her hair and the jokes she’d have told over dinner. He always remembered things with Lexi.
He wanted to remember tonight as the night they finally got on the same page. The night he finally kissed her. But that wasn’t going to happen if she didn’t show up.
Frustrated, impatient, Zach scrubbed a hand over his face.
This was a terrible idea. Why the hell had he listened to Leo? How could he put the fate of his chances with the woman he loved in the hands of someone else? He was, as he’d repeatedly been reminded, a dumbass. The whole thing was going to blow up, and Lexi was going to walk out of his life forever.
As a vise tightened around his chest, he looked back at the door. And there she was, as if conjured by his desperation.
She hesitated at the entrance to the gym, a vision in crimson. His brain snapped that mental picture and filed it away, titled Lady In Red. The rich, dark waves of her hair were swept up in some kind of complicated updo that left her long, lovely neck bare. Something sparkly circled her throat, dipping toward the cleavage on perfect display in the bodice of the dress. He’d seen her in it the other night and been sucker punched, but this—with the shoes and the hair and the whole package— she was so damned beautiful she stole his breath. Then he smiled as he noticed the camera bag slung over one shoulder. No pitiful clutch for his girl. It was so Lexi, and he ached with longing to touch her, to hold her, to see her smile again.
She definitely wasn’t smiling now. In fact, she looked vaguely like she wanted to vomit, which kind of put a damper on this Cinderella at the ball moment. Okay maybe that was a bad analogy. Cinderella ran from her prince. Zach felt a clutch in his chest as he remembered Lexi had done plenty of that already.
As she so often did, she skirted the crowd, speaking to no one as she headed toward one of the tables around the perimeter to set up her camera gear. Fresh nerves beat a tattoo in his chest as he forced his feet into motion and crossed the room to greet her. It was maybe the most important thing he’d ever done in his life. He had to get it right this time.
“You look beautiful.”
Lexi whirled, her hands lifting in a defensive stance. Not an excellent beginning.
“What are you doing here? Eli said you bailed.”
“I didn’t, but I didn’t think you’d come if I asked you, and I thought you might if he did.”
After a beat of hesitation, she started dismantling the camera she’d pulled out.
Panic shot through him.
“Lexi, wait. Don’t leave. Please. I brought you this.” He thrust out the plastic box with the corsage he’d bought her, wondering if she could see it shaking.
Her gaze moved from it to him and back to it. “What is this, Zach?”
“An apology. An olive branch.” A poor one judging by how her lips compressed into a thin line. Shit, he’d thought it was sweet.
She was shutting down, closing off. With a shake of her head, she turned back to her bag. “I didn’t want to come here. I don’t want or need a pity date.”
Damn it. “That’s not what this is. I didn’t mean—” Hell, he was messing this up. Again. Would he never manage to say the right thing to her?
“I don’t think we have anything left to say to each other about this.”
Okay, so he was going to have to play hardball. Just spit it out, however it came out, and risk botching it rather than not saying it at all. He set the box on the table and stepped closer, not touching, but making it hard for her to get past him. “Maybe you don’t. But I do. You’re angry and hurt, and you have every right to be. I should have realized how you felt. I should have seen that you were serious when you asked me.”
Even in the poor light, he could see the flush in her cheeks and sense that she was about to run again. So he took the chance and boxed her in. “I’m sorry I was a dumbass in high school. I’m sorry for not realizing how you felt. And I’m sorry for not realizing how I felt until you came back into my life.”
Her eyes snapped up to his, her mouth pulled into a wary frown. “What are you talking about?”
He risked moving another inch closer. “I get why you were casual about how you asked me. You were scared to death to do anything to damage our friendship. You wanted to test the waters without rocking the boat. I get all that now because it’s exactly how I’ve felt since you came back.”
The flare of guarded hope in her eyes gave him the courage to push. “You were my best friend, Lex. The person who gets me best in the world, and I’ve missed the hell out of you. But it’s more than that. From the moment I saw you again, standing in The Grind, you just knocked me flat. I don’t know what changed or why, but I haven’t been able to fit you back in that best friend box I’ve been walking around with for years. And obviously with everything that’s happened, that ship has sailed. We’re never going to be what we were before. But I think we can be something else. I want us to be something else.”
For long, weighted moments, she stared up at him, and Zach hardly dared to breathe. But he hoped. He hoped more than he’d ever hoped for anything before.
Lexi sucked in a shaky breath and swallowed. “And what is that?”
Lifting his hands to cup her face, he felt her tremble. “More.” And at long last, he lowered his lips to hers.
Zach was kissing her. Really kissing her, his lips a soft, insistent brush against hers, like she’d wanted all those years ago. And Lexi was too shocked to kiss him back. Too shocked to do anything but stand there as he cradled her face in his hands and changed everything. Was this really happening? Was she actually awake?
Lexi felt him tense and pull back. His eyes searched her face, and for a moment she could only stare up at him in dazed shock. In the end, it was the raw vulnerability she saw in his face, the same one she’d felt so often around him, that galvanized her. Curling her hands in his lapels, she pulled him back, fastening her mouth to his.
And she let go. Releasing all the longing, all the want, all the need that she’d repressed and ignored for years. She kissed Zach the way she’d always wanted to kiss him. No barriers, no worries, no tentative testing of the waters. She kissed him as if she’d never get another chance.
His arms slid around her, hauling her close as he angled his head and took the kiss deeper. Her heart thundered against her chest and every inch of her crackled with nerves and joy and relief. Because she wasn’t in this alone. It had taken ten years, but she’d finally, finally gotten her wish. He’d finally seen her as she saw him. Lexi didn’t know what to do with that other than hang on to the moment, hang on to him.
It was the cheering that pulled her back. Confused, embarrassed, she realized they weren’t alone, but standing in the high school gym, surrounded by most of their classmates. A few dozen feet away, she spotted Jace and Tara, Reed and Cecily, and the Hamilton twins. Eli was grinning from ear to ear and Leo offered up a wolf whistle and a fist pump.
“Oh Dios.” Lexi ducked her head, cuddling into Zach.
Tucking her close, he rested his brow against hers. “Ignore them.”
“They’re making it very hard to do that.”
The cheering was still ongoing.
“We can kill them later. Just stay. Stay and be my date to Reunion Prom. Let me give you tonight to make up for being an idiot. Please.”
She hadn’t thought he could fix it. There was no going back and changing the past. But everything about tonight was as close to a do-over as they could manage, all the way down to the reunion prom theme and the corsage he’d bought her. Not a pity date, as she’d originally thought. A new beginning.
So she smiled up at him and tried not to let the happy tears spill over. “Okay.”
Zach tied the corsage to her wrist and lifted her hand to his lips.
Lexi felt a little flutter in her belly. “You matched my dress.”
“I had help.”
“Who?”
He offered up a sheepish smile. “Your mom.”
Lexi’s mouth dropped open. “You talked to my mother about all this?”
“I told her what you weren’t ready to hear yet. That I’d messed up, I’m crazy about you, and I needed help to fix it.”
She thought about her mother’s insistence she couldn’t leave the house without the dress. “She was in on the whole thing?”
“Yep. Turns out your mama’s been shipping us for years.”
“I don’t even know what to think about that.”
“I’m gonna go with grateful.” When he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side, Lexi didn’t hesitate. She finally didn’t have to, and it felt glorious.
“There will be squee about this. You know that, right?”
“Mama Morales can hug my neck as much as she wants. I’ll be hugging hers right back.”
Their friends converged.
“So, y’all good now?” Eli demanded.
Jessie popped him on the shoulder. “Hush it!”
Lexi had no idea what to say. How much had Zach told them? Then again, did it matter? They’d just been making out in front of everyone.
Leo stuck his hand out to Reed. “Called it. Pay up.”
“You bet on us?” Lexi demanded.
Reed, at least, had the good grace to look sheepish. “I mean…this is a surprise to no one. We set up a pool back in high school about how long it would take y’all to get together.”
Cecily sighed. “Of course you did.”
Zach stiffened. “You did what?”
“Dude, it’s not our fault you’re an idiot,” Jace insisted.
Tara slapped a hand over his mouth. “Excuse him. Apparently I can’t take him out in public.”
Shaking her head in amusement, Avery sidled up. “I, for one, want to know where you got that dress. It’s absolutely fabulous.”
“My mother made it.”
“She made it?” Jessie asked. “Oh my Lord, that’s amazing.”
The girls converged, and Lexi found herself dragged into a conversation about fashion. She thanked God for her mother—not only for the dress itself, but for having educated Lexi so she could keep up with the discussion. With half an ear, she listened to the guys continue to rib Zach. And it was all so…high school. Except better than high school had ever been.
“So when are you moving back to Wishful for good?” Jessie asked.
“When am I—oh.”
Conversation around them died when she didn’t have an immediate answer. How could she? Her bags were nearly packed
to go home to Austin tomorrow. She and Zach hadn’t discussed anything about the future. Her job, her studio, was still in Texas. How could she change her entire life to chase this new relationship with him? And yet…how could she not?
“Contrary to popular belief, we did not manage to have a complete telepathic conversation about that while I was kissing her,” Zach said. “One thing at a time. Right now, I want to dance with my date. Excuse us.”
He cut neatly through the group and escorted her out to the dance floor as “Save The Best For Last” began to pour out of the speakers.
Lexi’s tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. What could she say? How could she have forgotten all those details?
“It’s okay, Lex. We don’t have to figure out everything right this second. It’s enough that we’re here, together, dancing.”
“I was supposed to go home tomorrow.”
He tensed against her, then relaxed again. “Well, I’m hoping you’ll give it at least a few more days. But either way, I know you’ve got a lot of things to think about and moving back here would be a huge decision. I’m not gonna rush you on that.”
Lexi’s muscles loosened. He wasn’t going to push. Wasn’t going to demand. This was all so new, and neither of them wanted to mess it up.
“But—”
Oh Dios.
“I do want to put it out there that I have loved working with you these past few weeks. And I know you’ve worked hard to establish your own studio in Austin, but I would be a hundred percent on board with bringing you on as a full partner in mine. Permanently.”
Lexi stared up at him. “You’d make me a partner in the business you built?”
“We’re good together. On every level. Of course, I want you here for me. But I’d have made the offer even if you’d wanted to move home and we’d still just been friends.”
He’d make a place for her, as he’d done all those years ago.
Lexi’s heart swelled. Oh, how she loved this man. “You make it easy.”
His lips quirked into a grin. “That is the idea. Make you an offer you can’t refuse.”