Broken Fairytales (32 page)

I fell for him just a little more in that moment as I saw how alight his eyes were. Zack
wanted to get ice cream.
He wanted to do something so PG that it was ironic
but incredibly adorable at the same time.

“I love ice cream,” I said, feeling somewhat relieved that we were onto a lighter subject
, and that I wasn’t going to have to flex my bad g
irl muscles anymore that night.
I wasn’t great at it to begin with, so it was a relief to not have to pretend I was
. “Let’s go get ice cream.”

We
left the beach, walking back
to
where his bike was parked. That
time I knew what
to expect, so my apprehension wasn’t as prominent as I climbed
on
and wra
pped my arms around his waist.
I pressed my lips to his bare neck, letting them linger there for a few beats
, before I pulled my helmet back on
.
Zack smiled back at me before he kick-started the bike an
d took off faster than he had
before
, causing me to tighten my grip on him
.

He drove us back
to a more populated area
in
the main part of town
, parking the bike in the one of the spaces outside Sprinkles, one of the many ice cream parlo
rs on the island.
As we climbed off, he
took the helmet from my hands and s
et it on the back of the bike.
I re
alized I was shaking slightly.
Zack noticed too when he took my hand in his.

“Sorry,” he said, realizing that his excessive speed had freaked m
e out just a little. He took my
oth
er hand and looked down at me. “The speed helps me calm down.
I didn’t realize how fast I was going.”

“It’s okay,” I said, shaking
my head as I started to relax.
His proximity
was
serving a
s a calming agent.

“
Good
,” he said quietly, as sheepish l
ook crossing his face. “
I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I liked how close you got when I started to speed up.
I might have done it a little for that too.
” 

He let go of my hand and raised
his
to my face, tracing my jaw line with his
index finger.
I shivered involuntarily at the ultra-seductive movement
, taking
a step closer, loo
king deep into his light eyes.
I brought my hand to rest on his lower back
, underneath his t-shirt
.

“If you want
me to get closer, there are other ways to do it,” I said,
leaving my statement open-ended.
I gave him a
pointed look, dropped my
hand and tur
ned away, leaving him staring after me.
I started to walk toward the ice cream parlor,
smiling to myself
.

Zack ca
ught up with me,
his arms catching me around the waist as he pulled me back against his chest. His lips met the hollow of my neck, just above my collarbone.

“I’d be careful about saying things like,
princess,
” he said, his voice rough and urgent. “I don’t think you know what you’re insinuating.”

I spun in his arms, partly annoyed at
his
insinuation. “For the record, I know exactly what it means. Just because I look naïve, doesn’t mean I am.”

With that, I pulled out of his grasp and walked away from him, yanking on the door to the ice cream parlor. Zack followed behind me, his hand slipping into mine as he leaned down to whisper in my ear. Families were all around us, and I was sure he didn’t want them to hear what he was saying.

“I apologize for assuming,” he whispered, his warm breath tickling my cheek. “Please forgive me.”

When I looked up at him, he was giving me puppy dog eyes, and I couldn’t hold onto my resolve any longer. I laughed out loud, shaking my head at him.

“You are extremely conniving, mister,” I said, poking
him in the chest,
“especially when you apologize in that sexy voice of yours.”

He just smirked at me and gripped my hand tighter.
“You think my voice is sexy?”

I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Please, you know how girls feel about southern charm. Tell me you don’t use it to your advantage.”

“I have no idea what you’re referring too, ma’am,” he said, turning his accent up a few notches so he sounded really country.

He pulled me close and leaned down to kiss me, letting his lips linger on mine for just lo
ng enough that it affected me in
a way that was most inappropriate for our surroundings. When he pulled back and smiled at me, I had to take a few calming breaths to find my center again. Zack could tell and chuckled lightly as he pulled me back against his chest once again.

Once we got our ice cream, we sat at an outside table
that
wasn’t
crowded with
kids eating drippy cone
s, who seemed to be everywhere.
I methodically licked my two scoops of cookies and cream while
Zack
concent
rated on tackling his
three scoops of
coffee
, chocolate peanut butter and van
illa, which I thought was an boring
flavor to add into the mix, but he said you had to have vanilla to
balance out the other flavors which sort of made sense when you thought about it
.

As we
at
e
,
we let
the sexual tension drop away.
Zack opened up
and
told me more
about himself.
He was originally from Asheville, was
twenty-
four
and had
been a semester away from graduating
from
Duke
when his mom
had gotten sick
for the second time
.
He’d left
Durham after graduation
and had
gotten a job
at a bar on the island, playing cover songs a few nights a week
and bartending,
while simultaneously taking care of his mom.
He said he was still undecided
about his plans for the futur
e and whether he’d actually use his
psychology
degree
at any point
.

He told me about growing up
in Asheville, summering on the island, and
how his extended family
would
join them every summer
for a month
.
After his mom had gone into remission the first time, she’d decided to permanently move to their home in to the Outer Banks
.
He smiled when he talked about how happy she was to have her family there
again
that summer. Although e
veryone pretty much knew it was probably the last time they’d all be together
. They
didn’t
talk about i
t
, but it
was more of a subtle understanding
that hovered in the air at all
time
s
.

He
said
didn’t go out much, which
explained
why I hadn’t seen him
at every party
, since he liked to sta
y at home to keep his mom
company
.
But o
n the nights when she was too tired or realized that he’d been
at
home too long, she’d kick him out, telling him to
go out, have fun and be young. That night
had been one of those nights, but he hadn’t felt like going to a party, so he’d found his way to the beach instead.
He said he was an only child, which I interpreted to mean that he w
as bearing the full brunt of his mother’s
illness
, but had to think it was a relief to have his aunts there to help that summer
. 

I was blown away with all that
he’d gone through compared to me in al
most the same amount of years.
It was
no wonder he seemed so mature.
He’d dealt with so many more ad
ult situations than I ever had.

“What does your tattoo say?” I asked, seemingly catching him off-guard.

“Which one?”

“How many do you have?” I’d just seen the one peekin
g out from his shirt-sleeve
and the script on his arm. Were there more? How much did I want to go on a hunt to find them all?

“I’ve got a few,” he said leaning back in his chair.

“I was talking about the script on your arm.”

He nodded slowly but pulled back his sleeve to reveal the lines etched into his skin.

“When you have nothing left to lose. When there’s nothing left to gain. You find yourself at the edge of the world, wishing nothing would have changed,” I read and instantly got a twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“All you can do is jump,” he said, and I looked up at him in confusion.

“What?”

“That’s the next line in the song.”

“These are lyrics?”

He nodded.

“Did you write them?”

He nodded again and swallowed hard.

“They’re beautiful.”

“Thanks,” he said, but it came out strained
, and he quickly moved his hand to his lap, so the lyrics were out of my line of sight
.

I instant
ly knew I needed to change the subject
and fast. As much as I was dying to know more about the song, what inspire
d
it and
what
the rest of the lyrics
were
, I knew it wasn’t the right time. I opened my mouth to ask a different question, but Zack beat me to it. H
e asked about me, and
because I knew it was the only thing that might flip his mood around,
I told him, and I didn’t hold back.

By the time we’d finished our ice cream, I felt like I knew him on a leve
l that I’d never known Ben on.
I felt like th
ere was so much more to him than
on the surface, where with Ben,
what you saw was what you got.
It wasn’t a bad thing, it just wasn’t as exciting.

We
rode back to his house, but when I started to say goodnight, I realized he wasn
’t going to let go of my hand.
H
e walked me back to my house
instead, and w
e talked the whole way, almost as if it were im
possible for us
to run out of things to say
.
It was still early when we reached my house, and the whole place wa
s dark, so I knew it was safe.
I invited him in to watch a movie, and was grateful when he accepted, as I could tell he didn’t want the night to end either.

I flipped on lights as I moved through the house, wishing my mom would have at least left
one on when she left to go to the Wednesday night book club she’d joined
at the library
.
We went into the den where
the comfy couch
and the b
ig TV
were
but never made it to the mo
vie.
Zack put his arms around me
as
soon as we got into the room.

He kissed me
deeply, his strong arms pulling me to him. His hands moved under my sweatshirt, grazing my skin and leaving trails of heat in their wake. I let my hands slide into his back pockets and pulled him closer still, and he groaned slightly. Before I knew what was happening, his lips moved to my neck and my head fell back. I sighed as he kissed his way down my collarbone.

“Are you sure y
ou want
this?” he asked
, his voice sounding just a little breathless as he pulled back and looked at me
.
“It’s
not too late for me to leave.
I don’t want to ruin something for you.”

I looked up into his
eyes,
his dark
hair framing his face,
thinking
that it was already too late.
I sighed and looked down
in an effort to gather my thoughts.
Then I looked back up at him
and decided right then and there what I was going to do.