Page 24 of Sweet Tooth
“But you know Zane,” Tamara said. “How protective he’s always been on you.”
I snorted. “Protective enough to abandon me for seven years.”
She said nothing, although I was pretty sure I could hear the riffling of something – whatever Tamara was cleaning.
Even though she and Peter were as rich as royalty, she still liked to clean now and again. It was what she did when she was stressed.
“Tam,” I said, suspicious now. “What aren’t you telling me?”
A sharp exhale of breath. “Jess…”
“What is it?”
“He made me promise not to.”
“Promise not to tell me what?” I asked, genuinely shocked.
“It’s been so long Jess. There’s no point,” she said, a note of irritation in her voice now.
“No point in what?”
“In telling you that he did check in. A few times over the most recent years, actually.”
“And you never told me?”
“I wanted you to move on. We both did.”
“So you both decided that you knew what was best for me?” I had stopped in front of my mini-fridge in the break room.
“You had finally moved on and I didn’t want you to backslide. Neither did he. He just wanted to know you were ok.”
“And what exactly did you tell him?” I asked, looking at a picture of her and I that I had on my little desk and wondering how she could have kept it from me.
“Just that you were doing fine, that you had your business and that you were ok.”
“So all that time when I thought he didn’t actually give a shit about me, he’d been making sure I was ok? And you couldn’t tell me?”
“Would it have made you happy?” Tamara said sharply. “Or would it have made letting go even harder?”
I fell silent. She had a point. What had forced me to let go of Zane was the finality of it all. Years with no contact, no anything, despite his promises. Seven years.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” she said quietly. “A few times I tried to tell him to just reach out to you, but he didn’t want to hear it. Said you were better off without him, at least for now. Said he wasn’t going to break up your family.”
“You told him about Paul and Parker?” I said.
“No,” she said. “He called up a few years back already knowing about them. He asked if you were happy. Things were on the rocks with you two then, and I told him so. He just thanked me and hung up.”
“So that mystery is solved, then,” I said. “That’s how he knew to come now. He knew I was alone.”
“Maybe,” Tamara said. “Anyway, I’m done being your guys’ go-between. I never meant to tell Zane anything, I swear. When he called up, he seemed so miserable though.”
“Tell me about it,” I snapped. “He wasn’t the one who got left behind, though. That was me.”
Silence. Then, “Jess, I think you should give him a chance.”
“A chance to do what?” I asked. “Break my heart again? Well guess what, you both got your wish. Zane and I slept together last night and now he hasn’t texted, so I feel like shit. Happy now?”
She was saying something when I hung up. I ripped open the mini-fridge door.
Inside was a single apple, a mocking reminder of my vague intention to eat healthier.
“Shit,” I muttered, slamming the door shut.
And I’d introduced him to Parker, who was already totally taken with him.
“Shit.”
Just how many of my own rules was I going to break for this man?
My phone beeped, and I somehow knew without checking.
“Shit.”
It was Zane. Can I see you tonight? My cousin’s sitter can watch Parker if you need She’s great with kids and highly recommended.
I stared at the message until my phone screen went dark.
What I wanted was obvious. The way my heart had leapt left no doubt there.
But what if what I wanted was the wrong thing and could destroy everything I’d worked so hard to build? It had taken me years to get over Zane, was I really willing to give all of that up?
A jingle at the front door had me hurrying out to the front. It never failed that a customer came in when I was about to eat. I stepped out front with my best customer service smile plastered on my face, until I saw who was standing there.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not stalking you, and you can say no, it’s just, I wanted to see you. We didn’t get a chance to talk this morning.”
He shifted his weight, fixing his gaze on the chocolate display. “Plus, my secretary wants another one of those chocolate caramels of yours if you have any more.”
“We do,” I said. My voice was all bunched up, so I just focused on transferring it to a paper bag. “Just one?”
“How about you make it an even dozen?”
