Intense 2

by Hebert, Cambria

  If he had been able to be honest with himself, he didn’t want to make things work, for he had convinced himself that would just prove that he was the failure he knew himself to be. Descending into his comfort zone, use and be used was a place Zac Moore was a master. And that got him by.

  Chapter Twenty

  Spring — Senior Year

  Easter Break

  Wee Burn Country Club

  Darien, CT

  Sunburned and tired from a day on the links with Richard van der Hayden and his cronies, Zac was looking forward to kicking up his feet after the club’s formal dinner to watch their fireworks display over the Long Island Sound. So much business had been done that day over the course of eighteen holes that his head was still spinning. The finesse with which these deals were made was like taking a master class in negotiations. He had learned so much in those few hours and was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and let these masters of the universe take center stage, while he took copious mental notes and tried to absorb their well-practiced nuances. He’d only wished his dad had been on the fairways with them, so that he could have seen him in action with these wealthy scions of industry.

  “Don’t you look handsome,” Neelie came and sat down next to him.

  “I only look good because you’re sitting next to me, Mrs. V.” Zac graced her with his gorgeous smile and a conspiratorial wink.

  Neelie laughed, “If you weren’t so damn good looking, I’d call you Eddie Haskell.”

  Zac joined in her laughter remembering the ass-kissing character from the old-time show, Leave It to Beaver. Eddie was always at the center of trouble and would turn the charm on for Beaver and his older brother Wally’s parents, to deflect his guilt.

  “Mrs. V., you don’t really think I’m a troublemaker, do you?” Zac chided the older woman.

  “Think? There’s no thinking, Zac. It takes a special man to get tossed out of Bryson College when you’re parents are paying full tuition.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be proud or deeply embarrassed,” he confided, his grin revealing little embarrassment.

  “Go with proud.” Neelie was barely containing her laughter, “You’re quite the young entrepreneur. And diverse business lines, too. Very impressive. I look forward to seeing you at thirty-five.”

  “My father was all kinds of pissed when that happened.” Turning to Neelie, “Every family needs a black sheep, right?”

  Rolling her eyes, “Look around this room. You’re not considered a man until you’ve been kicked out of a fine educational institution. There are more Andover and Hotchkiss expellees here than anywhere else on the planet.”

  “I’m suddenly feeling very at home. Maybe I should apply for a membership,” he laughed. “I wonder where Liz is.”

  “Probably in a bathroom stall with that cute cocktail waitress.” There was a hint of amusement in Neelie’s tone.

  Zac had just taken a sip from his crystal water goblet and began to choke. Neelie patted him on the back of his navy blazer.

  “Yes, I know,” she confessed, her blue eyes relaying sympathy.

  “Wow. For a long time?” Zac continued to clear his throat.

  “I’ve suspected for a long time. My daughter has the most handsome beard in Connecticut, but I don’t anticipate that I’ll be making a wedding for the two of you anytime soon.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zac muttered, thrown for a loop by Neelie’s admission and the exposure of their subterfuge.

  Placing her hand over his, she gave it a motherly squeeze. “Nothing to apologize for, Zac. This has been very selfless of you to cover for Elisabeth in this way.”

  “I’d do anything for her, Mrs. V.” Zac was trying to get a read on the situation, suddenly scared for Liz.

  “I know, Zac, and I totally appreciate it.” Leaning close, she whispered, “Between you and me, my father-in-law is a grand turd, and if that old ass thinks he is cutting any of my children out of his will because of his prejudices, then the old bastard, is going to have to contend with me.”

  Their faces inches apart, “My money’s on you, Mrs. V. and I’m more than happy to help, Liz. She’s had my back through thick and thin.”

  Sitting back in silence, they watched the lights sparkle from the chandelier’s fine crystals as a five-piece band filled the night with vintage Big Band music.

  “This music begs for a martini,” Neelie mused.

  Zac looked around, “I don’t see our waiter,” he continued to scan the room in a panoramic motion.

  He would look back at that moment and wonder if it was just a feeling or if he actually saw light from the crystal chandelier glint off the sweep of her hair. Watching her, a mirage gracefully swaying in the arms of a non-descript twenty-something, anger and jealousy rose from a place deep in his psyche — a place he didn’t explore with any great frequency.

  He was on his feet and moving across the room, a knee jerk gut reaction, with a clear mission — to get her out of the other guy’s arms, immediately, and into his. There was no forethought, no plan. This was visceral, a reaction out of his control, his heart still in knots he’d yet to untie.

  She hadn’t noticed his approach, as her head rest against her partner’s chest, eyes closed. She looks content, he thought. They stopped moving as he tapped the guy on the shoulder to cut in. Her partner immediately began to protest, but Zac just ignored him.

  “Hello, Lils.”

  He could see the shock in her eyes, followed briefly by an almost smile, and as she rapidly descended into fiery anger, he took her in his arms, pulling her against his tight, long frame.

  With an intimacy reserved for lovers, his fingers splayed through her hair. An “mmmm” sound came from deep in his throat that he was powerless to control as the scent from her hair permeated his senses, activating the highly emotional limbic portion of his memory flooded brain.

  “You smell like a Piña Colada,” he smiled into her hair.

  “How original,” her tone was cold.

  Laughing, “God, I’ve missed you.” He couldn’t hold her tight enough.

  “You expect me to fall for that?” Her eyes were filled with unresolved anger as she looked up at him.

  “I have missed you every moment of every day since you walked out of my hospital room.” Please read my eyes, he silently begged.

  “You think this is funny, Zac? What is this? Some let’s fuck with Lily game?”

  Shaking his head, “No game, Lils,” he was amazed at the pure joy he felt calling her by his special nickname, “I swear. I’m sorry I hurt you. I had to do it.”

  “You had to hurt me?” her tone was more venomous than confused, her anger quickly overshadowing any composure she may have hoped to hang onto.

  Zac was nodding, his face and demeanor dead serious. “It was too dangerous and I couldn’t protect you, Lils and I couldn’t let you stay there. Not without me.”

  Her brow furrowed, a deep gash forming between her eyes. The surprise on her face revealed that she had never believed anything but the hurtful lies that he had convincingly fed her — that had been the only truth she had carried with her.

  “What are you saying to me, Zac? That you cared about me?”

  Burying his face in her hair, he whispered, “I’m telling you that when I told you I loved you, it was real. Everything we shared was real. I did what I did so that you would get on a plane and go home. I needed you to be safe.”

  Shocked by his words, Lily stopped moving to look up at Zac, “That wasn’t your decision to make, Zac.”

  Taking her face in both his hands, his right thumb slowly swept across the soft curve of her cheek, “Yeah, Lils. It was. I knew you would want me to stay, and even if I didn’t, you would have stayed behind to finish your TDY on the project. If I’d stayed, I was in no shape to protect you and if I left… well, I couldn’t leave you there unprotected after all that happened. I knew the only way you would go is if you were surrounded by places that reminded you of us. If you couldn’t e
scape the pain.”

  Looking away as she absorbed his words, they both knew he was dead on. Knowing she’d be haunted by everything, that she’d see him everywhere, memories that they’d made together would be hiding behind every tree, waiting to meet her on every path, there would be nowhere to turn that wasn’t steeped in what she thought was love, until he told her it was merely a ruse.

  Zac felt the hand on his shoulder and stiffened.

  “I think you’re done,” his voice was firm.

  “No. We are nowhere near done.” Zac’s eyes never left Lily’s.

  “It’s OK, Colby,” Lily reassured him and a stunned Colby moved away.

  They danced in silence. Zac’s strong arms held her close, tightening with each step they took, her cheek pressed firmly against his chest, resurrecting memories that tore at his heart as the loss of her, of them, now felt more acute than it had since the day she left Africa.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. It killed me to do that to you. Please believe me, Lils,” he was not embarrassed at his pleading tone. If he needed to get on his knees for her to believe him…

  Looking up and searching his eyes for answers, “I don’t know what to believe, Zac. You broke my heart. I had never told anyone that I loved them. And then you told me it was all a game.” She didn’t try to hide the hurt.

  His smile came quick, but the words were stuck behind the lump in his throat.

  “This isn’t amusing,” she was angry.

  “I know that,” his voice was rough with emotion. “It’s just that,” he paused, feeling his eyes mist, “I’ve never told anyone else that I loved them, either.”

  Silently, they stared into one another’s eyes, lonesome days and sleepless nights, futile attempts at healing and moving on, all spoken in the wordless communication.

  “I’m sorry,” he mouthed.

  And a single tear dropped to her cheek as the song ended.

  Colby appeared, immediately at her side, his need to mark his territory overt.

  Separating, Zac reached forward and brushed her tear away with his thumb. “It’s good to see you, Lils.”

  Bending down, he softly kissed her cheek. Nodding at Colby, he turned, heading back to the van der Heyden’s table.

  Liz was standing, watching him as he approached. He could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking, “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Can we get out of here?” His agitation was evident and he knew fresh air would be the immediate answer to the nausea that was quickly rising.

  “Zac?”

  Nodding, he knew the question she was asking. “Yes, that’s her.”

  “Holy shit,” Liz hissed, as she tried to keep up with him.

  “Who’s the guy? Do you know him?” Zac’s jaw muscle twitched, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

  “Colby Phillips. Goes to Yale. Went to Avon Old Farms for prep school. I think he’s pre-med.”

  Zac nodded and kept walking at a pace that made it impossible for Liz to keep up. He was on a mission. A mission to get the hell out of there, and the corridor through the main building was interminably long, stretching before him like a never ending nightmare. This journey toward the building’s exit and the parking lot felt like a long walk he’d been on only once before.

  “Zac.”

  Stopping dead in his tracks at the sound of Liliana’s voice, the burning in his chest intensified. Slowly he turned to see her coming down the long corridor toward him. The look on her face was one to which he was no stranger. Liliana Castillo was seething mad.

  Toe to toe, her jaw thrust out defiantly, “If it was a lie, if what you told me in the hospital was just a lie, why didn’t you come find me when you got home? Why?” she demanded, her voice rising a full octave by the time she’d completed her question.

  He wanted to reach out, to take her in his arms. The pain in her eyes tightened the knots resident in his heart. He could see her heart through her eyes, wounded and on display. The tattered shreds he’d cut in Africa were still bleeding. Time had not cauterized them. Distance had not built the necessary scar tissue to heal.

  “Because you deserve better.”

  The anger in her eyes dissipated for just a moment, replaced by an emotion he could not decipher as he searched them, and then it was gone. Anger had once again stolen the show.

  “That’s not your decision to make.”

  The sting of her hand on his cheek was unexpected, the sound of the slap echoing off the corridor walls. As he went to cover the sting, he could feel the heat. Their heat. And the pain of the slap felt comforting compared to the pain in his heart.

  “Lils…” he began.

  But she had already turned on her heel and was halfway down the hall.

  For the third time in his life, he wanted to go after her, but as on previous occasions, he did not.

  Softly, he repeated the words that he had said to her, to a now empty hallway. “You deserve better.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Two Days Later

  Starbucks

  Spring Street

  SoHo, NYC

  She turned back to give him a provocative smile.

  “Shhhh,” he put his finger to his lips to indicate she needed to be quiet and hit her with a panty-wetting smile, knowing her panties were already wet and sticky.

  Smoothing down her soccer mom hair, she exited the bathroom and he locked the door behind her, continuing to zip his jeans and tucking in the tail of his button down shirt. As he grabbed his green smock and negotiated it over his head, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. Perfecting his hair with just a slash of his hand through the thick locks, he noticed his pale blue eyes. Dead, was his first thought. I have dead eyes.

  Leaving the bathroom, he took his place behind the counter with his fellow barista coworkers. Glancing over at the table where the soccer mom had been sitting, he was relieved to see two middle-aged gay men engrossed in a serious conversation.

  Soccer mom had been his second encounter of the day. The morning’s conquest was a Biomedical Engineering Prof up at school. He passed her office in CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering three days a week. Her office door was always open and she regularly called out a greeting of “good morning” to him, which he invariably returned with a smile, wave and “morning,” without ever breaking his stride.

  This morning he stopped.

  “How are you today?” Zac inquired.

  “Very well.” She appeared both surprised and pleased to see the tall, handsome young man leaning casually against her doorframe. “You’re a civil engineering student, aren’t you?”

  Zac nodded, yes.

  “Come in. Have a seat. Close the door behind you so it’s not so noisy,” she instructed.

  Oh yeah, thought Zac. He knew exactly where this was going and he needed it. This would prove it. This would prove he was right. He wasn’t good enough for her. He was right not to go after her.

  “So, it is doubtful I will ever see you in one of my classes,” the professor stated, making the obvious very clear, but wanting to reaffirm.

  “I can guarantee you that, Professor. It’s my last semester, you will never be grading one of my projects.”

  From there things escalated quickly as Zac first fucked her on her neat little desk, making her get on all fours so that he could slam deep into her dripping pussy without having to look at her face. He finished her against the wall, again having her face away from him, the thought of looking into her lustful eyes made him sick. She had been so predictable.

  And so had he. And he hated himself for it.

  Instead of getting on the subway when he left Steinman Hall, he walked down St. Nicholas Avenue from 140th Street to the top of Central Park on 111th Street. Once he hit the park, he called Liz and continued to walk south.

  “Did you call her?” Liz didn’t bother to greet him with a hello.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” she had that annoyed tone.

&
nbsp; “Because she should be with Colby. He’ll be good for her. He’ll give her a good life.”

  “That’s not your place to decide.”

  “Are you taking lessons from her?” he laughed.

  “She’s right, you know.”

  “Shut up.” He was approaching the North Meadow, which meant the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir was not far.

  “Maybe Colby beats her. Or treats her like shit. You don’t know if he’s better for her.” Liz was not going to back down.

  “More likely she beats Colby. Liliana Castillo is one tough chick. If you’re ever putting together a Pussy Posse, you want her on your side.”

  Liz laughed, “Call her, Zac. I’m serious. She came after you that night because she is not ready to let go. And you didn’t follow her, you douche monkey. She wanted you to follow her.”

  Passing nannies with strollers who were all eying him, “Yeah, well you can’t always get what you want.”

  “Speaking of what I want,” Liz changed the subject, “Are you coming to my graduation?”

  Zac laughed, “If they let me back on campus. Are you coming to mine?”

  “Hell yes, miss the graduation of a guy who gets kicked out of school, goes to Africa, gets shot, comes back and does two years in one, graduates on time and gets into grad school. Hell, I wouldn’t miss that.”

  “Well, you got into grad school, too,” Zac pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I actually went to college for four straight years and took as few courses as they would allow me to — I did it right.”

  “Show off,” they both laughed.

  “Promise me you’ll think about calling her. She’s graduating, too. Call her to congratulate her.”

  “Wow, she lost a whole year that she couldn’t make up,” he was surprised at how much he liked hearing news about Lily, news Liz had clearly gotten through connections. He wanted to ask Liz if she had learned anything more than that through her country club “channel”, but he didn’t dare ask.