Chapter Eleven

Go back to work.

Yeah, that was the plan. That’s exactly what Zach needed to do. Tomorrow. Tonight, he needed to make sure Jenna was okay and would still be okay when he left her. Bringing up her parents? Not a big advancement toward that goal.

“You hungry?” he asked. “We could go back to the resort and order room service.”

“What about that place?” Jenna asked, nodding to a bar across the street. He could see neon beer signs in the windows. “Maybe they have food.”

He looked at Jenna’s face and clothes. “They’ll have a washroom at least.” The paint was drying on his skin, and it really was getting itchy. “No cab driver is going to let us into his car like this.”

“Good point,” she said. “Let’s check it out. We can wash up, have a drink, and see if there’s a menu.”

They crossed the street and crunched across the gravel driveway of the bar. There weren’t many cars in the lot, but then again, it was Monday night. He would have used his phone to check the reviews if Jenna hadn’t already been pulling the door open.

Inside was pretty dark, and classic rock played on the jukebox. An L-shaped bar took up the left side of the room, but there were tables and a small stage to the right, and through a doorway, there looked to be a pool table and maybe dart boards. A few people lounged at the bar. They looked like locals rather than tourists, dressed in jeans and old T-shirts instead of what Marcy had called resort wear. The smell of grease was just as strong as the beer smell, so he assumed they did have food. Even though they were covered in paint, they didn’t even score a sideways glance from the other patrons.

“There’s the bathroom,” Jenna said, gesturing to a doorway leading to a short, darkened hallway straight across from the door. The doors were marked “chicks” and “cocks.”

“Awww. You’re a cock,” she said, grinning. “Be careful in there.” She pushed through the “chicks” door and disappeared.

Zach cautiously opened the other door and took a whiff. So far so good. He went straight to the sink, washed his hands, and then got a paper towel from the dispenser, wet it, and went to work on his face in the age-blemished mirror. His shirt was beyond hope, and his hair would require a significant amount of shampooing, but at least the paint was off his hands and face.

When he finished, Jenna was still in the bathroom, so he picked out a table near the jukebox. The place was kind of shabby but seemed to be relatively clean. Plastic-covered menus were pinioned between the napkin dispenser and the salt and pepper shakers, and he plucked one out.

“Anything good?” Jenna asked, drying her hands on her skirt. The paint was gone from her face, but flecks of it still rested in her curls. Her lips were a little pink, like she’d put on some gloss or something. Her eyes were bright and laughing, despite his verbal stumble bringing up her dead parents.

Jenna shrugged out of the little white sweater she’d been wearing, and Zach couldn’t help but stare. The casual dress had gone from cute and sweet to pure sex within the space of a heartbeat. The thin straps and plunging neckline exposed her neck, shoulders, and a good part of her chest. It was low cut enough for him to realize she wasn’t wearing a bra. On a delicate silver chain, a tiny diamond hummingbird hovered between her breasts. That was as much as his brain registered before it short-circuited.

“Zach?” she asked, and he realized she’d probably figured out he’d totally been staring.

He swallowed hard, really trying to get it together. The near-miss kiss back in the studio had been a close call. If she’d taken the sweater off back there, well, there was probably no amount of money he could have passed Mrs. Reynolds that could make her unsee what Zach and Jenna would have gotten up to.

“Nice necklace,” he said in a hoarse croak, admonishing himself not to stare.

“Thanks,” she said, touching the delicate chain. “It was my mom’s. She loved hummingbirds, and I do, too.”

Well, hell. He’d stumbled right back to the dead parents again. He really should not leave his office. Ever.

“What about your family?” Jenna asked. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Yes,” he said, glad to focus on something besides Jenna’s breasts and the lucky little bird hovering between them. “I have two brothers and a sister. My sister just had a baby, so I’m an uncle now.”

“Lucky,” she said. “I’m an only child.”

“One bathroom,” he said. “And my grandparents lived with us, too. Aba and Tito.”

“Those are their names?”

“It’s a shortened version of the Spanish for ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa.’”

“Must have been nice to have so much family around, though,” she said. “I’ll bet you were never bored. Or lonely.”

“You can be lonely in a room stuffed with people,” he said. “Population doesn’t necessarily determine that.”

“You’re not close to them, then?” She frowned, as if disappointed in him.

“We’re not, not close,” he said. “I just…I left home at eighteen for college and haven’t ever really spent a lot of time at home since. I love them all dearly. They all live near Phoenix, and I do miss them. I’m just…busy.”

“Holidays?”

“Always had to work holidays in college,” he said. “My family wasn’t wealthy, not like yours or Elliot’s. I was a scholarship kid. I needed every dollar I could scrounge.”

“What do your parents do?”

“My grandparents on my dad’s side immigrated from Chile when they were first married. Tito opened a garage where he and my dad worked until Dad retired a few years ago. Mom was a teacher. Fourth grade.”

He wasn’t ashamed of his parents. They were good people, hard-working and clever to make their income stretch to feed and clothe four kids. But it wasn’t exactly something he talked about in the circles he’d been frequenting since starting IDS with Elliot. It made wealthy people uncomfortable to discuss working-class struggles, as insane as that was.

“It must be fun to work around all the kids,” she said wistfully. “My dad was an investments guy. Mom was the typical socialite, involved in charities and such. They were good parents. And I know they loved me, even though I spent a lot of time with nannies and tutors and household staff. They were just kind of busy with their own lives, you know?”

Zach nodded. He did. Only his parents were busy working to put food on the table, not jet-setting around the globe.

“Are your grandparents still living with your parents?”

“No, they moved into a retirement home last year. And they are loving it.”

“You should visit more,” she said, not meeting his eyes as she studied the menu. “You never know when—well, you should visit more.”

“You’re right.” She was. Just thinking about what Jenna must have gone through…it must have been awful.

“They have cheese curds,” Jenna squealed. “We have to order them.”

“Whatever you want,” he said, putting his menu back.

They decided on a pizza, the cheese curds, and beer. Bottled for Zach, tap for Jenna.

“So about the list,” he said, pulling it out of his wallet.

“I can’t believe you kept it.”

“Kinda hard to check things off the list without a list.”

The waitress delivered their beers, and Zach borrowed a pen from her.

“So we can mark off the anti couples’ yoga,” he said.

“Check.”

Jenna was bouncing in her chair to the beat of an eighties’ song that had been popular before she was even born.

“What?” she asked when she caught Zach staring at her. “How can you listen to Eddie Money and not dance?”

“Pretty easily, actually. We need to focus here.” He went back to the list. “Anti towel animals—check.”

She took the page from him. “Dinner on the beach. I’d say pizza and beer at a dive bar pretty much covers that one.”

“Now we’re cooking,” he said, marking that off the list, too. “That leaves sunset beach portraits and couples’ massage. Why did you choose beach portraits? You were going to have professional wedding photos, right?”

Jenna sipped her beer, still seat dancing. She was so adorable, and her energy was addictive. It would be so easy to lean across the small table right now and see if she tasted as sweet and sexy as she looked.

“Those are all formal,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I wanted something that was more casual and fun. Something that would capture the real me.”

“So, what’s the anti portrait?”

“It’s fine, Zach. Really. You don’t have to plan everything for me.”

“And the massage. That’s a tough one to anti, too.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed.”

“Well, you can’t leave a list only partially checked.”

“The horror,” Jenna said, standing up. “Come on, let’s dance.”

Eddie Money had found his tickets to paradise, and the jukebox had moved on to ABBA.

“I’m not a dancer,” he said. “But you go ahead.”

“Not even the awkward prom shuffle?”

“Nope.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You shoved me out of my comfort zone with the boxing thing. It’s your turn.”

Zach looked around the room. A couple of the guys at the bar had turned around on their stools and were looking at Jenna. If he didn’t dance with her, one of those guys might think she was fair game and looking for a partner. “Come on. It’s your last night here.”

“Fine,” he said, thankful no one who worked for him would ever see this. If Marcy thought the resort wear would have shocked them, this would have convinced everyone at his office that he’d been body-snatched. “But I’m no dancing queen.”

“This isn’t ‘Dancing Queen.’” She was already moving to the beat and gyrated to the open space between the stage and their table. She reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He put his hands on her hips and swayed, hoping that would be enough.

“I can’t believe you get away with this when you attend all those fancy-dress charity balls,” she said. “You should take lessons. I bet you’d be a great dancer.”

“I only attend those things when I can’t think of an excuse not to go, and I mostly hang out at the bar. They care about my checkbook, not my turkey trot.”

“So you never have any fun?”

“Not really.” Sweat gathered on the back of his neck. Jenna was so close, and although she wasn’t smashed against his front, they occasionally bumped thighs. Her hair bounced as she moved, releasing that sweet coconut smell he’d associated with her. His hands clenched on her hips. It was all he could do not to pull her against him. He ached to feel her soft body fitted to his.

The music beat around them as Jenna rocked out, swaying her hips. She looked up at Zach, mouthing the words to the song, and suddenly, taking a chance on Jenna was exactly what he wanted to do. The hell with should and should-nots. He was leaving in a few short hours, and he wanted to taste her, just once, before he did.

Zach tipped her chin up with his index finger. She stopped moving. Stopped singing. Her eyes grew wide then darkened. The smile that had turned her lips upward faded.

“Oh shit,” she whispered under her breath. “The Smolder.” Her eyelids fluttered closed. Practically an engraved invitation. “Zach, this is a bad idea.”

“Terrible,” he agreed, and before his frontal lobe started in with logic again, he dipped his head and kissed her.