Page 16 of Sweet Tooth
“You really did it,” he said finally. “Started your own business.”
“Yes,” I said guardedly. “It took a while and it isn’t killing it yet, but it’s still in just the early stages.”
Zane bobbed his head in understanding. “Of course. They say most businesses take two years to just break even. You know how many years it took me to get Smarty Pens up and off the ground?”
I stared at him. Was that really the reason he thought so valid for not having sought me out earlier – he couldn’t see me until his business was making six figures?
His smile quirked. “I’m getting ahead of myself, though.” He took something out of his pocket, then held it out to me. “This is what I do now.”
I accepted it warily, turning it in my hand. “You make pens.”
“Not just any pens. These are Smart pens. Go on. Try it.”
His hand glanced across mine and I twitched.
“Press the first button on the side,” Zane said.
I did so, then jumped as the pen glided out of my hand, standing ramrod straight.
“You can use it like a normal pen – but it has some added features too,” Zane said. “Try pressing the second side button.”
I did so, then moved my hand quickly away, as the pen, by itself, wrote: I hope Jess likes my Smarty Pen.
I couldn’t help it – I giggled.
Zane grinned. “You can program it to write down certain repetitive words, like your signature, for example. If you have a memory stick, you can even plug in whole paragraphs or pages of material at a time, and it’ll fill out a sheet of paper, with sensors to see where each line ends and begins.”
“Wow,” I said, eyeing the thing.
“Silicon Valley’s been eating it up,” Zane confessed, his face shining. “I started out in New York, then moved to California. Only recently did I set up a base here.”
“In Niagara Falls,” I found myself saying dubiously.
“Why not?” His smile was easy, the smile of the successful and unstressed. “Even if this isn’t the most tech-savvy place, it’s where I grew up. Home. Where a lot of things happened for me.”
His gaze probed mine, expecting something. But what?
Did he actually think that some cool successful pen had changed my mind about him?
I eyed him. “What are you doing here, Zane?”
“Do you really not know?”
Damn him and his dark chocolate eyes.
Even that first time in Miss Weiner’s class all those years ago, he’d looked at me the same way. With the same unwavering, intimidating certainty.
“No,” I said, though we both knew I was lying.
“I’m here for you,” he said. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”
7
Zane
Her reaction was nonexistent. She just kept on staring at me as if I hadn’t yet responded.
To be fair, I hadn’t explained myself fully. Not yet.
“Cutting out the drinking was harder than I expected, and when I tried coming for you…”
I paused. Maybe Jess was tired of the past and just wanted to see evidence that I was genuine now.
“You hardly know me now,” she said simply. “It’s been seven years, Zane. I’m not the same girl you left.”
One look at her and that much was obvious. The more certain set of her shoulders, the careful way she held her eyes. My Jessica wasn’t. mine anymore. But was she really completely gone?
“And you won’t give me a chance to know the new you?” I said. “I’m not the same Zane who left, either. And when I did leave, I thought I was doing it for you.”
“Leaving me alone with a head injury and a shit support system at home was for my own good?”
“I just didn’t want you giving up anything for me. And after the crash…” My thumb stubbed a bit of lemon that had fallen from my water into the white tablecloth.
Even now, I had nightmares of her unconscious form under the hulking twisted maw of the car. The sirens and spangled lights like some sort of horror carnival ride.
“Thanks to me, you almost died.”
Just then, the waiter turned up with our meals. We fell silent, arranging our faces to pleasant expressions as he set down the spread. It really did look delicious, though I had lost my appetite.
“Jessica,” I said quietly. “You had to see that I wasn’t in a good place then. I needed some time.”
“Seven years is not some time,” she snapped. She snatched up her fork and began stabbing it into her dinner. “Not by the latest definition.”
“I missed you too,” I muttered, finally digging into my food as well. She made no response. Not for a while after, either. We both ate in silence. Until, pausing to take a drink of water, she dug out her phone and shoved it in my face.
“Want to know more about me? First thing you should know about is my son, Parker. The most important thing to me in the world.”
