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“I didn’t get to do voodoo magic on it or anything. But maybe whenever you feel down or… or if you ever miss home? Maybe you look at it and know that someone here is thinking about you. Missing you.”
I’m the third in his friendship with Parker. The spare. Except, right now, I feel like the one.
“I’m sorry. I assumed Parker gave everyone the heads up I was coming. I’m Melody, Parker’s sister.” Mother. Fucking. Fuck.
I have been desperately, pathetically, feel-nothing-unless-she’s-in-the-room in love with Melody Woods for fourteen years.
Maybe Connor was the last man to break my heart. But Zac? He taught me the meaning of heartbreak.
“I’m heavy,” I warn. Zac rolls his eyes. “According to who? I could fit you in my pocket, Mel.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re an absolute brat?”
I cough out a laugh. “In your dreams—” “Believe it or not,” he says wryly. “When I dream about you naked, you’re not usually so hobbled, and you’re a lot more enthusiastic about it.”
“I’d be inclined to judge anyone who doesn’t picture you naked. Have you seen yourself?” He flicks his eyebrows when I only stare. “Now, be a good girl for Doctor Zac, yeah? I’ll make everything feel good.”
“I told you it was a wolf. I escaped within an inch of my life.” He hums. “So, you’re a brat and a liar, huh?” I bat my lashes. “Aren’t you thrilled to be stuck here with such a lethal combination?” He smirks, brushing loose hair off my forehead. “I don’t hate it.”
Fuck, she’s adorable. I’m addicted to her scowl. Always have been.
I can’t see her at all, can’t see anything in this pitch-black tent, but I feel around for her tears and try to catch as many of them as I can manage.
Every week for four seasons, she finds me before a game, home or away, to give me my good luck charm. Even when I lost, it felt okay. Because there was a blue-eyed girl out there somewhere who believed I could do it. If not that game, then the next one. It wasn’t the clovers that did it for me. It was her. She was my four-leaf clover.
“I’m not crazed. I want you to forgive me. I want us to be good again. I’ll get you to trust me if it’s the last thing I do. You’ll see.”
I can feel every bit of his solid body carving into mine. Every little— Oh my God. Every not-so-little bit of him—
“Quit moving,” he mumbles groggily, eyes still closed. “I just fell asleep.” I attempt to twist out from under him anyway. “You’re using me as a body pillow.” “No different from what you did with me last night. Return the favor. I’m comfy.”
“Forget the squirming,” he says. His smirk grows an inch. “You’re looking at me like you’re ready to hop on. Why do you think that is?”
“I’ve been hitting on you all weekend. Thanks for finally noticing.” “I—you—why are you hitting on me?” I sputter. “Zac, why are you still hard?” I reach for the sleeping bag we’ve been using and throw it over his waist. “I’m hitting on you because I’m attracted to you,” he articulates carefully, as though trying to make me understand. “And I’m still hard because it appears my body has finally decided to give up all pretense when it comes to you.”
“Stop acting like you suddenly care how I’m doing.” I take a step backwards, away from him, and my back hits a tree. “Frankly, it’s a miracle you haven’t driven me half insane by now.” “And now you know how it feels,” Zac says, voice rising. He shoves up the sleeves of his shirt. “To be driven out of my mind insane every time you’re around. To want something so fucking bad and know you can never have it.”
I moan and he breaks away, breathing hard. “Jesus fucking Christ, do that again.” “Do what?” I grip his chin, trying to get his mouth on me again. A second in, and I’m addicted. “That sound. Moan again or I might die.”
“You want that sound again, Zac?” I rest my head on the tree behind me, fascinated by the effect I seem to have on him. “Earn it.” “Fuck.”
“You’re going to come, aren’t you?” Zac says, dipping to kiss up my throat, my mouth, any part of me not covered in mud. “I can see it in your face. You’re so fucking close I can feel your fingers shaking.”
My back hits the ground again, eyes wrench open as the start of my orgasm fades. Zac’s smirk is all I see now as he hovers over me on hands and knees. And then I catch his hand moving between us. “What—” “Let’s get something clear, Clover,” Zac says, brushing his lips with mine. “If someone here is getting you off, it’ll be me.”
“You need me inside you, don’t you? Fingers are nice, but it’s my cock you want, isn’t it? Tell me.”
Triumph flares in his eyes, and I don’t even care. “You wanna know what I want?” I nod frantically and he nips my lip. “I want to peel off these clothes,” he says, fingers rub me agonizingly slow now. “I want you bare for me, nothing between us. I want to touch and taste every bit of your body. I want to spend hours between your legs, licking this perfect pussy until I hear each of your moans a thousand times, memorize them all.”
“I want my mouth on you, want you to come on my tongue until you think you have nothing left to give me. That’s when I’ll fuck you. Prove you wrong, make you scream for me. Hard and fast and as messy as this. I want to see my cum drip all over you, out of you—” “Fuck, Zac—” My entire body goes weak, and I’ve never wanted anything more than this picture he’s painting. “You get it, now, Mel? I want you to remember all that the next time you think I’m full of shit.”
“Remember that the next time you make the mistake of looking at me like you don’t believe a word out of my mouth when I tell you I want you. That my body fucking needs you—
I break away with a whimper. “I’m—Zac, I’m gonna come.” “Do it,” Zac says, pressing our foreheads together. “Let them fucking hear you in the next town—” “Oh my G—Zac—”
“You’re a dirty fucking girl, aren’t you?”
“What’s with this house?” Zac looks up from his binder. “You don’t like it?” “It’s…” I stare around at the massive porch that wraps around the corner of the stone house. A few feet away from the table where Zac sits is the sweetest looking porch swing, hanging from the roof overhang, facing the view of the bay. Down by the water, by the tree-lined edge of the property, is a wooden bench sitting in the middle of a patch of flowers. Daisies?
Melody turns those massive blue eyes on me. Fucking hell, she’s pretty. Fourteen years in, it still hits me straight in the chest every time I see her.
She tips back her head and lets rip a damn good Huskies Howl. And that might be enough to tide me over into the next century.
This next thing is just for you, though.” Mel reaches into the pocket of her jacket. My heart, my entire fucking being, melts when she pulls out a tiny four-leaf clover. She twirls the stem between her thumb and forefinger, fluttering the four little leaves. Giving me a tiny smile. Blue eyes twinkling up at me.
“Clover,” I say, and my voice is so soft you can barely hear it over the music next door. “You went out to look for one?” She softens at the shameless affection in my voice. “Of course, I did. Same spot I used to find them for you.”
I think Zac… what, exactly? Orchestrated a shopping date with Summer. Paid for every single thing I bought and passed it off as coming from Callie. Never let on so much as a hint that he had anything to do with it.
She nuzzles into me. “I don’t understand how you’re single.” “I’ve never been single. I’ve been yours.”
“You’re a real catch, Zachary Porter.” Her eyes shine as she looks up at me, and I sweep her cheek with my thumb. “So, catch me.”
He’s making room for me, opening his life to me.
“Have I mentioned how much I hate your fake boyfriend?” “He’s your friend. And his sheets are imaginary.” I pause, pretending to consider. “I bet they’re really soft, though.” His eyes narrow. “Mention his imaginary sheets one more time and I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
“For the record, I like your sheets better.” “Because you picked them out?” “Because I wake up and I’m here with you.”
ZAC: Clover. MELODY: I’m coming. I’m sorry I missed it, but I’m heading there now, okay? Where are you? Three grey dots appear at the bottom of our text thread, flickering as he types. ZAC: Open your front door.
She’s wrapped herself so tight around me her voice is muffled in my shoulder, and I squeeze her like I’m sick of existing as two separate people.
She shushes me. “Stay quiet. You don’t want this to stop, do you?” “So, sit down. Give my mouth something to do.”
“Melody. Stop fucking with me or I’ll show you exactly how brats like you deserve to take a cock like mine.”
“It’s your big night. I want you to take it and see what a good girl I can be for my game-winning coach.” I let out a mirthless laugh. “Good girls let me have their pussies whenever I want.” “Oh,” she says with feigned innocence. “Then I guess I’m just as bratty as you say I am.”
“I’m thinking about never realizing just how lonely I’ve been until the very moment I felt full.” When her brows pull together, I add: “Now. Here, with you. You make me feel so full, I can’t even breathe, sometimes. Like my lungs are screaming at me that I don’t need anything but you to survive. I am so far gone for you, Melody.”
“I can vouch for the breakfast alibi,” I tell his mom with a small wave. “I’m a very needy house guest. My name is—” “Melody,” she finishes for me. Through the phone, it’s hard to tell which one of us she’s looking at given how close together Zac and I are sitting. But she appraised us with obvious interest. “I’d know you anywhere.”
“You know, you’re exactly how I pictured you,” Andrea tells me. Zac lets out a mournful groan. “Here we go.” I nudge him quiet. “Really? How did he describe me?” “‘She looks like the sun, Mom,’” Andrea says, voice dropping in apparent imitation. Zac stiffens at my side. “‘Mixed with a little bit of rain.’ I’ll never forget it. The sweetest words coming from a fourteen-year-old boy.”
“What makes sense?” I ask quietly. Terrified to hear what she’ll say next, yet completely riveted. “Why he refused to leave Oakwood Bay after my mother passed,” Zac’s mom says. “Why he built himself a beautiful home and left it almost completely blank on the inside, like it wasn’t his to finish.”
Now, I place it almost clearly. It’s the house I’d pinned to my vision board before moving away for college. The one Zac had stared at the last night I saw him. The picture that went missing sometime over the years.
