Page 54 of Playing for Keeps in Starr's Fall
As she came up the stairs, Lynn gave her a narrow-eyed look and Maggie just shook her head in response. She wasn’t about to explain to her sister, in looks or whispers, what had happened between her and Zach… and in truth, nothing had. She’d apologized and he’d accepted her apology. End of a very brief, sad story.
She busied herself calling in their pizza order while Ben, Zach, and Lynn all deconstructed the details of the day. Ben was bubbling over with ideas—a chess tournament, rankings for various games kept on a scoreboard, a toddler hour with early-childhood games, bridge and Scrabble nights.
“Wait, do you play bridge?” Zach had asked with a laugh, and Ben had grinned, ducking his head.
“No, but I bet some people in Starr’s Fall do.”
“Henrietta Starr probably does,” Zach agreed. “Her family founded the town and she’s about ninety years old now. Laurie’s friends with her. You might have seen her around.”
“Yes, she came into Max’s Place when I was there.” Maggie recalled the elderly woman’s acerbic dignity with a small smile. “She’s quite the personality.”
“She’s got a tongue on her, that’s for sure. She’ll tell you what she really thinks.” Zach turned to Ben. “You have the heart of a gamer and the mind of a businessman,” he proclaimed. “Great combo, Ben.”
“I think I’ll go get the pizza,” Maggie announced. “Too bad Slice of Heaven doesn’t offer delivery service yet. Or that there aren’t any other takeout places in Starr’s Fall.”
“And Slice of Heaven probably never will offer delivery,” Zach told her, his eyes glinting in a way thatstillmade her stomach flip. “Jake, who runs the place, got his license suspended after too many speeding tickets so it’s pickup only for the foreseeable future.”
“Oh, dear.” Maggie felt her mouth tip up at the corners, but she still felt—and probably looked—miserable. She wished Zach hadn’t agreed to stay, especially if it had been out of some kind of pity, for either her or Ben.
“Why don’t I come with you to collect the pizza?” Zach suggested. He was already rising from the sofa and reaching for his coat.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Lynn said in brisk agreement, with a stern look at Ben, who was clearly wondering why it took two people to get a couple of pizzas.
“Fine,” Maggie replied, unable to summon a friendlier response. She felt too raw and fragile, which was alarming, because they’d barely spoken… but she supposed that was why she did.
They went back downstairs and out to her car in silence and had driven all the way down Main Street before Maggie finally worked up the courage to say something.
“So I guess this whole thing has kind of tanked anything more between us,” she stated with an unaccustomed boldness that felt both reckless and welcome. She’d rather know, she decided, than keep skirting around what was becoming painfully obvious.
Zach stared straight ahead of him, his hands loosely clasped in his lap. “It depends on what you define as ‘this whole thing,’ I guess,” he replied in a voice that was far too neutral.
“Well… me getting mad at you. And,” she added, forcing herself to say it all, “jumping to conclusions about what you’d said to Ben?—”
“It wasn’t that,” Zach interjected quietly, and there was a sorrow and a hurt in his voice that made Maggie wilt inside.
“What was it, then?” she made herself ask. “Because clearly something has changed, Zach. I mean… I know it was just one kiss, but it meant something to me.”
“It meant something to me, too,” he replied in the same even tone.
“Okay…” She wasn’t sure where to go from there. What more could she say? “So what changed?”
Zach was silent for a long moment. Maggie waited, her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, her stomach swirling with dread as the silence stretched on. What on earth was he going to say?
“Look, I know this is a cliché,” he finally said, still staring straight ahead, “but it’s not you, it’s me. At least, it’smostlyme. It’s a little bit you, too, I think, even if you don’t see it.”
“What—”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish.”
“Okay.”
“As you know, I’ve dated a lot. And as you also know, this town sees me as some kind of player, who goes on dates and then dumps the women afterwards, like I’m just sowing my wild oats or whatever. But that’s never how it’s been. At least, mostly. Mostly,I’mthe one who is dumped, because I go in too serious, I create all these expectations, looking for Miss Perfect, and she doesn’t exist. Everyone ends up disappointed.” He sighed and leaned his head back against the car seat. “That year staying at home with my parents when my mom had cancer really changed me. I didn’t want to party and fool around and have fun anymore. I just wanted what they had—a stable marriage, a togetherness, and a purpose that they worked attogether. At least, that’s what I told myself. But my sister said something to me recently—right before you stormed into the barn, actually—and it made me realize how messed up it’s all been for me. How I’ve become such a people pleaser, without even realizing it, because of the way my parents were—not with each other, but with me and Jenna.”
They’d pulled into the darkened parking lot of Slice of Heaven, and Maggie parked the car and waited for more. Zach finally turned to face her, his face half-hidden in shadow although Maggie could still see how grimly resolute he was.
“I won’t go into all the details about my childhood and all that kind of crap,” he told her with an attempt at wryness, “but I’ve come to realize it was kind of unhealthy. And after you came into the barn and said all that stuff, I took a long, hard look at our relationship. I know we didn’t really have one, but even in just our friendship, I realized I was the one doing all the heavy lifting.” He held up a hand to stem any protestations she might have made, although in truth Maggie was reeling so much from what he’d said so far that she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” he told her. “I’m accusing myself. I should have stopped trying so hard a long time ago.”
The bitterness in his voice surprised and alarmed her; she’d never heard him speak this way. It wasn’t who hewas. “Zach… there’s nothing wrong with trying,” she ventured cautiously. “Or being a nice person?—”
