Black Falcon: Complete Series Collection (57 page)

“I’d like that.” I twirl a noodle around my fork and pop it into my mouth. “Mmmm. This is so good.”

He grins. “I’m glad you like it.”

The question of what’s happened in his past still lingers on my mind. If his mother killed herself over the grief of the loss of her daughter, why does Zach’s father blame him for their deaths? Suicide is a personal choice kind of thing. It isn’t like Zach made her do that. Something about the whole situation doesn’t add up and while he’s being so sharing I might as well try to figure out the mystery behind this man.

“Can I ask you something else?” I ask quietly.

Zach takes a drink of his water and says, “You can ask me anything you want and I’ll try to be as honest as I can with you.”

“It’s about your sister...” He freezes up again at the mention of bringing up his sister again. I’m starting to see the pattern with that every time I ask something about her. It’s almost as if he’s afraid to talk about her. “What happened to her?”

He sets his glass on the bar in front of us. “She died in a car crash.”

At first I think those kinds of tragic accidents happen every day. I still don’t see how Zach’s dad blames him for any of this.

Zach traces patterns in the condensation on the glass and I worry he’s shutting down again until he opens his mouth and continues. “There was a guy in my high school—a real know-it-all type jackass, and he kept taunting me with his flashy new Mustang. I always tried my best to ignore petty bullshit like that, but this guy was able to get under my skin like no other. He talked so much shit everyday about how his car would smoke my Camaro in a race, that one day it finally got to me.”

This is not the story I was expecting from him and I’m perplexed on where he’s going with this. “So what happened?”

He sighs. “I told him I’d race him after school to get him to shut the fuck up.”

I crunch my brow. “How did that involve Hailey?”

He stares down at the counter and takes a deep breath. “I was responsible for driving Hailey home from school. Instead of making her wait at a playground or something while I raced, I kept her in the car with me.” He frowns. “I thought she was safer with me than alone at a park. There’s so many weirdo creeps. I didn’t want one to come along and take my eight year old sister, you know.”

My heart leaps up into my throat as everything starts clicking. Hailey’s death. The fact Zach’s sterile. “There was a crash?”

He nods. “It was a two lane road. An oncoming car forced me off the road and I hit an embankment and the car flipped us about five times. I broke an arm and fractured my pelvis. Doctors said I was lucky to even be alive because I was so mangled. Most of the damage was on Hailey’s side, though. She was gone on impact and it was all my fault.” He sucks in a deep breath and he starts choking up. “I never meant to hurt her.”

I rub his back and place my chin on his shoulder as my heart aches to comfort him. “I’m sorry.”

Zach wipes away a fallen tear. “Thank you, but I don’t deserve sympathy. I should’ve died, too.”

“You were just a kid,” I say softly. “Kids make bad choices, doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to grieve.”

“But it’s my fault she’s dead. I’ll never be able to forgive myself for what I did. My parents never did. I killed their baby.” He sniffs.

“Don’t say that. It was an accident,” I try to ease his burden.

He shakes his head. “My own mother said that at my trial. She told the court to punish me to the fullest extent of the law for killing her baby.”

I gasp and clutch my chest. “You went to jail over this, too?”

“Juvenile prison and my license was suspended until I was twenty five, but I think they let me off light. I deserve to still be rotting in that jail cell.”

“It was an accident, Zach. You didn’t mean to hurt her. You have to learn to forgive yourself,” I say.

“I don’t think I ever will. The best I can hope for is little moments of forgetting, like my time with you.” He stares into my eyes. “When I’m with you, I don’t feel as shitty about my life. You give me hope that I can maybe one day be a better person.”

I place my hand on his arm. “You’re already a good person. You have a good heart. I know that. You need to know it, too.”

He sets his hand on mine that still rests on his forearm. “I’m trying, but deep down I think I know I don’t deserve anything good.”

I stand and wrap my arms around his neck. He squeezes me around the waist in a tight embrace and we hold each other, connecting without words.

This man is far more complex than I thought. I’m glad he trusts me enough to tell me his story, but I get the feeling that he hasn’t known real love in a long time, and that explains so much. It answers the question on why he’s never settled down even though he’s got a good heart.

I’m going to show him that he’s capable of giving and receiving love. He deserves to know he can.

I
put away all the groceries I bought from the local shop. I’m excited. Before I leave in the next couple days, I’m going to teach Aubrey how to cook one of Mom’s specialties, chicken and noodles. Granted we aren’t making the noodles from scratch like Mom did, but these frozen ones will work out nicely.

Waiting on Aubrey to get back from work is more difficult than I thought. I filled my days with sleeping or shopping while she’s at work, not the most glamorous tour break I’ve ever had, but it’s been the most rewarding. Our connection keeps getting better, even after day four with her—I’m still not annoyed. Matter of fact it’s the opposite. I want to spend every second with her, which is so unlike me.

I begged her to blow off the rest of the week and spend all her time with me, but she’s too responsible for that. Center Stage is a huge advertising firm, and she explained how she’s lucky she even has a foot in the door considering how competitive it is to even get an internship there, let alone a job. She’s a secretary to some young, hot-shot type. From the way Aubrey described him, he sounds like an uptight pain in the ass.

I could never work for a douche like that without telling him to shove his memo corrections up his ass.

I plop down on the couch in the living room after all the stuff is stored and flip on the television. Some afternoon celebrity tabloid show pops up on the screen. It catches my eye immediately because Noel and Lanie’s faces fill the screen in a kiss while a jagged line cuts down part of the screen and shows Sophie walking with her head down. The words home wrecker flashes and my fingers tighten around the remote.

These fucking tabloid shows never get their shit straight. The shit they tell the world is half-truths at best.

A text message chimes into my phone. I grin as I read Aubrey’s words. “Miss you. Be there in a few minutes.”

Never in a million years did I ever figure I would feel like this. For once in my miserable life I don’t feel like a completely evil being all the time. And Aubrey didn’t go running for the hills when I came clean about my past, which was a relief. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost this feeling so soon after getting a taste of what happiness feels like.

The door opens and Aubrey steps through it. Her auburn hair styled into loose waves over her shoulders stand out against her gray sweater-dress. Even after eight hours of work she still looks amazing.

“Hey,” she says with a smile. Her bright green eyes focus on me as she sets her bag down and plops down next to me on the couch and snuggles into my side. “I missed you.”

I comb my fingers down her silky hair and then kiss her forehead. I don’t even want to think about how much I’ll miss her when I head back out on tour. I know distance is the true test of all relationships.

“Do you want a break from cooking tonight?”

I pull back and she peers up at me through her sexy, long eyelashes. “Why? Are you tired of my cooking already?”

She shakes her head. “No. I thought maybe you wanted to take a break and we can go out to eat.”

I shrug. “I’m okay with cooking, but if you want to go out, we can do that, too.”

“There’s a place around the corner that I love—really low key, and has my favorite pizza in the whole world.”

“Sounds good, Kitten. Anything you want.”

She kisses my cheek. “I’m going to go get ready.”

An hour later, she comes out of her room in jeans, a black top, and tall heels. She stops and grins as she does a little turn so I can check out her entire outfit. The black blouse dips down so low I can see the small of her back. “Jesus. Are you sure you want to go out. I’m sporting a half-wood just looking at you.”

She grins. “Then this is perfect. I like making you wait because I don’t think you’re used to that.”

I stand and wrap my arms around her, pressing myself against her. “I’m not used to anything like you.” A blush floods her cheeks. “I like that you can’t hide emotions. Your fair skin gives you away every time.”

She giggles and kisses my lips. “I’m glad I stand out.”

“You have no idea how much.”

The restaurant is tiny, almost to the point that if I weren’t aware of it, I would’ve never found it. Ten small, two-person tables fill the dimly lit dining area and the rest of the space is brick ovens and kitchen. Customers picking up carryout orders stream in and out of the door in constant revolution. The heavenly aroma of melted cheese and simmering sauce surrounds us as we take out seats.

“It smells good,” I say.

Kitten smiles as she opens the sticky menu. “That’s because it’s awesome. Once you try it, you’ll see.”

The dark-haired waitress wearing a red and white checkered apron pops over to our table. “What’ll it be?”

“I’ll have a Coke,” Aubrey answers.

“Make that two,” I add.

The server yanks a green notepad from her apron pocket and cracks her gum. “Do you know what kind of pizza you want?”

I glance over at Kitten. “I can eat anything, so order whatever you like.”

“We’ll have a pepperoni with extra cheese, please.”

The waitress scribbles the order down and says, “It’ll be out in a few.”

The girl scurries off in the direction of the kitchen and once she’s out of earshot I turn towards Aubrey. “Did you have a good day at work?”

She shrugs. “Same old same, you know. I did get to type up a couple memos for the Black Falcon account, so at least I was allowed to think about you all day.”

I bite my lip and rake my eyes over her. The idea of her having dirty thoughts about me all day at work is nearly enough to make me say fuck the pizza. “What exactly was I doing in these daydreams?”

She giggles. “Lots of things...”

Her words trail off and that only excites me more. “Care to elaborate? I hope it’s kinky. You know I like it when you’re like that.”

As she opens her mouth to speak, her eyes widen as she glances over my shoulder. I turn to find a guy wearing a yellow, polo shirt and pressed khakis at my left. The shirt nearly matches the color of his perfectly styled hair. He reminds me of Hailey’s perfectly plastic
Ken
doll only with glasses.

“Hey, Aubrey. I didn’t know you frequented this place,” Ken doll says while completely overlooking the fact that I’m sitting right here.

Kitten sits a little straighter in her chair. “It’s one of my favorites. Isaac, this is my...” She gestures to me but trails off unsure of what to call me.

Things click. This is Isaac, as in her douche bag of a boss that grates on her nerves. I stick my hand out to the dude. “Boyfriend. Riff. What’s up, bro.”

I’m not sure whose eyebrows raise higher, Kitten or Issac’s when I proclaim our relationship status for the first time to a stranger. I want people to know she’s taken. Might as well start with her boss, because I can see the way he’s looking at her. This fucker needs to know to keep his dick in his pants.

He grips my hand and gives it a firm shake. “Good to meet you. I actually work at Center Stage. I’ve had a hand in helping out with your charity project alongside Lanie Vance. I didn’t know you knew Aubrey personally.”

His eyes flick over to Aubrey’s face and she merely shrugs under his gaze like she’s been caught in something. “It never came up.”

Isaac’s eyes never leave her and instantly I feel a surge to protect what’s mine come over me. I need to get rid of this joker before I lose my cool. “Okay, well, good to meet you. She’ll see you at work then.”

Aubrey flinches at the sudden short tone of my voice and then turns back to her boss with an apologetic smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Isaac.”

Isaac stands there for a moment like he’s debating something before he nods. “Tomorrow it is, then.”

The minute he walks away Aubrey turns towards me with a frown. “Why did you do that?”

I lean in further towards her. “Because I saw the way that Ken doll looked at you. I want him to know up front that he can’t have you.”

She squares her shoulders. “I’m perfectly capable of handling things on my own, and don’t call him that.”

“What?
A Ken doll
?”

“Yes!” she snaps. “It’s rude.”

I lean in. “Have you not seen the guy? He looks Barbie’s fake fucking boyfriend. Too perfect to be real.”

She rolls her eyes. “He does not, besides he won’t try anything if he knows I’m with someone. He’s not that type of man.”

I shake my head. “Sometimes guys need a little more deterrent than a polite no from a woman for the message to sink in that she’s not interested. Take us for example. That first night in the hall, your mouth said no, but your body said yes. I’m keeping things clear in this case. You’re mine, Kitten. You said so yourself. Now it’s time the world knew.”

Admitting my feelings about claiming her out loud makes me seem a little cavemanish but I don’t give a shit. I want her. The thought of another man thinking about fucking her is enough to drive me over the edge.

I wait for her to be pissed and tell me that I don’t own her and all that crap that I’ve seen women spout when their men try to control them, but Aubrey does quite the opposite. She smiles.

“I hope you know that goes two ways.” She eyes me carefully. “If we’re exclusive then that means no other women for you.”