Intense 2

by Hebert, Cambria

  Smiling, Lily nodded.

  Taking Zac’s hand, she guided his fingers into the front pocket of her jeans.

  His brows knit as his fingertips hit something solid. Running his fingers over the raised symbols, he couldn’t help but smile, as he moved the ring from her pocket to his.

  Zac Moore was on the right track to make his one and only relationship a success.

  The couch in the living room was made up for sleep when he went back and knocked softly on the door of his bedroom.

  “Come in,” she called from the other side.

  He couldn’t help but smile seeing her tucked into his bed, wearing one of his shirts, her long hair spilling down the front. She has no clue how sexy she is, he thought. Seeing her in one of his shirts brought back a flood of happy memories they’d once created.

  “Shove over,” he bumped her as he got in next to her, staying on top of the blanket that separated their wanting bodies. “Lils,” he pulled her head down onto his still fully clothed chest, wrapping his arms around her tightly. “Lils,” he repeated, as if incanting her to quell disappearing from his embrace.

  “I know,” it came out as a half-laugh.

  “Thank you.” Zac rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “For what?” Lily brushed her hand softly up and down his shirt covered chest.

  “Where do I begin?” he laughed. “Let’s see, for not letting me be a stupid ass and walking away from us… again. For having the balls to call me on my shit.” He pulled away a little so that she would look up at him, “For taking me back.”

  “I never wanted to let you go. That day at the hospital, you blindsided me. I never expected that. I wasn’t prepared to have my heart smashed. The last thing you had said to me was that you loved me. And I had a really hard time getting over you, Zac. I really hated you. I think hating you got me through each day. Made me get out of bed and finally go back to school.”

  He nodded, understanding why, but the truth was painful. Painful in thinking of what she endured and even more so, knowing that he had inflicted the agony. It had been a calculated move. And it worked. Zac wondered how long they would keep on paying for the high price.

  “And then last week at Wee Burn, seeing you was a shock. I figured at some point our paths would cross, considering our families are friends, and our dads are involved in the physical therapy center in Zambia.” She paused and smiled, looking up at him, “I had it all worked out, how cool I was going to be, saying hello and blowing you off, kind of like when I first met you.”

  They both laughed at the memory.

  “But Wee Burn. I wasn’t prepared for that, Zac. One minute I’m dancing with Colby, off in my own little world and the next minute I’m in your arms and you’re looking at me with a smug grin, going ‘Hi Lils.’ I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if it was a dream or a nightmare. My first thought was, he’s come back to destroy me.”

  Zac could feel his eyes mist and the knots in his heart tighten. How horrible that she would think he wanted to hurt her. But it was easy to understand her assumption.

  “And then when you told me you really loved me, I thought you were just fucking with me. Some evil, cruel joke. Like you weren’t done destroying me. But as you kept talking, I realized that maybe you weren’t lying to me and what I believed as reality, yet again, may not have been reality.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about everything. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I’m not sorry that I got you out of the Congo. I now see I should have come to you with the truth, but by the time I got back from Germany, well, I just didn’t even know what to say to you and if you’d moved on, I didn’t want to mess with that.” He paused, “And if I’m being really honest, the thought of you hating me was something I just couldn’t handle. If I didn’t do anything, you couldn’t reject me.”

  Lifting her head from his chest, “Can I see them?” Her eyes were filled with unspilled tears.

  “See what?”

  “Your scars.”

  He felt a moment of panic until he realized that the scars she wanted to see were from the gunshot wounds. His first thought had been that she wanted to see his real scars and he immediately wondered how she knew about them.

  “You sure?” he searched her eyes.

  Lily nodded and Zac began to unbutton his shirt. The stiffening of her body and the small gasp and cry were not within her control as his shirt came off. Reverently, she skimmed her fingers over the raised scars, followed immediately by her lips. Zac could feel her warm tears forming rivulets across his stomach, as she laid her head down and cried, her warm salty tears feeling like a healing elixir on scars both evident and not.

  “It’s OK, Lils,” his voice cracked, as he stroked her hair.

  It wasn’t until that moment that he realized that Lily was the one person on Earth with whom he could truly share the trauma of what happened that day at the blue shack and that he was that one person for her. No one else would ever understand what happened in those few hours or the magnitude of what was lost that day. They were the only two people who knew the depth of what was violently and irrevocably ripped away from them.

  “It’s OK, Lils. It’s gonna be OK,” he choked out, realizing just how much he still had not dealt with, as he let tears flow for the first time since the hospital.

  Giving each scar another kiss before lifting her head, she patted the front right pocket of his jeans and stuck her hand in. When she looked up at him, she was smiling through her tears.

  “Do you remember taking this back from him?” they both knew to whom she was referring as she held up his grandfather’s money clip.

  Zac shook his head no.

  “You were brilliant.”

  He gave her a look saying, “But, of course,” and she laughed at the cockiness she loved.

  “You’d been shot twice, mayhem was ensuing and you bent down, I don’t know how you did it with your injuries, grabbed it and in a surprisingly loud voice said, ‘This is mine, motherfucker’ and you hauled back and kicked him in the lower back. And then the third shot hit and you just crumpled to the ground.”

  “Wow,” hearing Lily’s firsthand account was staggering. He had no memory of anything after the first bullet hit. He loved hearing how badass he’d been even after taking two bullets. Way to get the girl, he mused.

  Turning over the gold and diamond money clip in her hand, she ran her thumb over the engraved “M”. With a smile, Lily looked up at Zac and poked him in the chest with the money clip. It didn’t elude him that she was poking the spot on his chest that her head had always rested against from the first time that they had danced. The spot right over his heart.

  Stealing his words, “This is mine, motherfucker,” she continued to poke.

  Smiling, he grabbed her hand mid-poke, pulling her to him, their lips centimeters apart. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Lils. It always has been.”

  And with that admission, he dug back into his pocket and pulled out the ring. Picking up her right hand, he kissed her palm and placed it against his cheek.

  “I got this at the market on our first date. The symbols said it all. Everything I felt. Everything I feel.” He kissed her palm again and then slipped the ring onto her ring finger. “For now,” he whispered.

  Lily shook her head, “For always,” she corrected, with a smile.

  Overwhelmed by the love he could see in her eyes and by her beautiful smile, Zac whispered the words back to her, “For always.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Graduation

  CCNY — Grove School of Engineering

  Marshak Plaza

  New York, NY

  Liz looked around the plaza before taking a seat, “There they are, Mom,” she pointed to a group of people who had just entered, then started moving in their direction, her mother a few steps behind.

  “Mrs. Moore, Mr. Moore,” Liz waved, capturing their attention.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Zac’s stepmoth
er, Mia, gave her a warm hug, “and please call me Mia.”

  “Mia, this is my mom…”

  Neelie offered a hand and a smile, “I’m Neelie.”

  “This is my husband, Schooner.” Mia introduced them.

  “I adore your son,” Neelie told his look-alike father. “He is without a doubt one of my favorite people in the world. He’s a good boy. You must be very proud.”

  Nodding, Schooner agreed with the socialite, “This is a very special day.” While it was nice to hear the accolades bestowed on his son by Neelie, for Schooner, seeing his troubled son’s accomplishments made the day’s landmark occasion even sweeter.

  As they sat down, joining the group was Liliana Castillo and Zac’s older sister, Holly, as well as his baby brother and sister, Nathaniel and Portia. Lily and Liz acknowledged one another with a smile and a nod.

  Liz sat down next to Mia. Leaning close, she asked, “Is his mother here?”

  Mia looked around and shook her head, “I don’t see her, but it doesn’t mean she won’t make a grand entrance.” The look on Mia’s face spoke volumes that there was no love lost between the former and current Mrs. Schooner Moore.

  “Where’s Zac?” asked Portia, standing on the aisle and looking around.

  “He’ll be coming soon, Po. Come sit with us.” Holly patted the seat between her and Lily.

  The little girl shook her head no, “I have to wait for Zac.” She was adamant.

  The music began and everyone shifted in their seat, turning around to watch the procession enter the plaza. Administration and faculty led the way, adorned in black doctoral robes with orange engineering hoods hanging majestically.

  Liz felt tears making their way to her eyes, moved by the formality, and by the ritual itself, as well as by the pride she felt for her friend and his logic defying on-time graduation. He’d amazed her with what he’d accomplished against all odds. By the looks on the faces of his family and new girlfriend, they were all finally seeing the Zac she knew. The best friend she adored.

  The familiar opening strains of Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance wafted into the plaza as if the notes were floating in on the spring breeze. Liz felt her heart start to race as the line of 156 engineering students entered, black cap and gowns accentuated by a lemon tassel. For just a second, sadness gripped her as she wished that she and Zac would be walking together at her graduation which was still two weeks away.

  And there he was, coming toward them, unbelievably handsome in his graduation wear, his pale blue eyes alight. Searching the crowd, his eyes fell to their row and the smile on his face was breathtaking. As he passed them, he bent down to slap hands with Portia and Nathaniel who were squealing with delight.

  With the soon-to-be graduates seated on the stage, the audience again took their seats.

  “He’s the handsomest one on the stage,” Neelie whispered in Liz’s ear. “And his father…”

  Liz looked at her mother with a bemused smile, “Mom,” she feigned shock.

  They sat through the speeches and keynote, with Holly and Lily attempting to amuse Po and Natie, and ensure they didn’t disturb the other families seated nearby. Liz could not ignore Schooner Moore’s rapt attention to the stage, oblivious to everything around him, as if every word being spoken held life altering significance.

  His words of several years before reverberated in Liz’s brain, “We’ve hit some pretty low spots, Zac, and this is right there with the best of them. How much lower are you going to sink, hmm?”

  And here he was, the quintessential bad boy fuck up, graduating on-time with an engineering degree, accepted to a highly coveted graduate program at a top university. He’d done community work overseas and put his life on the line to save others, including an amazing girl with whom he’d fallen in love.

  They were light years from where they’d been on the last day in his Bryson College dorm room. As she looked at him, Liz thought Schooner’s strong jaw was clenched as tightly today as it had been that day in the dorm. But today there was no anger. Today there was just a father overcome with pride, trying to hang onto his emotions.

  As the graduates began to rise and cross the stage alphabetically to receive their diplomas, Liz reached across Mia’s lap and found Schooner’s hand. Placing her hand within his, she gave it a squeeze.

  Looking over at her, the surprise in Schooner’s eyes rapidly diminished, giving way to joy as soon as he saw her eyes.

  “Zachary Ian Moore”

  The cheering, led by Portia and Nathaniel, received a laugh from the audience and a smile and wave from Zac on stage.

  Schooner tightened his grip on Liz’s small hand as he watched the degree conferred upon his eldest son. Turning to her with a smile and misty sapphire blue eyes, it was clear that he was finally seeing the guy she wanted him to see that day at Bryson. Her Zac. With just one look, Schooner Moore thanked her for believing in his son. Always.

  With Lily under one arm and Liz under the other, Zac felt like a king as he entered The Glass Houses in Chelsea, taking the elevator up to the twenty-first floor, which had been rented for his graduation party.

  Party planner Elan Gerstler had taken the vast open glass space with sweeping views of lower Manhattan and the Hudson River and broken it into differentiated, intimate areas. Dotted with small white couches and low tables adorned with tall cobalt blue vases filled with pink, yellow and white gladiolus, Elan had transformed the cold, empty space into a chic, inviting venue. In an alcove surrounded by floor to ceiling windows on three exposures, long tables were set for a formal dinner with votive candles and low cobalt containers filled with wild grasses.

  As Liz stood talking to Mia and her mom, sipping on champagne from crystal flutes, she watched Mia’s body language stiffen and followed her gaze to the entrance of the loft space. Two women had just stepped out of the elevator and it was immediately clear that Zac’s mother, CJ Moore-Gordon (yes, she hyphenated her two husbands’ last names) had arrived, looking more like a sister than a mother to her twenty-four year old daughter, Holly. The loft had taken on a perceptible chill.

  “Who is the other woman with her?” Liz was fascinated by the immediate dynamic.

  “I have no clue,” Mia responded. She was looking in Schooner’s direction, as if willing him to turn around lest he be stabbed in the back by his vindictive ex.

  “Interesting that she isn’t accompanied by her new husband,” Neelie commented, as she checked out the two women from Orange County, head to toe, her expression denoting she wasn’t impressed.

  “Very interesting. Well, at least she made it to the party,” Mia shook her head, clearly disgusted that CJ had missed her only son’s commencement. Quickly, she finished her champagne and grabbed another glass off a passing tray.

  Leaning close to Mia, Neelie commented, “I’m sensing you two have a history.”

  Laughing, Mia nodded and rolled her eyes, “Dating back to when I was just sixteen years old. You could write a book … or three … about it.”

  Mia excused herself and made her way over to Schooner. The smile between them was one more of amusement than anything else. Together they welcomed CJ and the other guest, with whom Schooner was apparently acquainted.

  Liz scanned the room for Zac, wondering if he knew his mother had arrived. Through the glass, she could see him and Lily out on the balcony, leaning on the railing. As she watched them, it was evident no one else was in their world. His eyes were trained on her intently, his smile only for her. As the breeze blew Lily’s hair, he lovingly tucked it behind her ear.

  Watching them had an almost voyeuristic feel to it, and she felt more intrusive watching this sweet moment than she had walking in on him in the act at a Paris sex club a million years before. That empty teen was nowhere to be found today. Dead and gone. In his place, stood this handsome, finally happy man, looking like a suit model in his charcoal grey Armani.

  Hating to disturb them, she didn’t want him to be blindsided, knowing things had not bee
n good with his mother for a few years, dating back to her remarriage to a longtime family friend. Inching open the door to the balcony, she coughed lightly, making her presence known, “Your mom’s here.”

  “Yes, I am,” came the voice from behind Liz.

  Making a face of faux horror that CJ couldn’t see, Liz excused herself.

  “Congratulations, darling. You look wonderful.” She gave Zac her cheek.

  Zac slung an arm over Lily’s shoulder and pulled her close to him. Beaming, his voice filled with pride, as he began the introduction, “Mom, this is my girlfriend, Liliana Castillo.” He looked down at Lily just as she looked up at him, totally in sync, both exuding joy at the introduction, her nose crinkling with her smile.

  Zac Moore had never introduced anyone in his life, as his girlfriend, and he had no clue at how wonderful it would feel. Until that moment.

  “How nice to meet you, Liliana.” There was nothing sincere in CJ’s tone as she offered a cool, limp hand. “Would you mind if I have a few minutes alone with my son?” Not waiting for an answer, “Thank you, dear.”

  A stunned Lily left them on the balcony. Schooner and Mia always had made her feel as if she were part of the family, as if they couldn’t be happier that she was a part of Zac’s life. His mother was the polar opposite. South Pole frigid cold, to be exact.

  Wandering over to a buffet table, she filled her plate with prosciutto wrapped melon, brie cheese and crackers.

  “Not very good choices for your figure.”

  Looking up, Lily didn’t recognize the woman. “It’s a special day. We get to celebrate.”

  The woman was bone thin, her skin pulled taut over enhanced cheekbones, long extension boosted blonde hair flowed halfway down her back. She overtly gave Lily an exaggerated once over.

  Is she deliberately trying to make me uncomfortable? Lily wondered. But why?

  “So, you’re Zac’s little girlfriend.” It was a statement, not a question. “You’re kind of young for him.”