“Shit,” I said again, for lack of anything better that would fit that bombshell of information. “Do you think he remembers you? It was like two years ago.”
“Oh, he does,” she said. “He’s been smirking at me knowingly all day, and I just know he’s picturing me naked. This sucks!”
“Wow, you must have been pretty memorable,” I said, wondering just how talented my best friend was in the bedroom.
“It’s was a good night,” she said, a bit of nostalgia creeping into her voice. “But this seriously sucks.”
“Why? So you slept with him. Who cares?”
She shook her head, and mumbled something incoherent, and I knew I needed to change the subject. Rachel was about to lose it.
“Hey, he’s probably not going to bring it up if he hasn’t already. I wouldn’t worry about it. Let’s talk about something else. How’s Ben?” I asked, holding my breath, because I really wanted to know how he was doing, but I’d been afraid to ask each time we’d talked.
Rachel just raised her eyebrows at me.
“I’m serious. How is he?”
I’d actually thought about Ben a lot since the last time I’d talked to him. My anger at him had dissipated a little, and the part of me who’d loved him for so many years wanted to know if he was alright.
“He’s okay,” Rachel said, not looking over at me. I knew her mind was still on Derrick.
“Care to elaborate?”
She finally looked at me. “I could,” she said, being vague.
“Please,” I said, feeling like I really needed to know.
She rolled over onto one elbow and propped herself up. “Well, it was bad for about two weeks. He was drinking a lot – you know, out of control at parties and stuff – and he wouldn’t shut up about how you broke his heart and how much he loved you. He kept hounding me for details about ‘the asshole you cheated on him with’,” she said, using air quotes and a really dramatic, deep voice to imitate Ben. It sounded nothing like him.
My face fell a little at the thought of how broken up he was. No pun intended – seriously.
“I didn’t give anything up, don’t worry,” Rachel assured me.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I figured it would be better for him to just to let it go,” she said, and she was probably right.
“God, I feel so bad for hurting him.”
“Well, let me finish. You might change your mind.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.
“Well, one night a few weeks ago, he shows up at Olivia Carlson’s house with – drum roll please – Ashleigh Ballast!”
“No way!” I said, sitting all the way up.
Rachel nodded, smiling conspiratorially at me. “Yup, he did. She was all smiling and smug and telling everyone that they were together. He wasn’t denying it. Then they were practically going at it on the couch later that night, so it was sort of confirmed.”
“I never actually thought he would stoop that low,” I said, shaking my head.
Rachel waved her hand in dismissal. “Yeah, well, I assume he was upset, and she was there, he fell, and she caught him – right between her thighs.”
I swatted Rachel with the back of my hand. “Ew! Do you really have to be so vulgar?”
“Yes, I do. So anyway, ever since then, they’ve been making out everywhere. It’s disgusting. I’m not convinced he’s fully over you. If you want my opinion, I think Ashleigh’s just providing him with a nice distraction.”
“Wow,” I said, for lack of anything better.
It wasn’t like I was completely surprised, but at the same time, I was a little dumbstruck. Ben, my Ben, had stooped low enough to go out with Ashleigh. Of course, he wasn’t my Ben anymore, so I didn’t really have a say in what he did. But I at least expected him to have better taste than that.
“Hey,” Rachel said, sensing my change in mood like only a best friend can. “He could only go downhill from you, you know that, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s just weird, you know? I was with him for so long. I can’t picture him with someone else, let alone her.”
“Do you miss him,” she asked, posing an honest question.
I shrugged, then I nodded. “In some ways, yes, but more as a friend. I don’t have the same feelings I used to have for him. I compare him to Zack, and there’s no contest, but it’s just hard when someone is in your life for so long, and then they’re not. It was easy to push him out of my mind here when I didn’t have to see him, but it’ll be weird when we get back to school.”
Rachel nodded but I wasn’t convinced she fully understood. She’d never had a serious boyfriend, and she’d never been in love. It was hard to imagine when someone who was the center of your universe, who you basically worshiped, was no longer even in your life. I wasn’t sure I would be all that okay once I saw Ben again.
“If you want my opinion, I think Ben is just filling time until you get back. My guess is that he’s heart-broken and embarrassed that he got dumped, so he’s trying to save face. I would bet anything that if you offered to take him back, he would go in a second. You can tell he doesn’t really like Ashleigh that much.”
“Really?” I said, not sure how I felt about that.
“Come on, Em, You know Ben. He’s upset, but he doesn’t want anyone to know it.”
I swallowed hard. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but it had been sort of inevitable.
When I didn’t say anything, Rachel got concerned. “You’re not thinking of taking him back, are you?”
I looked away from the far off point in the middle of the ocean that I’d been focusing on and looked over at her, shaking my head. “No, I’m not. I just feel bad. I still care about him, that’s all.”
Rachel put her arm around my shoulders and half-hugged me. “I know, but at the same time, if you fell out of love with him, then you shouldn’t have felt like you had to stay with him. You got back together with him out of obligation before, and look how well that worked out for you.”
She had a point.
“Besides, Zack is pretty cool.” She nudged me, making me smile. “See, you did the right thing. Zack makes you happy. I can tell. And I like him – double bonus. He seems like a great guy.”
“He is,” I said softly, my mind shifting to having to say goodbye to him in just two weeks. I wanted more time.
Rachel lifted her aviators and winked at me, making me smile, but the darkness had already seeped in. I was going to miss Zack like crazy when I left.
“Okay, so I have to know,” I said, changing the subject before I got emotional. “What is everyone saying about me hauling off and hitting Ashleigh?”
“Um, well, I’ve heard words like psycho and crazy bitch, but I’ve also heard you being touted as a hero, since a lot of people feel like she had it coming. It’s pretty much a fifty-fifty split, but I think you breaking up with Ben might have caused more of an opinion change. A lot of girls aren’t your biggest fan right now, but some love you since he’s finally back on the market.”
I nodded as I processed what she was saying. Then I waved my hand is dismissal, deciding then and there that I wasn’t going to let petty minds dictate my mood. “Oh well. Fuck them. I’ll probably never see most of them again after this summer anyway.”
“Wow,” Rachel said, pushing her sunglasses up on her head. “You really have changed. I like it.”
I smiled back at her. I liked it too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you talking about me, princess?” Zack asked, sneaking up behind us and leaning down to kiss me.
I saw Rachel’s questioning stare when he pulled away, but thankfully she didn’t ask where the nickname had come from.
“We were just talking about high school,” she said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Aw, that’s no disappointment. I don’t need Emily airing all my secrets anyway,” he said, winking at me. He was so darn cute. “Don’t stop on m
y account though. I’d rather like to hear all about my girl in a cheerleading uniform, although I’m not really sure I can picture you bouncing around and yelling to the crowd to ‘get fired up’.”
He gave me a pointed look as Rachel laughed a big, raucous laugh. “Please, Emily was Ms. Cheerleader.”
Zack shook his head. “Not the Emily that I know,” he said, pulling me closer to him and kissing my neck, making me feel all gooey inside. “Too bad you don’t have that uniform here. I’ve never made out with a cheerleader before.”
“Really?” I asked, thinking that with as hot as he was, he definitely would have been part of the popular crowd in high school.
“Nah, I sort of did my own thing in high school. I was in a band, so the cheerleaders weren’t exactly into that scene.”
I could totally picture Zack as an indie-rocker in high school, wearing all black and not really fitting in with everyone else at his Asheville high school.
“Wait a minute,” Rachel said, sitting up quickly and looking at Zack. “You were in a band?”
He nodded. “Yeah, for about two years. We sucked though. We only played a few parties here and there, but we thought we were hot shit.”
Rachel squinted at him, as if she was trying to figure something out that didn’t quite fit. By the way Zack was looking at her, it seemed he knew she was onto him. And I was lost trying to figure out what insight Rachel had gleaned and what Zack could be holding back, my gaze shifting back and forth between the two of them.
“What was the name of your band?” Rachel asked him, sounding like an overly eager reporter.
“Out of Dodge,” Zack said coolly.
“You went to Duke right?” she questioned.
“Yes,” Zack said, and I could tell he was uncomfortable with her questioning.
I wanted to tell her to back off, but a part of me wanted to find out what her angle was.
“Were you also in a band while you were at Duke?”
Zack hesitated for a moment before saying curtly, “Yes, but we stopped playing together when my mom got sick again last year.”
“What was the name of your band, Zack?” Rachel asked coyly, completely side-stepping the awkward revelation he had just shared.
I could tell it was his way of telling her to stop with the third-degree, but she just ignored him. I could hear the intrigue in her voice, so I knew she wouldn’t stop until she confirmed what she was thinking.
“Liar’s Edge,” Zack finally muttered.
“What?!” I said, completely taken aback by what he’d just revealed.
Had I heard him correctly? He was in Liar’s Edge? Then it hit me, and I knew in that instant why he’d looked so familiar to me when we’d first met. He was the lead singer. Un-fucking-believable.
“I knew it! I knew you looked familiar, and I totally remembered your tattoo,” Rachel said, turning to me with a self-satisfied, smug look on her face, as if she’d solved a giant mystery. “I knew I recognized him.”
I gaped at her in disbelief, since she obviously couldn’t see how this revelation was tearing me to pieces. Zack had been lying to me all summer.
“He was totally hanging out in the kitchen shirtless the next morning,” Rachel continued. “And that tat was on full display.”
“And in the past few hours when you realized who he was, you didn’t think to tell me?” I asked, completely irritated that she would keep something that huge from me.
“I wanted to be sure,” she told me. “And now I’m sure.”
“Unbelievable,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, Em, but I didn’t want to blow everything all to hell if there was a chance I was wrong.”
Well, she’d certainly done that all right.
“Blow to hell. Now that’s one way to say it,” I said as I turned my glare on Zack, not sure if I should be mad or hurt or offended that he’d kept such a huge piece of himself from me.
All the color had drained from his face and he was staring at Rachel. “We slept together?” he asked hoarsely.
So that was why he thought I was upset. He obviously hadn’t pieced together the real reason, and I watched him blink a few times before he shifted his gaze over to me, his mouth hanging open slightly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to broach this realization with me.
“Relax,” I said coldly. “She slept with Derrick, not you, but it might have been nice if you’d told me you were in Liar’s Edge when I was going on and on about how much I loved them. It might have been prudent to say, ‘Hey, that’s actually my band, and that lead singer you were lusting after was me.’ I’m just saying.”
I was still trying to wrap my head around this new information as relief washed over Zack’s face for a split second before he realized I was upset with him for a completely different reason, and his face fell again.
Rachel, still not getting the impact of what she’d just revealed, burst out laughing at the idea of her sleeping with Zack, which I didn’t think was all that funny, but I was so focused on Zack that I didn’t have time to think about that. He was staring at me intently, an almost pleading look on his face, and I was staring back at him, completely fuming.
“Holy shit,” Rachel said, turning to me when she’d recovered. “I can’t believe you’ve been dating the lead singer of Liar’s Edge and you didn’t even know it. But by the look on your face, I can see that this isn’t really a funny situation. Actually, it’s kind of awkward. And maybe I should just shut up now.”
“Yeah, that might be a good idea,” I snapped at her.
Zack dropped his gaze to the sand and started kicking it around with his feet. I looked at him, willing him to make eye contact with me, but he wouldn’t do it.
“So, you’re the lead singer of Liar’s Edge?” I clarified, rather calmly in my opinion, considering how I was feeling.
Zack looked up at the harshness in my voice and met my gaze again, remorse filling his eyes. My focus shifted to the ‘LE’ tattoo on his arm, and suddenly everything clicked. I felt so stupid. The design surrounding the letters was the same design that was on the back cover of their album. I must have looked at that tattoo a hundred times over the summer wondering why it looked so familiar to me, and the answer had been right there all along.
I knew his face so well. I’d spent hours on the Liar’s Edge website two years earlier reading about the band and checking to see when their next show was scheduled. I’d seen his picture a thousand times, yet not once over the summer had I made the connection. But I had a feeling that was because I’d always considered him an untouchable, a rock god. Never in a million years would I have ever even remotely thought that my path would cross with his or that he’d ever be interested in someone like me.
“Yes, I was the lead singer of Liar’s Edge,” Zack said tightly, bringing me back to the present.
A dozen questions filtered through my mind. Why hadn’t he told me? He’d lied to me, or rather omitted the fact that he was the lead singer of a band he knew I loved. Why?
“Em, please don’t be mad,” he said when he saw the look on my face. He dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Um, yeah, so I don’t think mad is the word,” I said, the chill apparent in my voice. “I’d probably choose hurt, confused, and quite honestly a little excited, only because I can’t help it, but the other two are definitely overshadowing that last emotion.”
Zack reached for my hands, but I didn’t let him take them. Next to me, I could feel Rachel watching our exchange closely, wondering what the hell was going on. I knew she wanted to ask questions, but she thankfully held back.
“Leaving Liar’s Edge was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Zack said quietly. “I didn’t tell you about it because I don’t like to talk about it. Simply put, I had everything I ever wanted in my reach, and I had no choice but to give it up.”
God, the look in his eyes could have killed me. I could literally see how much he hated talking about his band. I knew he’d left because of hi
s mom, so even if the decision hurt him, we both knew it had been the right one.
“What happened?” Rachel asked, unable to keep quiet while Zack and I worked through this giant thing that was now between us.
Zack sighed as he sat down on edge of my towel, but he continued talking. “We had been scouted pretty heavily by some labels but hadn’t committed to any at that point. Then I found out my mom was sick again, and she was all alone. I didn’t have another choice. In an instant, I gave up my dream of being a musician, so I could take care of her, but I essentially crushed the dreams of my bandmates in the process. It was pretty selfish of me, and I’ve never really moved past it.”
I blanched at how hard he was being on himself and realized my reaction hadn’t helped anything when I’d been coldly glaring at him a few minutes earlier.
“They didn’t understand your reasoning?” I asked, wondering who these friends of his were.
He shook his head. “No, the guys completely understood, which actually made it harder. I think it would have felt better if they’d been pissed, but they couldn’t have been more supportive.”
“Do you regret it?” Rachel asked, as I silently reached out to take Zack’s hand, the anger I’d felt melting away. He looked grateful and relieved as he squeezed my hand in return.
“Every day and not at all,” he said, cryptically. “The decision I made was the right one, and I’d make it again if I had to, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss the music.”
“Do you play at all?” Rachel asked, and I wanted to stop her from prying, but she was asking the things I wanted to know too.
Zack shook his head. “Not my own stuff,” he said, wistfully. “I still write and compose music, but I haven’t played anything of mine in a while.”
I reached out and fingered the tattoo on his right forearm, the lyrics he’d written – Liar’s Edge lyrics – lyrics he never sang anymore. I knew instantly that he hated the carefree guy he had to transform into when he played at Phil’s Tavern. He did it for the money, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sang catchy cover songs because the crowd liked them, but it was writing and singing his own music that he could put his soul into. The closest he got was when he played his guitar at the beach, but even then he wasn’t singing his own stuff.
Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns) Page 25