Page 11 of The Perfect Blend
When I shut my book and looked up a few minutes later, he had folded his tall frame into the low seat of the reading nook, as suggested, book in hand. His coat hung on the hook next to him, and I was amused to see he was wearing a Christmas jumper that fit him just right.
“Glad to see you’ve dressed for the occasion,” I said, walking over.
He looked up and grinned. “Well, I figured I should make a bit of an effort to dress accordingly, since you’re so consistently on brand - right down to your library.” He said, holding up the book he was reading so I could see the cover. I burst into laughter, he’d actually gone and chosen one of the children’s books. I had searched high and low for coffee related children's books and was quite proud of the small selection I had managed to find. He had chosen “Koffy Kid”, a great little kids’ book explaining the history of coffee cultivation, and it was kind of cute to see him almost curled up with a children’s book in my reading nook.
“A very fine choice,” I said with a nod.
“I’m glad you approve. I thought I’d start with the basics, you’ve got to have a solid foundation if you’re serious about learning, you know.” He shut the book and placed it back on the shelf.
"I'm very pleased you're being so studious."
"I live to please," he said, standing up. The action brought him closer to me, and I had to tilt my head up slightly to look him in the eye.
"Did you bring your ladders?" I asked.
"Of course, show me where you want me and we can get to work."
Ignoring the totally inappropriate answers that flew through my brain in response, I took a step back to safety.
"I'll just get the lights and things, I’ll meet you out front." I said, as I beat a hasty retreat.
I grabbed the lights; he grabbed his ladders and in no time at all we were standing outside, side-by-side, contemplating the front of the shop.
"Where were you thinking of plugging them in?" He asked.
"I don't have an outside socket so I think I'll have to use the plug socket in my bedroom, that window there." I said, pointing to the leftmost window on the first floor.
"Alright, how do you want to go about this? I'm happy going up the ladders, but if you want to do it I can also be a very supportive ladder holder," he said.
"If you go up the ladders, I can pass you the lights from inside then nip back down to creatively direct?" I said, eyeing the ladders with trepidation. I'd rather not go up if I didn't have to, and hey if the guy was offering...
He laughed, "Sounds like a plan."
A few moments later, the lights were plugged in and passed through the window to Zach, along with a pouch of gutter hooks. I raced back down to stand at the bottom of the ladders to hold them steady, with Zach looking very at ease perched at the top, hanging up my Christmas lights. I couldn’t help by being a little taken in by his confidence and competence, especially when combined with that physique. I averted my eyes to focus on the lights and told myself not to be a perv and to ignore the stellar view of his arse. He was here to rekindle local connections to help his farm, not to be ogled at.
"It was such a surprise to see you again the other day, after all this time," I said. "What have you been up to all these years?"
Out here in the empty street, the shoppers long gone home, with Christmas lights already up on the surrounding shops, there was a cosy atmosphere to the cold night. The dark felt intimate, and with him safely turned away from me at the top of the ladder, it felt like the right time to ask the questions that had been taking up space in my head since the night before.
Zach let out a soft huff. "All sorts of things. Back down south I am a co-owner of a local produce co-operative, and I am also involved in a farm to table restaurant and a few outreach initiatives too. Ever since I left university, I suppose I've been trying to recreate the connection to the land and the community that I used to feel when I was here."
I was silently shocked. I'd expected some big hitter banker or someone who'd tired of city life and decided to come back here to escape from it all - how on earth could he finance a farm like Bluebell Ridge otherwise? And to find out he’d wanted to return all this time…
"How come you never came back?" I blurted out.
I hadn't meant to ask, and it sounded like an accusation just thrown out there. But we'd been so close, and one year he and his family went away and never came back. I'd asked Mr and Mrs Spencer up at the farm where they had gone, but only got vague answers and a sense that I was prying. It had been a jarring event, and I'd long wondered what had happened to him. Our friendship had just started blooming into something more, something my young teenage self had been over the moon with, and then he was gone and I got to sample my first taste of heartbreak. It had been overly dramatic, of course, I was only a kid, but the hurt was genuine. In my head I had concocted the story that maybe he and his family had simply become fed up with coming up here and had better things to do down south. That I was just as unimportant to him as the farm seemed to be.
Zach had finished the section of lights he had been working on and was descending the ladder. I'd chosen a rotten moment to voice such a question. Without the physical distance between us, I felt embarrassed for having asked. It was silly for me to pry, to ask a question that made me look like I was still holding onto childish hurt.
At the bottom of the ladder he turned to face me, and my heart stuttered at the raw look in his eyes.
“It’s complicated, Robin. I’m sorry I just disappeared like that and never gave you any explanation.”
It felt surreal to be getting answers from him. To see that maybe he hadn’t just disappeared into the ether and never given me another thought, like I had imagined. I’d looked him up on social media over the years but it was like neither he or his sister existed. I’d found their mum, actually, but there was no hint on her profile about what had happened to them. Until yesterday, I’d just assumed that Zach Spencer was a mystery I would never get answers to.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his thick curls. I recognised the movement as something he did when he was agitated. It was weirdly reassuring to see that he still had the same habits as his younger self.
“There was a big argument, and we had to leave the farm. It was messy and hurtful all round. My mum told us they had banned us from returning, and that we were never to come back. I became a very angry teenage boy with a lot of feelings I didn’t know what to do with.”
