Page 20 of Wolfish Heart
“Were you hoping more that she’d be jumping for joy?”
She finally meets my eyes. “You clearly haven’t met my mother. That woman has never jumped for joy or anything else in her life.”
I desperately try to keep from frowning. Zoe is giving it her all. Her mother should be happy and proud, dammit.I’msuper proud of her and I’m just the would-be boyfriend who is slightly nervous about getting her to say that word out loud.
“I picked up groceries.” I flash her a smile. “I’m not the best cook in the world, but I’m okay with simple pasta. Should I make dinner tonight, or would you prefer to go out? If youwant a break from here, we could drive to West Stoneburg. More restaurants there.”
When she doesn’t respond, I add, “Or we could cook something together, or pick up takeout. Or pick up takeout and I could drop you off at Henry’s, if you want some quiet time?”
I reach out to trail my thumb along the side of her cheek. “Whatever you want. I hope you’ve figured out by now that I’m a pretty mellow guy, and fine with whatever you want.”
She’s still quiet.
I stand up, set her coffee aside, and gently wrap my arms around her. “Baby, what’s wrong? You know you can tell me anything. Really.”
Zoe hugs me close, looking up at me with those beautiful gray eyes. I can tell she’s about to say something important. Just as her lips part, a truck door slams shut outside.
I gently kiss her forehead before heading for the front door. “Sorry. Hold that thought, sweetie.”
I fling open the huge slab of oak to see Kane’s fist about to knock. “Hey, man. We were passing by, so we thought we’d drop off the hard drive.”
Zoe appears behind me just as Kai walks up to the door with a small blue external drive in his hand. I wave them inside, then turn to Zoe. “Sorry about this. We have a drive with a copy of the most recent algorithms and procedures we’re running, and we back it up at one of our houses every few days.”
Kai grins. “No pattern even to where the backups happen, so nothing can be predicted, but it means we drop in on each other now and then.” He sticks out his hand. “You must be Zoe. I’m Kai.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you.”
“And I’m Kane.” I can tell he’s trying to soften his voice. He’s the biggest of us and can come off as a bit threatening if he’s not careful.
Zoe shakes his hand. “Hi.”
I jerk my thumb at Kai, then the door to the basement. “Can you do it?”
“Yup.”
He clomps down the stairs as Kane looks back and forth between us.
“Hey, I’m sorry if we interrupted anything. We were on our way to grab dinner at Jim’s. Wanna join us? I can call and ask for the back table.”
I look toward Zoe. Reading her eyes, I think she’s uncomfortable at the sudden intrusion. “We were there just the other night, actually. Another time?”
“Sure.” He smiles at Zoe. “And we’ll learn to call first. Didn’t mean to freak you out or anything.”
“It’s fine.” She gives him a shy smile.
Kai comes bounding up the stairs, silver hard drive in hand. “We’ll get out of your hair. Looking forward to getting to know you better sometime Zoe, when we’re not rudely butting in.” He smiles and nods. “If you’re hanging out here, maybe you can warm up this huge empty house that screamsdesperate loner.”
They’re barely out the door when I turn to her. “Sorry about all that. I should have warned you about the random backups. It’s become kind of a running joke among the five of us.”
Her eyes are wide. “But he’s right. The houseistoo big,” she sputters. “I…I didn’t want any of this. I mean, I wantyou, but this enormous house…and the whole company, and being the freaking princes of this town… You just call and you get the best table no matter what? And people are afraid to sit too close to you on the patio…it’s not who I am and ever saw for myself, and…”
Glancing through the window next to the door, I can see my brothers have clearly heard her outburst, as they scramble to jump in the truck and take off.
Zoe’s hand claps over her mouth. “Oh no… Did they hear that?”
“I don’t think so, not really,” I lie.
To my absolute horror, Zoe bursts into tears and crumples to the marble floor in a heap like a burst balloon.
