Overlooked(1)(43)

“I don’t know,” Zane says.

“You like me, right?” I hold his gaze as steadily as I can, and Zane nods after a moment.

“And you like me?” I half-smile wryly.

“I guess you could call it that,” I joke.

“So we like each other, and the sex is good. But we… aren’t in a place where we can see each other,” Zane says.

I nod.

“So I guess for right now we’re just going to… I don’t know. Put this on hold?” I scrub at my face with my fingertips. I don’t know what I was expecting when I told Zane we needed to talk, but it was at least that we would come to some kind of conclusion about things.

“We’ll talk about it after the dinner,” Zane suggests.

“And how are we going to get through the dinner?”

We look at each other for a few moments.

“We won’t even bring it up. We’ll pretend nothing happened, I guess,” he says.

“That is never going to fly and you know it,” I say.

“What else can we do at this point?” I bite my bottom lip.

“At least we’re not going to be screaming at each other, right? What will you tell your dad if he asks about this?”

“We won’t need to scream at each other,” Zane said.

“And your dad?”

“I’ll tell him that I talked to you.”

I sigh.”What if he asks you about what conclusion we came to? I mean, he’s probably going to want to know.”

Zane shrugs. “I’ll say it’s between us.”

I laugh, because I know there’s no way to get my mom to accept that answer if she asks me. But there’s nothing more that either of us can do. “Okay, then. We’ll just… keep radio silence on it, I guess,” I say.

“Are you just going to leave?”

“There’s nothing more to talk about, is there? Yeah, I’m going to leave.”

Zane grabs my upper arm, and draws me tight against him. His eyes search mine for a moment, and he smooths back my hair. I’m frozen in his arms, my heart beating ninety miles an hour, my core aching for him but knowing I can’t do anything about it.

“You’re right,” he says, and gives me a kiss. It’s a tender kiss at first, but then I feel him pull me to him and I know he wants me as much as I want him.

I don’t know what he’s referring to as being right. Everything, I suppose. The most right thing of all is his touch and what it does to me.





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE





ZANE LEWIS



“It’s such a nice night out,” Mom remarks as the three of us walk across the lawn to go to the Polsens’ place. “I’m glad we’re closing out our anniversary week this way.”

“It should be a nice, restful end of the week,” Dad says, looking at me. He didn’t ask me how the talk with Harper had gone, but I knew it was probably weighing on him almost as much as it was on me.

I know I’m about to have to deal with Nadine and Harper for at least the next few hours. Harper and I left things so up in the air that I don’t know what we’re going to do other than avoid talking about anything personal all night. And how is that going to go?

I find myself tugging at my tie, at my pants. I haven’t done that since I went into basic. I know I’m nervous when I can’t keep myself from fidgeting. Just take a chill pill, Zane. You’ll get through tonight, and whatever is going on between you and Harper, you can figure out later.

“Bev, Nolan, Zane!”

I can see the tension in Nadine’s eyes when she greets us at the door, but she’s got a smile on her face so I know there’s no point in saying anything about anything. It’s going to be a night of faking it until I make it.

“Thank you so much for doing this, Nadine,” Mom says, leaning in to kiss her on either cheek. I shake hands with Marshall, and wave at Harper. When it comes time for me to kiss Nadine on the cheek, she barely lets me get close enough.

“Nadine has been hard at work since last night,” Marshall says, leading us all into the dining room, and I take a few quick breaths, glancing at Harper to see how she’s doing. In spite of the composed look in her face, I can tell she still feels it.

Tonight is going to be interesting as hell.

“I remembered how you always go on about the first meal you had on your honeymoon together, so I wanted to recreate that for you,” Nadine says, and Mom’s eyes widen.

I look at Harper again. In spite of us coming to some kind of almost-agreement that we’re going to basically pretend like the past several days didn’t happen, I can’t stop myself from looking at her.