by Nella Tyler
Chapter Thirty Six
Zeke
I glanced at Natalie in the passenger seat for probably the third or fourth time since she’d put her seat belt on. “You’re sure you’re okay? You don’t want to get checked out?” She shook her head.
“I just want to get home, and have a very large glass of wine and a bubble bath,” she said, giving me a weak smile.
“Is Brady with a babysitter?” She shook her head again.
“He’s at his grandparents’ house,” she told me. She took a deep breath and sighed, looking out through the window.
“How did he find you?” That was the question that really plagued me. How had an abusive asshole like Nathan managed to find Natalie on a date?
“That is something that Katie is going to try and find out,” she said, shrugging. “I would really like to know, myself.” She chuckled, sounding almost bitter.
“This the first time something like that has happened to you?”
Natalie nodded. “First time,” she confirmed. “The attack was a first, too.” She closed her eyes for a moment and then turned to look at me.
“That’s got to shake you up,” I said. “How are you handling it?” She shrugged.
“I’m sure probably 99% of the guys I get set up with for coaching would never do anything like what Nathan did,” she told me. “But this…and another situation that’s come up recently…” she shrugged again. “I’m starting to think that I may need to get out of the business. Move onto something else.”
“Move on?” I stopped at a light and looked at her. “What would you do?”
“No idea,” she said, grinning wryly. “Hopefully I can find something in the psych field, but I haven’t really been looking seriously. Just sort of thinking.”
“You’re not going to cancel on me, are you? I don’t know if I’d work as well with a different coach,” I said jokingly. My heart was beating faster in my chest at the thought of losing her presence in my life all at once. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I knew I’d be hurt if she just disappeared on me. She laughed—and it sounded a little better than the bitter, fearful laugh she’d let out before.
“No, I’d wait until all of my current contracts are done before I moved on,” she said. “It would only be fair.” My heart slowed down in my chest and I took a quick, deep breath. You shouldn’t be this relieved, I thought. You know it’s not going anywhere with her—it’s not meant to.
“That’s good to hear,” I told her. “I think we’re almost at your place.”
“Looks like it,” she agreed. She looked at me. “Would you miss me if I left coaching?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m going to miss you when you’re done coaching me—I’d obviously miss you if you left early.” She smiled slightly and I wondered what was on her mind—but I didn’t want to upset her more.
I parked outside of her apartment building and hesitated. “If you want to be alone…”
“No,” Natalie said. She looked at me and I could see the fear in her eyes. “I really—I know I shouldn’t invite you in, but you’ve already been inside my place before, so it’s not like I’m crossing a boundary with you for the first time…” She swallowed. “I’m still kind of shaken up I guess. I think if I was alone, I’d just end up crying or something.”
“I’ll come in, then,” I told her. “As long as you want me there—and as soon as you tell me to leave, I will.”
We went up to her unit and I made a beeline for the kitchen; Natalie had said she wanted a glass of wine and a bath—and while I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to take a bath while I was hanging out, I figured a glass of wine would probably go down easily. “You remember where everything is,” she said, almost questioning.
“Pretty straightforward,” I pointed out. I got a corkscrew out of the drawer and got to work opening the bottle of wine I found in the cabinet. “Go sit down in the living room, put something on TV.”
“Ordering me around in my own house,” she said wryly. “So like a man.” She left the kitchen and I got the wine open, and poured a glass for myself while I was at it. By the time I walked into the living room, she had put something on—a movie or something, I wasn’t paying attention.
“Here,” I said, handing her the fuller glass. “Drink up.” Natalie snorted and took a long sip of the red wine, closing her eyes and breathing deep while she did it.
“Okay, yeah, that’s a little better,” she admitted, looking at me with a slightly sheepish smile. “I feel like such a wimp right now.”
“You managed to get that asshole on the ground—not a wimpy thing to do,” I pointed out. “You stood up for yourself and held your own.”
“Only because I knew that Ethan—that’s the new client I was with when Nathan attacked—was going to be completely useless.” She shook her head and drank another sip of wine. “And, I had warning this time.”
“Stop trying to make what you did sound like less than it is,” I told her. “There are tons of people who wouldn’t have been able to stand up for themselves, even if they’d had warning and knew the person they were with would be a wet noodle.”
“Hopefully that’s the last time I see him outside of a court room,” she said.
“Cheers to that,” I agreed, raising my glass.
Natalie seemed to wind down bit by bit as we sat talking about nothing at all, and I was glad that she had thought about me. “Why did you call me of all people?” She looked at me sharply for a second after I asked the question and then shrugged.
“You were the first person I thought of,” she admitted. “I guess maybe because you’d been there when the first attack happened, I figured you’d understand what I was going through.”
“Even if I hadn’t been there,” I told her, “I would have been happy to pick you up and drive you home.” My phone vibrated in my pocket and I held up my hand to ask Natalie to give me a moment; it was Trevor. Back at the office. “Trevor has made it back safely,” I told her.
“You really didn’t have to do that—have him bring my car here,” she said, shaking her head.
“Why have a personal assistant if I don’t occasionally make him do random non-office-related things?” I put my phone away again and grinned. “Besides, it’s not like it’s a bother to him—he got to leave the building for a little while, and he’s charging the ride to the corporate account.”
“Can you even do that?”
I shrugged. “If not, accounting will send the bill to me, and that’ll be that. It’s not like it was an expensive ride.” Natalie finished off the wine in her glass and before she could say anything else, I took it from her and went back into the kitchen.
I brought the bottle back with me and filled her glass. “I don’t remember if I thanked you before,” Natalie said, accepting her refill from my hands. “But in case I didn’t: thank you.” I laughed.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve thanked me at least three times already,” I said. I took a sip of my own wine and set the glass down. “So you’re really thinking about changing careers?” She shrugged.
“I haven’t decided,” she admitted. “But between getting frustrated with some of my clients, and what just happened, and all of it…” she sighed. “It just seems like I’m spending a lot of energy on something that isn’t benefitting me as much as it used to.”
“You got into this to meet people, right?”
She nodded. “After my divorce, it seemed like a good way to sort of…ease myself back into interacting with guys, you know?”
“That makes sense,” I agreed.
“Of course, I realized that I couldn’t date anyone I was coaching, not really, but I figured that I wasn’t really ready to date someone for real anyhow, and that it would be good practice for me.”
“How long were you married?” Natalie’s lips twisted upward in a wry smile.
“Couple of years,” she said. “At first, it was great. And then, when I got pregnant, it was okay. And it wen
t downhill from the time that Brady was born. Apparently, Alex wasn’t all that ready to have a kid. Not really, anyway; not in the way that makes a relationship last through that kind of stress.” She sighed.
“Sounds like you’re better off without him then,” I pointed out. She laughed.
“I am in most respects,” she agreed. “But Brady thinks I need someone to play the part of ‘Daddy.’”
“Ah.” I nodded. “Yeah, he sees two-parent families, wonders why he’s different.” She nodded.
“And I’ve kind of concluded that with the job I have, I’m not really getting any closer to making that happen for him,” she explained. “I can’t date any of the guys that I work with, obviously, and dating people for fun just kind of becomes…” she shrugged.
“Busman’s holiday?” She nodded again.
“So you’ll move onto another job, and maybe find the guy who’d make a great dad for your son,” I told her, smiling.
“One can only hope,” she said. “But even if I don’t, I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay.” I looked her in the eyes for a few moments, and I believed her. But just looking at her, seeing how brave she was, how confident in herself, how dedicated she was, the impulse to kiss her came over me. I didn’t fight it. I gave into it, even though I knew I probably shouldn’t. I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers, and Natalie started—but she didn’t push me away, didn’t freeze up, didn’t do anything to indicate she wanted me to stop.
I kissed her with all the pent-up desire I’d been feeling for weeks, ever since we’d had sex. I started to let my hands roam over the curves of her body and Natalie began to really respond, kissing me back, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pressing her body against mine. I could feel myself starting to get turned on already—it was a hair-trigger response, a reaction to knowing exactly what it would be like if we made the next move, and knowing that someone had tried to hurt the beautiful, wonderful woman in my arms.
But I pulled back, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. “We should probably change the subject,” I told her quietly. “Obviously getting personal like this just…leads to us making bad decisions.” Natalie laughed and changed the channel on the TV.
“You’re right,” she said, nodding. “Let’s talk about something else.” I asked about the menu at the place she’d been having lunch at, and she began talking. In the back of my mind, I thought to myself that even if Katie somehow managed to make a clone, I’d never find a woman I wanted as much as Natalie. But she doesn’t want you that way. I’d have to find a way to settle for less than the best because it was obvious to me that even after she quit her job as a dating coach, Natalie had a different kind of guy in mind.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Natalie
The timer went off on the stove and I hurried over to the burner where the macaroni was boiling, grabbing a pair of potholders on my way. It had been about three days since my second altercation with Nathan, and I had a day off—after dealing with the police a second time, filing reports at the office with Katie, and doing all of the paperwork I could to make sure that I wouldn’t have to deal with the abusive stalker Nathan had turned out to be short of trial.
I picked up the pot the macaroni was in and carried it carefully off the stove, thinking about the fact that the first person I’d thought to call after the incident happened had been Zeke. Even if I knew it had been a mistake to ask him to come into my house, and even more of one to let him go on kissing me, I had to admit that I couldn’t think of anyone who could have done a better job of comforting me in that moment than he had. None of my friends would have been as good; none of my family would have been so undemanding. I wouldn’t have been able to even talk to Brady about what had happened—he was far, far too young to deal with baggage like that.
I smiled to myself, draining the pasta and thinking of Brady in the living room, playing with his toys while he sang along with one of his favorite TV shows. Brady had asked about “Mr. Zeke” earlier in the day, and I had told him that we would probably see the man again soon—even though I wasn’t entirely sure when that would be.
It was wrong of me, I knew. I was still grappling with the fact that I had to make a decision, and that I had to either cut Zeke out of my life completely—and with him the risk of ruining my career—or drop my career for him, thereby risking my heart. I thought of what I’d said to Zeke about quitting. It was true; I was no closer to finding someone for myself than I had been when I started working for the agency, though the reason for it was completely different. I knew that I liked Zeke, and I was pretty sure that he liked me, but whether or not he liked me enough to stay with me was more uncertainty than I could deal with.
I sighed, dumping the drained macaroni into the empty pot and pouring in the ingredients to make the sauce. I stirred, even while I thought about how good it had felt to kiss Zeke again, and how much—in that moment, at least—I had wanted more. I wanted to be around him, I wanted to be able to kiss him without feeling guilty, and I wanted to be able to tell him how I felt without betraying my professional standing. Might as well wish for the moon on a string while you’re at it, I thought wryly. I put the lid on the pasta pot and started to turn my attention onto the rest of dinner; it would keep warm while I cooked the chicken and the green beans that went along with it.
An idea flitted through my head. For an instant I rejected it completely. You could invite him over to dinner. Brady’s here—nothing would happen. But Brady had been in the house the first time we’d had sex; he’d been in his bedroom, though fortunately—to the best of my knowledge—my toddler son had no idea what had happened between Zeke and I, or even that Zeke had been in the house. It was a stupid idea, and I knew it. It would only give Brady the impression that things were even better between me and Zeke than they were, and it would be that much harder to explain to my son when Zeke and I parted ways, either because I’d gotten him reassigned or because things didn’t work out between us after I left the agency. Surely, if he’s not that interested in you, you can ask him to dinner and he’ll turn you down and that will be that. But Zeke had come to my rescue when I was too shaken up to drive myself home from the meeting with Ethan. He had rescued me in the midst of the first altercation. He’d come over in the middle of the night. Even if he wasn’t interested enough in me to be a steady partner, I knew that he was interested enough to come over for dinner—though that might change when I made it clear that I didn’t want to push things any further than I already had.
I stepped back from the stove. Everything was in a kind of holding pattern. If I was smart I would go into the living room with Brady, get involved in his game, and forget all about the tantalizing idea of inviting Zeke over. I’d write up a report on my client and ask Katie to reassign me because I’d developed feelings for someone I was supposed to be working with. Clearly, I am not all that smart. I found my phone, plugged into the wall, charging, and took a deep breath, asking myself a final time if I was sure I was doing the right thing, if I was doing what I really wanted to do, opening a can of worms I wanted to deal with.
Hey, Zeke, I wrote. Just a random offer, and don’t feel like you have to accept: I’m making dinner for Brady and me. Feel like joining us? Only if you don’t have any plans. I made myself stop typing at that point, because I knew if I didn’t, I’d just keep rambling on. I tapped send and set my phone aside to stir the green beans on the stove.
I heard the message received tone and made myself wait another thirty seconds before I went to see what Zeke had said. For that matter, I reminded myself, I didn’t even know that it was an answer from Zeke. For all I knew, it was from one of my other clients, looking to confirm a session on another day, or from Katie checking up on me.
Of course, the message was from Zeke after all. I’d love to come over! I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes—is that okay? I bit my bottom lip, considering; it would be more than okay from the perspective of the food I was preparing, but from the per
spective of my state of mind, should I really go through with it? I could text him back and say that I changed my mind—couldn’t I? It wouldn’t exactly be professional, but then inviting him over to my house wasn’t very professional, either. I took a deep breath and decided that I’d already committed by inviting him in the first place. It would be shitty of me to back out of it after he’d accepted. I wrote back that it would be fine and started clearing up the little bit of mess that Brady had managed to make in the house since he’d gotten home from the park, hoping that Zeke would keep things as platonic as possible and wishing that I didn’t feel like I was making a mistake.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Zeke
“You like mac and cheese?” I looked at Brady and grinned.
“It used to be my very favorite thing in the world,” I told the little boy. “I think your mom probably makes it better than mine did, though.” It was partially true. It was obvious to me that Natalie had doctored the boxed macaroni with real cheese, and probably with more ingredients that weren’t included in the container. My mom had done something similar, but with slightly less success.
“Thanks for coming over,” Natalie said. She looked almost flustered, and I couldn’t imagine why. I’d been in her house before, I’d been around Brady before, and it wasn’t like there were any real secrets between us on either front.
“It definitely beats eating dinner by myself,” I pointed out, taking a bite of the chicken that Natalie had made. It was the first home-cooked meal made by someone else I’d had in ages—and I was more than happy to enjoy it. “Besides, I never get a chance to eat like a regular, normal person.”
“What do you eat like, then?” Natalie grinned, and I thought to myself that if she had any idea of how her eyes lit up when she did, she’d use that expression more carefully.