Page 9 of Christmas with the Baby Daddy

Before I could correct myself from the stilted stop, I lost my balance. The tray flew up, and with a foreign weightlessness of a burden no longer in my hand, the whole damn array of dirty dishes popped up into the air…

To crash down on me.

4

ZACH

Blake?

I couldn’t move.

Blake Myer?

Air remained trapped in my lungs as I stared across the bar at her. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it washer.

The one I wasn’t ever supposed to want because she was my best friend’s little sister.

The one I shouldn’t have thought about all these years apart.

The one I wondered about more than I should’ve, curious which lucky bastard got the privilege of being hers.

Blake was off-limits. She always had been, but no matter how long ago Kevin’s death was, I would take the memories of our one night to the grave.

It was her freckled face that I saw in my mind’s eye on lonely nights in the barracks. It was her long, wavy hair I wanted to feel so soft in my grip again. And it was her beguiling green eyes I wanted to stare into until I felt that drowning sensation of potent attraction.

Time stopped still when she gazed at me, and running into her here showed that the phenomenon held true.

Her lips parted in a perfectOof shock as she stared at me, rendered just as speechless as I was. She skidded to a clumsy stop, and as she twisted her shoulders to brace the tray she carried, she lost her momentum.

Chaos ensued. The silver service flew up into the air, sending dishes and cutlery scattering through the air.

“Blake—” I stepped forward with the whisper of alarm, but too many people stood between us. Partiers here to celebrate Coach Parker. Other catering staff my grandma employed. Despite the commotion and loud clatter of noise as the plates fell and crashed to the floor, an abundance of help rushed forward.

“Blake! Oh, no!” A catering staff member hurried to her first, helping her to sit upright. With her crouching over and my grandma jogging up close with a broom and dustpan she’d grabbed from behind the bar, I had no chance to reach her.

I furrowed my brow, tucking back against the wall as she was surrounded. When I first thought about returning to town for the holidays, I didn’t incorporate any planning where she was concerned. Blake wasn’t supposed to be here. She'd never intended to stay in Vernford. The last time I saw her, the night after Kevin’s funeral when we sought comfort in each other through the grief, she’d told me about her goals. To move, to own a restaurant. To begin a cooking channel. To get out of the small town we’d both grown up in.

How is she still here?

Why?

For how long?

I raked my hand through my hair, confused at how I couldn’t know that Blake still lived in Vernford. More than that, how she worked for my grandma! Then again, our texts and calls were infrequent and brief. And Grandma Jenny never talked about her staff, not to the point that she’d be able to reveal she employed my best friend’s little sister, the one-night stand that never should’ve happened.

I didn’t regret that we shared that night, but in hindsight, which hit me the day after I left following Kevin’s funeral, I knew that grief was no excuse to sleep with my best friend’s sister.

“She sure grew up into one fine piece of ass…” a former classmate said. He elbowed my side as Blake got to her feet and slipped into the kitchen at the back. She moved too quickly, helped along by the younger caterer, for me to approach.

I frowned at him, not liking the sleazy smile he wore as he tracked her progress. I might have just gotten home, and I had been gone for many years, but I’d be damned if someone called Blake Myer a piece of ass.

“She—”

“But you and Kevin, man,” he said as I turned to give him my opinion about talking about Blake like that. “The best quarterback and wide receiver Vernford High ever had.”

He patted my back and slid back into the crowd, leaving me in the back near the shadows as I preferred. I’d left my antisocial tendencies long enough to come to this party. Staying in that big, empty house, surrounded by quiet, gnawed on my frayed nerves. When Grandma Jenny texted, I gave in to stop by here.

Grandma:I told Coach Parker that you’re home. He’d love to see his “favorite” player again.

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