Zack

by Sawyer Bennett

  Reaching for one of the shot glasses that sit beside the bottle, I change my mind and decide to drink straight from the source. There's no polite company down here with me to say I have to do otherwise. It's late, as after our home game tonight I went out for a few beers with Alex and Garrett to celebrate our win. I played spectacularly and got an assist, which isn't bad for having been back out on the ice for less than two weeks now.

  I pull the round cork stopper from the bottle, tilt it, and take a hefty swallow. The beauty of Patron is that it's so smooth, you don't need to doctor it up with salt and limes or chase it with something else. It goes down like silken butter, and given the two beers I had tonight, it's not going to take long for me to get drunk.

  With the bottle in hand, I walk over to the pool table that hardly ever gets used--more for show, I guess--and I try to consider exactly what this house means to me. Gina hardly ever came down into the basement to hang with me. Outside of watching me play hockey, sports weren't her thing. Besides that, Gina and I had pretty independent lives much of the time. She had her interests and group of friends she hung with regularly, and so did I. Outside of getting together with Alex, Garrett, and their women, we rarely socialized together as a couple. In fact, most of our joint activities revolved around Ben, which, of course, accounted for a good chunk of our lives. Once the little man was born, he became the most important thing to me, and that, unfortunately, meant that hockey and Gina took a backseat to him.

  Sitting the bottle on the edge of the table, I pull the triangle rack from its holder and start placing the balls inside. Solid, stripe, solid, stripe, solid, stripe. When I have the rack tight, I remove the triangle and grab one of the cue sticks off the wall. Pulling the bottle off the pool table, I walk to the other end and grab the cue ball from the bottom return. One more drag of tequila and I place the bottle on the floor, line up my shot, and break the triangle of balls with a sharp crack.

  I take my time, deciding to hit the balls in numerical order, pausing every few shots to take another hit off the Patron. By the time I sink the last ball, my head is slightly swimming with a buzz.

  Racking the balls again, I think about how much Gina loved this house and neighborhood. To me, it was just a house, but now that she's gone, it's really become her house. Every room is filled with her touch, every picture and knickknack holding a special memory of a life that is no more.

  Yup...I think I'm going to sell this place...find something that will be for just me and Ben. I'm going to do it if I can truly convince myself that it's acceptable to do so. Is it too soon? Is there an appropriate amount of mourning time before you start making new memories?

  "Zack?" I hear from the staircase that leads down into the basement.

  I groan internally and take another hit off the Patron. The last thing I need right now is to have Kate anywhere around me when I have liquor in my system. She's been fucking plaguing my thoughts constantly since I saw her--truly saw her--in my kitchen that night just over a week ago. So damned intriguing, completely sexy and unaware of it, and totally off-limits.

  She's Ben's fucking nanny, for Christ's sake.

  Off-limits.

  But damn if I haven't been thinking about what would happen if she wasn't off-limits. Is she as innocent and clueless about her sexuality as she appears to be? Or is she hiding something sexy inside that can't be covered with baggy clothing and thick-framed glasses? Christ, I want to know those answers.

  "Zack?" she calls out again, and I hear her feet coming the rest of the way down the staircase.

  "In here," I say thickly, and I'm sure it might be the tequila holding my tongue hostage at the moment.

  Kate rounds the corner and there she is. Sadly, she's not wearing those same pajamas I caught her in the other night, and maybe that's just as well. I'm afraid of what I might do to her if she were showing more skin. Instead, she has on a pair of gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt...very concealing. She's hiding her body from my view and her hair is still wound up tight. And as always, her glasses are firmly in place and I have to wonder if she'd continue to wear them all the time if I told her they made her even sexier.

  "What's up?" I ask casually, my tongue seemingly loosened up a bit. I walk to the end of the table, grabbing the cue ball along the way. I place it on the table and break the rack again, sinking the nine ball in one of the side pockets.

  "I heard noise down here. Just wanted to make sure it was you," she says hesitantly. "You played a great game tonight."

  "Thanks," I say, surprisingly pleased that she watched it on TV. Since I sank a stripe, I choose the twelve ball sitting prettily by the far-right corner pocket. I let loose on the sure shot, but it bounces against a corner and ricochets off, and I'm thinking I need to lay off the tequila.

  Straightening my body, I hold the cue stick out to her. "You play?"

  "A little," she says with a small smile as she takes the stick from me. "I'm solids?"

  "Yup," I say, and lean against the wall to watch her. Because she's concentrating on her shot, I use the unfettered opportunity to eat her up with my eyes. I've been keeping my distance from her, afraid close proximity would cause this stirring of feeling that I seem to have for her to get stronger.

  It's funny...but I can't see the ways in which she tries to hide herself anymore. Now that I know what lies beneath, I can clearly imagine it in my head. You add that to the fact that Kate is one of the most outgoing people I know, who uses humor and silliness to make people laugh, and you have a woman who is an absolute open book just begging to be read.

  Kate's experience is clearly lacking, as she misses her shot by a mile. I have an urge to lean over behind her, show her the proper way to hold the stick and line up her angle, but me bending over her backside is a recipe for disaster.

  She hands me the stick back and I walk around the table, considering my next shot.

  "Can we talk about what happened the other night?" she asks quietly. "In the car...with the seat belt."

  My body jerks, feeling like it got zapped with electricity. My head swings toward her and I narrow my eyes. "What's to talk about?"

  Really? What's to talk about? I freaked out, relived a terrible memory, but now it's over. I've put it out of my mind again.

  For the most part.

  "Well...it's just...you're distant. I think you're mad at me, and I want to apologize again, and hope we can get back on track."

  She thinks the reason I'm distant with her is because I'm mad at her for taking her seat belt off? I mean, sure...I was, in that very moment, but that was aggravated by fear. I know she wasn't intentionally trying to do something stupid. I seriously had not given that any particular thought since then.

  "I'm not mad at you," I tell her sincerely as I glance back down to the table to pick my next shot. I'm fucking insanely attracted to you, I think, and it's driving me crazy, and crazy makes me cranky, but definitely not mad.

  Kate lets out a huge breath of relief and I hear her murmur, "Good. That's good," as I bend over to take my next shot. I sink it cleanly and start walking around the table to reach the cue ball on the other side.

  Just as I bend over to eyeball my next shot, Kate says quietly, "I'm really sorry about what happened to your wife."

  Pain rumbles through me over the sincerity in her words and I close my eyes briefly to get it under control. "She wasn't my wife," I correct her.

  "Oh," she says softly. "I didn't know...I just assumed."

  And I'm sure she didn't know that. I didn't publicize my relationship with Gina. I kept her and Ben out of the press as much as possible, not wanting it to invade my privacy. We were together for a long time...since attending high school in Nova Scotia. She was my first love. Not my only, but my first, and my longest and most definitely my deepest. Minus a two-year separation we went through when I first got drafted into the NHL, we'd been together ever since. Seven years we lived together and shared our lives together.

  But we never got married, did we?


  I know she wanted it, not that she would ever come right out and ask. We had discussed it once after Ben was born, and I was clear that I wasn't ready for it. She never brought it up again. Didn't mean I didn't see wedding magazines lying around the house. Didn't mean she wouldn't gush on and on when a friend of hers was getting married. I know she craved that last bit of commitment from me, and yet...I just couldn't give it to her.

  This also causes me pain now that she's dead. Because of my uncertainty, she died without having something that she probably very much deserved.

  Guilt causes waves of despair to wash over me in such magnitude that no amount of tequila could ever dry it up. I need to redirect...change the subject...push this all back down and bury it again.

  Standing up from the table, I ignore my shot and walk toward Kate. Her eyes are sympathetic and her head is cocked to the side in slight curiosity, since I didn't take my turn. She hesitantly reaches a hand out, assuming I'm coming over to her to give her the cue, but I keep it firmly grasped in my hand.

  I stride right to her until we are toe to toe and she has to lean back so she can look at me. I'm impressed she's not intimidated.

  "Let me ask you something," I say softly as I stare down at her, the alcohol making me bold and probably a bit stupid. Her eyes are open and patient. Reaching a hand up, I tug on the tight knot her hair is wrapped in at the back of her head. "Why do you keep all this hair hidden?"

  Her eyes go round in surprise and her cheeks turn pink. Taking a step back, she dislodges my hand and it falls away. Her own hand comes up and nervously pats at the back of her head, making sure no stray hairs came loose. "It's just easier," she says nervously.

  "No," I say immediately, shaking my head in denial of her answer. "That's not it. Easy would be just putting it up in a ponytail with a rubber band. You take time to wrap it tight, and I bet there are a million pins in there holding it in place. You're purposely hiding it, and I want to know why."

  Kate shrugs. "It's just something I've always done."

  "Why?" I press her.

  "I don't know," she says, her voice getting high with frustration.

  "You do," I correct her, stepping in closer. "Why do you hide it?"

  She swallows hard and starts to chew on her bottom lip.

  "Tell me why, Kate," I order her softly. "It's beautiful. I want to know why you hide it."

  From me, I add on in my head.

  Kate lets out a soft gasp of surprise, and fuck...I'm surprised myself I just admitted that to her, but I'm in too deep now. I want the answer.

  Stepping in until there's only inches of space separating us, I reach up and grasp her jaw lightly. Leaning in, I whisper, "Why?"

  She closes her eyes briefly and takes in a deep breath. When she opens them back up, I see the open book of Kate that I've come to appreciate. The honest and blunt Kate.

  Expelling the air, she says, "Because boys noticed me early on and they weren't nice about it. I was scared. So I took efforts to hide myself. I don't want the attention."

  It's not working, I think to myself.

  "From how early on?" I ask curiously.

  "Thirteen."

  Damn. Ten years of hiding her identity. Not that she was hiding it all that well, now that I know what's there. She's sort of like Clark Kent. Once you knew he was Superman, it was kind of hard not to recognize him for what he was just because he slicked his hair into a nerdy style and wore big glasses.

  "The baggy clothes?" I ask, curious as to just what efforts she put into this concealment.

  She nods and drops her gaze from me. I stare down at her, waiting for her to look back at me. She doesn't, and I'm glad. If she did, I'd probably lean in and kiss her, and that definitely would take stupid to a whole new level.

  I drop my hand from her jaw and turn away from her, walking back to the pool table. "You're not surrounded by thirteen-year-old boys anymore. I like your hair better down, and frankly, you're really not hiding anything with it like that."

  Grimacing, I bend down to take another shot. Why the fuck did I just say that to her? She probably thinks I'm a nut job.

  "I think I'm going to head back to bed now. I'm really tired," she says quietly.

  I don't turn around to look at her, afraid of what I might see on her face. So instead I just say "Good night," and I hear the sound of her receding footsteps.

  Chapter 10

  Kate

  I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and I'm torn. To put my hair up or not, that is the question. Certainly not as deep a question as Shakespeare posed in Hamlet, but it's causing me consternation all the same.

  Last night was beyond surreal. I'd taken the opportunity when I heard Zack down in the basement to bring up a touchy subject and, I'd hoped, air it out. When I saw he'd been drinking when I got down there, I had a moment of doubt, but then I saw he seemed to be in a generally mellow mood, and when he invited me to play pool, I couldn't decline the opening.

  He took me by surprise when he told me he wasn't mad at me for the seat-belt thing. By the tone of his voice, I believed him. And so that left a big unanswered question. One I was afraid to ask.

  Why was he being distant with me, then, if not for the thing with the seat belt?

  A thought skittered through my mind and it was so ludicrous, I had to immediately discount it. But Sutton's words kept coming back to haunt me.

  Zack couldn't keep his eyes off of you at the game.

  It's absolutely idiotic to think that he's attracted to me, right? I mean, if he was attracted to me, he wouldn't be so aloof. He'd be nicer than usual, right?

  Or, my subconscious pipes up, he thinks you're off-limits because you're Ben's nanny and thus he's making himself be distant with you.

  Shaking my head at myself in the mirror I refuse to believe that's what's going on. Decision made, I pick up the bobby pins and prepare to wind my hair up and out of the way.

  But...what about the fact that he said my hair was beautiful? That he liked it? That he wanted to know why I was hiding it?

  Groaning in frustration, I rub the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. Think, Kate, think. What is it you're hoping to accomplish?

  Opening my eyes, I tilt my face up to look at my reflection. Lonely eyes stare back at me and I realize...I want someone to think I'm pretty.

  I want Zack to think I'm pretty.

  Never in a million years would I imagine someone as gorgeous as him would ever be interested in someone like me, yet I can't deny the distinct possibility that is exactly what is going on here. Sure, I've been in awe of him since I started working here. His star power, magnetism, and stunning good looks make that almost a given. Add on that he's a loving and devoted father, and you have one sexy man.

  A sexy man that I never once considered would look my way until Sutton got me thinking in that direction.

  Dropping the pins to the counter, I run my fingers through my hair, tweak my bangs a bit, and start to turn away from the mirror. New decision made. I'm leaving my hair down.

  But something halts me.

  Something that occurs to me and makes me consider my actions.

  Zack is a man who is still grieving for his lost love. He's a man who still has issues, as evidenced by what happened in the car last week. A woman would be wise not to mess with a man such as him. He still has too much healing to do.

  Except...damn it all to hell...what if I'm the person who is supposed to help him heal? I've loved taking it upon myself to get him to open up and succumb to my humor and goofiness. It's nice seeing him smile. What if I'm good for him?

  Fuck it, I think, and then blush because I rarely drop an F-bomb, even in my head.

  The hair stays down. Zack is right. There's no one to hide from anymore.

  --

  Zack sleeps in past breakfast, so I get Ben fed and dressed; we're playing in his room when I hear Zack's feet coming up the stairs, since the master suite is on the first floor. I'm thinking he continued to put a hurt
ing on that bottle of tequila after I went to bed last night and that's the reason for his sleeping in.

  "Hey," he says as he peeks his head in the door and looks over at Ben. His hair is sticking up all over the place and he still has crease marks on his face from, I'm guessing, his pillowcase. He's wearing a white V-neck T-shirt and a pair of loose pajama bottoms. It's the first time I've seen him in his sleepwear, as he's always dressed by the time he comes into the kitchen for breakfast.

  And I'm pretty sure I might be eligible for a one-way ticket to hell when I say that Zack Grantham--in pajamas--may be the sexiest thing I've ever seen in my life.

  "Morning, Daddy," Ben says without lifting his head. We're putting together a shape puzzle and his little tongue is sticking out to the side in concentration.

  Zack turns his head to me and I see something spark in his eyes. His gaze roams over my hair and I self-consciously push my bangs to the side. When his eyes come to mine, he merely says, "Nice."

  My lips tip up and I drop my gaze back down to the puzzle, gently suggesting another hole that Ben might want to try to put the star-shaped wooden block into.

  "When you get a minute, Kate, I need to talk to you," Zack says, and my head snaps back up. His face is impassive, not a shred of evidence left there to give me a hint as to what he wants.

  I nod and push myself up off the floor. Ruffling Ben's hair, I say, "Be back in a minute, kiddo. Then we'll play with something else, okay?"

  " 'Kay," he says back absently, and I know he'll be occupied by the puzzle for a bit more.

  I follow Zack down the back staircase into the kitchen and he heads right for the coffeepot.

  "Want another?" he asks as he holds the pot up.

  "No, thanks," I say as I sit down gingerly at the kitchen table and wait for him to come over with his cup of coffee. Is he going to apologize for what he said to me last night? Tell me he didn't mean that stuff about my hair being beautiful and that was just the tequila talking?