by Heidi McVay
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he sighed, leaning back in the plastic chair to pull it out. At the sight of Beth Landry’s name on the caller ID, he sent the call to voicemail and put the phone on the table, face down. He was not in the mood to deal with another of Beth’s incessant calls to cheer him on in whatever he was doing at the moment. The woman had a way of making even the most mundane activity sound like she found it fascinating. It usually amused him that Scarlett’s mother called him more often than his own, daily at least. He reached for the taco again and then sighed as the phone vibrated a second time just as his fingers closed around it.
“It might be important. You should answer it.” Scarlett spoke quietly.
Zarek licked his lips and sighed, then dropped the taco once more, when it was halfway to his lips. “Yeah.” He reached for the phone and swiped to answer as he rose from his seat. “I’ll be right back.” He did not want to explain to Scarlett why he was talking to her mother, especially when he only grudgingly admitted to himself why he did it. He waited until he’d stepped out of the small store-front Mexican restaurant to speak. “Hi, Beth. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to be sure Scarlett’s behaving. If she’s making things worse, I want to know so I can handle it.” Beth’s voice was soft and yet threaded with steel. It was the same tone she’d used when she’d first caught him staring at Scarlett in her first bikini when he’d been seventeen.
He could still remember the way her eyes had been flinty as she’d taken him by the upper arm and hauled him onto the back porch after bringing snacks out to the pool where they’d been horsing around.
Beth’s voice had been soft, patient, and still firm. “She may look grownup, Zarek McCall, but she’s not. And neither are you. So you keep those eyes where they belong, right on her face. You understand me?”
That expression had made Zarek stand up a little straighter, and rather than deny that he’d been looking, he’d simply flushed and muttered the single word softly. “Yes.” Beth had managed to cow him, a woman no bigger than Scarlett, barely clearing five feet tall, and even then nearly a foot shorter than him. She’d narrowed those eyes that were just as green as Scarlett’s and arched a brow, waiting in that way southern mommas had done for centuries. Zarek had cleared his throat and nodded, trying again. “Yes, ma’am.”
“She’s fine.” Zarek spoke quickly as he scanned the nearly empty parking lot of the strip mall where the restaurant was tucked in next to a large chain grocery store. “We just stopped for some dinner before we head to the lake.”
“You wouldn’t dare lie to me, would you Zarek McCall?” Beth’s voice betrayed skepticism.
Despite his morose mood, a smile tugged at his lips. “No, ma’am. I would not. I learned my lesson about that when I was ten, and you took your flyswatter to my ass for lying to you about crashing my bike into your rose bush.”
“The scratches from the thorns were a dead giveaway.” He could hear the smile in her tone as she relaxed. “Okay. Well, if you need anything, you just call me. Okay?”
He drew in a breath, lungs filling with the coppery tang of the desert air that signaled incoming rain. “I will, Beth.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Zarek, don’t blow this. If she leaves before you two make your peace, I’m not sure there’s much more your momma, and I can do to help.”
“My mom?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he realized what Beth was implying. “What are you and my mom doing to help?”
There was silence, and then Beth spoke in her usual sunny way as if she knew she said too much. “Oh, dear, look at that. Joe’s mom is beeping in. I better go.”
“Joe’s mom died six months ago.” Zarek knew something was up now. If Beth Landry was invoking her dead mother-in-law, something was definitely going on that he needed to know about. “Beth, what are you and my mo-”
Beth interrupted him as if he hadn’t even spoken. “Batteries dying, I gotta go!”
“You’re calling me from your landline. Which has a cord. I know because it’s in your pantry. You hide from Joe in your pantry every time you call me. Beth, what’s going o-”
He was once more cut off by her chirpy voice. “We love you, Zarek! Talk soon. Bye, dear!” And with that, there was a click, and Beth Landry hung up on him. Sign number three that the mothers were somehow working together to interfere in their lives. Beth Landry was not a woman who ever ended a conversation of her own free will. The woman could talk for hours, and sometimes he let her when he was at his lowest.
Zarek pulled the phone from his ear, narrowing his eyes on it before he pushed it into his pocket and headed back inside. Scarlett was still seated at the table, her own phone in her hand, as she scrolled through some social media app.
“Everything okay?” Her question was friendly enough as he took a seat and reached for the taco he’d abandoned. Too friendly.
Suspicion rose in him once more as he narrowed his gaze on her now. She was so like her mother, except that she didn’t talk a whole lot without him having to pull teeth. She never had. And she was suddenly interested in speaking to him when she’d barely said two words to him since they’d dropped Evie with her grandparents. Zarek glanced down at his food and then rolled his eyes as he realized what was off. “You took one.”
“Took one what?” Scarlett was the picture of innocence even as she took a bite of the taco she held. His taco, he now realized.
He reached out to poke her in the middle of the forehead as he had done a thousand times in his life. “You took one of my tacos.”
“I did not.” She shot him a glance, looking appropriately perturbed.
Zarek gestured to his food once more. “I had three tacos left. You only ordered two. And suddenly you have a third in your hand, halfway through eating it, and I have two in front of me. I can do math, Scar.”
“Maybe I went up to the counter and ordered another one while you were outside.” She retorted as she took another bite of her ill-gotten gains.
Against his will, a smile tugged at his lips. “I could see you, you know. You didn’t move from this table. Now, if you want another taco, go get your own.”
Scarlett met his gaze without flinching, silently lifting his taco to her lips and taking another bite. When she had chewed enough to speak, she did so with her mouth full, in defiance of the manners their mothers had worked their whole lives to instill in them. “Stolen tacos really do taste the best.”
“Aha! You admit it. You took my taco.” He reached for another and unwrapped it, now grinning. For some reason, the knowledge that she’d relaxed enough to steal his food sent a surge of warmth through Zarek. He watched as she reached for his drink, lifting it to her lips. “And now my lemonade right in front of me? Have you lost all couth?”
A slow smile spread over her face, and for the first time since he’d laid eyes on her again, this time, that expression reached her eyes. “That assumes I had some to start with.” And with that, she took a healthy sip of his drink before reaching out to replace it before him. “So why was my mom calling you?”
That surprised him. Zarek shrugged, not bothering to deny it. Instead, he answered her bluntly. “She asked me if you were ‘behaving’.” He used his free hand to add air quotes. “I think our mothers are conspiring.”
At those words, Scarlett froze for a moment. Zarek could almost see the wheels in her head, turning as if she were considering what he’d said. Slowly, she shook her head. “I don’t think they’re that sophisticated, Z. I think they’re just nosy.”
“You don’t?” He wasn’t so sure he agreed with that assessment, but the fact that she’d called him by the nickname that she was the only one to ever use made his belly tighten in arousal again.
His pulse quickened as he recognized that for the first time in years since he’d left her in that apartment, he was feeling everything in true color again. There wasn’t any trace of the numbness that had muted his emotions for so long. It
was startling, it was sweet, and it was also terrifying as he looked at her and realized that his emotional life was still wrapped up in this woman. She was one of only two people in the entire world to make him feel anything, however minor, without caution or apprehension. It was her, and it was Evie.
“Nope.” Scarlett shook her head and balled up the wrapper of the taco she finished, leaning back in the chair. “I think they’ll just have to come around to the fact that we’ve called a truce for now and then things go back to normal. The sooner they realize it, the better. Just don’t indulge them.”
Those words sent the precious hope that had begun to creep in on him, skidding right off the fucking rails. Zarek forced his voice to be light, despite the sudden ache at the very idea of Scarlett resuming radio silence. “Is that what this is? A truce? I didn’t realize we were at war.”
There was a moment where her eyes met his only to flick away, focusing on the wall behind his head as they always had when she was thinking. Finally, one slender shoulder lifted in a noncommittal shrug. “It felt like war for a long time.”
It was the most open she’d been with him since she arrived, and in that one small admission, the hope that had been burgeoning within Zarek reared its head once more, roaring to life. “I can see how it would feel that way.”
Her eyes were still on the wall behind his head, but her hands had come to rest on the table, left hand drawing an idle pattern on the tabletop. She was listening. “I guess to me, it felt more like a gaping Scar shaped hole where you should be.”
This time when he felt her gaze on him, he could sense the tension rising between them. Zarek pushed the last bite of his taco into his mouth and reached for his cup, taking a sip of the lemonade to wash it down. It was a risk to push her when she’d just seemed to be opening up, but it was a small push, he hoped. “Tell me what it will take, Scar.”
To her credit, Scarlett didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. Feigning ignorance wasn’t something she’d ever been good at anyway. She was quiet, but when Zarek dared to glance up at her face, he saw that her eyes were locked to the wall behind his head again.
She spoke slowly, her words coming out stilted and awkward. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to try.” At least she hadn’t flat out refused, and so the hope within him grew a little more. She continued even more softly. “Sometimes, I’m not even sure if it was the hurt or the anger, or maybe both, that made it so hard to move on from you.” She dared to glance at him, and then spoke again, a bit too quickly. “From that night, I mean.”
Zarek narrowed his eyes slightly, not sure what the hell she thought he would interpret those words to mean. He chose to ignore it and instead focus on the smallest of steps. “I’d do anything to change what happened, and I’ll do anything to fix it. I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right.”
Scarlett drew in a deep breath and then reached for the tray he’d set aside after getting their food, stacking her discarded taco wrappers on it and reaching across for his. “It’s fine.”
He did the only thing he could think of. Zarek reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, desperate to keep her from pulling away, both literally and emotionally. He kept his eyes trained on her face, intoning the words softly. “Look at me, Scar.” It was as if no time had passed in the way her eyes flicked to his face. She’d always given him what he wanted, even down to moments like these. Strong-willed and stubborn to the end, but her weakness had always been him, though not in the same way his weakness had been her.
No, Zarek knew his feelings for her were entirely different. To her, he was nothing but her former best friend, firmly slotted in that box from the moment she’d discovered boys as a species. She’d never looked at him with the appreciation she’d shown for other men. Even now, there was only caution in those clear emerald eyes. “We aren’t fine right now. But we will be. I swear to you, I won’t hurt you like that again. You have to believe me.”
Zarek watched as her gaze flickered, and for a moment, he expected her to jerk away, as she’d done the night before. Instead, she remained still, staring for a heartbeat too long before she tugged gently at her wrist, her voice unexpectedly small as if all the fight had suddenly gone out of her. “I can’t think straight when you do that.”
He allowed her wrist to slip free of his grasp as he stared at her in confusion. “Do what?” He began to probed ever-so-gently, as he’d done when they were younger, in that way he’d honed and learned when these moments happened. Scarlett had never worn her heart on her sleeve, and getting anything deeper than superficial from her was a process on the best of days. It was the entire reason why he’d had the idea of turning a childhood card game of war into a drinking game.
“When you act like nothing’s changed. Like even if we start talking again, it would be like it was before.” Danger bells began to peal in Zarek’s head when he noticed there was no heat to her voice, only tired resignation.
Her walls were weakening, as though she were exhausted of shoring them up all on her own. Zarek’s chest tightened at the idea that now, instead of helping her hold up those walls, lending her his strength to hold her up and the wolves of the world at bay, she was now holding them up all alone. Only now, she was holding those walls up to keep him out. “It won’t be like it was before. It will be better. There’s no one to pull me away; there won’t ever be anyone to pull me away again.”
Scarlett’s eyes flashed in anger, and Zarek knew he’d lost ground instead of gaining it. He’d pushed just that little bit too far. She rose to her feet and pushed her chair back under the table, silently turning to head for the door. Zarek closed his eyes for a moment and cursed beneath his breath as he got up to follow her. It was progress, but it felt excruciatingly slow. As she headed out the door without waiting for him, he pulled the car keys from his pocket. She’d begun to crack, and he wasn’t going to back down now. The only question was, would she still play War, and would it still be the key to finding out what was going on inside her head that it had once been?
*
The intensity in Zarek’s eyes had been something Scarlett hadn’t expected. He hadn’t looked at her like that since she’d arrived. It was the same expression he’d had on his face when he’d told her goodbye for the last time as if his heart were breaking. This time though, there’d been a plea in his words. It had begun to sprinkle as they got into the car, and by the time he was pulling into a parking spot at a marina, of all places, the sky was thundering ominously. She watched as lightning streaked across, somewhere over the desert in the distance, and her stomach began to churn. She’d always feared storms to the point of phobia. A houseboat was not what she’d expected when Zarek had casually mentioned Lake Mead.
He killed the car engine and leaned forward, staring at the sky through the windshield. She felt him glance at her in the darkness before he nodded slightly, as if to himself, and broke the silence that had fallen between them during the drive. “I’m going to give you the key. If you’ll go and unlock the door, I’ll be right behind you.”
It was a small consideration and one that he made without even thinking about it, calculating how to spare the worst of the exposure to weather he knew she hated. She couldn’t even remember how many times he’d appeared in her room when she’d been a teenager, sitting with her in her closet until a particularly noisy storm had passed, usually managing to distract her to the point of breathless giggles or curling her into his side and simply sitting quietly with her until it had passed. Her mother had never batted an eyelash when she would come up to bring them snacks at the half-open door of the closet when she’d see Scarlett with her face buried in Zarek’s chest.
He’d done it every time it had stormed when he’d been home for a visit after he’d moved away to California. The last time had been the spring before he’d met Tatiana. He’d come for her birthday, let himself into her apartment at the first clap of thunder, and then shoved his massive frame into the tiny closet in her little
apartment over the garage. Scarlett closed her eyes for a moment, the memory of that long-ago day still lingering now in the edges of her mind. He’d tucked her beneath his arm and against her chest, as she’d trembled when the weather radio had gone off with yet another tornado warning, his hand moving over her back in the way that he’d perfected. Soothing and arousing and infuriating all at once.
“Scar?” He was talking again, looking at her as he held a key out to her. “You’re not listening.” His deep voice rumbled out the words, chiding her good-naturedly as he wiggled the key. “I said if you take the groceries, I’ll get our bags.”
Scarlett nodded and reached out to take the key from him, a pulse of electricity surging up her spine and straight into the pit of her belly at the simple contact when her fingers brushed his. “Which one is it?”
Zarek was staring at her now, his expression quizzical, as if he wanted to ask where her mind had really been. By now, he knew better, though, and he gestured toward the straight down in front of them. “At the end on the left. White with a blue canopy over the deck up top. You can’t miss it. It’s … uh…” He trailed off and then bit his lip. “You’ll know it when you see it. Just trust me.” Scarlett glanced at him, and for a moment, she thought she saw the tips of his ears turn red. But that was impossible, of course. Zarek didn’t blush. He reached out to tap the window as the thunder pealed again, louder and closer and it began to rain more steadily. “We need to move. It’s about to open up.”
Scarlett drew in a deep breath and nodded, reaching for the door handle. She didn’t stick around to watch as Zarek unfolded himself from the sedan, and she heard the trunk pop open. She sprinted for the dock, heart pounding she felt the next roll of thunder as much as heard it. It vibrated in her chest and down through her toes. She slowed when she approached the last slip on the left as he’d instructed, and then stopped in her tracks as she realized what he hadn’t wanted to say. Cold rain pelted her as she clutched the grocery bags in one hand and stared at the hull of his houseboat. Her name, in bright blue lettering, painted right across the ass end of the blasted thing. He’d named his fucking boat after her? He’d named his daughter after her? What the hell?